A Zoologist’s Guide to Surviving Magical Creatures

I closed the book.

I think I whispered "damn" out loud.

The contrast was intense. From sky to sea, light to shadow, these habitats weren't just locations. They were moods. Emotions. Histories.

And their War Beasts? Not just monsters. They were the stories you're afraid to tell but can't forget.

I expected something heavier—more footnotes, maybe a few ancient curses in the margins—but instead, I got a beautifully illustrated and immersive Beast catalog.

K.P.'s narrative style was clearly written for casual readers, not cloaked in stuffy academia. The way they simplified the descriptions of the War Beasts and their habitats felt more like a storyteller spinning myths by a campfire than a professor droning through a lecture.

Honestly? It was kind of refreshing—not a single footnote in sight.

Still, despite the presentation, this was invaluable. If I wanted to survive this next mission—or, you know, not get eaten by something that unravels futures or worse, die from unpreparedness—I'd need every edge I could get.

And if that meant learning from a glorified magical children's book?

So be it.

However, not a single one of those gloriously illustrated picture books mentioned anything—anything—about the Emperor War Beasts.

Four hours in, five energy drinks downed, three mugs of coffee chugged, and two encyclopedia-thick tomes devoured... my brain felt like it had been microwaved.

Spoiler: the caffeine boost did nothing. Zero stimulation. Just heart palpitations and regret.

I sat there, slumped over my stack of books, internally debating whether to surrender to sleep or risk one more deep dive into information overload.

My eyeballs said bed. My curiosity said idiot, read one more.

"Damn it, where is the information about Emperor War Beasts when you actually need it?" I muttered, sounding more like a dying toad than an annoyed employee.

"Okay, Carl," I told myself, patting my own shoulder with all the morale of a damp sock. "Last book. Then we crash and burn and pretend to be productive again tomorrow."

I grabbed the next volume. Another encyclopedia-brick. The title was blunt and ominous:

Bloodlines of Destruction.

My inner zoologist groaned. My inner masochist was intrigued. I cracked it open.

And there it was—on the very first page.

Right on the top of the list of the book's TOC.

"The Origins, Evolution, and Thaumagenetics of Emperor War Beasts."

Misty-eyed, I let out a choked laugh and clutched the book like it was the last slice of pizza in a post-apocalyptic bunker.

"Finally," I whispered. "We may have found the motherlode."

As I skimmed through the introduction on Emperor War Beasts, it became immediately clear—these weren't just overpowered versions of regular War Beasts. They were something else entirely. They had their own classifications, their own hierarchies.

And then I hit the line that made me sit up straight, blinking through the fog in my brain.

"What?! Survivors of ruined worlds??"

That was how the book described them.

"Don't tell me…"

The next sentence eased the knot in my chest, and I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.

Not mutated, not mindless monsters twisted by corrupted magic like the Stragglers—no. These beasts had evolved. They had adapted, resisted corruption, and retained their sentience, their thoughts, and their will.

They weren't just survivors. They were living testaments to bloodlines of destruction.

They had transcended into forces of destruction—once unleashed, they could erase entire realms like snuffing out a candle.

I scrunched my nose and flipped to the next page, eyes scanning the text like it had personally offended me.

Emperor War Beasts. Just the name made it sound like they were at the top of some monstrous food chain. Naturally, I assumed they were the rulers—the apex alphas commanding legions of war beasts with a flick of a claw.

But no.

They weren't kings. They didn't lead.

They were the catastrophe. The presence. The kind of creature that didn't need a crown because the world already bent around their will.

They were called Emperors not because they ruled—

—but because they didn't have to.

Without wasting another second, I flipped straight to the section that mentioned the four kinds of Emperor War Beasts Viracocha had talked about. According to him, the War Instigators had deployed two Divine Emperor War Beasts… and two Abyssal Emperor War Beasts.

It was time to find out what kind of creatures could level worlds and still walk away with their minds intact.

I flipped to the Divine Emperor War Beasts section and scanned the list, eyes flicking from one daunting name to the next.

According to their genome classifications, these beasts weren't just labeled for flair—they embodied core aspects of divinity itself: goodness, wisdom, being, power, love, holiness, beauty, virtue... even abstract concepts like immortality, eternity, infinity, and divine simplicity.

The ones I needed?

Immortality and infinity types.

If I was lucky, they'd be in here—and still relevant.

As I scanned for their names, finally I found it. The two Divine Emperor War Beasts.

One of the names caught my eye. Indrik. The other—Nian. Both scrawled in regal, ink-heavy font, like the page itself bowed under the weight of their existence.

I zeroed in on Indrik first.

Just beneath the heading, a single sentence stood out—bolded like a warning label slapped on the gates of a sacred tomb:

"In the ashes of a fallen world, even purity learns to destroy."

I squinted. "What the hell does that mean?" I muttered aloud, half-hoping the book would whisper back some cryptic answer.

Then I saw it—the illustration. And all thoughts shut up.

Indrik wasn't drawn.

No, the beast was summoned onto the page—its image pressed into the paper like a scar the book had to live with.

It was a unicorn, technically... if unicorns ever decided to bench-press galaxies.

Towering, cathedral-sized, and made of aurora-dragon scales that shimmered as if the page itself had a heartbeat. Sapphire bled into amethyst, flickered into emerald, colors shifting with the pulse of something ancient and alive.

Its horn—long, jagged, crystalline—looked like it had once sung lullabies to dying stars and now screamed elegies for everything left burning.

That horn didn't just look powerful. It was power, condensed. Alive. It could either bless a continent or erase it from the fabric of existence. Depends on its mood.

Its eyes were the worst part. Not in a scary-monster way.

Worse.

They looked… tired.

Like it had watched too many worlds crumble and still remembered each one in excruciating detail. It didn't glow with rage or divine fury. It glowed like someone who mourned too long to cry anymore.