War of Dawn - Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Hungering Darkness

The Wraith stands tall amid the fort, its hulking mass dwarfing everything around. It waits by, unmoving, but everyone present can feel its gaze set upon them from behind the black whirlpool that makes its face. Faint breathing echoes from within, its whooshing sound filling the silence that's set upon the revolutionaries' fort. Like a soft gale traveling from the bowels of Hell, it sends the white flame nested in its sunken head aflutter.

As an undead, however, it does not breathe to live. Rather, every breath it inhales strikes Hilda like that of a beast: it is smelling its surroundings. The swirling energies in its face dance across the flame, transforming into dozens of black, eye-shaped markings that appear and disappear as it spots potential targets. It has certainly seen the revolutionaries writhing about the ground, still wounded; however, Hilda and Paula are the ones who seem to truly warrant its attention. Once it spots them, the Wraith twitches in anticipation but keeps still as the Necromancer leader raises his hand up high.

The two Scions find themselves daunted, staring down a foe far greater than anything they'd imagined it being. No undead they've ever seen has filled their souls with such a tangible sense of dread. Staring into its swirling face, it feels like a minor slip is all it'd take to be dragged inside its depths; the creature wafts hunger, pure and absolute, and Hilda and Paula are gazelles staring into the maw of a humongous lion.

A few months ago, just being in the presence of this would have crushed Hilda beneath its might. Now, however, she has stood before beings far stronger than her – if anything, it's somewhat tempered her spirit. Breathing in for what feels like the first time in minutes, she musters her voice back.

"Paula... Paula! This is it!" she calls out, trying her best to hide her own worry.

Her yells dispatch Paula's torpor, breaking her stunned stare at the Wraith. "I-I know! We... We can do this!"

The two Scions clutch hard on the grips of their weapons, holding onto them like they're the lone branch keeping them from falling down a cliff. Hilda takes a sideway glance at Paula, knowing that she'd have crystal shards with her. They could flee but, then, there'd be no one to stop the Necromancers from carrying out their attack on the nearby town. By the time they came back, the death toll would be at least in the dozens.

This is the mire Hilda and Paula deliberately walked into; it was their attack that sped up the Wraith's summoning and now they've a responsibility of seeing this through.

"Hear the name of he who gave you form and etch it upon your heart: Vladimir Dragov. Until the covenant is met, you are bound to my will," the necromancer leader chants as another mass of black energy bubbles and materializes above his raised hand. With a wave of his fingers, strings of darkness fly towards the Wraith's head and into its white flame, encircling it from within.

"There is your prey." Vladimir points out to the Scions. "Take them!"

Upon his words, the Wraith lets out another heart-rending howl and makes a mad dash towards Hilda and Paula. Despite it girth, the monster runs faster than a speeding horse and closes the distance in the blink of an eye. It bashes its massive arms down upon them and though both girls evade it, the impact on the ground leaving meter-wide craters. Pressing against the cracked earth, the Wraith flings itself forward, hurtling towards Hilda.

An odd maneuver but not good enough for an experienced Novitiate. With a Haste glyph, Hilda zips off the monster's path and to its back; an easy kill now. Streaks of violet electricity fly off her blade as she sets up to cleave the Wraith's rotten flesh in twain... but it is not that simple. The creature twists its body around the waist like a piece of rubber, turning a hundred and eighty degrees and parrying Hilda's sword in the bones jutting out its arm.

"The hell...?!" she grunts, as the Wraith raises its other arm to attack in earnest.

It is interrupted when Paula emerges off a portal behind it; with a swing of her halberd, a surge of dark blue energy erupts and strikes it dead center at its shoulders. Hilda acts on the opening, thinning her weapon and yanking it out from the Wraith's jagged bones. A Burst glyph follows, blasting the monster's transparent stomach in an explosion of electricity.

The spell flings the Wraith away, crashing into the fort's walls with such force that it breaks the logs in half. Yet, displaying the traditional undead poise, it rises off the ground without any hesitation. A massive gash has torn across its wide shoulders while its stomach has all but been replaced by a hole the size of a watermelon, streams of blackened blood dropping down into the ground. Its resilience isn't surprising to Hilda and Paula but what it does next takes them aback.

