THE LEGENDARY STORY OF INAMORTA ?

THE RING AND THE BEAST

Grendale fell back in shock when he saw the ring in the corpse's hand. This was the same ring his master Shifu used to wear. Greandale was filled with remorse to find his beloved master dead like this. He cried for his master and prayed for his soul to rest in peace. Later he was filled with rage and swore that he'd find the culprits and bring them to justice for killing his master. It was now that he noticed that the ring, which had been made by exceptionally skilled goblins and was infused with fairy magic, was missing 3 of its 5 elementary stones. There was also a small note stuck in one of the palms of the body. Grendale reached in and retrieved the note which read like this:

" To my dearest pupil Grendale,

If you are reading this, then that means that the decayers ( minions of the King of Doom ) have returned. I tried to stop them but they were too powerful. Don't weep for me, my boy. I knew someday this would surely happen. Hence, I cast a spell on myself before dying so that I may come back to you and assist in defeating them. I hope you still remember my magic ring that I always used to wear. If you have noticed carefully, then you will know that it's missing 4 of its stones. Don't panic, cause I have hidden them away lest they fall into the wrong hands.

Now take my ring and it's one remaining stone. This stone contains the power to summon a super magic bolt of flame. The spell I cast on myself takes a couple of days to take effect and bring my soul to you. I want you to use this time to practice the magic bolt. Now get out of this place before they find you. And one more thing. To defeat the corruptors you have to go to the..."

Before Grendale could read any further, he heard a huge rumbling from outside. When he ran to the cave's mouth to check, he was taken aback on seeing a huge black monster holding two long and sharp katanas, almost causing an earthquake, approaching the cave. The monster was 35 feet in height and had blazing red eyes. He had huge pointy needles growing menacingly from his back like a porcupine. It came towards the cave and stood at a distance and fiercely stared at the warrior. Grendale gathered up his courage and stepped out of the cave. After what felt like an hour (which was only 3 minutes), the monster spoke with a hint of taunting arrogance, " So... we meet at last, young apprentice. I was wondering what took you this long for you to find your Master's body. Did you like the beautiful way we treated him?". He laughed maniacally at the hero's grief. " Don't you worry young one, I promise that I won't let you enjoy your death the way we let your master enjoy his. For you, only a swipe of my sword is enough".

Grendale felt his blood boil in rage at this monster's audacity to speak ill of his master and complimenting Shifu's death as enjoyable. He roared back to him, "You foul creature, you and your King will pay very dearly for my Master's death. I'll make sure that I'll behead your king and hang it on our village entrance as a penalty for all his crimes." The monster's eyes blazed even more fiercely, " You puny mortal. You stand worthless and no way eligible to talk about my great King. Nothing and absolutely nothing in the universe is any match for his power. Everything will bow to him and be his eternal slaves " and with a wicked smile he added, " You wanna see a sample of my dark Lord's great power?". With this he conjured up a great big ball of blue fire and shot it at Grendale.

Grendale jumped to the left and dodged the attack in time as it crashed into the mouth of the cave and the entrance came crashing down. In mere seconds, the cave's mouth was closed in rocks, debris and smoke. Getting up quickly, the warrior concentrated on his Master's ring to summon the flame bolt, but nothing happened. The ring sat there as if lifeless. The monster once again fired another ball towards him and again Grendale dodged it by jumping towards the right. But accidently he slipped and his hand, which had the ring on it, got cut slightly on a sharp loose rock when he fell. As soon as his blood touched the ring, the stone blazed into life. First it turned into a deep shade of red and then slowly it lighted into a bright blue color and didn't stop shining. Immediately, Grendale felt a huge surge of power rushing inside him and his eyes went ablaze with light. With the new rush of power, Grendale focused on the ring and conjured up a flame bolt (A ball of raging fire with electric bolts sparking from it) and threw it at the monster.

'Unbelievable', Grendale thought when the bolt hit the monster, but barely pushed it a little back, otherwise couldn't even deal a scratch to him. With a huge bark of laughter, it exclaimed, " My my..... and here I thought you were at least half a bit powerful like your master. But you turned out to be a wimp. Hahahah... well go on. I'll give you one more chance. Try again and hit me". Grendale focused on the ring and conjured up another fire bolt and threw it at the monster. This time too, the bolt barely brushed it and vanished. Grendale was horrified. The monster brushed the part where the bolt had hit like brushing off dust. It chuckled, " Now it's my turn". Saying so, without even giving a chance for him to react, the monster conjured up a fire ball and threw it at the warrior. It hit him squarely in the chest and flung him off his feet. Grendale crashed onto the broken cave walls and fell down completely singed by the fire. He saw the monster going away laughing loudly and leaving him to die before he lost consciousness.

...

....

.....

"Wake up.... Come on please, wake up..... Why isn't he waking?..."

"Its the after effects of that spell.... He is still unconscious... We must continue with the treatment without losing hope. "

"But I have tried everything.... He should have woken up by now... Is he gonna make it even after getting hit by such a dark spell?...."

"We can't do anything else but wait and see.... He is recovering exceptionally well despite all the injuries. His will is strong. We shouldn't stop trying ...We must get him back... "

Grendale could hear the voices of a girl and an elderly man talking. He couldn't make head or tail of what they were saying. He slowly opened his eyes to look around. At first everything was a blur, but slowly as it came to focus he could see a girl sitting beside him rubbing his hands and smiling at his face and an elderly man stood a little away near a window and observing him silently. Grendale slowly tried to get up but felt a pang in his stomach and flopped down on the bed. The girl immediately helped him get up. After comfortably sitting up, he looked around. He seemed to be in some sort of home with lots of potions lined up on the shelves and a strong scent of herbs lingered in the air.

Who were these people? How did he get here?

Find out in the next episode,

Stay tuned.