Chapter 62 – Slaughter

Chapter 62 – Slaughter

A chill runs down Emily’s spine.

“You haven’t left the barrier?” she asks, unable to keep a slight tremble from her voice.

“No, I stayed in here like you said. Why?” Oscar responds, nervously glancing past her into the darkness.

“I came back because I heard you yelling for me.”

Emily dismissively gestures for Oscar to sit back down before turning away and approaching the edge of the barrier again. Leaning her head through, she waits while dismissing infra-sight and preparing another light spell. After a few minutes of silence, she hears her own voice in the distance:

“We’re being played with.”

Her eyes follow the direction of the voice, where she spots two glowing eyes staring at her twenty metres away, wrapped in shadows. Light emerges from her hand in an instant, and she flicks it towards them. As the glistening orb flies forward through the darkness, the eyes vanish before it reaches them.

Emily pulls back into the barrier, clicking her tongue as she turns to face Oscar again.

“Creepy fucker,” she growls, anger replacing fear as she moves to sit down.

She turns her glare on Oscar, after settling back on her rock, and sees him struggling to work out what to say.

“It can copy our voices,” she explains with a small sigh. “Well, actually I think it may be able to mimic things we’ve said. First, it shouted, hey, in your voice. Then just now it said, we’re being played with, in mine.”

“Wait, but those are things we’ve said inside the barrier.”

“Yeah, it can probably hear through it somehow.”

“Shit.”

Oscar’s face drops into a frown and he falls silent. Emily looks away from him, staring into the surrounding darkness and restarting her pattern of infra-sight and earthen detection, despite how ineffectual she knows the spells are against their tormentor.

The rest of their watch passes in tense silence, as Oscar takes on the role of periodically checking outside the barrier. They wake Ivor and Fionn and warn them about the changes to the barrier and the creature’s twisted entertainment before retiring to their sleeping bags.

Emily sits on her sleeping bag in meditation form again until dawn arrives and light fills the tunnel once more. The group is noticeably slower to get moving, with several members sporting sizeable bags beneath their eyes, their exhaustion building despite their improved physiques. They silently pack away their sleeping bags and eat a meal before leaving to continue downstream.

They pass a few more harvested mana crystal outcrops and gather a couple of herbs, but the long march slowly wears on their tired minds. The only sound accompanying their journey is the light sound of running water, as everyone is too tired and on edge to start conversations.

The monotony of the march is finally broken mid-afternoon, when they reach a fork in the river, heading off into two similar caves. After a short conversation between Oscar, Emily, and Dante at the head of the group, they decide to follow the fork to the left, removing the need to cross the water. They continue on until the light starts to fade again, at which point they choose a spot a fair distance from any tunnel openings and set up camp. The wind mages of the group recharge and set up the sound barrier, opting to make it two-way from the start this time, and the rocky floor is soon filled with sleeping bags.

After everyone has eaten and collapsed into their sleeping bags, exhausted and ready to rest for the night, their nightmare begins. Emily sits at the edge of the camp, in a small bubble of light with Oscar, staring into the distance with infra-sight. An hour into their watch, she passes her bored gaze over the empty cave before her and almost doubts her eyes when a faint, glowing orange form creeps into view.

“Oscar,” she whispers harshly, rising from the floor into an alert crouch. “I see something.”

Blades and projectiles can’t penetrate its skin, but it’s weak to fire and lightning at least.

She starts preparing a second bolt as the creature reaches forward, grabbing Dante’s crumpled form and pulling him to its mouth. Her grin falters as the monster takes a bite of Dante’s flesh and its skin visibly bubbles, regenerating to its old grey pallor.

A few projectile spells fly in and crash against the creature, from a few of the surviving mages, but they only serve to anger it further. Shrugging off the last shard of rock that hits its temple, courtesy of Ivor, the monster shrieks an infuriated wail before disappearing into the stone at its feet. Everyone freezes in place, frantically looking around for any signs of the monster’s reemergence.

Quiet falls over the campsite, only broken by low mutterings as everyone prepares new spells. After almost a minute of waiting, caution slowly turns to confusion.

“Did it run?” Ricardo asks, nervously stepping towards Ivor, the closest second-circle mage to him.

As if to answer his question, the ground below his foot erupts as a large grey shape violently rips through him. The burst of motion is so sudden they almost don’t react, but Emily predicts its movement and targets the ceiling in front of it, releasing another shocking bolt. The bolt catches the creature’s hand, scorching it black, but as it touches the ceiling, it quickly sinks in, dodging her group mates' follow-up attacks.

Emily clicks her tongue, lowering her arms and looking around the campsite. She sees dead bodies littering the ground, countless limbs haphazardly strewn about in pools of blood. Only eight of her teammates remain alive, either quivering in fear, collapsed on the ground, having accepted their fate, or shakily standing their ground, gritting their teeth through their exhaustion.

Pulling The Clock from its pouch, she presses the button as the ground below her erupts.

Tick!

A claw rises between her legs.

Tick!

She leans back, avoiding the gnarled spear.

Tick!

The monster rises to her eye level.

Tick!

She meets its grim smile with one of her own.

Tick!

Time stops.

Just you wait, I’ll tear you apart limb from limb by the time I’m done here.

Tick! Tick! Tick!

Space tears around her, and Emily passes out as her senses are overwhelmed.