Chapter 2: The Beast of Udon Park
The scene at Udon Park was pure sensory overload. Tadashi’s sedan screeched to a halt at the curb, and the night air hit him—a cacophony of shattering wood, screaming civilians, and the ozone stink of panicked, misfiring magic. People streamed past his car, their faces masks of terror, some throwing up flimsy personal wards that flickered like faulty neon signs. He shoved his door open and took it in.
It was a catastrophe.
A creature, a hulking mass of matted black fur and pulsating, too-many eyes, was ripping a cherry tree from the earth with a sound like tearing cartilage. It was bear-like, but wrong, its limbs moving with a sickening, jointless fluidity. It swung the tree like a club; people dove, their protective seals flaring and sputtering as splinters and stone rained down. A young mother was scrambling on the path, desperately trying to herd two sobbing children ahead of her, her own shield a fragile, shimmering dome around them. The beast turned, a low gurgle echoing from its unseen maw.
Tadashi’s training clicked in, the memory of Lilly’s calm analysis of ward syntax a strange, quiet counterpoint to this bedlam. He moved.
He didn’t run toward the family but angled left, vaulting a low stone lantern. His fingers were already moving, tracing the first sequence in the air as he ran. The creature heaved the tree trunk. The mother screamed, dragging her children down. Tadashi slammed his palm onto the gravel path, his voice cutting through the chaos with a single, guttural command. Silver light erupted from the ground, a geometric cage of energy snapping up between the falling tree and the cowering figures. The trunk bounced off the barrier with a deafoning crack, and the beast roared, its multitude of eyes fixing on this new disturbance.