It laughs; a gurgling, muffled laugh that comes out the swirling black whirlpool in its head as it starts spinning slightly faster. Small bubbles of white light appear out of thin air, popping into glittering sparks and flying into the Wraith's head. The two Scions look on in horror as each spark it takes in pushes its body to materialize back a piece of its destroyed flesh; with every second, the damage it received is undone.

"It can regenerate itself...!" Paula gasps before turning to her friend. "Hilda, quick! We've to stop it!"

"I got—!"

Hilda's interrupted when a shower of Fire, Earth and LightningBolts rain from above her and Paula. The spells bombard the area, filling it with booming crackles and raising a tall cloud of dust from the muddy earth. Hilda and Paula evade it in time, though the spells pursue them relentlessly. Towards the back of the fort, Hilda sees the three Necromancers weaving colorful streaks of energy upon their hands.

Those bastards...! She seethes, making a sudden turn and rushing them down. "Hold on, I'll take care of them!"

"Make it quick!" Paula answers, vanishing towards the Wraith.

The Necromancers' spells swerve around Hilda, bearing down on her like a swarm of bees. She darts around with bursts of electricity as the Bolts just barely miss her body and face. Her Shield holds strong against any that'd find its mark, spells crashing and unraveling against the transparent violet wall.

"Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!" the panicked Necromancer screams with increasing fear as she approaches.

Their bombardment avails them not. Vladimir fires off a Stream spell, sending a beam of darkness at her. Hilda parries it away, blasting it through the tree canopy above. The spell cuts the treeline like butter, opening holes for the moonlight to descend. Still, spellweaving of this level is nothing a Scion cannot handle.

"You call that a Stream?!" Hilda yells in anger, bringing forth a glyph of her own. "Try this one, Necro!"

"Carla, Peter – Shields now!" Vladimir calls out, stopping his ineffective spell in a hurry.

A torrent of electricity shoots out from Hilda's hand, while the Necromancers bring forth a large dome of red, orange and violet colors. Their barrier holds strong, sending elemental sparks to fly and erupt in violet flashes. A Scion's spell carries more girth due to their mightier Prana compared to regular mages, however. The Necromancers start reeling back, falling to their knees as they attempt to keep the Stream from piercing their Shield.

Their barrier begins bending under the pressure of Hilda's spell, like a balloon about to be penetrated by a nail. With a few more seconds, it'll break and they'll be defenseless. Or it would, but Hilda's interrupted by a humongous hand grabbing her leg; from across the fort, the Wraith's stretched its rubbery body all the way to her in an attempt to save its master. Hilda screams in pain as the rotten nails and jutting bones sink deep into her flesh like fiery blades.

Its attack is an opening for Paula to exploit, though. Appearing above the outstretched monster, Paula drops onto it like a pouncing wildcat. The streak of darkness that pours from her halberd chops away the entire right side of the Wraith's body.

Immediately, Paula waves her hand, conjuring ten spears of darkness above her head. One by one they ram and skewer the staggered Wraith, heavy impacts sending it flying across the fort as its body is torn by the nonstop onslaught.

While Paula pursues it, the monster's separated body parts starts melting into mush, the grip on Hilda's leg loosening right away. The Necromancers are not about to let this opening go unpunished, though.

"Now, now!" Carla cries out.

The three of them bring back their hands and cast forth a swirling blast of flames, rocky pellets and raging electricity. At the last second, Hilda brings forth a Shield. The combined spell is powerful, regular mages or not, crashing against her body with a heavy blow. Were she a fresh Novitiate, this might have gone right through her. Hilda is not a fresh Novitiate anymore, however, further emboldened by the anger she feels right now.

With a roar that rises above the cacophony of the raging elements, Hilda conjures a pair of Burst glyphs. Two violet explosions blow against the elemental torrent with a thunderous rumble, shoving it far above to fade into red, orange and violet sparkles in the cloudless night sky.

Burning with rage, a blast of electricity erupts throughout Hilda's body. The Necromancers panic at the sight, rapidly moving their hands around in preparation for another spell; Hilda isn't about to give them another chance.

"You Necro filth... you think you can kill me too?! Go to hell!" she growls through gritted teeth.

