The village of Havenbeck was eerily silent as Jon and Isolde stepped into its outskirts. The air was thick with the stench of decay, the sky above them a bruised purple, fading into twilight. Jon's breath hitched, his every step sending jolts of pain through his body, but he pressed forward, the village beckoning them like a forgotten tombstone in a graveyard.
"This place... something's wrong," Isolde murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. She floated beside Jon, her form flickering uneasily. Her eyes, wide with apprehension, scanned the darkened windows of the homes around them. Smoke still curled lazily from chimneys, but there was no sound of life—no villagers, no children's laughter, no merchants calling out from the square.
It was as if the town had been abandoned in haste. Yet the stillness, the oppressive quiet, felt wrong. Too wrong.
Jon nodded silently, his hand tightening around the hilt of his greatsword. Every instinct in him screamed that they shouldn't be here. His heart pounded in his chest, the dull ache of his wounds reminding him of the fight that had nearly killed him. His wounds... they still pulsed, still throbbed with a heat that felt unnatural, like a slow-burning fire just beneath his skin.
And then there was the blood.
It still clung to him like a second skin, thick and sticky, mixed with the beast's, with his own, with something else. His hands trembled slightly as he wiped his palm against his torn cloak, trying to ignore the dark stain it left behind.
"Jon... something happened here." Isolde's voice cut through his thoughts, her tone sharp with an edge of panic. "I don't like this. We need to be cautious."
Jon grunted in agreement, his eyes scanning the narrow alleyways and deserted streets. The village felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. But what?
As they moved deeper into Havenbeck, they passed a well in the center of the square. It was overturned, its stone bricks cracked, water spilled across the ground and mixing with... blood. Thick pools of it, spreading out in wide arcs as though something had been violently slain nearby.
Jon froze. The scent of death was overwhelming now.
Isolde hovered closer, her expression dark. "Jon... this was recent."
Jon's pulse quickened. There were no bodies in sight, but the blood—there was too much of it. It painted the ground, splattered across doorways, across windows, even seeping into the wood of the buildings themselves. But there was no sign of the villagers. No cries for help. No signs of struggle beyond the blood. Just silence.
His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword, his knuckles white. "Something's killed them. All of them," he muttered, more to himself than to Isolde.
As if in response, a sudden gust of wind swept through the square, carrying with it a low, hollow sound—a whisper that sent a chill down Jon's spine. He stopped dead in his tracks, his muscles tensing. His demon side stirred, but still distant, still simmering beneath the surface.
And then... he saw it.
A figure moved at the edge of the square, shrouded in shadow. Tall, unnaturally thin, draped in robes as black as night itself. Its head was hidden beneath a deep hood, and in its skeletal hands, it held a massive scythe that glimmered faintly in the dim light.
The figure moved with an eerie grace, gliding across the blood-soaked ground as though it were weightless. Its presence was suffocating, like a void that consumed the very air around it. Jon's breath caught in his throat, a cold sweat breaking out along his brow.
"Jon..." Isolde's voice was barely audible, trembling with fear. "That... that's no ordinary creature."
Jon didn't respond. He didn't need to. He knew exactly what it was. A Reaper. A being that came for the dead, for the souls of the recently departed. His mother had spoken of them in hushed tones when he was a child, warning that they only appeared in places of great death, where many had fallen.
And Havenbeck... was a feast.
The Reaper moved silently, its scythe held loosely in one hand as it glided toward the center of the square, where the blood was thickest. Jon felt a cold shiver crawl up his spine. It hadn't noticed him. Or if it had, it didn't care. He was... unimportant. Not fully dead, but not fully alive either. The Reaper's attention was fixed on something else.
The massacre.
It hovered over the ground, moving as though drawn to the blood itself. Jon stood frozen, watching as the creature raised its scythe, the blade catching the dim light, and with a slow, deliberate motion, it plunged the scythe into the earth. The air around it rippled, and for a moment, Jon felt a sickening pull—a tug on something deep within him, as though the very essence of death was being drawn toward the Reaper.
And then he saw them.
The spirits.
One by one, ghostly figures began to rise from the blood-stained ground, translucent forms of the villagers who had once called Havenbeck home. Their faces were blank, their eyes empty, and they drifted toward the Reaper like moths to a flame. Silent. Obedient.
Isolde gasped, her voice shaky. "They're... harvesting them. Taking their souls."
Jon's stomach twisted, but his feet remained rooted in place. He watched as more and more spirits gathered around the Reaper, pulled from the pools of blood, from the places they had fallen. The Reaper's scythe pulsed with a faint, sickly light as it absorbed the souls, one after another, with mechanical precision.
Jon's breath quickened. "Why did this happen?" he muttered under his breath, though he didn't expect an answer.
Isolde, still hovering beside him, shook her head, her eyes locked on the Reaper. "This village... there's more to this than we thought. No one could have done this alone. This kind of carnage..." She trailed off, her voice trembling.
Jon nodded silently, his mind racing. Something had slaughtered these people. Something far worse than the beasts in the forest. He could feel it in the air, in the very ground beneath him. And now, the Reaper had come to collect what remained.
For a moment, Jon considered stepping forward, challenging the Reaper. But the thought was fleeting. He was still weak, his body barely holding together. His demon side simmered beneath the surface, but it wasn't enough—not yet.
And the Reaper... it was an ancient thing. A force of nature, of death itself. To fight it now would be suicide.
Instead, Jon gritted his teeth, forcing himself to turn away from the scene. "We need to go," he said, his voice low and strained. "We need answers."
Isolde hesitated, glancing back at the Reaper as it continued its grim harvest, but finally, she nodded, her ethereal form flickering with tension. "Agreed. But Jon... this isn't over."
Jon gave a curt nod, though the unease gnawing at his chest refused to leave. Something dark had come to Havenbeck, and the Reaper was only the beginning.
As they turned and made their way toward the village's far end, leaving the Reaper and its silent procession behind, Jon couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had caused this massacre was still out there. Watching. Waiting.
And it wouldn't be long before it came for him.