My Mist Sword collided with the raw, pulsating blade of flesh that the Lords of Teka had conjured. The clash sent a reverberation through the thick, oppressive air. Their weapon radiated decay, each swing carrying the stench of rot and death, yet he seemed caught off guard. He hadn't expected anyone to challenge him in his own zone of decay.
I didn't wait for him to adapt. My body dissolved into a dense mist, my form scattering into the air, making the atmosphere heavier with every passing second.
The Lords eyes, now entirely black and devoid of humanity, darted through the shrouded battlefield. His flesh sword pulsated fleshy, tendrils sprouting from its hilt as he swung it in wide arcs, trying to catch a trace of me.
"Do you think your petty tricks will work on us?" the main head voice snarled, cracking and overlapping with a chorus of others. He swung wildly, frustration creeping into his movements.
That was when his steps faltered.
"What!?"
Frost crept across the ground beneath him, unnoticed until it ensnared his legs, freezing him in place. The ice climbed rapidly, thickening around his knees and locking him into position. He swung his sword down onto the encroaching frost, but the crystalline surface remained unbroken.
Panic flickered across the main head expression, just for a moment. He had believed his decay zone impenetrable. He hadn't anticipated this.
But I had.
This wasn't a mere coincidence; it was my plan from the start.
Every move I made... every calculated attack... had been to bait them into overextending. By forcing them onto the defensive, I had made them focus entirely on protecting the body they possessed, neglecting the offensive decay that should have kept the frost at bay.
And now, they couldn't see the others.
The mist thickened further, coiling through the air like a living thing, and then...
A crackling streak of indiscernible lightning pierced the haze.
It struck the Lords of Teka with a deafening zap, electricity arcing across the malformed body and locking it's muscles in place. The grotesque form twitched violently, momentarily paralyzed.
Uvan had made the first move.
From the swirling mist behind the Lords, another figure emerged... a blur of fiery intensity. Jess, her great sword engulfed in chaotic flames, moved with deadly arc.
Her strike was merciless. She drove the blade through their back, aiming for the heart that pulsed like a beating tumor. The sound of the impact was sickening, flesh and fire colliding in a spray of dark ichor.
The Lords roared, their voices echoing with a guttural fury. They swung the flesh sword toward Jess, but she had already darted back into the mist, her movements light and swift despite the massive weapon she carried.
The frost continued its advance, spreading in jagged lines across the ground. It wasn't just slowing them; it was throwing the possessed body off balance. Their movements were jerky and uneven, it's footing unstable on the icy terrain.
And yet, they smiled.
The sound of the main head laughter rumbled through the battlefield like thunder, shaking the frost-covered ground beneath us.
"Pathetic," he sneered, his voice carrying an otherworldly weight. "Oh, you Wanderers, why do you persist in this futile struggle? Do you truly believe this will stop our ascension?"
The possessed body form began to shift.
The sight was inhumane, beyond anything I had seen before. It's flesh bubbled and writhed as if boiling from the inside. The three heads that once was there began to merge, their voices overlapping in an eerie cacophony until there was only one.
The new head was monstrous... It's eyes multiplying until there were six in total, three aligned on either side of its grotesque visage.
"It's my turn," the Lords snarled, but his tone wasn't directed at us. It was as though he spoke to himself, to the fragmented consciousnesses within. "You've mishandled the sacrifices. How pitiful."
Wings, leathery and jagged, tore through the flesh of his back, unfolding with an audible snap. His body expanded, muscles swelling, his frame becoming more grotesque with every passing second.
The decay zone thickened again, the oppressive aura of death creeping back into the mist. It wasn't just his physical form that had changed; his presence was suffocating, a bloodlust so dense that it threatened to crush the air from my lungs.
I couldn't remain hidden anymore.
I materialized, the mist peeling away from my body as I took form, gripping my Mist Sword tightly. My breath came in short bursts, the weight of his malice pressing down on me like a vice.
"Time isn't on my side," the Lords of Teka growled, his six eyes locking onto me. He raised his grotesque blade, pointing it directly at me.
"I'll kill you first."
And then he moved.
His figure blurred, an unnatural speed that made me unable to detect.
For a single, agonizing moment, everything seemed to slow.
Then the sharp, sickening sound of a blade piercing flesh echoed through the mist.
Celia.