Sky was a few steps behind him with her arms around my body, holding it as if something was going to drag it away from her. Fear was written all over her face and I wondered who it was that inspired the fear she felt. The cave pavers? Or Hassan himself?
We all watched Hassan as if we were waiting for him to say something or act strange but within seconds he walked towards Sky. The dark grin on his face was replaced by the usual blank expression. He was back to his usual self.
"We don't have any time to waste. More of them could come anytime" He said as he bent over and carried my body from Sky.
That was true... We had to leave there before other creatures notice what was going on.
They didn't take creatures turning on themselves as they took creatures turning on the king so Snowflakes had nothing to worry about but the three humans did so we all had to get moving.
Sky and Hassan and my body were all on the wooden cart covered by the piece of clothing.
The piece of clothing wasn't there for the sake of aesthetics or to help their prey escape, it acted to preserve the prey from decay. It was woven by the commoners that worked with the cave pavers and the materials used to make them were gotten by the cave pavers from the cave.
Snowstorm hovered over to the storage room I was familiar with. It wasn't hard to locate because it was the twelfth door from the path we came out from.
I never expected that counting the doors would help me because I thought we were never going back there again.
Halfway to the door one of the leaders held the wooden cart and growled at Snowstorm. Its growl meant "Let me have that"
Before I could think of reacting to the leader it raised the piece of clothing exposing the three humans that lay under it.
'How did I think that we could escape this place twice?'
Just as its eyes flashed with murderous intensity Snowstorm dug its claws into the creature's neck tearing its soul core out from it and sending the creature to the ground.
The creature was dead but its effect remained.
Every other creature had seen the three humans being snuck around right under their big ugly noses.
The creatures, nightmarish amalgamations of claws, fangs, and tapered ends, lunged toward the new prey fuelled by a feeling only familiar to the hunters of their clan; the thrill of hunting prey.
Seeing a conscious prey seemed to turn them crazier than they usually were.
Sky clung to my unconscious body and dragged it toward the back of the wooden cart with her eyes and mouth wide open in a look of terror.
Hassan stood on the wooden cart,
radiating an aura of unimaginable power as the ice gladius materialized from the air.
With the Ice Gladius in hand, heart pounding, and adrenaline surging, he charged into battle. The first wave of creatures lunged at him with gnarled claws flying through the air to tear through his flesh and bones, but he deftly parried their attacks and sent his sword through their weak points sending many of the creatures to the ground.
Once again the 'Hassan ' that fought against the cave paver was back, except this time he was a little bit different from the last: a little more grimmer.
His deep-set, piercing eyes gleamed with a malevolent intelligence, and from those eyes, a dark essence emanated. This time the essence was less like a formless gas and more like a dark flame.
The dark flame enveloped him as he plunged at the creatures, sending them to their grave with one swing of his ice gladius.
The battle that ensued was a symphony of chaos, a discordance of growls reverberating through the center of the cave.
All the creatures had never experienced a life prey so they all ran mad. It didn't hinder the human warrior in any way because it seemed like he too had let go of every drop of control he had and unleashed his madness.
Hassan fought with every ounce of strength he possessed, spurring primal instincts he had long forgotten.
He faced an overwhelming horde of uncountable creatures of the Blizzardkin clan which were mainly filled with the leaders and the commoners.
As the battle raged on, his movements became a graceful dance of death, his blade cutting through the air with precision and power. Each swing brought down multiple creatures, but the sheer number of adversaries was unrelenting.
He charged forward gleaming with dark flames that enveloped his body and with a mighty cry, he unleashed a devastating whirlwind attack using the ice gladius that sent creatures flying in all directions, granting him a moment of ease.
Yet, for every creature that fell, it seemed like two more took its place. Hassan's muscles ached, his breath came in ragged gasps, and his arms grew heavy but he fought on, driven by his survival instinct and the darkness that had just blossomed in him.