This is it.
The city’s last threshold. Should have known they would hit close to the festivities, why waste a strategy that worked before?
“Bloodhowl Unit, we’ve got heavy movement inbound. We hold the line, no breaks, no backing down. Not ‘til backup shows or we finish this ourselves. Copy that? Over.”
Affirmations come in, everyone, except for Vi’s best friend. And I hope to hell that doesn’t throw her off, or Wyll.
52
Avilyna
A DEADLY CRESCENDO
Sweat slidesdown my neck as I run, the snarls of the horde way too close for my comfort. My legs burn, lungs tight, and I’m so exhausted I nearly trip over a chunk of debris, but slowing down isn’t an option. Let’s just say the adrenaline sobered me off real quick. Like I wasn’t lucky enough, Sakura’s potion is wearing off…
I canfeelit.
My body is screaming for a break, just one second to breathe. But I don’t have that kind of time. Only one option’s left, take shelter. That’s when I see a half-collapsed inn and the barely standing staircase. I take the steps two at a time, praying they hold, muttering a quick thanks to Kvirr when I hear just one monster behind me.
The building groans under its weight. Reaching the top, my relief is short-lived. My foot skids, and I’m yanked down a few steps. Pain shoots up my left leg as the norous buries its clawed hand into my flesh, shredding me into ribbons. A thick strand of saliva hits my shoulder, burning straight through my gear. Gritting my teeth, jaw locked, as the acid scorches my skin.
No time to scream. No breath left for words, instinct kicks in. Sword in hand, I slash my palm open. Blood spills, slick and hot,running into the weapon’s etched grooves. Theaetherium drinks it in, runes glowing faintly red before fading. I don’t have time to overthink it. I just act and thrust my sword up. The demon’s gaping jaw pushes a loud screech echoing through the night, before its body mummifies itself from the inside out. Crumbling down to a pile of dust.
Not disappearing, not going back to Netherworld, dying.
My victory is short-lived as more demons follow suit. Ignoring my injuries, adrenaline propels me, and I wobble up the last stairs toward the end of the hallway. Slamming the door of the back room, I cast a locking rune, buying me just enough time to catch my breath.
Enough to swallow down the spare potion hidden in my jacket. Energy courses through my veins. I try to find a way out, any way. Looking out the window, I realize how fucking bad the situation is. Norous swirl the city from the forest. The villagers and some Legion soldiers are fighting them the best they can, but we’re outnumbered, it’s a fact.
Shit!
What can I do? Van is nowhere to be found… Backup’s tied up, Kvirr knows where, and I don’t even want to consider the possibility of a double assault. Every civilian here is counting on us. And I can’t even tap into my full strength… Not with this stupid memory lock choking me from the inside out. Frustration tears at my senses, and the pressure behind my eyes makes my nose sting.
It drowns out logic, dulls the edges of my thoughts until I’m spiralling. Flashes from a life I barely remember slam into me. Faces I barely recognize, blood I can’t explain, a name whispered as a curse, my vision blurs. The ground beneath me seems to shift. The ruined floor groans, and my foot slips on my own blood. Broken glass bites my hand as I catch myself before toppling down the window. Then, a scream, high—real.
I blink hard. This is not the time for a fucking panic attack. Down below, civilians scramble for cover as shadows close in. And like my dad taught me, I stretch my mind, feel the leak, the static. The essence of the memory lock. But it’s different, rougher, meaner, scratching like electricity, and I push against it.
Then the door crashes and I leap. Air rushes around me, and before I register what I just did, I land light and precise,too precise. My feet kiss the ground with the kind of grace that’s unfamiliar to me. But I feel it, deep in my bones, something ancient is starting to wake up.
Launching forward, spinning into motion. A demon lunges at me, but I’m faster. My katana sings as it severs limbs, turning momentum into survival. A second demon comes at me from the side, and I pivot, blade humming as it slices through, cutting it in two before it crumbles, lifeless. I don’t need the saoi-diabhal. I have aetherium and… myblood, making me lethal.
Civilians scatter behind me, a mother pulling her child out of reach, an elder stumbling behind. Every breath, every strike, I push back the tide. The katana pulses in my hand, alive with an energy that I can’t believe is fully from me. I may not deserve this blade, not yet, but I will. As my mother did, I will become worthy; that’s a promise I’m making today, in blood.
Slicing through the air in a rhythm, my body moves on its own, but even then, they keep coming, more and more. I can’t outrun them, can’t outfight them all. The air is thick with the stench of blood, the reek of sulfur, the screams of demons, and the desperate cries of the villagers.
A norous lunges from the left, its claws swipe at my face. Cutting me deep in my left cheek, but I ignore the pain. Stabbing upward, I slice through its throat. Another one barrels toward me from behind, jaw wide. I twist down, driving my blade intoits stomach, spilling its putrid gut into the paved road. But there are too many of them.
I can feel my strength slipping away; my lungs are burning. For every one I take down, two more appear in its place. Their growls and snarls drown out everything else, and panic begins to claw at the edges of my mind. I can’t keep this up.
The world seems to fade as exhaustion crashes over me. I’m moving slower now, fighting harder just to stay upright. Acid is burning my skin, making me lose my footing as I grit my teeth in pain. My heart pounds, a drumbeat in my chest and the weight of it all presses down, suffocating. I pause for a split second, just long enough to glance around. A sea of Vordak’s creatures. A mountain of bodies is closing in. I realize with a sickening jolt that we’re surrounded. There’s no way out, no way to win.
The frustration rushes through my veins, making my blood boil as helplessness overwhelms me. My vision goes blurry, and I shut my eyes, focusing on my breathing, but the gravity of it all makes it impossible; I am falling. Then the fear that claws at my mindcracks, and a sudden rush of power rises from the pit of my stomach. Spreading as wildfire through my veins. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt, a force I can’t name, but I know is mine.
My grip tightens on the katana, the weight of it now pulsing in rhythm with my heart. The runes on the blade burn a deep crimson, alive, thrumming in sync with the blood rushing through my veins. My eyes, too, burn, pupils dilating, a spark ignites, a match struck in the suffocating dark.
I feel it, the shift, and then the air snaps.
Everything halts, as though time itself is holding its breath. Thunder cracks, shaking the very heavens. A jagged bolt of violet lightning rips through the sky, splitting the night, a tear in reality. It slices down, slamming into the demons in a deadly crescendo, turning them to dust in an instant. Leaving nothing around me but a scorched earth, the crackling remnants ofpower and the lingering smell of rotten eggs. For one long, breathless heartbeat, the world is silent.
