"Sensei!" Lloyd shouted across to his uncle "What are you doing?!" He yelled with the other Ninja all fearing for the fate of their mentor

"You must do everything in your power to stop the Great Devourer!" Sensei Wu shouted back at his nephew "Go, Ninja! Go!"

"No Sensei!" Lloyd tried running toward his uncle to save him but something shooting out of the darkness below them all knocked the Green Ninja onto the ground

Everyone watched as a massive creature spiralled upwards out of the darkness and into the sky, thunder crackling behind it illuminating the monster's scaly appearance along with its gigantic body that terrified all that gazed upon it. The towering Serpentine looked down at the people below and opened its large mouth, releasing a deafening roar with its red forked tongue escaping its mouth

The Great Devourer had been unleashed 

Lord Garmadon, the Ninja and the three Serpentine Generals all took a step back, each and every one of them being consumed by a feeling of dread upon watching the Great Devourer rise up from the darkness beneath their feet

All of the Ninja watched in terror as the gigantic serpent's large and menacing purple eyes looked down at the hole it had created to spot Sensei Wu and Pythor gazing up at it, the Anacondrai General trembled as the old mentor stood firmly on the cracked ground while holding Pythor in place, looking right into the Great Devourer's purple eyes with a fearless look on his wrinkled face 

The monstrous serpent hissed hungrily upon looking into Sensei Wu's eyes and immediately lunged down at the two with it's large jaw opened wide showing off all of the large fangs it used to bite down on its prey, swallowing Wu and Pythor in one big ground shattering bite 

"SENSEI!!!" Lloyd roared as he watched his uncle be devoured alongside the Anacondrai General, Kai holding him back from jumping at the massive Serpentine ruler who would have no problem with eating him too. Hearing the Green Ninja's cry the Devourer released a deafening roar before looking right at the Ninja, Lord Garmadon and the remaining Serpentine Generals who all looked back in fear 

"Uh oh...." Jay gulped "M-Maybe if we uhh s-s-stay perfectly s-still it won't s-s-see us" He nervously whispered to everybody with them all following his advice and trying their hardest to not move a muscle or make the slightest of noise. All except one 

"RUN!!!" Lord Garmadon yelled out before quickly spinning around to run away from the Devourer as fast as his two legs could carry him, all four arms flailing around in the air as everyone else just watched with a collective facepalm. Those collective facepalms were soon replaced by fearful looks as the massive serpent paid no attention to the fleeing Garmadon, instead keeping it's purple eyes focused on the Ninja and Serpentine Generals before suddenly lunging down toward them all with it's jaw opened widely 

Following in Garmadon's footsteps the Ninja and Serpentine Generals joined the Lord in running/slithering out of Ouroboros as fast as their legs/tails could carry them, just about avoiding another ground shattering bite from the Devourer who was very enraged by not getting their snack and was hot on the tails of the Serpentine Generals and the feet of the Ninja and Garmadon. The Ninja along with Garmadon were all heading right for the Destiny's Bounty in hopes of making a flying escape away from the Devourer, with the Serpentine Generals starting to drift away from everybody else 

"Where do you think you guys are going?!" Lloyd shouted over to the Generals as he narrowly avoided tripping over a fallen Serpentine statue "You all helped this happen so you're gonna help us stop it!" 

"Even if we made a misssstake in lisssstening to Pythor'ssss crazy idea we will never ssssink sssso low assss to help you ssssurface dwellerssss!" Fangtom's left head snapped at the bruised Green Ninja "We shall retrieve SSSSkalessss and never have to face the wrath of the Great Devourer!" Skalidor hissed as the three Serpentine Generals slowly faded into the distance to find Skales with the Devourer ignoring them and continuing her chase after the Ninja and Garmadon 

Jay released an annoyed groan after seeing the Generals leave them behind for the Devourer to consume "Argh t-t-those s-s-snakes!" He shouted over his exhausted panting "T-T-Those scaly Serpentine a-are no g-g-good-" but Jay wasn't able to finish his insult as thanks to him looking over at the Generals he wasn't paying much attention to where he was running and his left foot ended up getting caught on a small rock sending the Blue Ninja tumbling onto the desert sand

Upon hearing the sudden thump like sound behind them all the rest of the running Ninja looked behind them to see Jay on the ground struggling to pick himself back up "JAY!" Cole yelled out loudly with the others gasping at the sight, the Devourer was slithering after them at a breakneck pace and they couldn't afford to backtrack or else they would end up on the beast's menu, but were they just going to let Jay be eaten!? 

