The gray morning of the Forgotten Shore brought a chill that seemed to seep directly into the bone. In the quiet sanctuary of their hideout, Alista Tudor stood before his assembled cohort. Artemis, Fors Wall, Klaus, and Gwen stood ready, their armor fastened and weapons checked, eyes fixed on their leader.
Alista unrolled a weathered parchment across the stone table, his finger tracing a path toward a cluster of jagged ruins near the city's edge.
"Today," Alista began, his voice dropping into a low, commanding register, "we are going to hunt the Blood Fiend."
He tapped a specific point on the map where the ruins grew dense and claustrophobic. "This is the nest. It is a concentrated hive of activity, and the geography works in their favor, not ours. However, the risk is matched by the reward."
He looked up, his gaze locking with each of them in turn, emphasizing the gravity of his next words.
"Listen closely: these monsters are hyper-sensitive to the scent of blood. Their olfactory senses are unlike anything we've fought yet. In that nest, a single scratch—a single drop of blood—is a beacon. If any of you bleed, we won't just be fighting a scout; we will be facing a relentless, overwhelming swarm. Do not let them touch you."
A heavy silence followed. They all understood the stakes. In the narrow corridors of a nest, there would be no room for error and very little room to maneuver.
"Understood," Artemis said, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade. Klaus checked the integrity of his spear, his expression unusually grim, while Gwen offered a silent, resolute nod. Fors began checking her quiver, ensuring her arrows were within easy reach for the rapid-fire succession she would likely need.
"We move out immediately," Alista concluded, rolling up the map. "On the way to the nest, we will cull any smaller creatures we encounter to build our momentum and sharpen our senses. Stay focused. Stay dry. Let's move."
The group filed out of the ruins, slipping into the ashen fog of the Dark City, heading toward a hunt that promised to be their most delicate—and dangerous—operation yet.
******
The air in the Dark City was thick with the stench of copper and ancient rot. As the group moved through the narrow, high-walled alleyways toward their next objective, the silence was shattered by a rhythmic, clicking sound—like bone tapping on stone.
From the shadows of the crumbling balconies, they emerged. Twelve Blood Fiends.
They were horrifying, skeletal figures, each standing over two meters tall. Their hunched frames were draped in tattered, blood-stained shrouds that fluttered like the wings of dying moths. Long, spindly arms ended in curved, obsidian claws, and their deformed heads split open to reveal mouths packed with razor-sharp fangs.
"Circle up!" Alista commanded, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword.
The Fiends didn't roar; they hissed, a sound that vibrated in the marrow of the survivors' bones. Then, they moved—a blurring mass of brown shrouds and white bone.
"Heavy!" Artemis shrieked. She slammed her palm into the cobblestones, and the Gravity Field erupted. The three lead Fiends, caught mid-leap, were slammed into the ground with the force of a falling mountain. Their skeletal frames groaned, stone cracking beneath their weight.
"Klaus, the debris!" Alista yelled.
Klaus thrust his spear into a pile of shattered masonry. "Wake up!"
The stones shifted and merged, forming four stone hounds with jagged edges. They lunged at the Fiends on the left flank, biting into withered limbs to stall the creatures' advance.
Alista moved like a whirlwind. He reached into his pouch, throwing essence-infused "bribes"—pieces of silver and bone—at the closest monsters. As the items struck, the Fiends' movements stuttered, their predatory instincts momentarily clouded by Alista's mental interference. He followed through with a brutal arc of his blade, severing the head of a weakened Fiend.
Zip.
An arrow buried itself in the eye of a Fiend attempting to flank Artemis. Fors flickered into existence ten feet away, notched another arrow, and vanished again just as a claw swiped through the space she had occupied. She was a ghost, her short-range teleports making her impossible to pin down.
However, the numbers were overwhelming. Two Fiends ignored the stone hounds and lunged at Gwen.
Gwen moved with silent grace, her katana flashing as she parried the first claw. But the second Fiend was faster. It swiped low, its claws carving deep furrows into Gwen's thigh. She stumbled, and a third Fiend dropped from a rooftop directly onto her back.
