The largest Nightmare Creature was still perched on the far railing with its wings spread behind it and black blood welling from the corners of its lower eyes.
The others circled between the green braziers, calling to one another in short, ugly cries.
Eirwen swung [Hydra's Choice], letting most of the blood fly off in a black arc.
Behind him, Joel had restored the formation beneath the entrance. Mara stood at the shield's left edge, Tomas and Nia behind them, and two dead harpies lay closeby. They had done what he told them and survived, that was enough to make the nervous kids obedient for now.
The four-eyed creature leaned forward. Its human eyes found Eirwen's, and the cries above him faded until the amphitheatre held nothing but the slow beat of wings.
Then the larger harpy opened its mouth.
The sound immediately appeared beside Eirwen's ear as a broken breath, intimate enough to make him turn before he remembered there was nobody next to him.
Suddenly there was Andromeda, standing several paces to his right. Her dark hair hid half her face, one arm hung at a ridiculous angle, and blood ran from her mouth to the front of her white shirt.
She looked small against the amphitheatre, frightened even. When she raised her good hand toward him, her fingers trembled in horror.
But Eirwen knew she was not there. Andromeda had entered another conduit beneath the chapel and the labyrinth had very obviously separated them.
Nothing about the image could be real, and yet, none of that knowledge gave him control over the foot that moved toward her without his will.
The arena behind the illusion dimmed.
The weight of [Hydra's Choice] disappeared from his hands, then the feeling in his hands followed it. Andromeda's lips barely moved, yet every word arrived inside his head, and still he could not discern what she was saying.
He slowly took another step. Some distant part of him ordered his arms to raise the sword, but the command never reached them.
Knowing it was an illusion made the helplessness worse. Eirwen himself could identify every lie with his mind, while his body accepted all of them. The four-eyed harpy no longer occupied the railing and in its place stood an open doorway filled with pale light instead, and Andromeda waited before it with blood on her lips, asking him something strange, in a language he did not know.
Before he could take the next step though, something vast shifted inside Eirwen's Soul.
Leviathan's presence struck the intrusion with no restraint.
Black pressure flooded every space the harpy's voice had entered.
It filled Eirwen's skull, descended through both Cores and continued outward until the very air around his body became too heavy to inhale.
Sand flattened beneath his boots, the green flames bent away from him and all four Sleepers staggered slightly, as if the arena had dropped into the depths of an ocean.
You corpse feeding little shit. Leviathan said, and his ancient voice arrived from every direction at once. Each word was dense, grinding against the influence lodged inside Eirwen. You crawled into my waters and mistook my silence for permission to wreak chaos. Get out of him before I reach through this filthy song and crush what passes for your Soul.
The false Andromeda split down the centre and the pale light went black, her voice stretched into a thin scream, and the harpy's influence was ripped from Eirwen's mind so violently that blood ran from his nose.
Leviathan followed it to the edge of the connection, as if chasing it off in fury. For one instant, Eirwen felt the creature on the railing through him: its small, furious mind; the brood circling at its command; the sudden comprehension of what had answered from inside its prey.
Then Leviathan's aura crashed down the link and the larger harpy recoiled as if struck. Blood burst from all four eyes, its talons broke chips from the railing, and the skin around its mouth tore wider while it screamed in agony and anger.
The four ordinary harpies faltered in the air until the larger creature screamed again. All four turned toward him together, mouths opened so wide it nearly fully covered their faces, while the four-eyed leader remained on the railing and beat its wings in place.
Eirwen wiped the blood from beneath his nose with the back of one gauntlet.
He could not stop in the middle of the arena and Devour either of the corpses he had earned. The four above would tear him open in an instant and he would left with no Essence.
He had already spent it on the bronze constructs, his earlier healing and one brief spark of his Aspect when he used Raijin's lightning.
Fighting four attackers at the same time would force his Flaw to spend the rest faster than he could recover it. So when the harpies folded their wings and began descending from four different directions, Eirwen did the most sensible thing.
He ran!
He sprinted away from his team and cut diagonally across the open sand, forcing the creatures to turn after him instead of falling onto the group.
An impressive beginning to your rule. Leviathan observed, anger still roughening the chore of voices he used to speak. They are all watching you flee.
Eirwen ignored him and his stupid remarks.
The harpies had entered their dives at different heights, and every change in Eirwen's direction widened the distance between them. One struck the place he had been with both feet and blasted sand high toward the sky while another pulled up to avoid colliding with it.