She raises her blade high, the lightning elemental swerving around it dancing faster and faster. Its hum grows louder, crackling sounds cutting across the noise like thunder. Hilda bashes the her blade on the ground, setting a mass of electricity. With the following horizontal slash, a cross-shaped streak of energy as tall as her and three times as wide shoots towards the Necromancers. The attack rips through the earth, sending soil flying and cutting stones in half as it closes in on its prey.

Vladimir, Peter and Carla scramble to conjure Shields – far too late. As their barriers barely take form, Hilda's attack breaks through like a charging bull and shatters into hundreds of splinters. Each fragment bites deep into the Necromancers' flesh, tearing their cloaks and carving gaping wounds throughout their bodies. Their short-lived barrier served a purpose, though: without it, they'd have been outright torn to pieces. That said, the blood that oozes to the ground around their lacerated bodies proves the extensive damage.

Hilda is set to finish them off when Paula's violent yells reach her ears from the other side of the fort. The Wraith is still at it and now that these are at least momentarily incapacitated, the priority is destroying it. Paula's been holding her own against the monster but already showcases dozens of bleeding bruises across her small frame. Comparatively, the Wraith is doing fine due to its regeneration. The right side of its body, arm included, bubbles as its flesh slowly takes back the form of what was removed.

The Wraith also displays sharp reflexes the likes Hilda and Paula wouldn't expect from an undead. Paula fades in and out of her portals but there is no gap in its defenses; wherever she emerges, its body immediately bends and stretches to counter with powerful swings of its remaining arm, flailing around like a bony whip.

With little recourse, Paula starts pelting it with spells, vanishing away whenever the rampaging beast gets close. It still defends without any issue, blocking a veritable parade of Bolts, Bursts and Spears of darkness with its mighty arm. With every impact, pieces of white fleshy bits break off and melt upon the darkened soil. The stench of its rot spreads far and wide, destroying the once-pleasant petrichor scents; a blindfolded person would now assume this to be at a shallow grave.

Bit by bit, however, the damage begins overwhelming its regeneration. With every spell it defends, the Wraith's arm is further battered; soon, its tree trunk-like form barely hangs on like a piece of deadwood. Paula rushes in, opening a portal right at the monster's back. It reacts immediately, twisting its body to once gain counterattack with the jagged bones at its hand. But its brambly arm is too far gone to attempt that - as it crashes into Paula's Shield, the whole thing breaks apart like a glass marble trying to bash through a block of concrete.

The Wraith's rebuffed and Paula musters the dark elemental once more – a roaring swing, straight down the base of its neck. Her halberd's axehead burns and carves through the flesh, ripping the creature's body in half from the shoulder to the middle of the stomach. The Wraith lets out a muffled groan as its upper half splits open like a clam. Paula moves to draw back her halberd and deliver the coup de grâce. She cannot, however. The fiend's flesh tightens in an instant, wrapping around her weapon like molten steel.

The Wraith laughs once again at Paula's dumbstruck look, the dangling halves of its body pulling themselves back in place as quickly as they split apart and enclosing her weapon inside the creature's innards. From its bubbling right side, the flesh erupts in an explosion of gore, striking Paula's eyes with rotten gunk. She cries out in surprise, blinded by pieces of oozing meat and sinew.

The bubbling flesh gives way and the Wraith's once carved right side emerges from beneath as though no damage had ever been done. Desperately trying to wipe her eyes clear, Paula lets go of her halberd and jumps back to gain distance with her foe. Far too slow; the Wraith's recovered right arm shoots out, jagged bones stretching straight for Paula's neck.

Half a second before the attack connects, a flash of violet light, Hilda, comes crashing into the Wraith. Feet first, she strikes its collapsed head like a cannonball; through the sound of its cracking neck, the creature is sent flying and its claws only graze Paula's throat. The Wraith rolls out of control across the dirt, tumbling until it finds an abrupt end on the now crumbling fort's walls.

"Keep going! Don't let it heal!" Hilda yells, charging in after her foe.

Paula rubs her reddened eyes like they're on fire, frowning in agony but managing to keep one open. "Alright...! Lead, I'll follow!"

"Pin it down, then!"

Through a portal, Paula emerges in the air above the collapsed Wraith. Her halberd still stuck in the fiend's stomach, spells are all she's available. Waving her hands, she brings out the same glyph in both: a lone circle around three prongs. Elemental Impaler. 

