Monster Breeder

54. Harpy Mountain, Part 4: Celebration

Refreshed from my tryst with the Harpy boys, I re-equip my armor and scale the last few hundred meters of rocky incline leading to the plateau. I made it here as fast as possible without compromising my moral code. Now, all I have to do is kick the Harpy Matron's ass, or whoever's ass is between me and Gale. 

I have to be careful with my footing, though. There are cracks and gaps in the rock all around me leading straight down to the pitch-black abyss of the mountain's hollow interior. One wrong step, and I'd plummet dozens, perhaps hundreds of meters before landing.

There's a commotion of shrill, melodious, squawking, and elegant voices, all birdlike but humanoid, ahead. None I recognize, but I don't have a hearing mark equipped to be certain about that.

“Quiet, everyone!” a particularly confident and matronly voice says. No points for guessing who. 

The cacophony ceases obediently. 

I decide to creep forward as stealthily as possible. Best to avoid detection while I scope out the situation. To that end, I unsummon my armored boots to quiet the clicking of chitin on stone when I move. My feet aren't protected against the sharp rocks and pebbles, resulting in some scrapes and painful steps. This would've been so much easier with a Stealth mark!

Thankfully, there are stony outcroppings on the perimeter of the plateau I can dart between and hide behind. Still have to mind the gaps and dark holes, though. From this vantage point, I can watch the proceedings unnoticed. 

There's the vulture Harpy, the elephantine bird with saggy granny tits, lording over a bevy of beauties lining up. I see long-legged flamingo girls, girls with long fluffy plumage or huge feathers in their hair, girls with feather boas, ridiculous tailfeathers, sleekly designed wings, needle-sharp oversized talons, and even a few with beaks instead of lips. Altogether, it's a rainbow display of colorful feathers in an exotic range of textures and shapes. 

But no Gale. 

Where is she? Did I miss her? No, these should be all the female Harpies in the area. Wait, is her nest on the opposite side of the mountain, and she's been excluded for some reason? That'd be just my luck.

I refuse to accept the possibility something serious happened to her without concrete proof.

“Alright, girls, about-face, and present!” the Matron commands. 

All the bird girls obey, crouching on their avian legs, wings spread, tailfeathers fanned, ass cheeks parted by the angle to showcase a banquet of pretty pussies and a bouquet of rosebuds. 

My erection is painfully constrained by my armor. It takes all my willpower not to run forward and claim my favorite of the bunch, or three, or five. They're each lovely in their way... 

No! I'm on a mission! It's Gale or nothing... unless she has a sister who's into incestuous threesomes... No! Bad Alex! Keep those harem standards up; don't let Gabby win so easily!

Wait, who are they presenting for?

A shadow falls on the plateau.

There’s a term in the Book of Monsters for certain third-tier advancements, ‘Greater.’ It applies to evolved generic versions of second-tier monsters, considered to be a step above their Matron/Patron line equivalents. The bird monster landing before me isn't that.

What descends on the plateau is a Grand Harpy. 

Harpy Patron/Matron < Greater Harpy < Harpy Patriarch/Matriarch < Grand Harpy.

A fucking fourth-tier monster three steps stronger than the Harpy Matron has shown up. I recall all the times Canary and the boys said I/they'd surely die for bucking the system and wonder why they didn't just fucking say a Grand Harpy was scheduled to visit!

I send a thankful prayer to the monster gods Gale isn't here because I don't stand a ghost of a chance against him even with my harem fighting by my side. He's twice the Matron's size, a completely avian hawk except for the erect wormlike phallus as big as my leg between his bird thighs. The Grand Harpy lands on the fluffiest, most colorful Harpy girl with the meatiest ass, and ruts her cunt like an animal.

“Yes, yes, he chose me! I'm the... Oh, fuck, he's splitting me in half! Too big, too big! I-I'm gonna die!” 

“Shut your mouth, foolish girl,” the Matron reprimands her. “It's an honor to be selected first!” Then she addresses the Grand Harpy, “Please forgive her, sir. She's not a smart girl and never learned when to shut her mouth. Allow me to service you properly after you've finished with them~”

“Who'd want your loose, old cum-sock? Hmph. Only virgins are properly tight. I’ll teach them all how to take a real cock,” he says in a resounding deep and raspy voice. His groin convulses as he fills the poor girl with seed until she's fat with it, then withdraws to let her collapse in a sticky puddle with her ruined pussy gaping. “They are unsullied?”

“Yes, sir. I keep the boys on the opposite side of the mountain. The girls stay segregated until their first egg, er, your first egg with them, sir.”

“Those little shits can fuck each other until they evolve for all I care. They're no better than fodder.” He sidesteps over to the next Harpy girl in line and proceeds to fuck her without pause or hesitation in the conversation. “This is all the girls, correct? It's a small batch this year...”

“Y-yes, sir. This is all of them, as per our arrangement!” 

Maybe it's because I suspect otherwise, and I'm looking for it, but I notice the Matron's hesitation and identify the lie. She's hiding Gale?!?

“No third-tiers this year? Not even any Firebirds?”

“N-no, sir, unfortunately not.”

“What a garbage backwater this is,” the Grand Harpy says as he cums again, ruining another pristine Harpy maiden's pussy. “You must be doing something wrong raising them. I know it's not their breeding.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I-I'll look into it immediately!” The Harpy Matron is unsurprisingly kiss-ass with the higher-tier being.

I think I've learned all I can here. Gale is in hiding for some reason, so I have no iron-clad motivation to interrupt this 'Celebration.' With that in mind, I stealthily proceed to retreat toward the path I ascended on before I'm spotted.

A cold wind blows past me, giving me an odd chill even in my full plate armor.

Then my Predator Sense blazes like never before. I'm on fire with premonitory warnings. After training against the Large Slime, I've learned to accept the signal at face value.

I activate Wolf Rush and dodge backward, only to discover I'm wading through congealed soup rather than air. What gives? It's like Slow Motion from ancient human cinema, except I'm thinking in real time to appreciate the terrible lag my body is experiencing.

There's nothing I can do besides watch in horror as an overwhelming presence casts its shadow over me.

“Die, Echidna.”

Talons the size of a plow rake across me. The sharp edges tear through my chitinous armor like paper. My vision takes a wild tumble as I disturbingly lose sensation below the neck. 

I get a sickening view of my own sashimi'd body as my severed head makes a full rotation, my flesh cut to ribbons before my eyes like a fish on the chopping block. My blood and viscera paint the rocks red. I can’t breathe. I can't move.

Continuing the rotation, my disembodied head stares up into the glowering eyes of the Grand Harpy, helpless before insurmountable power. How did he even sense me? The wind? How fucking OP is that?

My sight fails as my brain starves from lack of oxygen, but my consciousness persists. Awareness spreads out in a blanketing aura from my personal Slime Core, hidden in my chest cavity, the last-ditch ability in my arsenal that I thankfully selected on a whim. 

I can pull myself together with Blood Magic and survive if Olindia heals me, but it's all for nothing if I can't get away from this Grand Feathery Asshole!

My left foot tingles.

My awareness grows to encompass my physical remains and their environs. The massive bird bastard gets smaller and smaller as the world gets darker and darker. It seems my corpse has luckily fallen into one of the mountain's pitch-black crevices. 

I descend into a cavern leading straight down.