Nyx's heart was beating faster and louder the closer the footsteps came. The anticipation of what might happen any moment made his blood boil. Nyx didn't know he was looking forward to such a kind of development this much.
He had to thank their pursuers if he got the chance.
Thanks to them, his mood had improved a bit. Ever since the accident with Edric, his spirit had been rather low. It gnawed at him like fire biting into his flesh, hollowing him out from within.
Soon, a dozen knights had surrounded their so-called resting place.
Of course, Nyx, Caelia, and Avelyne were long gone from the camp. They watched the event unfold from atop one of the trees at a safe distance. If there was anything that bugged him in this situation, it was literally this safety spot.
The knights were clad in dark leather armor, clearly designed to allow more mobility than protection.
About half of the guards that had left the estate with them were still inside the camp, acting as if nothing was wrong, as if they hadn't noticed their pursuers hours ago already.
It didn't take long for the attackers to act and strike the camp. But to their surprise, the guards weren't taken off guard—and even more shocking for them was that more guards followed from behind. They were surrounded from all sides, with no way to escape.
It didn't matter in which direction they tried to push—enemies were always biting into their backs, making it impossible to launch a concentrated attack to break out of the formation. They had been trapped, lured inside their camp.
And now the trap closed.
The fight became more brutal, more desperate the moment they realized there was no way out. Limbs scattered across the ground, blood painted the soil red, screams tore through the air. They acted like barbarians, not caring about anything as long as it allowed them to live another second.
It didn't take long for the fight to end. Only a few of their pursuers remained alive—more or less. They were not in the best shape, to say the least. One had lost both his arms, another was left without his eyes, and yet another seemed to have been castrated. Nyx couldn't help but shiver at the sight.
Whoever had done that was a crazy, sadistic lunatic. Without a doubt.
Nyx would have loved to know which of the guards was responsible so that he could send them as far away as possible. But his guess was that it had to be one of the female guards—there was no way a man would have been able to do something this cruel to another. Nyx knew this as a man himself.
With the exception of this one guy, which was more like pity among men, Nyx felt nothing at the sight of so many mutilated bodies. It made him wonder if his family had been right all along. His behavior might really have been disgusting to the majority of people.
Caelia jumped off the tree, Nyx and Avelyne followed. They walked toward the remaining survivors, ready to torture and disfigure them even more if they didn't provide satisfying answers or refused to speak.
Of course, no one would be left alive at the end of the day. They probably knew that much themselves—but wasn't it better to die without too much pain instead of dying in agony?
It seemed like the pursuers thought otherwise. Their loyalty to whoever had sent them here was unwavering. No matter what the guards did, no matter how gruesome the torture became, they refused to answer.
Hours later, only one remained alive. Within those hours, Nyx had seen someone die from pain for the first time, and it frightened him to the bone.
'What a dumbass,'
he thought. He would much rather talk than die such a death.
The chance that the last survivor would speak before his end seemed so small it was almost nonexistent. Caelia clearly wasn't having it—she chopped his head off without another word before walking back to their carriage.
For the next hour, the knights were busy cleaning everything up and burning the bodies of the fallen, friend or foe alike. They had to, if they didn't want the monsters in the forest to feast on them.
They had to move fast and leave the forest behind. The noise and smell of blood were too thick and spread too far. Soon, the Defiled would roam the place in search of fresh blood.
The carriages started moving again, faster this time. Even the guards who had been completely calm during the attack seemed nervous.
'Just how dangerous are those monsters?'
Nyx couldn't help but wonder.
Leaving the forest behind, the guards seemed to ease again. The tension was still there, but it lessened the further they distanced themselves from the woods.
It was either great luck that they hadn't encountered any abominations, or they had some kind of artifact to hide their presence. That would also explain how the pursuers hadn't managed to sense them, even when they had lain in ambush only a few feet away.
However, the danger was far from over, and the artifact—or whatever it was that managed to hide their presence—would not protect them from the senses of every monster.
If they were powerful enough, Nyx was sure they could easily pierce through the veil that concealed them.
And somehow, Nyx couldn't shake off the feeling that this had already happened. Or was happening at this very moment. Something had either already glanced beyond the veil, or it was being thinned out, little by little.
It was like an instinct, as if the night itself were whispering in his ear that something wasn't right.
He could feel it.
The shadows grew restless, as if urging him to embrace them and run away as fast as possible.
His perception expanded, feeling the shadows—not relying on his eyes, only sensing. His Veilborn traits must have made it possible, or so he thought. Because what he experienced next was beyond anything a normal human should ever perceive.
He felt the shadows, their movements, their anxiety. And soon he understood why. At the very edge of his perception he felt it: a monstrous, deep shadow, moving, following—and then it vanished, as if it had never existed.
Nyx tried again, this time focusing harder. The moment his senses left the carriage, his eyes widened in shock, the shadows stirred, he tried to scream—