The glyphs erupt, gathering swirling energies into ten dark blue spiral lances; she grabs one and flings it at the Wraith, the others following behind. One by one they descend, cutting through the stale wind with piercing swooshes; like stakes being pounded into the ground, the lances nail the Wraith through its chest, shoulders, hands and legs.

The moment the last lance finds its mark, Hilda sets upon the creature. She will not have her friend's weapon go with it when it dies. Hilda jams her blade deep into the Wraith's belly, sending a storm into its tainted flesh as she twists the sword. With that, she presses down – the edge springs right up, a seesaw that cracks the Wraith's ribcage and stomach wide open.

Hilda yanks off the blood-caked halberd and tosses it to Paula above right as she lands by her friend's side. Hilda's left hand trails violet sparks while Paula's right hand trails dark blue; together, they thrust their fists into the Wraith's gaping, rubbery chest.

"Dö!"

"Morra!"

The girls shout in unison, their minds focused on a single image: the biggest Burst glyph they can manage. Colored lights shine within the Wraith's transparent skin, erupting across its skin in gushing pillars of electricity and twirling waves of darkness. The fiend's massive frame bloats, stretching like puffer-fish until it can go no more. Its rubbery body rips apart from within, a massive blast covers the area in blackened bones, blood and molten meat.

As the tall dust cloud starts to settle, Hilda and Paula watch their foe with nary a breath or blink of their eyes: its body lies wholly annihilated, reduced only to its right shoulder, gangly spinal column and head, the white flame within fizzled into a weak ember. Most importantly, it's not moving or regenerating. It takes a few seconds – that actually feel like entire days – but the creature slowly starts fading away. Not ash, like the other undead, but it an almost beautiful white light that fills Hilda with relief.

Paula looks on in disbelief, eyes wide open at what they've done. Hilda lays her hand on her shoulder beckoning Paula's gaze with a wide smile on a sweaty face, not even caring about the foul smelling gunk that covers them from head to toe.

"Whew... And that's that. Congratulations... on your first kill, kid," Hilda says with bated breath, faint laughter still finding room in her voice.

Paula's eyes find their way over to hers, mouth agape. Slowly, reality sinks in as her ever-stiff shoulders finally relax with a long sigh of relief; Paula's lips form the brightest smile Hilda's seen coming from her yet. "The anomaly in the flow is fading... Thank you so much."

"Don't thank me yet." Hilda shrugs, exhaling sharply before nodding towards the other side of the fort. "This isn't done until we deal with those three."

Vladimir, Peter and Carla stand far back, barely holding themselves erect from the deep wounds left by Hilda's attack. Blood streams like a waterfall, painting their torn black robes in red stripes before pooling upon the earth. Vladimir looks at the defeated Wraith in frustration and worry, gritted teeth shining inside his gray beard as he grips his limp right arm.

Both him and Peter's bodies are covered in massive gashes throughout but Carla seems to have had it the worst. Kneeling upon the ground, trembling profusely, she clutches a gaping wound across her stomach in a desperate attempt to hold its contents from slipping out. Amid cries and pained groans, she collapses to her back.

"Rrgh, curses..." Vladimir grunts, staggering over to look at her. Raising his hand, strings of dark blue light gathers upon Carla's wound, stymieing the gushing bleeding.

"Is that to ease her pain or to try and fight us again?" Paula asks aloud, stepping towards the battered Necromancers.

"Well, don't," Hilda adds, the lightning elemental resurging around her body in crackling jolts. "Just sit down and we'll make it quick; though that's more than you ever gave my people."

Peter's composure is far less than his fellow man. His fear-charged breath growing faster with every step the Scions take forward, his terrified eyes looks up, down and around in search of options. Slowly, as his bleeding legs look as though they're about to snap in half, he staggers upright and raises his hands. For a moment, Hilda ponders if he's about to try to offer a deal again; that thought goes away as the earth elemental gathers and spins circles around Peter's hands.

"You wanna try me again, Necro?!" Hilda roars at him, bearing her teeth and getting ready to attack.

"No! No, I don't!" Peter yells back, joining his hands and sending a pillar of orange light into the ground. Hilda and Paula bring out their Shields, anticipating an attack, but it is not meant for them. The earth trembles and, from below, a spike rises and impales Carla through the heart. A short, weak grunt leaves the woman's lips as her body falls limp upon the jutting rock. The two Scions stop in their tracks, taken wholly by surprise.

