Drip. Drip. Blood trickled down.
Thorner's body trembled unsteadily, a choke caught in his throat.
"Wha—"
The hand moved and twisted cruelly, its long, bladed fingers winding with deliberate motion. They were neither too long nor too short, but shaped with an unnatural precision that made them all the more disturbing.
Hazel took a step back, fear settling fully into her frame. Her lips parted, but her words faltered, catching over themselves.
"W-what… what is that?" Her voice shook heavily, unsteady and strained.
Arrow remained halted, frozen in his crouched position after struggling to lift himself from the ground. His gaze fixed forward, tension holding him in place.
Thorner's body jerked violently as the hand began to pull slowly from his chest, the sound that followed grotesque against the heavy silence that surrounded them.
Jurgen staggered before dropping to his knees, and in the same moment, Thorner's body gave way. It slumped over him, draping across his shoulder as warm, heavy blood poured from the wide cavity in his chest, soaking into Jurgen's form.
It was instinct that made Jurgen catch him as he fell, but in doing so, his hand brushed against the exposed cavity. His eyes widened, terror settling deep as he felt it. He had never come into contact with something so raw, so cruelly laid bare. It felt wrong, too open, too real for him to fully comprehend.
Another loud, piercing shrill tore from it, splitting through the air, and at last their legs gave way.
They collapsed to their knees, Nguyen and Hazel alike — hands clawing into the earth as though to anchor themselves, unable to bear the sight any longer. Bubbles had already fallen unconscious, his mind having given out at the evil before him.
Jurgen's entire form trembled, a deep, uncontrollable shudder running through him as he slowly lifted his head.
His face twisted in raw, unfiltered terror. The moment their eyes met, it pressed against him — heavy, suffocating. His breathing faltered, his pupils trembling as though they could no longer hold steady.
The creature revealed itself.
A devilish figure loomed into view. Its arms hung long and unnatural, stretching down toward its knees, and its height alone carried an unsettling presence. There was nothing flesh-like about it — no skin, no texture that belonged to the living. It was not simply dark in color. It was something else entirely.
A void.
Its fingers ended in long, sharpened edges — the only part of its form that did not entirely repel the light of the full moon, allowing a faint glimmer to rest upon them.
Where eyes should have been, there lay an X-shaped mark, crude, yet deliberate.
Nothing human remained.
Only two stark white horns curved downward from its head, resting like a crown of silent judgment.
Thin white lines traced across its form, faint against the consuming abyss of its body. They ran from the marked eyes, slipping down along its neck before converging at its chest.
There, a shape formed, something like an eye, but set vertically.
It held nothing within it.
Only emptiness.
And yet, it pulsed faintly, as though breathing… as though something beyond that hollow mark was watching. it pulsed faintly, as though something beyond it stirred, as though something unseen regarded them through that hollow mark. It resembled a gateway — an opening into something beyond measure.
The creature jerked its head sharply from side to side, scanning left then right, until its gaze finally locked onto Jurgen below.
It had found him.
Slowly, it raised its blade-like fingers into the air, suspended for a moment as though savoring the inevitability of the strike. The intent was unmistakable: to tear through him, and Thorner's draped body in one merciless descent.
Jurgen remained kneeling, utterly still.
Frozen.
His teeth clenched so tightly they ached as he forced his eyes upward, locking onto the blurred outline of the arm hanging above him. Even through the haze of his failing vision, one truth cut through with brutal clarity — his death was no longer a possibility. It was certainty.
Is this how I die? After everything… this is where it ends? Damn it all…
Tears broke free without restraint, spilling down his swollen eyes. His lips trembled, unsteady and weak against the weight pressing down on his final moments.
Hana…
That name lingered in his mind like a fading echo.
In the end, she was all he could see — her gentle face, her quiet, graceful smile. The thought struck harder than fear itself: he would die without seeing her once more… without ever having truly made things right.
A life… extinguished before it had ever truly begun.
His eyes trembled with desperate appeal, his lips quivering as they contorted under the weight of raw, helpless anguish.
I don't want to die! he admitted inwardly, the thought tearing through him with quiet devastation.
In that instant, a presence descended from above, coalescing into a solitary silhouette framed against the brilliance of the moon.
The creature struck without hesitation, its movement a blur of blinding velocity, rendering evasion impossible. What followed was a thunderous detonation that scattered dust and shattered debris in all directions. Yet something was wrong —there had been no impact of flesh, no resonance of bone.
A heavy silence lingered thereafter, until the drifting dust began to settle, unveiling a vast crater where Jurgen and Thorner's body had been mere moments before. They were no longer there.
A piercing screech tore through the air as the creature snapped its head forward in violent recognition.
There, Leonidas stood within the aftermath, composed and almost refined in his white robe. Jurgen knelt beside him, while Thorner's body lay at his other side, pooling further into its own spreading blood. They had been retrieved from the brink.
Leonidas remained unblemished, not even the faintest abrasion disturbing his attire.
Jurgen lowered his gaze as tears broke free without restraint. His hands clawed into the soil with frantic desperation, fingers scraping the earth until the skin began to peel subtly under the force of his grief. He trembled as sorrow consumed him, silent curses buried beneath his breathless despair.
"What a wretched thing you are…"
Leonidas' voice cut through the cold air, laced with irritation, its composure strained by restrained contempt.
"I never expected you'd appear here… of all places."
This was what he had been investigating throughout the entire day, and to find such an entity here — so casually present in the least likely of locations only deepened his frustration and suspicion.
He exhaled faintly, masking his irritation as he extended his hand above Thorner.
"Grace upon you. Grace of Healing…"
Golden light unfurled across Thorner's body in a gentle radiance, weaving through torn flesh in an attempt at restoration. Yet it was not enough. It could only halt the bleeding; the damage had already sunk too deep into the fabric of his life. Even had he arrived sooner, the outcome would likely have remained unchanged, the severity of the injuries left little room for salvation.
The creature before them began to pulsate violently, drawing Leonidas' attention once more. Its body convulsed in erratic spasms, its neck twitching as though something within it struggled to stabilize. From its Void, more of that dark purple substance began to seep.
The mark upon its chest slowly widened, revealing a gaping aperture of abyssal darkness. Within it, a colossal accumulation of dark purple energy began to coalesce.
The air itself seemed to recoil, pulled inexorably toward the forming vortex, twisting and groaning under the strain of its unnatural pull.
Thick, viscous tendrils of the same shadowed substance dripped from the edges of the cavity, slithering down its torso as the oppressive energy spiraled tighter, gathering into a mass that radiated suffocating pressure.