Thankfully the answer was a relieving no as Nya quickly ran over to her left to scoop Jay off the desert sand and into her arms, catching up the other Ninja and Garmadon without a problem. Wu's training was really starting to pay off 

"Oh uhh t-t-thank you ummm N-Ny-" Jay tried to thank his saviour with a blushing face but was cut off by Nya herself "No time for thank yous!" She told the flustered Ninja in her arms who clung tightly to her "Oh umm r-r-right!" He nodded in agreement and looked ahead to see the Bounty was only a little bit away

"Look!" Skylor pointed up ahead, her black gloved hand pointing at a small rock formation just a  bit away from the Destiny's Bounty "We could use that rock has a sort of ramp to Spinjitzu off of to get onto the Bounty!"

"I have ran the required data needed to see if Skylor is correct and it would appear that she is indeed correct in thinking we could use that conveniently shaped rock as a ramp to board the Destiny's Bounty" Zane explained to everybody "Plus it would look super cool!" Kai added on from behind Lloyd 

"I don't really understand anything the white one said but I do agree with the red one! It would look pretty awesome!" Garmadon chimed into the conversation, unfortunately reminding the Ninja that he wasn't eaten alongside Pythor instead of Wu "Why are you even following us?! Shouldn't you be with the Serpentine Generals!?" Harumi questioned the four armed Lord 

Garmadon scoffed at Harumi's question "Following you?! You all are following me! I was the first to run off in this direction towards my brother's stupid, dumb and ugly ship!"

"I-I-If you t-think it's stupid, d-dumb and ugly t-t-then why did you r-run toward it?!" Jay shouted at Garmadon who was more than happy to answer "As that old man's only brother I believe that I am more than deserving of that ship! I think it'll look excellent in a nice coat of black!" He proudly said to Jay as his mind imagined the Destiny's Bounty in a sleek shade of Garmadon black 

"Nobody is going to have Sensei's ship if we end up in the Devourer's stomach so stop arguing and just Spinjitzu off that rock!" Lloyd yelled at everyone before running ahead and quickly spinning into his bright green Spinjitzu tornado, launching himself off the makeshift ramp and landing onto the wooden deck of the Bounty without a problem

Zane followed in Lloyd's footsteps with a well calculated Spinjitzu jump off of the broken rock landing perfectly on the same wooden deck as the Green Ninja, the Nindroid wasted no time in quickly making his way to the Bounty's control room to start up the ship's thrusters for when everybody else boarded the ship 

"Make sure you hang on tight!" Nya told the still flustered and frightened Blue Ninja in her arms who was more than happy to oblige by holding onto the black haired teen even tighter than he already was before with his eyes shut as Nya formed her water Spinjitzu, doing the exact same Spinjizu jump as the other two Ninja and landing just fine even while holding another person, once she managed to land onto the ship she quickly ran into the control room to help Zane with starting the Bounty's thrusters alongside Jay who had now somewhat recovered from being carried bridal style by Nya

One by one the Ninja spun into their differently coloured vortexes and made the jump onto the Bounty as the ship began to take off, all while the Great Devourer was slithering closer and closer with its appetite getting bigger and bigger. It didn't take long for all eight Ninja to be safely on board the Destiny's Bounty with only Lord Garmadon left to jump on

"HEY WAIT FOR ME!" He shouted up to the now half flying ship that was about to leave him behind, Garmadon went full speed toward the ramp ahead of him and the four armed warlord put all of his energy into creating his Spinjitzu and launching himself into the air just barely high enough for him to grab onto the Bounty's railing and pull himself onboard with the help of his extra appendages right before Zane activated the thrusters setting them to full speed with the Bounty blasting forward into the air, narrowly escaping a large bite from the Devourer

Garmadon wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead as he joined the Ninja inside the control room "Phew, that sure was a close one am I right guys?" He took a moment to catch his breath, all of the Ninja in the room just staring at him with multiple different expressions as the warlord just stared back at them with a confused look "What? Did the Devourer actually eat me and this whole thing has been a dream this entire time?" Garmadon asked with his four arms starting to pinch themselves "Ouch, nope this is definitely real life" 

