They talk to an old man. They talk about Aldrein. The old man told,"
Before the darkness fell, Aldrein was the shield of Oakhaven. A warrior of legendary prowess, he had retired to the quiet village, wielding a massive iron spike not for glory, but for protection. To the locals, he was a savior who fought off wolf packs and trekked through deep snow to bring starving families grain. He was the definition of strength and compassion. He came normally today but .. " he cries a little tears falling.
Jis and Mith watch in silence and emotional
Jis : Don't worry everything will be alright.
They had reached the outpost of Oakhaven by dusk—a cluster of hovels clinging to the canyon wall like desperate barnacles. The people there were hollow-cheeked and skittish, barring their doors as the sun began to dip.
"You cannot stay," the village elder, a woman with eyes clouded by cataracts, had rasped, clutching Mith's sleeve. "The ravine... it vomits them out when the moon dies. They hunger for the light. Leave, or be extinguished."
"We've fought these things before," Mith had said, gently removing her hand. His voice was confident, perhaps too confident after their victory at the cultist's camp. "We can hold the perimeter. Your people will be safer with us here."
Jis had nodded agreement, too exhausted to march another mile. They set their bedrolls near the village well, establishing a rotation for the watch. They ignored the way the villagers blew out their candles and huddled in absolute silence, as if trying to erase their own existence.
They should have listened.
The attack didn't start with a sound. It started with a smell—the stench of that necrotic, false warmth they had encountered earlier.
Mith, taking the first watch, frowned, sniffing the air. He stood up, a small flame lighting in his palm. "Jis," he whispered. "Wake up."
Then the canyon walls began to move.
It wasn't a squad, or a horde. It was a landslide of flesh. Thousands of the creatures—twisted, multi-limbed horrors that had once been men—poured over the rim of the ravine. They moved like a fluid, a black river of clicking chitin and gnashing teeth.
"Alert the village!" Jis screamed, kicking his blankets away and drawing his sword in a blur of blue light.
But it was too late. The swarm crashed into the hovels. Wood splintered like kindling. screams erupted, terrible and short, as the creatures dragged villagers from their beds.
"Get back!" Mith roared. He clapped his hands, unleashing a Firestorm Wave. A wall of flame rolled outward, incinerating the first rank of monsters, but the ones behind simply trampled over the burning bodies of their kin. There were too many.
"Save them!" a woman shrieked nearby, clutching a child, before a shadow with reversed limbs snatched her into the darkness.
"I can't cover them all!" Mith yelled, panic rising in his throat. He fired bolt after bolt, but for every creature he killed, ten more took its place. The village was drowning in monsters.
"Mith! The well!" Jis shouted. "We have to hold the center!"
Jis was fighting like a demon. His sword was a windmill of azure destruction, carving a circle of safety in the chaos. He decapitated a creature, spun, and severed the legs of another. "Azure Tide!" he bellowed, sending a shockwave of force that cleared a ten-foot radius.
But the swarm was intelligent. They saw the threat.
A massive creature, larger than the rest, dropped from a rooftop directly behind Jis. It didn't strike; it tackled.
"Jis!" Mith turned, but a wall of lesser creatures blocked his path.
He saw Jis go down under a pile of writhing black bodies. His blue light flickered and vanished beneath the mass.
"NO!" Mith screamed, blasting a path through the horde, but he was too slow. They were burying his friend.
Suddenly, the Slate in Mith's pocket burned against his hip with a searing, white-hot intensity.
It didn't just glow; it screamed. A beam of blinding violet light shot out from his pocket, not pointing at the horizon this time, but directly at the pile of monsters suffocating Jis.
Mith felt a surge of energy that wasn't his own. It was frantic, protective, and unmistakably familiar. The stone wasn't just a compass anymore; it was reacting to the loss of a bond.
The violet light hit the pile of creatures on top of Jis.
SCREEEEECH!
The monsters recoiled as if burned by acid. The violet light didn't cut them; it repelled them, pulsing with a frequency that seemed to cause them physical agony. They scrambled back, hissing, leaving Jis gasping for air in the mud, his armor dented and clawed.
Mith scrambled over the debris, sliding to his knees beside his friend. He grabbed Jis's hand, hauling him up, while his other hand clutched the glowing stone, brandishing it like a holy symbol.
Wherever the violet light touched, the horde flinched.
"They fear it," Mith realized, his breath ragged. He looked at the devastation around them—the ruined homes, the silence where villagers had been screaming only moments ago.
"They don't just fear it," Jis wheezed, wiping black blood from his eyes and looking at the stone. "Mith... look at them. They're bowing."
Around the circle of violet light, the thousands of creatures had stopped their frenzy. They crouched low, chattering quietly, their red eyes fixed on the stone in Mith's hand with a mixture of terror and reverence.