The next day, the sound of rushing hooves came from the stone road of the small town of Dawnsinger.Vetril was crouching in the courtyard practising Mana Perception when he suddenly heard Jack shouting at the top of his voice at the entrance of the town, 'They're back! The Flowing Radiance Knights are back!'
He stood up violently, his heart beating like a drum, and rushed towards the town entrance without even putting down his wooden sword. However, the sight in front of him made his footsteps stop in their tracks -
The Order's warhorse was covered in blood, and the figure in the saddle staggered. Leon Frostblade's bronze armguard was split in half, with blood seeping cloth wrapped around the break in his right arm; Adeline's light armour was corroded with honeycomb holes, her left leg disappeared from the knee down, and the charred and blackened section was still smouldering with eerie purple smoke; Cole Rock Spike's tower shield was shattered into three pieces, and his right eye was wrapped in a bandage, with blood dripping down his chin; Sylvia's robes were torn into rags, and her exposed skin was covered with black veins, spreading towards her heart like a spiderweb; and Sylphia's robe was torn into cloth, with black veins crawling all over her exposed skin, spreading like a spiderweb.
Sylvia's vestments were torn into strips of cloth, and her bare skin was covered with black veins, spreading towards her heart like a spider's web; Old Scar's prosthetic limb had disappeared, and he was lying on his horse's back, with a deep bone-deep wound on his back that was gushing out black blood. Gareth, on the other hand, was at the end of the line, and then he rolled over and dismounted, staggering at a pace.
His armour had been torn, revealing bloody wounds, and the armour on his left shoulder appeared to have been completely cut off by some sharp object, blood dripping down his arm. His right leg was limping, and every step seemed unusually difficult.
'Father! You're hurt!' Vetril exclaimed as he ran towards Gareth, unease in his voice.
Gareth waved his hand and barely managed to squeeze out a reassuring smile, 'I'm fine, just some superficial wounds.' However, his pale face and slightly trembling voice betrayed him.
Elena quickly stepped out from the house, and seeing the scene in the courtyard, she couldn't help but sink her face. She immediately ordered the townspeople who had gathered around to prepare hot water and medicine, while she herself personally went up to inspect Gareth's wounds.
'What the hell happened?' She asked in a low voice as she covered the wound on Gareth's shoulder with her palm and chanted a spell to heal it.
Gareth's expression became grave and his voice was low, 'The reason for the migration of the forest wolves, we found it. But ... things are much worse than we thought.'
Gareth recalled what had happened earlier----
Just as they were on their way to explore, Leon's bronze gauntlet brought down a palm-sized piece of bark as it grazed the oak tree's epidermis. Dark red sap slowly oozed out, glowing greasily and eerily in the morning sun. 'Halt.' He raised a hand to stop the procession, his one eye closing in on the trunk - half a human fingernail embedded between the annual lines, the edges of which had fused with the fibres of the wood.
The tip of Aedryn's sword picked through the pile of rotting leaves, revealing a dense mass of insect carcasses below. These beetles maintained a winged, flight-ready stance, but their mouthparts were twisted into the shape of tiny palms. 'The miasma has modified the ecological chain.' Sylvia's staff lit up with detection runes, 'The concentration of Mana in the air is 300% higher than the periphery, but ... it's all twisted.'
The morning mist thickened as they went deeper. The miasma was no longer intangible, but transformed into gelatinous, purple-black flotsam that tangled among the branches like a spider's web. The horses began to snort anxiously, and Silverhoof's left front hoof suddenly kicked a rock, splattering sparks igniting the mist and bursting into a cloud of fluorescent green ghostly fire.
'Dismount and walk!' Leon's bronze gauntlets lit up with dispelling runes, but the curtain of light only held out a five-metre square safety zone. Aedryn's sword, Red Flame Judgement, hummed in its sheath, its hilt jewels flickering in and out - a weapon that had drunk the blood of hundreds of beasts, and was actually wincing.
Through the last patch of twisted birch trees, the crowd froze in place.
Thousands of corpses were arranged in a radial pattern, forming a bizarre circular formation a hundred metres in diameter. Some were intact as if they were sleeping, some were only broken bones, but vines grew from the chest cavity of each corpse. The skin of these vines was covered with human face lines, and the ends were connected to the altar in the centre - a pyramid made of countless children's craniums, with pulsating giant eggs suspended at the top.
On the dark altar, the giant egg twitched like a skinned organ. Fluorescent green slime flowed between the pustules on the surface of the egg shell, and whenever the congregation slit the throats of their captives and blood splattered onto the egg, the slime boiled and swallowed the blood. A priest in a deer-bone mask held aloft a staff encrusted with human teeth, chanting as if he were scraping iron plates with his fingernails, 'Eggs of Sagittus, hunger and thirst will eventually devour the stars-'
'They sacrifice the living,' Gareth's voice rasped like gravel rubbing.
