It was a strange feeling—walking through streets that where abandoned, an area that was surely once alive and bustling, now reduced to desolation. Stranger still when that place had once been your home. The emptiness seemed to stretch time, creating the illusion of centuries passing in just a few short days.
The creak of leather, clink of metal, and rustle of gear combined into an eerie symphony as Rasan led a group of guards through the streets. His hand hovered near the hilt of his sword, ready for anything, as his sharp eyes scanned their surroundings. The southern district of the village had been spared the fire that consumed the west, though it had hardly escaped unscathed. The monsters that breached the western wall had poured through the entire village, leaving devastation in their wake.
Even here.
Many of the villagers in the southern district had managed to flee to the safety of the village hall. But not all. The evidence of those who didn't make it lingered—a smear of blood here, a broken body there, and the occasional corpse of a slain monster.
Rasan kept his focus forward, purposefully ignoring the gruesome sights around them. The guards, however, weren't as seasoned. Until a few days ago, most of them had lived rather peaceful lives, untouched by such horrors. Now, the blood and carnage twisted their stomachs and pulled their attention away from their task. The air around them felt heavy with unease as they approached their destination.
"Eyes up," Rasan said sharply, breaking the tension. He turned his head slightly, his voice low but commanding enough to snap the guards out of their daze.
"The Southern Library should be just around the corner. Stay alert." The guards straightened, nodding in unison as they tightened their grip on their weapons. Satisfied, Rasan led them forward. As they turned the corner, their destination came into view—a large building at the end of the road. Unlike the other structures they'd passed, this one stood out.
It was a rotunda, with cylindrical walls and a domed roof. Like most of Freyborn Village's architecture, the library was built of wood, but vines and foliage grew along its surface, giving it an almost organic appearance. The asymmetrical design made it look less like something manmade and more like a natural formation—a tree hollowed and shaped into a home. The curved glass windows in the domed roof were the only elements that betrayed its artificial origin.
"Looks untouched," one of the guards murmured, eyes fixed on the structure.
"That's good for us," another added, his voice tinged with relief.
"It is," Rasan agreed, though his tone remained cautious.
"Let's just hope nothing made it inside." The comment earned a nervous gulp from the two guards who had spoken. The tension climbed with each step they took, their eyes darting to every shadow as they approached the Southern Library's entrance. Once they reached it, Rasan raised a hand, signaling them to stop.
"We'll secure the area first," he instructed.
"Last thing we need is to get cornered inside with no way out." The guards nodded, as they prepared to sweep the area.
Just as they were about to split up, Rasan felt it—a sudden, sharp jolt of awareness, his sixth sense flaring with incoming danger.
"Defensive positions!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the stillness as he drew his sword in a single motion. There was no time for stealth. He leaped into the air, soaring above the heads of the group of guards with his weapon gleaming in hand.
The guards, though clueless, reacted instinctively to his command. Training took over, driving their bodies to move even as their minds struggled to catch up. Those with shields and spears quickly grouped together, forming a protective wall as they raised their shields to cover vital areas. Behind them, the swordsmen took position, seeking cover and readying themselves for whatever was coming.
Rasan's blade moved in a blur, slicing through the air in rapid succession—eight strikes in the span of a heartbeat. At first, it looked as though he was attacking nothing. But then, sharp impacts rang out, a series of thuds against the guards' shields. The force of the strikes made them stagger, their arms straining to hold steady.
"Argh!" A cry came from one of the swordsmen behind the shield wall as he stumbled, clutching his right shoulder.
"I'm hit!" Another guard called out, gripping his upper thigh where something had pierced through his armor.
"What the hell is shooting at us?" One of the shield-bearers demanded, glancing back at the injured. The projectile in the swordsman's shoulder was visible now—a long, black needle, unnervingly thin but sturdy enough to pierce through both leather and chainmail. Each needle was longer than a finger and deceptively light-looking. More of the needles were scattered around them, some embedded in the dirt, others lodged into shields. There had to be over a dozen of them.
"Dammit, it hurts!" The guard hit in the thigh shouted, his face pale with pain. He turned to a comrade nearby.
"Help me get this thing out of my leg!" The other guard nodded and sheathed his sword before crouching down and reaching carefully toward the needle. But just as his fingers were about to touch it, Rasan's voice cut through the tense air like a blade.
"Don't touch them!" Rasan's voice was sharp and commanding, freezing the guard in his tracks. The others turned to him, their attention following the point of his sword as he gestured at the ground. Scattered around them were dozens of needles—Rasan had struck down at least thirty or forty mid-air, but a few had slipped past the arc of his blade because of his lack of range. Now broken, the needles were more visible, as well as their designs.
