In the next moment, Nyx's world spun. The carriage he had sat in had been destroyed, and Nyx had been thrown away. His body hit a lonely tree beside the road. His head felt heavy, his body ached, blood flowed down his torso. A deep cut was visible on his chest, and his side had been pierced by one of the tree's lower branches. It became harder and harder to keep his eyes open.
Thundering noise filled the silence of the night. Nyx turned his head in the direction of the sound—soldiers were running erratically, some shouting orders that fell on deaf ears, trying to evade the carriages that were being tossed around like broken toys.
Others were already dead or unable to move—unlucky enough to have been hit with the first strike of whatever Nyx had sensed in the darkness. All five of their carriages had already been destroyed, most of the people who had been within them were dead.
'Fuck, what is that?'
This thing had basically been summoned by Nyx and his dumb thoughts back in the carriage. He had jinxed it—tempting fate by thinking the journey would be too easy with all those guards around. It probably had a mocking grin on its face while sending him this curse.
Squinting his eyes, trying to stabilize his vision to see what had attacked them, Nyx felt sweat building up on his forehead. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make out their attacker, but he felt its shadow as clear as day. Felt it, yes, but couldn't make out the figure of the beast. Its shadow was distorted and wrong. When he tried to sense deeper, it felt like something was staring back at him. His whole body shuddered at the feeling.
"Caelia?"
It was only now that Nyx noticed the body a few feet away from him.
Confused by the sudden attack and pain, he had completely forgotten that he had not been alone in that carriage.
A deep wound gnawed at her back, and one of her arms was missing. From the look of it, Caelia had tried to shield him, taking most of the attack—no doubt this was the only reason he was still alive. It was impossible to make out her face, as it faced the dirt, and Nyx couldn't really move his body right now. But he had no doubt that it was her; her white hair with black streaks was just too easy to recognize.
'But where is Avelyne?'
As if to answer his thoughts, a branch snapped to his left. Nyx turned his head in the direction of the sound. His eyes widened—a bit further away on his left side lay Avelyne. From the looks of it, she was only unconscious, no visible wounds. What made his stomach churn was the creature silently approaching her.
The beast's body stretched unnaturally long. Its four limbs were packed with razor-sharp claws. Spines jutted from its back, twitching as if alive, and a thick tail swayed behind it.
Its head was nothing but a gaping maw crowded with sharp teeth, dripping with black ichor that hissed when it touched the soil.
'Well, fuck,'
Nyx thought, stupefied.
This was not the monster that had attacked them—it was still killing knights on the road, wreaking chaos. Nyx could feel it through the shadows; he didn't need to look. But this one—it hadn't been there a few moments ago, so how…
As much as Nyx would like to know, he was in no position to think much about it. He had to act. Without Caelia and Avelyne, his chances of survival would hit rock bottom.
His legs trembled, grunts escaped his throat as he tried to move away from the tree. The branch that had impaled him refused to let him go. Clenching his teeth, Nyx pushed through, breaking free from the tree, the wooden shard still in his side.
Looking for anything that might help him, Nyx found one of the ropes that were used to harness the horses to the carriages.
'Better than nothing, I guess.'
He moved towards the creature as fast as he could. The creature spotted him pretty quickly, slashing its claws in his direction. But Nyx had already anticipated it. Without wasting a second, he let himself fall to the ground, rolling beneath the creature's claws and body, reappearing behind it.
His quick-witted mind had saved his life from those sharp claws, but he hadn't anticipated that the monster would use its tail to attack him as soon as he left its line of sight.
The tail hit him like a whip, the force was enough to send him flying. His body hit the ground, more and more blood flowing out of his side. The impact had pushed the branch further through his body.
'Fucking hell, that hurt.'
Feeling the vibrations in the ground, Nyx pushed himself up, rolling to the side, escaping the beast's claws by a hair.
To Nyx's luck, this monster didn't seem to be very strong. Beasts were stronger than humans in general, which was why the creature had such an advantage over Nyx. But if it had been of any rank above his, he would have died long ago.
So he concluded that it had to be a dormant feral at best, which was the lowest-ranked monster out there. But if this monster was so weak, how had it escaped his senses when even that terrifying abomination hadn't?
A monster that was killing knights as if they were bugs—knights that, from Nyx's estimation, were at least high-rank Awakened.
'Just how did I miss you?'
While Nyx was thinking about it, he sidestepped another slash of the creature's claws. He had been luring the creature further away from Avelyne and Caelia this whole time—making sure that it wouldn't change its target out of nowhere.