Leon's irises reflected the twitching captive on the altar: a young girl wearing a silver anklet patterned exactly like his daughter Lillian's weekly gift. The knot in her throat rolled three times before she squeezed out the command, 'Stay hidden...' Instead, the voice shattered into an airy tone, as if an invisible hand had clutched the vocal cords.
The hilt of the Red Flame Verdict was squeezed in Aedryn's hand, the flame crest branded into her palm. Her sight was pinned dead on the cultists, ready to sneak up on them.
The sudden twitch of the giant egg was like a demonic laugh, and the purple and black miasma suddenly transformed into millions of withered hands clawing at the hideout. Sylvia's Frost Boundary was crawling with spiderweb cracks just as it was taking shape, and in the shimmering light refracted by the ice crystals, everyone's pupils were grey and cataracted simultaneously-
Leon saw his daughter Lillian being dragged towards the spawn by vines, the silver chains around her ankles jingling with the birthday gift she had put on herself fifteen years ago. The dispelling runes of his bronze armguard seared through his flesh, but he bit his tongue to keep from sounding the alarm-until the hilt of Aedryn's sword slammed into the back of his neck, and excruciating pain tore through the illusion.
Aedryn's nostrils filled with the smell of burning. In the vision the Red Flame Verdict was plunging into Lieutenant Locke's chest, just as it had when he had taken the fatal blow for himself the day Quicksilver fell. 'You coward!' She roared and swung her sword into the void, but the flaming sword energy split the curtain between reality and illusion.
Cole's tower shield weighed more than a thousand pounds in the illusion. The froth of blood his wife coughed up before she died was running down the grain of the shield, and his muscles rippled but he couldn't lift a single centimetre. It wasn't until Old Scar's jug slammed into the back of his head and the smell of kerosene mingled with blood rushed into his nostrils that he realised he was pressing the edge of his shield against Sylvia's throat.
Gareth, on the other hand, had seen the image of Kane impaling Vetril and Elena with his lance, and instantly his eyes reddened as he prepared to fight for his life, only to be stopped by a sobered up Leon, and with that, Sylvia rushed to expel the miasma temporarily by using out wind magic.
The moment the miasma dispersed, twelve bone-masked cultists had closed in a ring. Their weapons were agricultural tools embedded with human teeth, but their movements carried a bizarre coordination - like puppets manipulated by spider silk.
As they fought them, they felt they could not continue to fight any longer, and saw the time to successfully stand out and return to the town.
The story returns to the present -------
Elena was silent for a moment as she continued to treat him.Vetril stood by and watched it all nervously. He had never seen his father in such a sorry state, and it made him feel deeply uneasy.
Night fell quietly, and the Knights had been placed in various rooms of the manor to heal their wounds. However, the atmosphere of the manor was unusually depressing. Gareth sat alone by the fireplace, a cup of wine in his hand, his eyes staring vacantly at the dancing flames.
Vetril quietly entered the room and hesitated when he saw his father's disorientated appearance, 'Father?'
Gareth did not respond. He lifted his glass and took a drink, then set it down heavily on the table. After a long moment, he whispered, 'Vetril, I can't keep you here any longer.'
'What?' Vetril froze.
Elena walked in as well and frowned when she heard the words, 'Gareth, what are you talking about?'
'The cultists won't stop there, they'll continue to spread the miasma and maybe even go after the town!' Gareth snapped to his feet, his tone agitated, 'I can't let you guys risk your lives! We must leave, now!'
Elena walked forward and looked him straight in the eyes, her tone calm but firm, 'Gareth, calm down. We can't leave the villagers behind at this time. This is our home and their home.'
'Home?' Gareth cried, 'What good is home? If we die, will home be preserved? I've already lost my family once, I can't lose you all again!'
It was also the first time Vetril had seen her father cry like that.
Elena's eyes instantly became soft. She gently held Gareth's hand with a hint of choking in her voice, 'I know you're scared, and I'm scared too. But that's precisely why we can't run away. We need to unite the village and face this crisis together.'
Vetril also stepped forward and took his father's other hand, saying firmly, 'Father, I know I'm still weak, but I want to protect this family too. Please don't give up.'
Gareth was silent. He looked at his wife and son, complex emotions flashed in his eyes, and his lips trembled slightly. He slowly raised his hand and gently patted Vetril's shoulder, then turned to Elena and said in a heavy but firm tone, 'You guys are right. This is our home, we can't run away from it. Tomorrow, we'll gather the villagers and start preparing.' Determination showed in his gaze, as if he had rediscovered his long-lost faith.