In partial transformation form, Auryn’s canines were brandished even as the creature kept almagamating with several mouths forming on its body.
Auryn shared a look with Saul and instantly they were gone. Flanking the demon even as it continued combining into one.
The duo wasn’t going to allow them fully form. Appearing on both sides they swung their swords down simultaneously.
Clang
The blades bounced off massive tendrils sending the duo flying back. Their strikes were blocked by the ergence of this tendrils that pursued them imdiately after the block.
Auryn landed on his feet as the ground beneath him caved in. He raised his head and roared violently. The air rattled causing a shockwave that slapped the tendrils back detering their approach.
Saul on the other hand, skidded back as he dodged the first tendril with a quick side-step, barely evading by an inch and imdiately his feet shifted as he ducked under another tendril before bringing his rapier upwards slashing them into pieces.
He dashed further back even as Auryn appeared on his side. His body now radiating heat like a reactor waiting to go off.
The massive demon which was now larger than a small building casted a omnious shadow over the two n.
Then suddenly it roared, sending forth a mind-numbing shrill but both n stood like mountains. Not unaffected but rather too focused on the dense red miasma that poured out like a storm behind the roar.
Auryn’s eyes squinted. He could almost guess that it was poison and the sheer amount would be bad for Saul and Ashen grove as a whole if it persisted.
"I’ll clear a path," he said even as wisp of smoke kept spiralling off his body..
CRACK
The ground under his transford feet splintered like glass as he dashed forward.
Gathering mana in his body. He tore head first into the miasma.
[ Poison detected ]
[ Lethality: Extre ]
[Effects: imdiate cellular failure]
[Effect manifestation: Nullified ]
[ Host is immune to all form of poisons]
Auryn smirked as he saw the notification. In the end the power he obtained from this very lands would serve it’s purpose to save it.
But---
Even as he tore through, Auryn cald his mind as his territorial awareness allowed him pinpoint where the enhanced demon was and the tendrils that hid within the growing miasma. He waited for it, the perfect distance. Then -
’Now’ his mind flared.
He pushed his left leg forward gathering a large amount of ash behind it and quickly stopped his own montum.
Imdiately, he opened his mouth taking in a deep breath, revealing jagged canines as all the heat radiating from his body stopped seemingly absorbed within.
His mouth opened even as crimson sparks manifested a few inches from his opening and all around his imdiate surroundings.
The sparks condensed and in an instant, what seed like spontaneous combustion occured and straight from the depths of his mouth a massive wave of pressurized fire burst out with a earth shattering roar.
’Roar of the Crimson Dragon’
The wave covered the distance in the twinkle of an eye causing an incredible explosion that eviscerated the mutated demon instantly.
The wave scorched the earth ripping a path through the miasma and all the nearby trees leaving nothing in its path as the moonlight painted on the cursed land like a canvas for the first ti in ages.
Auryn’s eyes widened at the sheer power of the ability. He turned to look at Saul.
Saul just stood, his rapier raised, Covered in starry light. Eyes wide like a child who just tasted candy for the first ti.
He stamred. " I-I thought you just wanted to clear a-a path"
Auryn smirked sheepishly as he scratched his head.
" too."
---
anwhile...Several miles away.
A castle announced itself before Nika’s party saw it. Not through sound but the surrounding forest that had gone completely still.
The kind of silence that didn’t belong to nature but to sothing that had consud it. There was no living thing as far they could tell. It was just absence, pressing outward from the estate.
Lyssa slowed her horse without being told while Garran’s hand moved to his axe hilt.
The structure fully erged through the tree line, three stories of pale stone that the moonlight hit differently, like the building took light and didn’t give it back.
The gates hung open. It didnt look damaged or even forced. It just open like it was waiting for this very mont.
Nika dismounted slowly.
The contract said locals heard screams from empty windows and saw lights moving where no one lived.
Standing at the threshold now, Nika understood why that description was very much insufficient.
This wasn’t haunting. Haunting implied the dead, grief crystallized with no escape, emotion too stubborn to dissolve. What he felt from this place carried none of that weight.
It was empty. The kind of empty that felt like it consud itself completely.
He stepped through the gates. Lyssa and Garran followed without a word.
The courtyard stones were stained in patterns that the darkness couldn’t fully hide.
Near the main entrance, scratch marks ran along the doorfra at shoulder height.
Nika looked closer and they weren’t claw marks, neither was it a weapon.
’Fingernails,’ he thought
Soone had gripped that fra trying not to be pulled through their own front door.
Then from the upper floor, Sothing moved. It didn’t scream nor announced itself. It was like sothing was waking up from a long slumber.
Nika looked at Garran, then at Lyssa. He drew his lightbane. The tal caught no light at all.
"Whatever’s up there," he said quietly, "it isn’t a demon."
Garran frowned. "Then what is it?"
Nika had no direct answer. In his ti hunting and through his years of training. He’d faced his fair share of monsters but this one felt like nothing he had seen before.
"Sothing hollow," he said finally. "Sothing that used to be a person."
He moved toward the entrance and the door swung inward at his touch, smooth and silent, like it had been waiting.
---
Miles south, beneath the soothing moonlight.
The breach breathed...
Dark and viscous, it pulsed from the ground in slow rhythmic bubbles, spreading veins of corruption across the ash like roots searching for water.
It had no edge nor a border, it was just grey ash turning darker and darker while becoming wet like ash had lost the ability to stay solid.
Auryn turned to face Saul or better still the n exchanged glances.
"You’ve to head back," Auryn said flatly.
"Understood," Saul responded as this was nothing like he’d seen before.
---
The castle swallowed Nika whole as he crossed the threshold, darkness folding around him and his party like the very building could finally breathe again.
As they walked forward. The dragging sound above them suddenly stopped.
---
Auryn’s grip tightened on his sword as he looked back. He saw that Saul had finally disappeared from sight heading back to Aurelia.
This breach was sothing that shouldn’t be handled alone but sothing in Auryn’s chest pushed him.
This was his responsibility after all his choices led them here.
He exhaled once. Moving away from the entrance before his feet halted. He half turned before he imdiately leaped right through the viscous opening that swallowed him whole in an instant.
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