"What the hell are you doing on our ship?!" Harumi suddenly burst out "You helped cause all this by releasing those slimy Serpentine and helping them get the Fang Blades and now you're just going to fly away from your mess with us!?" Garmadon stood completely still, unmoved by the white haired Ninja's yelling with all four arms crossed "Well if you were paying attention you would have recalled me saying that I am the rightful heir to this ship and I for one did not wish to be swallowed by a gigantic serpent" He replied to Harumi who seemed to just get angrier, before she could step forward and teach Garmadon some manners Lloyd reached out his arm to stop her and instead stepped up to his father himself 

"This is all your fault! Wu is gone because of you! All of Ninjago is going to be destroyed by the Great Devourer and it's all going to be your fault!" Lloyd roared at his father with tears in his green eyes, Lloyd's words seemed to make Garmadon step back a little as the teenager continued to lash into his father "You just had to go and get involved with those Serpentine didn't you?! I don't know how you manage to do it but every single thing you do somehow manages to ruin absolutely everything! First you ruin my life and now you go and put the entirety of Ninjago at risk all because you just couldn't admit defeat and wanted a stronger army! Well look where it got us all now!" Lloyd turned away from his father and just looked out one of the control room's windows as Harumi joined him in an attempt to comfort him, complete silence taking over the Bounty 

After Lloyd walked away from him Lord Garmadon just stood there and watched as his son was comforted by his girlfriend, those words coming from someone who he should care about really clung to him. Somewhere deep inside him he knows he cares about Lloyd, but no matter how hard he may try he can never figure out how to understand those feelings. There was once a time where he wouldn't let a single hair on his son be harmed, where did it all go wrong?

That wretched snake... 

The control room's silence only lasted a moment longer as they were all reminded of their current problem with a loud hiss being heard from behind the Bounty, everybody looked behind the ship to see the Devourer still slithering after them with a hungry look. The massive Serpentine ruler lunged forward towards the Bounty with its mouth opened wide, Zane just about managed to change the ship's path in time to avoid the Devourer's large fangs with the gigantic snake crashing down onto the sand upon missing her flying target 

"HA! Take that you stupid snake!" Kai cheered as he watched the Devourer sink into the sand below them, vanishing from his sight and presumably retreating, but that cheerfulness didn't last long as the sandy hill ahead of them started to rumble and shake with the Great Devourer suddenly spiralling out from beneath the sand appearing in front of them 

"IT HEARD YOU!" Jay screamed loudly as the Devourer went in for another attempt at biting the flying ship, Zane quickly spun the Bounty's old fashioned wheel to the right to steer them away from the large fangs of the Devourer but was unfortunately just a little bit too slow and the Devourer managed to chomp down on the left fin that housed the left set of thrusters, tearing the red fin in half and throwing off the Bounty's flying abilities 

Zane steadied the Bounty with the help of Nya and continued to fly the ship to his best ability even with missing thrusters "It is highly unlikely we will be able to escape from the Great Devourer without those thrusters, our best option is to try and lose it with the help of Scattered Canyon just up ahead!" The Nindroid informed everyone on board who nodded in agreement and all made sure to hold onto something when the White Ninja flew the Bounty into Scattered Canyon and began swerving in and out of the large rock formations in hopes of losing their current hunter 

The Ice Ninja's plan looked to be working as the Great Devourer struggled to chase after the flying ship with all the large rocks getting in the way, its large serpent body kept crashing into the rocks which dug into the monstrous snake making it release multiple roars of pain, but despite all the struggle and pain the Devourer kept slithering after the Bounty with it deciding to just eat the rocks that got in its way, making it grow somewhat larger and increase its speed 

"Uhh Zane? This idea of yours doesn't seem to be working!" Skylor worriedly told the White Ninja as he continued to fly the damaged ship through the dangerous canyon, carefully manoeuvring the Bounty in and out of the sharp rocks, only getting a few scratches on the ship's hull "That overgrown snake is just going to eat whatever gets in its way! I think we're better off leaving this dangerous canyon before one of these rocks take us out before the Devourer does!" Skylor suggested as she clung to Kai's arm 

