6 months ago24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFFPct3Xycy
Night had descended, awakening a multitude of strange and hidden things.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUyKjCSsCG7
The air was thick with the scent of sulfur and burning. Cracks littered the ground like veins of a dying world, pulsing faintly with a reddish hue. Trees in the distance stood like blackened bones, stripped of leaves, whispering with the wind like ghosts. The silence before the storm was always the worst. And the hunters knew it.
Caius crouched on a high ledge, eyes narrowing as he scanned the valley below. His bow was already strung, fingers wrapped around an arrow tipped with silver. He didn't move. Didn’t blink. He was waiting. Calculating. Every breath controlled. Every thought sharpened like a blade.
"Incoming," he muttered.
Mikael heard him. From the ground, he raised his sword and gave a sharp signal to the rest. His voice rang out clear and firm: "Positions."
And then they came.
At first, it was only shadows.
Long, serpentine figures moving in unnatural patterns, seeping through the trees like spilled ink. Dozens. No—hundreds. Crawling, sprinting, climbing over one another, clawing at the ground in a mad dash toward the hunters. They shrieked as one, a deafening chorus of hunger and fury.
Caius loosed his first arrow. A sharp, clean whistle, followed by a gurgled hiss. One down.
But they just kept coming.
"Dante, left flank! Caius, hold high ground!" Mikael barked, already cutting down two of the creatures with a single sweeping strike. His blade, etched with old runes, gleamed in the low light.
Dante didn’t answer. He was already moving, twin daggers in hand, slicing into the nearest cluster of shadow demons. His movements were fast, deadly, but slightly unrefined. Raw talent mixed with something more dangerous beneath the surface.
One demon lunged at him. He spun, plunged both blades into its chest, and kicked it off before turning to meet the next. But there were too many. Claws grazed his back. Another set nearly caught his leg.
His heart was pounding. Not from fear.
From the heat.
He felt it again. That rush.
Like liquid fire under his skin.
The flicker of something ancient, inherited and damned. It crawled up his spine, whispered in his ears. Release me.
Dante clenched his jaw and shoved the voice down. Hard. His blades moved faster now, reacting to the pressure. He wasn’t thinking. He was reacting. Instinct taking over. Or something like it.
Caius let another arrow fly—straight through the eye of a shadow demon that had leapt toward Dante.
"Focus," Caius said, calm even now. "You’re slipping."
Dante growled low, saying nothing. His eyes burned.
Mikael moved with brutal efficiency, cleaving limbs, barking orders, keeping the battle just barely contained. His gaze flicked between his teammates and the swarming horde.
Then the earth cracked.
Something was coming.
They all felt it.
The tremble beneath their boots. The stillness in the air. The shift in the shrieks of the demons, as if they too recognized what approached.
From the shadows, it emerged.
The Alpha.
Twice the size of the others. A monstrous form with jagged bone protrusions along its spine and shoulders. Its eyes were a molten yellow, its body lean with coiled power. It didn’t run.
It stalked.
The lesser demons parted before it like an obedient tide.
"Caius, focus fire! Dante, don’t engage alone," Mikael ordered, stepping forward.
But it was too late.
The Alpha moved impossibly fast.
Dante barely had time to cross his blades before it was on him. He was thrown backward, crashing into a broken pillar. Pain flared in his ribs.
The Alpha didn't wait. It lunged again.
This time, Dante rolled beneath the strike and slashed across its flank. His blades cut deep—but not deep enough.
The demon roared and swiped, catching Dante across the chest. He flew back again, breathless, bloody.
Heat. Rising. Fast.
He felt it break through.
Flames raced along the veins of his arms. His skin pulsed with a faint, unnatural glow. The air around him shimmered with heatwaves.
No. Not now.
He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the fire back down. His hands trembled. His jaw clenched. The power retreated—barely.
He looked up.
The Alpha was charging.
But Mikael intercepted it with a devastating strike, his sword blazing with rune-light. "Caius! Now!"
Three arrows flew in rapid succession—two embedding in the demon’s shoulder and thigh. The third struck its eye.
It screamed.
The ground shook.
The horde faltered. Some froze. Others hissed and twisted.
Then—a sound.
A howl.
Low, guttural, and ancient. A signal. A retreat.
The shadows broke apart like ink in water, scattering, slipping back into the crevices of the broken world.
Silence returned.
Dante was on one knee, breathing hard. His clothes torn. His chest still bleeding. The glow beneath his skin faded slowly.
He didn’t look up.
"Everyone still breathing?" Mikael asked.
"More or less," Caius answered.
No one mentioned Dante.
Not yet.
But Caius noticed how he didn’t meet their gaze. How his shoulders stayed tense. How smoke seemed to come from one of his hands. But even then didn't he say anything to Dante.
Back at the outpost, after the patching up, the banter didn’t return.
The air still felt heavy.
Dante stood in the corner, back turned to the others, pretending to clean his daggers. His hands had stopped shaking. His eyes had returned to normal.
He felt them watching. Wondering. But they said nothing.
And that was worse.
He told himself it was over.
He told himself they hadn’t seen.
He told himself he was still in control.
But deep down, beneath the flickering flame...
He wasn’t sure anymore.
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