Vladimir himself looks at Peter with displeasure etched in his clenched lips. "Peter...! She was—"

"Rule three, Vlad. Rule three!" the young Necromancer says, gesturing for him to accept what was done.

Vladimir lets out an annoyed sigh but doesn't argue further, only crouching to close Carla's eyes. "... Fair enough."

"What the hell is wrong with you? Think killing your friend's gonna save you?" Hilda spits, outraged.

"It will! The two of you are already finished, even!" Peter fires back as Vladimir harrumphs and turns the silver light on his hand upon his own wounds.

"We'll see about that!" Hilda roars, blasting off towards him in a flash of electricity.

But her charge is interrupted the second after it begins. The earth at her feet erupts, a burrowed mass emerging from within and striking her in the gut. Hilda's blown back, falling to a knee and fighting a hacking cough. Dazed and seeing double, her eyes refocus in time to spot the culprit afar: a handful of bubbling white flesh.

Paula reels back, clutching her heart as the color fades off her face. "Oh, gods...!"

On the opposite end of the fort, the Wraith's nigh-dissolved head stops fading into light. Rather, the light it gave out is now returning to it. From Carla's body, her Prana emerges in a streak of white and is absorbed into the black whirlpool at the monster's face. All the pieces of meat and bone spread throughout the fort blast off the ground and return to whence they come like they're pulled by an invisible tether. They all unite in an amorphous mass of pulsating white goo, encircling the weak white flame as it shifts to a deep crimson.

The Wraith's featureless body erupts in energy, stretching and reshaping itself back to its original shape. However, rather than its former decaying frame, the creature emerges revitalized. Gone is the rot, replaced with enormous muscles, and the randomly jutting bones are sharpened and lined up like knives in its forearms. The Wraith's whole body has grown, even.

The crimson flame burns bright in a round cavity at the center of the Wraith's chest; the once minute black whirlpool has exploded forth, covering the fiend's head in a large, twisting cloud-like spiral. The very world around seems warped by its pull as ripples travel across the fabric of reality touched by its edge; small strings of white light are constantly dragged into its darkness, a glowing merry-go-round that disappears into the center of the abyss.

Hilda glares at the reborn monstrosity, frowning in rage and barely contained hesitation. "Damn it, die already!" she growls, not waiting a second before attacking the fiend.

From behind, she expects it to turn and block her incoming attack the same way it did; when it happens, she'll blast its arm right off. Her blade comes down, the electricity left in the air bending under the pull of the Wraith's head. As expected, her swing is blocked – but not by the fiend's spiky arm. The Wraith hasn't moved at all but an unseen force's stopped Hilda's weapon squarely in its tracks.

Her heart skips a beat as the empty air in front of her trembles and, from nowhere, a transparent red dome takes form – a Shield.

"It can cast spells...! How?" Paula gasps.

Hilda hasn't the faintest idea, as it didn't show any such capacity mere minutes ago. In her stunned confusion, the crimson flame at the Wraith's core flitters and streaks of the fire elemental dance into shape: a lone circle with a swerving horizontal line.

"Skit!" she exclaims, jumping away as her hand conjures a desperate Shield.

From the Wraith's flame, a Stream spell erupts. The jet of rushing fire bashes against Hilda's defenses, blowing her out the fort and straight into a grand tree nearby. The impact is such that a chunk of the log simply unravels into sawdust. The Wraith does not even give her the chance to fall to the ground; stretching its arm, the creature clenches its massive hand around Hilda's chest and yanks it back, smashing her against the ground at its feet.

Crunch. Whatever sounds Hilda was hearing at the moment vanish in an instant, replaced only by the noise of dozens of bones snapping like twigs. Red fills her eyes, blotting out the world, as the smell and taste of blood overpower her senses. Breathing's almost impossible – her lungs are flattened and pierced under her dilapidated ribcage.

She wants to move but her body refuses to do so. Rather, her body feels like a crumpled pile of sand – if there's anything intact to move, it's not answering. The pain is unbearable and, yet, she can't even muster the strength to scream. Trying only serves to pull a wheezing, bloody cough from her innards.

Paula emerges from her portal at that moment, witnessing the aftermath of an attack that took mere seconds to play out: Hilda lying immobile at the deep, blood-soaked crater under the Wraith's fist.