"That seems to be the most logical choice, everybody continue to hold onto something as I fly us out of Scattered Canyon" Zane told the others before taking a sharp right and then flying the Bounty through a tight gap in-between two large rocks, steering the somewhat flying ship out of the dangerous canyon with the Great Devourer opting to simply bash and chomp its way through the remainder of the canyon with its eyes still set on having a Ninja flavoured treat 

"Ugh we are getting nowhere with this!" Garmadon groaned in annoyance "Enough playing cat and mouse! The best way to get this slimy snake away from us is to beat it with brute force!" He shouted with all four fists raised, slamming his face into one of the walls in the process "And how do you suggest we do that?!" Nya yelled across to the warlord as she tried to fix the Bounty's altitude, all the while trying to calm down a terrified Jay "If you want us to throw you at that thing then I have no complaints about that!" 

"Oh trust me I would gladly slay that foul beast if one of my swords could even leave a dent in that thing's scales!" Garmadon told Nya "Unless one of you Ninja want to lend me a Golden Weapon I suggest you start pulling straws" The five Ninja that owned a Golden Weapon all looked at each other to see if anybody wanted to step forward and be the hero, but when nobody stepped up they decided to settle the problem the most mature way possible 

"NOT IT!" Kai, Zane, Cole and Nya all called out at the same time, the four of them turned their heads to look at the one Ninja who didn't say anything "O-O-Oh come on! T-That's n-not fair! I wasn't r-r-ready!" Jay started to complain "Heh, sorry Jay, but you snooze you lose!" Kai chuckled from his side of the control room. Jay desperately looked around to see if anyone wanted to jump in at the lost moment but everybody just looked back at him with Nya giving him an encouraging smile, the auburn haired teen groaned and accepted his fate 

"F-F-Fine, I-I'll do it" He regretfully sighed before starting to make his way out of the Bounty's control room, flipping on his Ninja mask along with taking his Nunchucks of Lightning off his back and clutching them firmly, making sure not to fall over while stepping out of the control room

Once Jay cautiously left the control room and walked onto the deck all of the fear he previously felt instantly got 10 times worse, for a moment he froze in place but upon remembering what was at stake he took a second to calm himself down with a couple of deep breaths and pushed himself further onto the wooden deck, his blue eyes seeing the Great Devourer getting closer and closer to the damaged ship

"W-W-Well here g-g-goes everything!" Jay said to himself spinning one of his golden nunchucks over his head, summoning a bit of lightning and shooting it at the Great Devourer, but once the lightning made contact with the monstrous serpent it practically bounced right off of the beast's skales and only made the Devourer speed up 

Jay's brain immediately went into panic mode, not only did his Nunchucks of Lightning prove to be useless but he also made their situation worse by making the Devourer speed up! "O-O-Okay J-Jay no need to p-panic! There h-h-has to be another w-w-way to scare that g-g-giant overgrown s-snake away!" The Blue Ninja told himself "M-M-Maybe I'm just n-not hitting the right s-s-spot?" He questioned and his eyes started to scan the beast for any weak spots 

All those years of intense video game playing finally paid off as Jay's eyes easily spotted a potential weak spot for the Devourer "T-T-That's it! I'll a-a-attack it's eyes!" He declared as his Nunchucks of Lightning once again swung around over his head building up a stronger electric charge than his first blast

To make sure he didn't miss Jay decided to wait until the Devourer was just a little bit closer to the Bounty before firing his lightning at the Serpentine beast, this shot had to be perfect in order  to buy Zane enough time to fly the damaged ship out of the Great Devourer's reach. The Devourer's slithering continued to tear up the ground beneath it as the serpent monstrosity's speed managed to increase, but Jay stood still with his Nunchucks of Lightning still swinging over his head making his planned blast even stronger 

The Great Devourer opened its mouth widely releasing a deafening roar before lunging towards the Destiny's Bounty with its fangs ready to bite into the wooden ship, Jay waited just a second longer until he decided that the Devourer was close enough and swung his charged up Nunchucks of Lightning right at the Serpentine ruler striking both of its large purple eyes with a powerful lightning blast. The Devourer roared in pain and immediately stopped slithering after the damaged Bounty, unable to see a single thing 

