Having said her piece, the young girl's appearance contorted, twisting into something else. A hideous monstrosity, with rows upon rows of teeth, looking down upon the three still stuck in a daze. The power of illusion and bewitchment keeping them in place.
Setting its gaze on the mercenary's corpse it reached out with its twisted elongated limbs as it shovelled it into its mouth. The crunching of bones and squelching of flesh made one's skin crawl.
As the three stood in a trance, the aberration slowly reached out toward its other prey.
…
"Thank you, for being my supper,"
Wait, that's a taboo.
"Cannibalism isn't ok,"
She didn't respond, in fact, no one responded. How odd. The space around him also didn't feel right, things were just wrong if he had to say. Objects were longer or disproportionate, this could just be attributed to being high on whatever that mercenary was on which was a far stretch, but what sealed the deal was the abject lack of noise. Even when high on drugs, you would still hear sound, or if not, at least white noise, meaning that this must be the effect of some kind of magic.
Judging from the girl's actions, she must've been the one to cause this state.
"Fix it," he said. But still, there was no reaction. Walking up, Jeffrey kicked the girl and like glass shattering, the world righted itself. Looks like he was stuck in a spell trap.
The illusion was broken. But still, something still didn't seem right. Why was he staring down at rows of teeth? And why was there some abomination in front of him?
"Sigh, one problem at a time," And the first problem to solve was not dying.
The monster seemed to be in combat against something. It flew above the abomination and harassed it from above. Throwing solid blades of moon essence at the monstrosity, causing large gouges and slashes to appear on its body, dark blood oozed out of its wounds, filling the alleyway with a putrid smell.
"Finally being useful for once, huh?" Jeffrey murmured as he glanced at Lily. Looking beside him, the other two were still in their trance. What weak willed fellows. Moving to snap those two back to reality. He was about to kick Savage but incredulously, it was dodged.
"Why'd you kick me?" wait wasn't this guy supposed to be in a trance?
"I broke out of it a moment ago,"
Oh, so that was the case, but then…
"Why weren't you moving?"
Savage didn't respond, it was as if he entered some kind of mental hellscape, as he stared blankly.
That was concerning, but Jeffrey was fully intent on ignoring it. The abomination was just about dead. Those essence blades hurt more than they should.
Well, looks like he won't be able to test his new bow. Gods damn it, Lily. Just when you were useful, you just had to make it as inconvenient as possible didn't you?
Nonetheless, looking to his side for the second time, he noticed that Kelli still hadn't escaped her trance. What a weak willed fellow. Moving to snap her back to reality, he kicked her. This time she didn't dodge and physics worked, resulting in her being slammed against a wall.
So, he might have kicked a bit hard, but she should be fine.
"She isn't fine," Savage commented, looking at Kelli who despite being knocked out of her previous trance, found herself in a new daze.
Suddenly, an unearthly screech entered their ears, it echoed in their heads, causing a mind numbing pain. The monster wasn't about to lay down and die so easily. Posturing itself upwards it fled. Yup, the fleshy abomination started running away. Toward a residential district no less. What could it possibly be up to?
"It wants to feed on the citizens," Savage was quick to deduce the situation, having encountered many a monster before, it was common what monsters did as an act of desperation. They would try to rapidly gorge on the flesh of humans to regain their vitality and stamina, which meant that they first had to locate powerless humans, and weak residents fit the bill to a tee.
Savage was most certainly not about to let something like that happen. He immediately gave chase, with Jeffrey following behind him. Lily was also pestering the abomination with essence attacks, but she was still dazed by the shriek it gave out. Running out of the alleyways and into the main street, it attracted a large commotion but ignoring that, the monstrosity assaulted anyone in its way, getting some fast food.
Screams and cries of terror echoed on the street as patrols rushed to subdue the monster.
At the centre of the chaos, the monster suddenly found a dagger through its leg, pinning it to the ground. Momentarily stunning it. Savage had yeated a dagger at the monster.
Yeating. It was a feat that only highly trained and dedicated individuals were capable of. An advanced technique from the throwing branch of combat, which involved throwing at high speeds and inexorable momentum, yet maintaining perfect accuracy, to strike a target from a distance.
Halting the monster for that moment was enough for the chasing patrols to set up an encirclement, it was efficiently done as if they had a couple practice runs. As they set up the encirclement, Jeffrey pulled on the string of his bow, as he fed his essence into it forming a pale white arrow. Releasing it, it flew at a much faster speed than Jeffrey anticipated. In fact, he nearly missed due to the different rate of projectile drop. Barely clipping the head of the monster, it pierced right through it, like there was no resistance, and kept going, nearly hitting a guard in the process as it sank into a building.
Let's hope nobody was on the other side.
Nonetheless, an essence bolt to the head was most certainly enough to finish off the monster, now everyone's attention was focused on another individual.
"Ah, what a familiar feeling," Having numerous pairs of eyes on him, was unnerving. Looks like nothing has changed.
Taking a big step to the side, he unsuccessfully hid behind Savage.