The ground quaked again.
Dust and tiny cracks spread across the broken pathway as sothing stirred beneath.
The group instantly jumped in separate directions.
A fissure tore open and sothing began to rise.
At first, all they could see was darkness. It was oily, shifting, and dense.
Then it congealed into shape, and a creature erged.
And the mont Corey saw the creature, his eyes sharpened instantly.
'I didn't expect that.'
The creature was twisted and wrong, just like every other creature they had encountered in the Dying City.
It looked almost human at the top, but only in the vaguest sense. Its torso was long and thin, and it was unnaturally stretched.
Its arms dangled far past its knees, with joints bent at odd angles, and its skin looked like scorched parchnt, as if it had been wrapped too tightly over sothing else.
Its fingers were elongated, sharp, and constantly twitching.
Its head had no face.
No eyes.
No mouth.
Just a smooth surface with pulsing veins running beneath the skin, and faint symbols glowing and fading like breathing runes.
But its lower half was where the madness began, and was what made Corey's eyes to sharpen.
It was a swirling spiral of roots and tendons twisted into a fleshy tendril, and as it moved, it left behind a thick sar of dark ichor.
So small tendrils of roots and tendons that were like feelers, reached out and recoiled slightly from the Day.
And Corey could feel the monster getting weaker with each passing second, and he knew that the monster was not ant to co out during the Day at all.
It emitted the aura of a peak Tier 4, and although it was not sothing the Thirteenth Dawn couldn't have handled, if it had caught them off guard like it planned to, there would have been losses.
'I only saw a dense ball of black oil that emitted the aura of a peak Tier 4 and was targeting the Thirteenth Dawn.'
'I never expected to see sothing that's similar to the corpse with root-like legs I saw on the carvings...'
'Or could this actually be the creature I saw on the walls of the tunnel? Or is it one of them?'
'No... It feels too weak and its presence is not a threat at all.'
'I wonder why it ca out during the day.'
"Fuck ..." Zeke muttered as he slid to a stop and raised his pistols.
"... What the hell is that?" Yara muttered while drawing out her daggers.
Kieran didn't speak. He was already moving with his sabers drawn, and his gaze sharpened.
Just like the captain, the creature didn't make a sound.
It didn't roar.
It didn't screech.
It didn't laugh.
It just lunged m.
It was fast, sudden, and silent for a creature of its unique... physique.
To the shock and fear of the group, Rhys stood in its path as the creature moved.
Myra's body moved before her mind could.
Her spear clashed against the creature's extended claws, diverting the blow. The impact cracked the pavent, and both of them were thrown apart.
"Rhys! You good?" She shouted.
He nodded shakily, barely catching his balance.
Zeke opened fire. One shot. Two. Five.
Each bullet hit.
But the bullets ricocheted off its limbs with sharp tallic lungs.
"Great," he muttered, "bulletproof flesh."
"Focus on its joints!" Myra shouted as she dashed in from the side.
Her spear struck the creature's shoulder and slid off with a screech. She barely dodged the counter-swpe from one of its arms.
Kieran danced in, and his sabers flashed like silver arcs as lightning appeared around his blades.
Slash. Dodge. Slash.
He was fluid. Precise. And every movent chipped sothing away.
Finally, Aelric struck.
Pale green light gathered in his palm, and he slamd his hands on the ground.
He whispered under his breath, and dozens of bone spikes erupted from the ground beneath the creature.
The creature jumped and twisted midair, dodging the attacks. But Corey suddenly appeared behind it.
He turned, and he kicked its head like a soccer ball.
BANG!
The floor shattered and dust rose up into air as the creature slamd into the ground.
More bone spikes erged from the ground, and they stabbed into its roots and tendons, pinning it for a brief second.
And that second was enough.
Kieran struck from behind, and a cut appeared on its back.
Lightning surged around it, burning its flesh and causing a hiss of dark mist to surge from it.
Yara appeared next, her blade erging from shadow.
But the creature swiped one of its root-like tendrils at her. She bent backward at an impossible angle, barely dodging the strike.
"Damn it! It's trying to break free." Aelric shouted with sweat pouring down from his forehead.
Corey moved.
He leapt, circled the creature with his daggers in his hand.
Fiery red flas surged around his daggers, and he slashed the root-like and tendon-like tendrils.
The creature screeched this ti in pain, and its body twitched repeatedly as black steam poured out from the massive wound.
Zeke grinned. "Finally."
He shot at the open wounds with glee.
