The red tent was completely silent.
The heavy thud of the bandit boss hitting the floor was the last loud noise. Now, there was only the sound of hot blood. It poured from Karg's ruined neck. It soaked rapidly into the expensive silk rugs. A dark, wet pool spread across the floor.
Luna knelt in the middle of the pool.
She could not move. She was entirely frozen. The hot blood had sprayed directly onto her face. It dripped from her eyelashes. It ran down her pale cheeks. It stained the front of her torn blue dress a deep, ugly crimson.
She stared at the massive, dead body in front of her. A second ago, the monster was going to touch her. He was going to ruin her life. Now, he was just a pile of dead meat.
She slowly raised her eyes. She looked at the dark figure standing over the corpse.
Nyx stood perfectly still. The cracked obsidian visor reflected the yellow light of the glowing stones. Her black cloak absorbed the shadows of the room. She did not look human. She looked like a demon summoned from the dark wasteland.
Luna trembled violently. Her tied hands ached behind her back. She was terrified of the bandit boss, but this dark woman was much worse. The woman killed a Middle Core Formation expert in a single heartbeat.
Nyx slowly turned her head. She looked down at the small, shaking girl covered in blood.
Nyx did not feel pity. Pity was a useless emotion. It did not keep you alive in the wild. But she found the situation slightly amusing. The girl looked like a terrified, trapped rabbit.
Nyx tilted her head to the side. She decided to speak out loud. She did not use her telepathy.
"Well," Nyx said. Her real voice was smooth, but it held a dark, teasing edge. "The boss is dead. I killed him. According to the rules of the wild, that means his loot belongs to me."
Luna gasped quietly. She pressed her knees tightly together.
"That means you are mine now," Nyx said. She let a dry, dark humor bleed into her tone.
Luna squeezed her eyes shut. Fresh tears mixed with the hot blood on her face. She sobbed quietly. She thought she was just traded from one monster to another. She thought she was going to die in this terrible camp.
Nyx watched the girl cry. The teasing was over. It was a cruel test, but it proved the girl was completely broken. She was not a hidden threat. She was just a civilian.
Nyx knelt down next to the massive, headless corpse. She held her small, curved dagger in her right hand. The blade was completely coated in thick, dark blood.
She pressed the flat edge of the blade against the dead man's heavy leather tunic. She wiped the dagger clean. She drew it back and forth until the dark metal shined in the yellow light again. She was calm and deliberate.
She stood up. She looked at Luna's tied hands.
Nyx moved.
Luna did not see her take a step. The dark woman simply vanished from the spot near the corpse. A sudden rush of cold wind hit Luna's face.
Nyx appeared directly behind the kneeling girl.
The curved dagger flashed in the dim light. Nyx swung the blade with perfect precision. She did not cut Luna's pale skin. The invisible wire edge sliced straight through the thick, rough ropes binding Luna's wrists.
The tension snapped. The heavy ropes fell to the silk rug with a soft thud.
Luna fell forward. She caught herself on her hands. Her arms were completely numb. They felt like heavy blocks of wood. Thousands of tiny needles pricked her skin as the blood rapidly flowed back into her cold fingers.
She gasped in pain. She rubbed her raw, bleeding wrists.
Nyx stepped around to the front of the girl. She looked down. All the dark humor was completely gone from her posture. The teasing tone was erased. She was a professional shadow-guard again. She had a mission. She needed to break the camp.
"Listen to me," Nyx said. Her voice was cold, flat, and completely serious.
Luna looked up. Her blue eyes were wide and filled with tears.
"Do you want to live, little girl?" Nyx asked. It was not a comforting question. It was a brutal demand for a choice.
Luna stared at the cracked black visor. She looked at the dead man on the floor. She remembered her parents dying in the dirt. She did not want to die here. She wanted to survive.
Luna gave a small, jerky nod. She sniffled loudly.
"Yes," Luna whispered. Her voice was weak and cracked.
"Then follow me," Nyx ordered. "Do not stop walking. Do not scream. If you fall behind, I will not wait for you."
Nyx did not offer her a hand. She did not wait for Luna to stand up. The shadow-guard turned her back on the crying girl.
Nyx walked over to the massive corpse of the bandit boss. She needed the final piece of her plan. She needed to send a clear message to the eight hundred killers outside the tent. She needed to start a panic.
She reached down with her left hand. She grabbed the dead man's head. He was mostly bald, but he had a thick patch of coarse, greasy black hair near the base of his skull. Nyx twisted her fingers deep into the hair. She got a firm grip.
She placed her heavy black boot firmly on the dead man's broad shoulder.
She pulled upward with her left hand. She stretched the deep, bloody cut in his thick neck. She exposed the white bone of his severed spine.
Nyx raised the curved dagger in her right hand. She brought it down in a hard, violent chop.
The blade hit the thick bone. It crunched loudly in the quiet tent. She pulled the dagger across the remaining muscle and tendons. She sliced through the tough meat with brutal efficiency.
The head came completely free.
It was massive and incredibly heavy. Hot blood poured from the ragged stump of the neck. It dripped down Nyx's black glove and splashed onto the silk rug. The dead face was frozen in a mask of pure terror. The eyes bulged blindly. The metal jaw hung open slackly.
Nyx held the bleeding head high in the air by its hair. It was a grisly, terrible trophy.
She did not look back at Luna. She turned toward the heavy red leather flap of the tent entrance.
She walked forward. Her boots left bloody footprints on the expensive rugs. She reached the entrance. She pushed the thick leather flap open with her shoulder.
The loud, chaotic noise of the bandit camp instantly rushed back into the tent. The sound of hundreds of men drinking, fighting, and laughing filled the air.
Nyx stepped out of the warm tent and into the cool night air. She walked straight into the bright orange light of the massive bonfires. She carried the dripping head of their invincible boss out into the open.
Inside the tent, Luna sat in the pool of blood. She watched the dark shadow leave.
She looked at the massive, headless body leaking onto the floor. The smell of death was overpowering. Her heart hammered violently against her ribs. She was terrified. Her legs shook uncontrollably.
But she remembered the cold voice. Want to live? Follow me. Luna wiped the blood out of her eyes with her bruised hands. She forced her weak, trembling legs to push her up. She stood on her bare feet.
She did not look back at the dead monster. She ran toward the open flap of the red tent. She chased after the dark shadow of the killer who saved her. She chose to live.