"Hilda!!" she screams, spinning her halberd and firing off a huge crescent of darkness.

Paula's attack strikes the Wraith squarely in the right shoulder, trailing bits of the elements splitting nearby soil in half. The monster doesn't even flinch. Paula fires a Burst right at its heart. Her spell clashes against the pale white skin and fizzles away with nary a scratch left behind. Paula moves to try again but the Wraith has had enough. The fiend's left arm melts into its body, erupting on the opposite side and grabbing Paula by the stomach.

From the clutches of its second right arm, the Wraith brings Paula before its face; she fights on, kicking and twitching to try and free herself. All to no avail. The Wraith clenches its fist tighter, forcing Paula to stare into the swirling abyss as her own bones creaks under the pressure.

From within the darkness, a soft, otherworldly voice, almost like a whisper, speaks: "Lerius... Hrrrm...!"

Upon the Wraith's words, the jutting bones in its arm shoot inwardly. Paula hasn't even time to react as the monster's hand becomes as an iron maiden: she's skewered from all sides, the bones traversing her armor like it's not even there. Blood shoots off from every wound as her perplexed cry breaks into a mere gurgling grunt.

"'Lerius'...?" Vladimir's face crumples under his hood, a tone of concern, far deeper than before, spreading through his voice.

On the other hand, Peter is completely elated. "That's it!" he cheers from afar. "Kill them both!"

Immobile, Paula's terrified eyes stare as the Wraith raises his other hand. There lies Hilda's crumpled body, her breath reduced to a pain-filled wheeze;her empty eyes locked at nothing in particular, she hangs limp in its clutches like a lifeless corpse. The blood that gushes down her face has turned every centimeter of her fair skin deep red.

Dragging Hilda closer, the spiraling darkness in the Wraith's head grows larger and larger, engulfing everything around in nothingness. Its edge almost touching her face, Hilda lets out a strained groan as bubbles of silver light emerge from her eyes, mouth and forehead. There lies her Prana – her soul – and with every bit that rises into the air, she feels a piece of herself being erased. Her memories, her mind, crumble away before her eyes and Hilda's body, crushed and paralyzed, cannot even move to oppose.

Paula, trembling against her skewers, moans in panic as Hilda feels the coldness of the Wraith's head bend and close around her own. The world around her starts vanishing, the fort, the people, the trees, the ground, all fading away in the encroaching darkness. The few beams of light that remain are snuffed out one by one, until all that remains is an infinite black void. The only sounds Hilda hears are Paula's cries and her erratic, frantic heartbeat; as they, too, become muffled and disappear, her last tether to this world is severed...

A bright flash of golden light cuts across the darkness and Hilda feels herself surging with the warmth of a baby cradled in a mother's bosom. Is this what death feels like?

It's not bad, I guess... she ponders as the pain that coursed throughout her body vanishes.

Suddenly, a rough, jagged texture rubs against her cheek and hands, tiny sharp points poking at her skin, as the smell of earth and blood fills her nostrils. The Altr wouldn't have tossed her into a battlefield the second her soul left for Aetonem, would they?

No, Hilda opens her eyes and finds herself, and Paula, lying upon the cracked ground of the dilapidated form. Wooden splinters and sharp pebbles sink into their skin but, that aside, their bodies are fine. Better than fine – all damage done by the Wraith's vicious attacks has been thoroughly healed.

Said Wraith is now meters away, contracting the spiral in its head back to the normal side and twisting its body to face them. Paula opens her eyes as well, her expression torn between confusion and bafflement. For a second, Hilda assumed it was her who moved them away from the monster's clutches but it doesn't look like it. And she's certainly not a skilled enough healer to fix that kind of damage.

The answer comes as a dark rift tears open on the ground in front of them, giving way to a wide portal of dark energy. From within rises a lone person: an average sized woman clad in black and red, straight dark hair framing her masked face. She stands as tall as a mountain, arms crossed behind her back and eyes fixated on the battlefield ahead.

"My lady...!" Paula lets out a faint gasp, a whimper that struggles to leave her throat.

Eliza gives no answer but one is not necessary.Despite the impassive expression she wears, the golden aura that wafts from her body bears one tangible feeling that hammers every being present: overwhelming rage.