The guards' eyes widened as they noticed the inverted hooks at the ends of the needles. They weren't just projectiles—they were traps. The barbs would lodge deeper into the flesh if anyone tried to pull them out, making brute force extraction a nightmare.
"If you try to yank them out," Rasan began, his tone clipped and serious, "they'll snap. And then this—" he pointed to the pale green liquid dripping from the broken needles "—will seep into the wound."
The fluid pooled on the ground in faintly shimmering droplets. Hollow and filled with this substance, the needles were clearly not just meant to injure. Rasan's eyes shifted upward, scanning the rooftops for the source of the attack, but he saw nothing. He kept his focus outward as he continued speaking.
"Judging by the way they don't inject the liquid immediately, it's probably not poison. More likely a paralysis agent." He glanced briefly at the guards, his expression firm.
"It won't kill you outright, so leave the needles where they are for now and get inside the library." The logic was simple enough. The needles were tools designed to wound and weaken prey, not to kill them outright. The needles' design suggested their purpose: pierce, inflict pain, and let the prey exhaust itself and break the needles while struggling. Then, when the target was too weak to resist, the predator would strike. Poison would make prey inedible—this was about subduing, not killing.
"But, sir-" One of the guards began, only for Rasan to cut him off.
"I'll handle this alone," he said firmly.
"I can't fight properly if I'm busy protecting all of you. Get inside the library. Keep the injured still so the needles don't rupture, and search for what we came here for." The guards hesitated, reluctant to leave Rasan to face the threat alone. But they knew he was right. Against a long-range enemy like this, they'd only be liabilities. So, after a tense pause, they nodded.
"Yes, sir," they replied in unison, then moved quickly. Two guards lifted the injured, while the others formed a shield wall, covering their retreat toward the library entrance. The spear and shield-bearers kept their eyes trained on the direction of the first attack, ready to intercept any incoming projectiles.
But the next volley didn't come from the same direction.
Rasan felt it first—the subtle shift in the air. Without hesitation, he disappeared from his position, a blur of motion. In an instant, he reappeared beside one of the spear-bearing guards, his blade flashing as he cut down six needles hurtling toward them.
There you are!
Without wasting a moment, Rasan launched himself off the ground with a powerful leap, propelling toward the rooftop where the needles originated. In the blink of an eye, he was airborne, his sharp gaze locking onto the roof for the source, and he found it.
The creature was grotesque. The first thought that struck Rasan was bone—a skeletal frame draped in thin, translucent skin stretched taut over its structure. Its head, an unnatural lump without a neck, was fused directly to its lean torso. The thing balanced on six crooked legs that bent forward and backward in unsettling ways, moving with an eerie, unnatural grace. It stared back at Rasan, its eyeless face tilting slightly, as though assessing him.
Its most defining feature was the strange, tentacle-like appendages protruding from its back. They resembled skin-covered tubes, and at their ends were orifices disturbingly similar to mouths.
That must be where it shoots the needles from.
As Rasan came to that conclusion he raised his sword, ready to behead the creature in one swift motion. But then, that familiar sense of danger flared again. Glancing behind him mid-air, he spotted it—another one of the same monsters perched on a rooftop opposite him. Its tentacles shifted, aiming directly at him. Rasan watched silently as it unleashed a hail of needles, sharp and swift, racing through the air toward him.
So there are multiple of them. That explains why their attacks suddenly shifted angles.
Despite the realization, Rasan didn't flinch. He didn't even try to avoid the needles. Instead, his grip on his sword tightened, and he let the projectiles strike him. His focus stayed on the first creature, staying true to his downward trajectory. The needles shattered harmlessly upon contact with his aura, unable to penetrate. The monster below didn't even have time to shriek. Rasan's blade arced through the air, a silver flash, and with a clean strike, he severed its head. Purple blood sprayed across the roof as the lifeless body slumped over, the grotesque appendages falling limp.
Landing beside the corpse, Rasan gave his sword a swift flick, clearing it of blood. He then moved to the highest point of the curved roof, stepping up to scan around. His sharp gaze locked onto the rooftop where the second monster had fired at him. It was still there—but it wasn't alone. More creatures emerged from the shadows. Some were partially hidden, their pale, skeletal forms blending with the scenery, while others stood fully exposed. The stretched flesh of their mouths peeled back, revealing rows of jagged teeth as they hissed at him.
"One, four, nine..." Rasan's voice was calm as he counted.
"So, there are eleven of you?" He sighed quietly, tilting his head to one side, the crack of his neck audible. The moment passed, and two of the creatures aimed their tentacles at him, firing another barrage of needles. The projectiles hurtled through the air at blinding speed, but as they neared Rasan, they abruptly stopped, shattering into fragments. The green liquid within sprayed harmlessly onto the ground, unable to breach the invisible barrier around him.
