As the red moon slowly began to move westward, its descent signaled the passage of time to everything beneath its eerie glow.
Amidst the unsettling sounds of nocturnal creatures and the persistent clatter of metal as the coachman worked on the carriage door, a young girl stood in the middle of the road. To her side were six horses, seemingly asleep.
The young girl yawned and then turned her attention to the coachman, whose work continued to produce the sound of metal.
"Kawk!"
Suddenly, from the darkness far down the road, a flock of birds burst into the sky. This was peculiar because birds were not typically active during the night, implying that something unusual had caused them to take flight in the middle of the night.
At that moment, in the direction where the birds had taken flight, a scream echoed through the night.
This abrupt and unsettling sound drew the young girl's attention in that direction.
However, after a few minutes, the screaming ceased, leaving only the coachman's ongoing work sounds. The girl shifted her focus back to the carriage.
"How long are you going to take, Grake? I told you to hurry," she said in an annoyed tone as she glanced toward the darkness.
"If you're cold, you can go inside the carriage now; I'm almost done with all the work," offered the coachman, noticing her shivering due to the night's cold.
The girl peered inside the carriage and replied, "How can I stay calm in this thing when your work is so loud?" She voiced her complaint.
"Yeah, you're right. Forgive me," the coachman said apologetically. In the next moment, he held something out to her.
"Then, you can wear this," he said, offering her his coat.
The girl initially hesitated but was soon reminded of the biting cold as a chilly wind swept past her. Without a word, she accepted the coat and draped it around herself, finding some relief as the cold's grip lessened.
Time continued to pass slowly, but there was no sign of Grake.
Eventually, the coachman managed to finish reattaching the carriage door. The young girl returned his coat to him and walked back inside the carriage.
The coachman retrieved his coat and began to put it back on. As he wore it, he caught a whiff of an unusual and alluring scent emanating from the coat, realizing it was the girl's scent. He took a moment to savor it.
As he was enjoying the fragrance, suddenly, a swift and incredible force streaked past him with a"swoosh."Before he could react, it grabbed the coachman, pulling him along.
"Cough!"
With his mouth wide open, the coachman gasped for breath, desperate to regain air.
The incredible speed at which the thing had grabbed him left him breathless and disoriented. He had nearly lost all sense but managed to regain his composure only when the entity that had seized him came to a halt.
After taking a deep breath and regaining his senses, the coachman cautiously turned his attention toward the one who had grabbed him.
But before he could do so, a sharp, sword-like object pressed against his neck, restraining his movements.
"Sling," a sound reminiscent of two knives rubbing together, hung in the air, leaving him in a tense and precarious situation.
"Damn, what the hell is that freak? Bastard managed to get rid of all my legions that I built tirelessly for nine years," a voice came from behind the coachman.
"Tulara, come outside. We know you can't go far because, I have one of your legs with me," a voice shouted loudly, causing the coachman to suddenly scream.
"Grake!" he yelled.
"Shit, shut the hell up!" The Tulara, realizing his mistake in not silencing his captive sooner, prepared to lift his hand to slice the coachman's neck.
However, before he could make his move, a figure one and a half times his size suddenly appeared in front of him.
"Found you," Grake declared as he seized the Tulara with one hand and delivered a powerful punch where its stomach should have been. The Tulara absorbed the punch, but afterward, its limbs seemed to go lifeless.
Lifting the Tulara, Grake hurled it toward a spot illuminated by the red moon's glow.
As the Tulara landed in that space, it caused all of its features to become visible in the eerie light, revealing its true form to another eye.
Its appearance revealed, the Tulara appeared as a youthful figure, but with unsettling differences. Instead of fingers, it had razor-sharp claws at the ends of its hands. There was no hair on its head, and its most eerie feature was its eyes.
They were slightly larger than a normal human's and appeared to be half-open, with only a tiny line visible in the opening. Even that thin line seemed to be made of something like a string, creating a strange pattern within the eye.
Its skin, not clearly visible due to the red moon's light, had a dark brown hue when observed closely.
As it fell, the coachman also fell beside it. Seeing the coachman, the Tulara screamed.
"If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna take someone with me!" it screamed in a terrifying way and jumped toward the coachman, getting its face so close to him.
But suddenly, Grake appeared and grabbed its face, pulling it back. As he did so, he delivered another punch to its face, causing it to bend inward.
After that, Grake lifted it up in the air with his whole two hands and held it upward on his head. He began to put force into his hands, and with a bone-chilling scream from the Tulara, Grake ripped it into two parts, ending its life.
As he did so, the blood of the Tulara fell toward the coachman in the ground. With the Tulara's terrifying screams and its shrill fate, along with the blood that was coming out of it and falling toward him, the coachman lost his senses and become unconscious.
After ripping the Tulara in half, with one hand holding the two parts of the Tulara and the other holding the coachman, Grake appeared where the young girl was.
"You need to take a bath," said the young girl, seeing Grake covered in blood.
"And he too," she said, as she saw the unconscious coachman in one of Grake's hands.
"Wait, how are we gonna go if he is unconscious?" the girl raised a question and prepared to wake the coachman up.
"Let him be; he lost it when he got scared to the fullest," said Grake as he threw the two parts of the Tulara into one of the bags. The bag appeared large when he put them in, but it soon became tiny when its job was done, making it the most suitable tool to carry large stuff when traveling.
"I can ride the carriage," he said after that and got into the coachman's seat in the carriage. The horses were already up at the moment, with the coachman in front of her seat. The young girl also got into the carriage.
"Hyah!"
With a loud cracking sound, Grake urged the horses