"Vesryn, I need you to lock down the palace as soon as possible. None may enter or leave, use any means necessary to keep this place safe," Anwill said. His voice was calm, but the commanding tone he used held centuries worth of experience defending and protecting the royal family.
"It will be done, Commander," Vesryn replied, rendering a quick salute of a fist placed across his chest. "Aurae, I will have to stay by your side. We cannot let this… creature get anywhere near you or Elhael," Anwill said hushedly.
"You have never led me astray before, old friend. We will trust you with our lives as we have since the start," she said, a pained smile growing on her face.
Vesryn made his way swiftly to the palace walls, where those under his command stood ready to hear his orders. "I want all available archers to be stationed at regular intervals toward the palace. This foe does not escape any of us, and will not reach the palace unscathed!" he shouted, ensuring none of his words fell on deaf ears.
"Yes, sir!" his soldiers replied in unison. The swordsmen moved swiftly and with a precision the likes of which Coltend could never achieve. Within mere moments, every guard, archer, and available synner was in a strategic location, as the rest of the city locked itself down.
The general populace shut their doors more out of precaution than anything else. Even with just the one creature on the loose, there was no point in losing elven lives without a good reason.
"Where are you?" Vesryn whispered to himself, gazing out into the tall trees far from the wall for any signs of movement. Minutes went by, and still no sign of the creature was present. "Captain, do you think…?" Miranda, his direct subordinate, asked. "There's nothing to think about," he replied curtly, still gazing intently into the woods.
That was rude of me, he thought.
"Sorry," he said after a few moments. "I just don't want this bastard getting in here, and putting this city and its people at risk," he said with a heavy sigh. "No need to apologize. I was just going to ask if you think the creature might have gone another path," she said, her voice carrying little to no nervousness whatsoever.
"Eileen should be guarding the Northern gate, so I am absolutely certain that area is covered. Do you think it's trying to find an entrance to the palace that is less-guarded?" he asked, realizing the merit in her words. "If it's avoided our detection for this long, I'm assuming it has intelligence to some degree," she said, reverting her gaze from her captain back to the trees.
"You might be ri-..." he flinched, stopping mid-sentence as a splash of a warm, viscous liquid dripped from his face, and the squelching, thudding sound of a head hitting the floor reached his eardrums.
That's not my blood, is it? Vesryn asked himself, smelling the thick scent of iron near his nostrils.
He turned to look in the direction the blood came from, only to be met by a pair of stark, violet eyes angrily staring back at him. For a moment, its face almost looked like a black, predatory cat's with a chitinous plate in front of its mouth in place of his subordinate's, but he quickly realized that her head was missing from her body entirely.
"M-Miranda?" he asked, almost too stunned to speak as he stared into the pair of eyes. A quick swipe came for his head, which he just barely managed to dodge, relying on pure instinct and subconscious reactions alone.
"It's here!" he shouted, side-stepping another swing coming from above. An arrow soared through the air, aimed at the dark creature, seeking purchase between the plates of its thick carapace. Finding none, the arrow fluttered to the ground, prompting an annoyed, over-the-shoulder stare and a low-toned grrrr from the creature.
As it turned to face its attacker, Vesryn noticed the markings on its back, trailing up and down like a bioluminescent cluster of runes and other such arcane symbols that began to glow a deep violet.
What the fuck is this thing? He thought, watching the symbols begin to glow more intensely.
It dashed toward the archer, killing him in a single blow as his armor did little to protect him from the strike. By the time the others had caught onto what just happened, another three had their throats slit or heads decapitated, as bodies began to slump to the floor like puppets freed from their strings.
"Fuck!" one of the guardsmen shouted just as the creature appeared in front of him. It approached him slowly, almost like it was observing the elf's mannerisms and facial expressions before taking his life. A flash of movement and the sound of blood gurgling reaching Vesryn's ears once more force him into action.
He drew mana from the Ethereal and began to infuse it into his muscles, lungs, and bones as he dashed towards the creature. Drawing his curved sword from its sheath and slashing in one, fluid motion was one of his preferred techniques. The blade sliced through the air, then more air, and more air, until the realization struck him like a boulder off a mountainside.
It dodged my attack? Vesryn thought, realizing the creature was nowhere to be seen.
Quickly turning around out of instinct, he barely caught the thick, hardened claw on the edge of his blade. Blow after blow, he was pushed back into the ramparts of the palace wall. Arrows soared in their direction, hoping to distract or kill the creature.
Nothing seemed to work.
Suddenly, its body seemed to turn into a distorted mist, making it hard to follow without mana-infused eyesight. It made a dash towards the palace, almost ignoring everything and everyone around it. It dropped off the wall but with his mana-enhanced eyes, Vesryn saw it land with the deftness of a cat, making little to no sound as it did so.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, dropping down and chasing it through the emptied streets of Myrdin as arrows rained down from above. He tried to strike it a few times, but his sword's edge found no purchase, not even any sort of tactile response from the creature.
Shit, nothing's working, he thought momentarily.
As he chased it through the streets, he began to send mana up to the length of the blade itself. As the particles of mana began to seep into the blade, he commanded the mana to ignite, causing it to burst into a tightly controlled mana-flame. He swung at the creature, which forced its hand to deflect the scorching blade.
For the first time since its arrival, it growled in pain.
It hurt him. Physical attacks don't do much, but when infused with mana, they can actually hurt this thing, he concluded.
"Infuse your arrows! Bring this fucker down, before it reaches the palace!" he shouted. The bow-casters in the canopy descended rapidly, jumping from branch to branch, and rooftop to rooftop. A multitude of glowing eyes of varying colors began to chase the creature down the street, as Vesryn continued to attack as often as he could while keeping pace.
Arrow after arrow the creature dodged, deflecting some and returning others to their senders, leaving a trail of corpses and broken arrows in its wake. "Do not let it reach the palace! We're the last line of defense, so make it count!" he shouted.
The guards near the main entrance to the palace heard him, and saw the commotion near the bottom of the stairs. " Use mana to bring it down!" Vesryn shouted out once more, sending the guardsmen flying into action. They wielded a mixture of polearms and curved swords as they approached the incoming enemy. They all began to draw mana from the Ethereal and infused their respective weapons. Without any visible hesitation, each one made their first attack on the creature in rapid, well-trained succession.
The creature reeled in pain, unable to dodge all the precise attacks at once, as its violet blood began to spue all over the stairs. Vesryn saw an opportunity to strike and thrust his sword forward, stabbing into one of the runes that lined its back.
The sudden shift in its demeanor was palpable, as the smoky visage it once held immediately solidified.
The runes give it certain powers? What kind of magic is this? Vesryn thought momentarily.
He aimed for another that marked its shoulder, hoping to disable whatever other hidden power it had, but the creature decided otherwise. Twisting its body just out of the way of his blade, it caught the flat of the blade with the back of its elbow and raised it well above its head. He was taken aback by the sudden move, since the creature even went so far as to sacrifice another two wounds to its legs as a result.
Shit it's gonna… his thoughts trailed.
The creature swung its free arm up into the undercut of his helmet, its elongated claws piercing through the base of his jaw, digging deeply into his skull. "Vesryn!" one of the guardsmen said, launching an attack on the creature. It prepared its defense a little too well, as it begun to use the captain's body as a meat shield for the slices originally meant for it.
"You bastard! How dare you use his corpse like that?" the guardsman asked. A low, malignant snicker resounded from the creature.
"Because I can," a rumbling voice replied just as it was ripping Vesryn's head off of his torso, pulling out parts of spine and entrails, spilling them everywhere.