"Afraid that won't work. Now then, I should clear you all up before you get any ideas about running." With that, Rasan took a single step forward before launching himself off the roof, rocketing toward the nearest creature. He didn't bother using his sword this time. The momentum of his leap alone was enough. The bony creature was perched on a triangular roof, its body angled precariously. Rasan crashed into it feet-first, his sheer force smashing the monster against the roof's edge. Its lower body and organs were crushed into a paste on impact, the entire building beneath them shaking from the blow.
The creature let out a warped, dying screech, blood pouring from its broken form. Its tentacles flailed weakly, firing off another round of needles at point-blank range, but they didn't even graze Rasan. His aura repelled them effortlessly. To an observer, it might have looked like he was ignoring defense entirely. But, in truth, it was his unshakable certainty that rendered defense unnecessary in the first place. Without any way to directly attack or bypass a knight's aura and willpower, there was only one method to harm them: convince the knight that the threat could actually hurt them.
In theory, even a bomb powerful enough to destroy an entire city would be useless against a knight. The sheer physical force of an explosion couldn't compare to the fundamental strength of aura when it was wielded defensively. But this didn't mean knights were invulnerable. The limitation lay not in the aura itself, but in the knight's belief. Most knights couldn't convince themselves they would emerge unscathed from such overwhelming destruction. The magnitude of the explosion, the sight and sound of its force, would shatter their confidence, allowing doubt to creep in. And when doubt took root, their aura weakened—just enough for the bomb's effects to reach them.
For the creatures facing Rasan, however, that opportunity to weaken his resolve was gone. He had already decided they posed no real threat to him. In his mind, they were powerless, and because of that, their attacks couldn't touch him.
The monsters, of course, couldn't understand this. But their instincts screamed one undeniable truth: they couldn't defeat this man. One by one, the creatures began to flee, darting in different directions.
Rasan's eyes narrowed as he watched them scatter.
"Oh, no you don't." Rasan locked onto the nearest fleeing creature. His figure blurred, disappearing as he launched himself from one roof to another in a flurry of leaps. He moved like a pinball, bouncing from building to building. The white, bony creature he pursued weaved between the structures, desperate to escape. But it didn't even make it around the next corner before he closed the distance. Sensing his approach, the creature abruptly turned, abandoning its needles in favor of baring its teeth. But by the time it turned, Rasan was gone. All it felt was a vice-like grip on the ends of both its tentacles.
The monster screeched in panic, twisting to find Rasan standing behind it, holding both its tentacles firmly in one hand. Before it could retaliate, Rasan leaped into the air, dragging the creature with him. They ascended high above the surrounding rooftops, the creature thrashing and writhing in his grasp, but his hold was rock solid. With his aura-enhanced vision, Rasan quickly spotted another fleeing monster about sixty meters away. His eyes narrowed as he shifted his grip, swinging the struggling creature in a wide arc. Using it like a flail, he hurled it with all his strength toward the second target.
The screech of the airborne monster tore through the sky, but it was cut short when the two collided.
The impact was devastating. Their bodies crumpled against each other, bones splintering, organs bursting until they hit the ground in a grotesque explosion of gore.
Only eight more to go.
Rasan landed heavily on the ground, disappearing again in an instant as he pursued another of the fleeing creatures.
Time passed. About half an hour later, the doors of the Southern Library creaked open. A single guard peeked out cautiously, shield raised and eyes scanning the area. That's when he spotted Rasan standing on the stairs, watching their surroundings, and causing the guard to relax slightly. There wasn't a single scratch or drop of blood on him.
"Captain Rasan?" The guard called hesitantly.
"It's safe," Rasan replied, glancing over his shoulder.
"I cleared out all the monsters in the area." Hearing this, the guard let out a deep sigh of relief, his tense expression softening into a smile. He retreated back into the library, and Rasan heard him relaying the news. Cheers erupted from inside, followed shortly by the entire group filing out of the library. Even the injured guards appeared stable. Bandages wrapped tightly around their wounds prevented the needles from shifting or breaking, at least until they made it back to the village hall for proper treatment.
As the last guard exited the building, Rasan turned to them.
"Did you manage to find it?" One of the guards stepped forward, holding a bundle of rolled papers.
"We did," he said.
"These are all the maps we could find of the upper northern region," another guard added.
Rasan nodded, a smirk forming on his lips.
"Good work. We weren't sure if the Western Library still stood, so it's a damn good thing we found what we needed here. Now let's get out of here and back to the village hall." The guards responded in unison with no complaints.
"Yes, sir!"