Ilya took a step back, but she couldn't retreat any further.
She was rooted in place, wide-eyed and in a daze. She couldn't take her gaze off of the lake -- not for a moment, not for a second more.
Her breathing started to hasten, bringing forth the sharpest of pain inside her chest. Her vision began to blur by virtue of the tears--
No, it was blood that was pooling in the rims of her eyes.
Ilya then coughed. Accompanying her saliva were also droplets of blood.
She couldn't resist hunching down; she felt the muscles in her abdomen twisting. All of a sudden, a blaring scream pierced her ears. Blood soon trickled down the holes of her auricles and nose.
What soon followed was the sensation of being embraced by the most unforgiving winter air. It penetrated her skin, petrifying her muscles and bones. Her body became numb only for a second, a surge of pain starting to thrash about inside of her thereafter.
Unable to bear the pain, Ilya was reduced to her knees on the ashes. She clutched her chest as she was gasping for breath.
Amidst her suffering, dark clouds began to dominate the heavens. A night that was more aphotic than the deepest parts of the ocean had descended.
It was as if the morning never occurred at all.
Ilya assayed to battle the pain that made her grovel on the ground. But it didn't come easy for her. Even her body refused to cooperate with her will.
She was breathing heavily, her mouth dripping with saliva. The blood she had cried out was pooling on the ground. Her lips were almost kissing the wet ashes.
Oddly enough, she had yet to shed a drop of sweat.
However, her misery that could be perceived by the eyes was a disservice to the reality of her suffering. The cruelty of the pain assaulting the very core of her being was beyond anything she had ever endured.
Ilya grabbed a handful of ashes all the while trying to crawl forward. Her muscles trembled as she forced them to move. Not to mention, her skin was rubbed raw by specks of ashes and bits of debris littering around.
Despite all of these, the fervor in her eyes only became fiercer.
Since she couldn't control her body yet, Ilya ceased her attempt to move its entirety. Instead, she focused all of her strength on her upper body. The veins on her neck and temples, all entangled in a web, swelled to their utmost. A bit more pressure would make them burst.
Though shuddery, Ilya managed to raise her head, just enough to take a glance at the surface of the lake.
Upon landing her eyes on the lake, she became paralyzed. She knew exactly what she was looking at.
In contention to her wounded throat, Ilya was able to voice out, "A-- a Bacharoth?"
For the past million years, the advent of seven Bacharoths became the worst disaster that the world had ever faced.
Bacharoths were, in the language of those who were aware of their existence, the predators of mankind.
The first recorded appearance of a Bacharoth was a thousand years after the war of the deities had ended. The next came one hundred thousand years thereafter.
Upon their death, the birthplace of a Bacharoth would be completely bereft of Manna, except for a single particle. That one Manna particle, called 'the imprint', would serve as a chronicle that would detail the events surrounding the Bacharoth.
Extracting the record from the imprint was a task for only the topmost tier of sorcerers. Still and all, it would take them a few years to draw out the memories and transfer them to a viewable sphere.
Regardless of how diligent the sorcerers were in correlating the circumstances of the seven Bacharoths, they didn't find anything that would relate them to each other. Thus, to this day, there's still no concrete reason as to how and why they appeared. The Bacharoths even differed in their outward image, ranging from a creature the size of an ant to a titan taller than the mountains.
So, how could one distinguish a Bacharoth from normal monsters?
All seven of the Bacharoths were wearing similar crowns. The crowns, glowing in dark amaranthine light, didn't have a physical body. They were created by connecting phrases written in a yet to be known script. At first, the sorcerers suspected the phrases to be a spell, but they had no way of investigating since the crowns were never used by the Bacharoths during battles.
The latest emergence of a Bacharoth was almost 500 years agone, and the Etheros Empire was where it had shown itself. From there on, the Empire went into war with a sole Bacharoth.
The war lasted for nearly one hundred years before the Bacharoth was subdued and eventually killed by a group of Sorcerers. The Empire established the Bacharoth script afterward, declaring a new era of survival from the abominations.
"Why… why is one-- why is one in front of me now?" Ilya struggled to utter, lowering her head as she felt her strength decline.
It was the law that came with a Bacharoth's appearance.
Humans, or any living being for that matter, would not be able to survive in the presence of Bacharoths. The aura they exuded was akin to the foulest of plagues, devouring those who could feel them before they became sentient.
The reason why Ilya had yet to relinquish life was due to her quick thinking. The moment she sensed the changes in her body, she had activated the first defense spell that entered her mind. However, it was proving useless in the long run, considering that she already had one foot inside the grave.
Ilya clenched her jaw as she gritted her teeth. She began to mutter spells after spells, hoping that one could help her get out of her misery.
But that came with a price.
If she continued to wield Manna in that manner, Ilya would forever spend her life in a coma in this lifetime.