Chereads / Teras / Chapter 9 - Great hunt

Chapter 9 - Great hunt

"I'm telling you all, this monster must be of either abyssal or eldritch descent!" spoke the masked venator as he was receiving healing from another venator.

"Stop moving you dumbfuck! I can't heal you if you keep reopening the wound!" shouted the healer in his face.

"Calm down Vorl, describe the monster" told an old looking man dressed similarly to everyone present around, all were venator.

The masked venator described in details the appearance of the monster, went over its behavior, abilities, Et cetera.

"Don't ring any bells for me, what about you Misot?" the old man spoke before turning to a woman, the owner of the fanciest hat among all of the venators present.

"Me neither, seems likely Vorl ran into a newly born specie or perhaps, a forgotten monster of the ancient time, ahaha!" she said, seemingly very thrilled by the second option.

"In any case, I got a report that your monster attacked a city and massacred the population on top of clowning on the security and the fuckers that are the Sun Bearers seems to already be on the track of the monster" spoke the old man as he stroke his long beard.

"Perhaps we should just leave it to them?" offered a venator from further away.

"Absolutely not, may I be damned by all of hell's princes if I let those mouth-crappers do my job" answered the old man immediately.

"Mouth-crappers? That's a new one Alaham" spoke Misot as she seemingly wrote his words down for unknown purposes.

"Vorl, heal faster, Misot, do your thing and find that monster, everyone else whose name I don't know, pick up our stuff, we slaying a new and dangerous monster and may very well die, so rejoice!" spoke the old man in a booming voice.

"You are the worst leader" clearly spoke Vorl.

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"Look over there" spoke Hellianix while pointing at something.

"Damn" Marhar only spoke a single word upon seeing what she was pointing at.

"I think that's his stock of food" she added afterwards.

In a line at least ten meters long and four meter wide, the vegetation had been forcefully removed and the branches of nearby trees sharpened, on the sharpened branches, the corpses of various creatures had been impaled, left there for later consumption.

"This looks like the job of one of those butcherbirds" said Marhar but seeing the wounds left on the corpses, the one responsible for all of these was no bird at all.

"Now, where is it?" uttered Hellianix as she looked around.

"Seems like it's not home or even nearby at all, maybe it felt us coming and left?" suggested the red-robed man.

"Why would it leave when it has the cover of the forest and the knowledge of our positions when it persisted on attacking you head on in an open area?" questionned the green-clothed woman.

"I told you, I think it was particularily interested in that mysterious girl" answered the man as he laid eyes upon a most atrocious sight.

"What would it want from a human girl?" asked Hellianix as she walked up to him and also saw the gruesome spectacle.

The corpses of a few humans were impaled as well amidst the many beasts and monsters but one in particular left the two a bit pale despite how used they are to gruesome sights, a woman was impaled right through the chest, a bit too off to hit the heart or lungs, her clearly round belly had been cut open, what had happened was clear.

"It went for it first?" spoke the man absentmindedly.

"It didn't eat it as it ate the corpse, it specifically went for it and ate nothing else" added the woman after a bit.

"Don't imagine the worst Marhar, sometimes monsters and animals, even if they are not sapient have strange tendencies" reassured Hellianix.

"Then, perhaps it was after that girl because she was pregnant? It didn't seem like it though, mmmmh" the red-robed man rubbed his temples, the fact that the monster had not killed her on the spot rubbed him the wrong way, he tried to think of reasons monsters don't kill another being they would usually kill on the spot but every thing he thought off was hard to believe considering other facts.

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Deep inside of dark forest, below the earth in an ancient dungeon, a group of people were gathered in a circle, each wore dark red robes, the color of which came from the blood they had been soaked in, each of them had soaked their robes in a pool filled with the blood of various strong beast, this was part of the ritual they had tried to accomplish for years.

Each of them had lost their hair and had seen their skin crack, result of failed attempts at summoning the one they saw as their lord.

A while ago, it had seemed like they had seen sucess as they had suffered no backlashes but their lord was nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that their lord shouldn't be affected by the eldritch floga, he still wouldn't respond to their call, him who wanted nothing more than fight and kill, refused to appear to do exactly that.

Once more, they reunited and attempted the ritual, they chanted the glory of the Lord Of The Hunt, the glory of the Twin-blooded, the circle drawn on the ground illuminated slightly but almost immediately stopped doing so, it was another failure.

Yet, despite having failed to summon their lord, as he opened his eyes, the leader of the cultist saw a tall and slender figure standing in the doorway to the room they were all in, for a moment, the cultist felt over the moon, thinking that they had finally succeeded in the summoning of their lord.

That joy did not last.

the figure covered by the darkness of the room that was only illuminated by a few candles, sprung forward and butchered the unsuspecting cultists, shattering their bones and battering their flesh, their mangled corpses crashed against the old walls of the dungeon.

Backed against a wall, the leader was met face to face with a creature with no features at all, its face blank, staring at the monster's face, the cultist felt both fear and joy, he didn't know why but he couldn't but smile and laugh as the creature sent both its claws forward, piercing his stomach before violently moving its arms to its side, causing the body of cultist to be split in two.

After the death if the last cultist, the only sound that was heard in the dungeon was that of munching and chewing.