Chapter 229: Shrouded Whisper (3)

With Lucavion's blade still dripping with the blood of the fallen thug, Valeria finally took a moment to glance around—and what she saw made her stomach twist.

Bodies lay strewn across the inn, limbs sprawled and weapons clutched in lifeless hands, their faces frozen in expressions of fury, fear, or surprise. Blood pooled around them in the dark, spreading stains, painting the wooden floor in deep reds. The once-bustling inn had fallen into an eerie silence, broken only by the faint, metallic scent of blood filling the air.

Her chest tightened the sheer brutality of the scene crashing over her like a wave. These men—each one who had pressed in on them with intent to kill—now lay dead at her feet.

All of them,

she realized, her pulse quickening. She hadn't been trained for this—hadn't imagined the aftermath of battle to look like

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Every fight she'd known before had purpose, and rules; there were always survivors, and always a sense of restraint. But here…

Her stomach churned, and she took a step back, nausea rising within her. Her grip loosened slightly on her sword as the weight of it all settled over her.

Everyone is dead.

Her gaze landed on Lucavion, who stood amidst the carnage, his expression unbothered, his eyes scanning the room with an ease that felt almost unnatural. He wiped his blade, still faintly glowing with the dark energy he wielded, onto the edge of his coat, seeming almost detached, as if this violence were merely routine.

"Lucavion…" Her voice was barely a whisper, her throat tight as she struggled to keep the nausea down. She didn't know what to say, couldn't find the words.

How could he be so calm?

Lucavion's gaze sharpened, his eyes void of their usual humor. A coldness lingered in his expression as he took in her shocked face, her hand still trembling on the hilt of her sword.

"When you fight people like this, mercy is a weakness, Valeria," he said, his tone blunt, unyielding. "Show them an ounce of leniency, and it's your life you're gambling. If you'd gone for the kill from the start, maybe you wouldn't have been injured."

Her grip on her sword faltered, his words striking deeper than the wounds she'd received. It was true—she hadn't fought to kill. She'd parried, dodged, only harming when necessary, trying to keep her strikes restrained. And yet… these men had shown no such restraint. She hadn't anticipated this ruthlessness, this absolute disregard for life.

But she couldn't find the words to respond. Something heavy sat in her chest, the realization mingling with nausea until it felt as if her body rejected every part of this scene, every truth embedded in Lucavion's words.

As she stared at him, though, a strange feeling crept over her. Her vision grew unsteady, twisting and blurring at the edges. Lucavion's face began to shift, contorting in ways that didn't make sense. For a split second, his expression twisted, darker somehow, more distant—and then the entire room seemed to warp.

The bodies lying around them shifted in her vision, as if stirred by a phantom wind. A horrific thought clawed its way up her mind—

were they moving?

Her pulse thundered as she watched, frozen, her breath catching as she saw the lifeless forms seem to twitch, their limbs jerking, expressions of hatred returning to their blood-stained faces. It was as if death hadn't been enough to silence them, as if they were ready to rise again and drag her into the dark.

"No…" she whispered, her voice faint as her vision swayed.

The scene before Valeria twisted further, her vision swimming in a grotesque haze. The faces of the fallen twisted into expressions of vengeance, their mouths opening in silent screams, eyes filled with fury.

She could feel the room closing in on her, the weight of it pressing down like an iron grip around her chest. Her heart hammered against her ribs, each beat amplifying the unreal horror unfurling before her.

The bodies—cold and lifeless only moments before—were now crawling, dragging themselves closer, some with torn limbs reaching out toward her. She staggered back, her pulse quickening in a frantic, desperate rhythm. Her gaze darted to Lucavion, but his form had shifted too, his face blurring, distorting until it no longer seemed his own. His eyes, cold and knowing, bore into her with darkness that sent chills down her spine.

"Get… away!" she gasped, barely recognizing her own voice, raw and panicked. The corpses loomed closer, their hands outstretched, reaching for her as if to pull her into the same grim fate.

With a strangled cry, Valeria's instincts took over. She swung her sword wildly, the heavy blade slicing through the air, desperate to keep the undead forms at bay.

Her blade met flesh, cutting through the phantom figures as they lunged at her, one after another. Each strike was frantic, raw—her mind screaming that this wasn't real, that it couldn't be happening, but her body moved on pure survival.

A form lunged from her right, and she spun, cleaving through it, the blood spraying across her armor. Another figure leaped at her from the front, and she brought her sword down with a brutal swing, cutting it down mid-leap.

Her vision blurred further as she continued to slice through the relentless assault, feeling each impact, each hollow thud of her blade against the bodies that swarmed around her.

Amidst the chaos, she caught a glimpse of Lucavion—or whatever he had become—watching her, his blurred form barely shifting as the blood-soaked scene unfolded.

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"…..a!"

Valeria's breath came in ragged gasps as she swung her sword, each slash tearing through the swarm of phantom attackers pressing in on her.

"V…..a....W….ke….p….."

The voices around her blurred, merging into an incomprehensible cacophony.

"Wa...…u....It.....i….not...re…."

She could hear fragments, whispers just beyond her grasp—murmured distorted sounds that made no sense.

Her heart pounded faster, her thoughts a frantic blur of instinct as she tried to hold her ground. The world around her spun, every face twisting, shifting, until even the walls of the inn seemed to close in. She was barely holding on when suddenly—

BOOM!

A shockwave exploded in her eardrums, a thunderous sound that ripped through her senses, shattering the illusion.

'–Arghk!'

She staggered, eyes wide as the warped, distorted figures dissolved into mist. In an instant, the room was still again, the once-moving bodies now lifeless on the floor, their blood pooling beneath them. The cloying stench of death hung heavy in the air.

'Huh?'

She blinked, disoriented, her gaze snapping to Lucavion.

He stood a few steps ahead of her, his attention entirely focused on a figure at the far end of the room. His sword was raised, gleaming with dark, intense energy, but his stance was steady, every muscle tense as if prepared for another confrontation.

Valeria's eyes traveled past him, landing on the figure across the room. Her breath caught. It was him—the beastkin boy she'd fought in the tournament that morning. He was older than he looked, though his small frame still gave him a childlike appearance.

His eyes, intense and simmering with the quiet fury of someone who'd endured more than most could bear, were locked onto Lucavion. The boy's furred ears twitched, his form poised and ready, as if he'd stepped out from the shadows themselves.

"

You,

" Valeria managed to murmur, her mind struggling to piece together how he had ended up here, in this blood-soaked inn.

"Ah…."

And then she realized, as her mind slowly started returning.

SWOOSH!

Following that, she sensed another presence approaching and her instincts immediately forced her to raise her sword.

CLANK!

And her sword met with another one before her.

"Grr…."

It was the girl.

"Heh…..So, you are finally showing yourself...Shrouded Whisperer…."

And she heard Lucavion mumbling.