Your affliction is now relieved.
CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
Abe had seen many terrible things in his life of trouble. He had seen Mudokons diced to pieces under meat grinders in fountains of blood and guts, and seen Sligs explode internally after he released them from his possession. He had seen beings fall off cliffs and become nothing but inanimate red pancakes on the ground far below.
But he quickly concluded that nothing – absolutely nothing – could be as terrible as the monster that stood before him.
The thing, “the master of the Dark,” stood at least a hundred feet tall, but Abe had no idea. All he knew was that it was massive. A reptilian creature, it was cloaked in mud-streaked silver scales that stretched across its back and down its belly. It stood on two short but powerful legs, tipped in claws that gripped the earth. Its arms were the size of trees, pulsing with muscle, and though there were no claws on its forearms, it had a pair of leathery black wings sprouting from its shoulders. Small, Oktigi-like tentacles stuck out from its torso and waved like trees in the wind. Its head was black, as big as Abe himself, with rows of sharp teeth and bright red eyes.
With a voice of thunder, the thing spoke. “I AM THE KEUJA, MASTER OF ALL I SEE AND MASTER OF ALL THAT I CANNOT. BOW BEFORE ME.”
Abe hoped the thing could hear his pitifully small voice, but he yelled up at it, “We’re not in the habit of surrendering to monsters like you!”
The Keuja shook its massive head back and forth. “FOOLISH ONES. YOU HAVE GROWN TO THINK OF THE DARK AS THE PITIFUL SHADOWS CAST BY THE GLUKKONS. BUT THE DARK IS SO MUCH MORE THAN ANY OF YOU COULD EVER REALIZE.”
Abe signaled to the Mudokons and Sligs around the area to raise their guns to point at the massive creature. “If you have a point, Keuja, spit it out already!”
The Keuja’s tentacles began to move quickly, whipping the air like egg beaters. “YOU WILL NOT SURRENDER TO THE DARK AND BECOME MY SLAVES? SO BE IT, THEN!”
Abe felt more fear in that moment than he had ever felt before, but he also felt a sense of calm. He might die here, at the hands of this hideous monstrosity, but that did not matter; he had a duty to Oddworld itself, and that involved fighting against its enemies with all the power in his body.
He would not back down.
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