Gwen didn't scream—she couldn't. She drew her Moonlight Shard stiletto and stabbed backward, the misty blade passing through the Fiend's ribs like a phantom.
"Get off her!" Artemis roared. She swung her Silver Rope, the cord glowing as it wrapped around the neck of the Fiend pinning Gwen. With a surge of strength, Artemis yanked the monster into the air and increased the gravity on the creature's body, causing it to implode against the pavement.
The battle turned into a chaotic, bloody grind.
Klaus's spear snapped under the pressure of three Fiends. He backed away, his stone hounds crumbling as his essence ran low. "I'm almost dry!" he gasped, clutching a bleeding gash on his shoulder.
Alista was a mess of red. He had taken three Fiends down, but his armor was shredded, and a deep bite on his arm was leaking blood onto his hilt. "Gwen! The field!"
Gwen slammed her hands onto the ground. The Healing Field shimmered into life. The soft golden light washed over Alista and Klaus, sealing the worst of their wounds, but the effort left Gwen swaying on her feet.
The remaining five Fiends, smelling the blood and the desperation, went into a frenzy. They converged on the center of the group, their claws working like scythes.
"Artemis, now! Give me everything!" Alista shouted.
Artemis gritted her teeth, blood leaking from her nose from the strain. She inverted her field, creating a Gravity Well that pulled all the remaining Fiends toward Alista.
Alista didn't dodge. He leaned into the madness of his Aspect. As the five monsters were sucked toward him, he spun in a desperate, wide horizontal slash. His blade, enhanced by the momentum of the gravity pull and his own boiling essence, carved through the midsections of the clustered Fiends.
Ichor and bone sprayed the walls.
The last Fiend, its lower half severed, crawled toward Gwen with bared fangs. Gwen didn't flinch. She stepped forward and drove her katana through the roof of its mouth, pinning the creature to the ground until it went still.
Silence finally fell over the Dark City, broken only by the ragged, wet breathing of the team.
Alista slumped against a wall, his sword falling into the mud. Artemis collapsed to her knees, her vision swimming. Klaus sat on a pile of rubble, staring blankly at his broken spear. Fors reappeared, leaning heavily on her bow, her essence completely spent.
Gwen stood in the center of the carnage, her white shroud now indistinguishable from the monsters' brown rags. She looked at her friends—all alive, all broken—and offered a trembling, blood-stained hand sign: [We survive.]
Gwen slowly started to heal the each on of them,meanwhile,Artemis and Klaus started rack the spoils,they took shards,meat and corpses bones and so one.Fors spoke,"Luckily,there is least amount of fiends",Gwen nodded.
Suddenly, everyone heard a roaring sounds,When thy turned towards their head in Skies,it was Spire Messenger,Alista fought this and won by luck,Artemis spoke,"It is moving towards the Nephis group.",Klaus chuckled,"So,Are we going to attract it by the pure hearts and fight a monster that is way stronger than us? Are we Idiots?",Everybody looked at him.Klaus spoke,"Oh,Crap."
****
The sky above the Dark City didn't just darken; it felt as though the atmosphere itself was being crushed. A shadow, broader than a cathedral, swept over the jagged ruins. Then came the shriek—a sound like a thousand violin strings snapping at once.
The Spire Messenger descended.
It was a monstrosity of impossible proportions, a pale, corpse-white body that resembled a lion's torso, but with the head and chest of a prehistoric raven. Six additional limbs protruded messily from its feathered chest, each ending in obsidian claws that scraped against the stone. Its massive wings, stained with the dried blood of previous victims, beat with enough force to topple crumbling walls.
"Scatter!" Alista roared, his voice barely audible over the wind of the beast's wings.
The team barely dove into the shadows of the alleyways before the Messenger slammed into the center of the street. The impact sent a shockwave through the ground, throwing debris like shrapnel.
"Above, Fors! Keep its eyes busy!" Alista commanded.
Fors vanished, reappearing on a high balcony. Twang! An arrow whistled through the air, aimed at the beast's glassy, black eye. The Messenger tilted its head with predatory instinct, the arrow snapping against its hardened beak. Fors didn't wait; she teleported again, appearing on the opposite side to draw its attention.