"I-I-I did it! I a-a-actually did it!" Jay cheered in almost disbelief, hastily retreating back to the Bounty's control "G-G-Guys I d-did it! The D-Devourer stopped c-c-chasing us!" He happily told everyone "Yeah yeah we know Jay we just watched you do it now can you please go help my sis and Zane make this ship go faster?! We're kind of in a hurry to escape the Serpentine ruler back there!" Kai interrupted Jay's celebrations "O-O-Oh r-r-right s-sorry!" Jay apologised to the Red Ninja before quickly joining Nya and Zane in somehow finding a way to speed up the Bounty 

"Okay if we turn this up and turn this one down I think it should work but we should also adjust this one along with this and then make sure this one is working and take away some power from that one" Nya rattled on while she frantically flicked almost every single switch on her side of the control room, meanwhile Jay was busy checking the thrusters condition, seeing if there was anything he could do to fix or at least power them up some more with Zane occasionally spouting out some technical wisdom to the two in hopes of helping 

It took Jay and Nya a little fiddling around with the controls but eventually after enough flicking switches the two of them managed to figure out a way to fix the Bounty's damaged thrusters problem "Jay can you change the pin with friction ridges and slots to be facing the axle with groove with the half bushing connecting up with the axle to pin connector with friction?" Nya instructed Jay who nodded and got to work following Nya's instructions, on his knees the Blue Ninja opened up his control panel and completed the Water Ninja's orders to a T "D-Done!" Jay told Nya as he got back up and dusted himself off 

"Great work you two, it appears your efforts have given the thrusters just enough extra power to fly us a good distance away from the Great Devourer while it is currently stunned from Jay's attack" Zane informed the two proud engineers "I advise that everyone holds onto something once more!" The Nindroid told everybody before activating the extra power Jay and Nya managed to redirect into the ship's thrusters making the damaged Destiny's Bounty blast through the desert far away from the recovering Devourer

As the ship sailed through the air at high speeds everyone inside the control room took note of Zane's advice and clung onto whatever they could, Garmadon had no problem holding onto something as his four arms easily latched onto one of the control room's walls with the warlord sticking to it like a spider whilst Lloyd dug his sword into another wall with Harumi holding onto his left arm 

Everyone's favourite Nindroid steering the ship didn't really need to listen to his own advice as his Nindroid feet were able to lock onto the wooden floor beneath him to keep him steady and in place no matter how fast or rough the Bounty was flying, seeing this Cole decided to simply jump onto Zane's back instead of being as dramatic as Lloyd was being with his sword being stabbed into one of the walls. The poor walls of the control room continued to be abused though as Skylor quickly tied a part of her red waist sash around the end of an arrow and shot it right into the same wall Lloyd's sword was stabbed into, she reached out for Kai's hand and the two of them used Skylor's arrow to steady themselves during the ship's bumpy and speedy flying 

Jay wasn't as lucky as everyone else and clumsily slipped while trying to reach out for something to grab onto and ended up sliding across the floorboards right towards one of the Bounty's broken windows, his luck shortly changed however as he spotted Nya securing herself in place by tightly holding onto her large control panel with both of her gloved hands, as he slid past the Water Ninja the messy auburn haired teen extended his right arm and just barely managed to grab onto one of Nya's arms 

The Bounty's new found power didn't last that long but it lasted long enough to accomplish the goal of escaping the Devourer's sight and soon the damaged ship began to slow down and eventually stopped flying forwards and just remained still high above the Sea of Sand. Once everyone was positive the ship was going nowhere they all let go of whatever they were holding onto with sighs of relief and exhausted breathing from all the action filling the air, with silence coming in after, the Ninja took a moment to appreciate the quietness after dealing with the Great Devourer's deafening sounds 

"So what now?" Garmadon asked ruining the short lived silence, being met with annoyed looks by every single one of the Ninja 

And so that ends the first 2022 chapter of Ninja Life! I know it's been quite some time since the last chapter and that's mainly due to me just not wanting to rush the book, especially such a big arc as the Great Devourer being unleashed. I really want to make sure that nothing is rushed with this book and that only the greatest of quality is published and that will most likely mean less frequent chapters but I do hope that you all continue to read this book along with continuing to show the great support you've all been showing over the last year which I want to thank every single one of you for, it really helps to push me in the right direction for Ninja Life