Life Giver

As the giant snakes head barrelled towards the shield bearing senior without pause, the spear wielding senior made his move.

He followed his teammate at a distance of 5m behind him, he was almost hidden from the snakes view by the silhouette of his large, shield bearing teammate.

However the giant snakes intelligence was not so low as to fall for such a simple trick, its beady eyes remained weary of any tricks this spear wielding senior would attempt.

As the giant snake prepared to use it's tail to strike at the spear wielding senior after biting at the shield bearing senior, something it did not predict happened.

The shield bearing senior jumped high into the air, with the intent to avoid the snakes attack and land on its back. Perhaps at first glance this move might seem tactical but it left him wide open to attack and with the giant snakes innate manoeuvrability, it could easily bite into the students unshielded flank.

In addition, the spear wielding student was too far behind to lend any help before the giant snake could strike, they had presented the perfect opportunity for the giant snake.

Naturally the snake would not pass on this opportunity, its head launched into the air biting at the seemingly vulnerable student as it whipped its tail towards the approaching spear wielding student.

The giant snakes maw opened wide as it approached the shield bearing senior, it's venomous fangs already dripping with a deathly substance when suddenly, the senior student threw his shield towards the snake maw and quickly withdrew a pair of daggers from behind his waist.

The giant snake sensed something sinister in the senior students actions, it wanted to pull back but it was too late.

The heavy shield slammed into the side of the giant snakes open jaw, it's muscles instinctively reacted to the sudden pain by clenching and causing the snakes mouth to close.

Free from the danger of the snakes bite the senior student was positioned to land on the snakes face, his daggers held at arms length pointing directly at the giant snakes eyes.

Two quick thrusts created nauseating squelching sounds as they pierced into the snakes eyes and destroyed any soft tissue nearby.

A fierce screeching sound was heard as the giant snake quickly shook it's head in pain trying to fling the now wildly slicing senior off of it's head.

Unfortunately for the snake, it failed to recognise the true threat to its life.

The giant snake suddenly froze in shock as it felt a sharp cold pain pierce through its body from below it's neck. Hanging from his spear that was deeply lodge into the snakes body was the other senior.

His spear had precisely pierced into the centre of the giant snakes soft underbelly, that it had exposed when it raised its head to bite at his teammate.

The spear wielding senior student had waited until the snake was blinded and distracted before he jumped towards the snakes raised body, avoiding it's tail and striking at it's heart. While he hung from the spear that was pierced into the giant snakes heart, he manipulated the spear to twist and deform all of the snakes vital organs.

Instructor Redfire took this chance to speak "Thirdly, you need to have the knowledge to exploit the weaknesses of your enemy. Giant Snow Blossom snakes have weak jaw muscles and their hearts are quite easily located by markings on their skin."

"You will all need to study thousands of different types of ferocious beasts to prepare for what's out there."

During instructor Redfire's explanation, the giant snake started to writhe in pain and anger as it felt the spear carve out its innards, prompting the two seniors to quickly jump off of the snakes body.

Strangely enough as the two students jumped this time, their bodies floated gently towards the ground as if being gently held by an invisible hand. This indicated that they must have special affinities or races that allow them to move in the air, they were actually never in any danger from the snakes attack while they were in the air.

Meanwhile the giant snakes body writhed and constricted around itself for over half a minute as its life faded away, its painful and remorseful screeches gradually weakened eventually fading into silence.

Soon enough the giant snakes body twitched for the last time, it's formerly beautiful Snow Blossom scales were now drenched in deep scarlet as blood continuously flooded out of its body.

Many of the spectating students were startled and some were even horrified by the brutal death that had just taken place, many of them naively believed the giant snake would simply fall over dead and not release such pitiful cries as it hopelessly struggled to cling to life.

Their former excitement had dimmed and even morphed into regret, some of them even felt sick as the smelt the blood and looked at the gruesomely deformed snake head.

Instructor Redfire deliberately maintained his silence, giving the students time to accept what had happened.

Zaya, sitting next to Casmir, was not effected much by the sight. As someone who had helped hunt and eat ferocious beasts in the past, she was not scared of the sight but the noxious smell did caused her to turn her head slightly.

Casmir was affected more by this scene, he was both slightly queasy and solemn as he thought about the snakes death. He couldn't help but wonder if this snake deserved to be executed in such a public and gruesome manner.

The students around were filled with similar thoughts, this death was brutal and barbaric. Wouldn't it have been better to simple kill the snake immediately when it was found? Why did it have to suffer so much?

Although it was a ferocious beast, it could clearly feel pain and was as intelligent as a pet that many students here owned.

"Do not feel pity for this creature." Instructor Redfire said solemnly to all of the spectating students.

"Imagine if you were the brother or sister of someone this beast had eaten. Would you feel pity then?" He said as many of the students lowered the heads in thought.

"Your thoughts are not wrong, they simply lack the bigger picture." Instructor Redfire said as his tone lightened but still remained serious.

"This beast must be killed to prevent the loss of other peoples lives. Would you let it roam free knowing it could kill some unlucky person? No."

"As for the cruelty of its death, that is indeed unnecessary normally. However it IS necessary to teach you how to respond to such situations, what would happen if you responded squeamishly like this in a life or death fight against a ferocious beast?"

"I'm willing to give a cruel beast a cruel death to avoid the deaths of my students."

The spectating students couldn't help but agree with Instructor Redfire response.

"While we are on the subject, you should understand more about the unintelligent races and ferocious beasts."

"The unintelligent races, including ferocious beasts, are not simply animals, some of them are as intelligent as we are and can talk and communicate with us as equals. Some of them are docile and do not predicate on others, many are even working alongside various nations as partners."

"But.. the ferocious beast are named so for a reason. They are dangerous and lack a key ability that we have, the ability to come together to create communities and civilisations. Even the most powerful and intelligent ferocious beasts face the problem of bringing their people together to serve a singular purpose because their individuals are selfish and only respect strength."

"Without the beacon of a civilisation, they will never try to advance or grow together, they live like animals only coming together for protection or to reproduce." As Instructor Redfire finished this sentence, his tone changed and his voice grew more hopeful.

"Even so, many years ago the Heldan Republic and many other nations came together to ask themselves important questions about the unintelligent races. Are they the same as us? Do they deserve rights or basic treatments?"

"The answer they came to is, citizenship. If someone from the unintelligent races are capable of functioning as a citizen, than they should be treated like one. However this gave rise to more questions such as what level of intelligence is needed for citizenship? What about their children? What if their children are unable to act as citizens? Etc, etc."

"It is a very complex topic and is still being debated even now, however in the Heldan Republic we have a robust system for citizenship and many citizens are from the unintelligent races. Chances are you have walked past them on the streets and not even noticed."

Many of the spectating students were surprised to hear this while others weren't surprised but clearly hadn't thought very deeply about this before. The idea that this giant snake could be a citizen was strange to them but in theory, it was indeed possible just that ferocious beasts were typically too dangerous to ever reach that point.

"This is the answer to the unintelligent races, citizenship. If they can become a citizen then they should be treated as one. If not, then they should be treated like animals. Dangerous animals are quarantined or culled while docile animals are left alone or taken as livestock."

"There are of course various restriction and laws around the unintelligent races which you should all familiarise yourselves with. They are there for your protection and theirs."

Instructor Redfire's speech had given Casmir and the rest of the students a lot to think about, he gave them a few minutes to talk amongst themselves as they cleaned the arena and prepared for the students tests...