Artemis stepped forward, her face pale but determined. She had been experimenting with her gravity manipulation during their spars, and now was the time to test it. Instead of projecting a field outward, she focused every ounce of her essence into the edge of her blade.
"Gravity Slash!" she cried.
She swung her sword. A distorted wave of black light tore through the air—a flying slash that didn't just cut; it attracted. As the wave passed near the Messenger, it pulled the creature's messy chest-limbs toward the center of the strike, tangling them. The beast shrieked in confusion as its own limbs collided with each other.
"Now, Klaus!" Alista shouted.
Klaus lunged forward, but he didn't aim for the hide. He looked at the pools of fresh blood on the ground—blood spilled from the Messenger's previous meal. "Rise and hunger!"
The blood shimmered and rose, twisting into dozens of tiny, crimson snakes. They didn't bite the exterior; they slithered up the Messenger's pale legs and began to protrude into the open wounds and pores of the beast, eating it from the inside out. The creature thrashed in agony, its six chest-limbs flailing wildly.
Suddenly, the Messenger let out a roar of defiance and took flight, but its wings were sluggish. It crashed through a nearby wall, collapsing into a wide plaza.
Alista and his team surged after it, only to stop short.
Standing on the edge of the plaza, frozen in shock, was the Changing Star's cohort. Nephis, Sunny, Cassie, and Effie had been scouting the area when the monstrosity literally crashed into their path.
Sunny's eyes widened, his shadow sense screaming at the sheer power radiating from the fight. "What in the name of the Spell... are they fighting that thing?"
Nephis didn't move, her eyes locked on Alista, who looked like a demon bathed in dust and sweat.
The Messenger was cornered and desperate. Its beak snapped shut, nearly taking Alista's arm. It lunged at Gwen, who was struggling to maintain her position. She managed to draw her stiletto and dive under a claw, but the beast's long red tongue whipped out, slamming into her ribs with the force of a battering ram.
Gwen flew backward, hitting a stone pillar. She slumped down, unable to breathe, her face contorting in silent agony.
"Gwen!" Fors screamed, teleporting to her side.
Alista saw red. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a handful of "bribes"—ancient, cursed coins he had found in the catacombs. He threw them with a desperate prayer. The coins struck the Messenger's head, and for a moment, the beast's mind buckled under the weight of Alista's mental suppression. It froze, its black eyes clouded with confusion.
"Artemis, pull it down! EVERYTHING!" Alista yelled.
Artemis roared in effort, blood beginning to leak from her ears as she increased the gravity in the plaza to its absolute limit. The Spire Messenger's pale chest hit the cobblestones, the stone shattering beneath it.
Alista sprinted. He ignored the pain in his shattered ribs and the exhaustion in his soul. He leaped onto the creature's back, his sword glowing with a dark, vengeful light.
"Die... you overgrown carrion!"
He drove his blade through the base of the creature's skull, putting every ounce of his weight and essence into the thrust. The blade sank deep, severing the Spire Messenger's connection to its massive body.
The beast gave one final, shuddering gasp. Its six chest-limbs twitched and then went still. The terrifying light in its raven-eyes faded into the gray of the Dark City.
Silence fell over the plaza, heavy and suffocating.
Alista remained perched on the beast's neck for a moment before sliding off. He collapsed next to its wing, his breathing ragged and wet. He was alive, but barely. His armor was gone, and his body was covered in deep gashes.
Gwen was being tended to by Fors; she was bruised and broken but breathing. Klaus sat nearby, his spear snapped and his essence dry. Artemis was unconscious, her body finally giving out after the massive gravity surge.
From the sidelines, Sunny watched Alista, his heart hammering. 'He did it,' he thought, a cold chill running down his spine. 'They actually killed a Spire Messenger.'
Nephis stepped forward into the plaza, looking at the dead beast and then at Alista. There was no praise in her eyes, only a deep, calculating wariness.
Alista looked up at her, a blood-toothed grin on his face. He didn't say a word, but the message was clear: The Blood Emperor does not need your alliance.
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Happy New Year Folks