The group closed in.
Kieran's sabers flicked in twin arcs of electricity.
Myra spun her spear as orange flas surged around it.
Yara struck from the shadows.
Aelric created more bone spears and hands to pin it down, and the creature shrieked in pain as all the attacks landed on it.
And with one last lunge from Myra as she pierced its head with her spear, it twitched.
It twisted in place, cracked down the middle, and then it crumbled into twitching at and black ichor.
The street went quiet, and the group panted as they gathered together.
Myra exhaled. "That... wasn't natural."
"It felt wrong... It didn't feel dead. It felt... corrupted," Aelric added while rubbing his shoulder.
"Dayti monsters now? Seriously? This place was supposed to be safer during the day. I feel cheated." Zeke huffed while kicking a pebble at the slug remains of the monster which Aelric was approaching.
Corey frowned when he saw him crouching before the monster.
"Weren't you the one that said you preferred to face monsters rather than invisible monsters?" Yara called out, and Zeke froze.
Corey approached Aelric, "What do you plan on doing with it?"
Aelric glanced at him before looking back at the remains of the monster, "Since the monsters we encountered on the First Night turned to dust, I was not able to collect samples or any body part from them."
"I've just been collecting random samples from strange things we've encountered, but this monster is different. It didn't turn to ash, and like I said... It doesn't feel dead but corrupted."
Corey furrowed his brows, and then he shifted his gaze to the remains of the monster. His eyes flashed.
"If it's truly corrupted like you said, are you sure that whatever power that corrupted it won't corrupt you?"
Aelric smiled, and a pale green light covered his hands along with bone claws, "Don't worry about that. I'm a Necromancer for a reason."
Corey raised a brow, and then he nonchalantly shrugged, leaving Aelric behind as he carried the remains of the monster.
Zeke approached him.
"You finally talk to warn us about a monster, and now you're talking to Aelric like you're worried about him. But for the past hour you've been mute?" Zeke asked while raising an eyebrow. "What? Don't tell you were shy during that period or your hormones were acting up?"
Corey only smiled faintly.
Zeke rolled his eyes, and scoffed. "Right. Of course. I forgot that you're a bitch ass nigga."
Corey raised a brow, but said nothing in response.
Myra stepped in. "How did you sense it coming? None of us sensed anything?"
Corey raised a finger to his ear.
"Sharp hearing," he replied simply.
Kieran tilted his head. It made sense... but not completely. Still, he didn't push.
Yara looked around the ruins. "Shouldn't we be safe from monsters during the day?"
"Maybe the rules are changing," Aelric said as he stood and dusted his hands.
The remains of the creature was gone.
"Great," Zeke muttered. "Let's make it up as we go. Trial logic: if they aren't miserable, make them miserable."
Myra suddenly glanced up, and then she frowned.
"The bird's gone."
The others followed the gaze, and truly, the bird was gone.
The sky was empty.
No caw.
No black feathers.
Just stillness.
"Did it just leave?" Yara asked.
"Guess even creepy birds get bored," Zeke muttered.
They resud their movent, and so minutes later, Kieran spotted sothing in the distance.
They stopped running.
"There," he pointed. "That tower is our destination. We'll be able to have a clearer and wider view of the city."
In the far distance, and looming above the broken horizon was a towering structure veiled in grey mist.
It was tall, narrow, and jagged.
Dark vines were clung to its massive fra, and even from far away, its design stood out- wrong angles, old stone, and cracked windows.
This building was the Archive.
"Finally, we'll be able to see where to go." Myra murmured.
And just as she did, the air shifted... Slowly and quietly.
The red stars above began to blink.
One by one, they started to vanish.
The sky dimd further, and a soft breeze blew.
But this breeze was cold.
Bone-deeo cold.
The city moaned, and it was like a sound of a thousand whispers drifting across the wind.
The day was ending, and they instantly knew it.
Zeke swore. "Not now. Not yet."
The group turned imdiately.
No one needed to say anything.
They ran.
Myra was the first to spot it.
"There!"
A half-sunken building, but on its front door was the chalk-like inverted triangle.
They stord inside, and Kieran slamd the door shut just as the first scream echoed through the streets.
Then...
A chi which was then followed by a faint blue light.
And the Universal System's screen flickered into the air above them.
----
[NIGHT TWO BEGINS]
Daily Rule Activated: Two Things Will Be Taken
Warning: The City Mourns
----
Zeke cursed out loud, "What the fuck?"
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