The third and fourth stayed in the air, but their neat attack from four sides had become a line of creatures chasing the same moving target.
Eirwen reached the nearest bar of green light, planted his right boot and dragged it through the sand until his body turned.
The closest harpy was directly behind him now, flying low enough that the tips of its talons cut twin lines through the arena floor.
It was less than two metres away.
Now one.
A small golden light sharpened in Eirwen's eyes and electricity flashed around his body for a single moment, tightening every muscle and making the world slow just enough for him to perfectly time and aim his attack.
He moved [Hydra's Choice] through a continuous double cut.
The first stroke rose from his right hip across the harpy's left shoulder and severed one wing.
Eirwen turned his wrists as the blade passed in front of his face, carried the point over his left shoulder and reversed it into a descending cut across the opposite wing.
The silver edge traced the two loops of a sideways eight and both wings left the body before the creature passed him.
They struck the sand on either side while the wingless torso continued forward, hit beside Eirwen and created a deep furrow through the arena floor.
The electricity vanished, lasting for only a second.
Eirwen stepped toward the crippled harpy to finish it, but the second pursuer gave him no time. He started to turn, but the creature landed on him with its full weight.
Its chest struck his back and drove him down onto one knee. [Weight of the Deep] caught the blunt collision, packing it beside the force of his earlier fall, but the armour could do nothing about the talons that closed around his waist.
Four points entered through the plates beneath his lowest ribs while another three punched through the gaps above his hips.
The harpy beat its wings and pulled both feet in opposite directions, opening his sides from the inside. Flesh tore away from his abdomen. One claw scraped across the rim of his pelvis, and hot blood flooded between his armours plates before spilling onto the sand.
Eirwen's Flaw immediately started to work before the creature could tear him apart.
Muscle drew together around the buried talons, the torn vessels sealed back, reopened when the claws moved and sealed again directly behind them, consuming Essence with every breath he took.
The harpy folded its wings around him to keep its purchase.
Something sharp protruding from one of its wings raked down Eirwen's face, splitting his brow, passing through his left eye and opening his cheek to the teeth.
His vision vanished on that side, but the eye began rebuilding while the spur was still leaving the socket, pale tissue rounding behind it and flooding gold as sight returned. By the time blood reached his jaw, the cut through his cheek had already pulled shut too.
But the incredible pain was still there, even if the wounds on his face weren't. Eirwen caught the creature below its throat with his left hand and pushed its snapping mouth away.
[Hydra's Choice] was trapped along his right side, too close to his body for a full cut, and the talons inside his waist made twisting dangerous even for someone who was practically immortal.
He forced the point upward, trying to bring it beneath the harpy's chest, but the creature felt the blade and wrenched him backward, tearing his abdomen open a second time faster than the first repair could finish.
Essence poured into the new damage as soon as it appeared and with that the cold hollowness inside both Cores deepened.
Thankfully, Joel reached him before he could run dry. He came from Eirwen's left with the shield supported against his shoulder and drove its full face into the harpy's side.
Metal met bone with a flat, crushing boom. The impact tore the creature sideways and its talons ripped free from Eirwen's waist one after another, taking strips of flesh with them, but each channel cut shut as soon as the claw left it.
Joel continued through the collision until the harpy struck the sand on its opposite side. Nia's shadow arrived beneath it, wrapped around one leg and pulled it flat before it could launch into the air again.
Eirwen rose with his body already whole. He turned [Hydra's Choice] in his right hand, placed his left palm on the pommel and drove the point down into the harpy's head.
The silver blade broke through the roof of the mouth, entered the skull and struck the sand below. Its wings beat once, hard enough to lift its shoulders from the ground, but Nia held the leg and Eirwen kept his weight over the hilt. He pulled the blade out and stabbed again, the one more time, his face full of anger from what he just had to endure.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Mourning Harpy]
[You have consumed a Soul!]
[Devour the Flesh for more]
To Eirwen's right, the wingless harpy was still trying to crawl.
Its legs dug into the sand while blood pumped from both shoulders, moving the body forward in short, violent jerks.
Mara got close, planted one boot between the ruined wing joints and used both hands to bring her heavy sword down across the back of its neck.
The first blow only shattered the spine, but the second cut separated the head and left it half buried in the furrow the creature had made.
Mara pulled her sword free, looked once at the wounds that had already vanished beneath Eirwen's blood-soaked armour. She wanted to ask a shit ton of questions probably, but there were still enemies that they had to deal with.