"Commoner, it seems all ends to our tour are blocked. We're surrounded."
And so the words that demolished Merlin's comfort zone were spoken.
"The spirits have vanished..." Emilia added, her hand covering her mouth, looking equally distraught.
"Spirits?" Merlin accidentally spoke out without thinking. But instead of answers, all he got were a bunch of weird looks from everyone around.
"You seriously don't know anything kid?" Rom came out of the old building and approached the group. "You're even more illiterate than us slum people." He continued while shaking his head, his expression was an ugly frown that almost gave off a pitying vibe.
"I'm not from around here so I wouldn't know okay?!" Merlin turned his head away from the stinking old man.
"But Merlin, everyone knows about spirits." Emilia also gave him an expression that seemed a mix of pity and suspicion.
"ARGHHH!!! Can't we drop this topic already?! And Priscilla, what do you mean by we're surrounded"?
"You haven't picked up on it yet? I should've expected as much from a commoner."
Priscilla closed her fan and crossed her arms under her voluptuous chest. "What do you notice in the surroundings?"
"What do I.I...well,t's super quiet and all, but if you're talking about the lack of life here wouldn't that be because it's the dead of night and we were here throwing hands...so the civilians probably ran away, didn't they?"
"That would've been a convincing argument if it weren't for the half-wit confirming the absence of spirits."
This silenced Merlin not because it was a good argument, which it was, but because he couldn't understand her meaning. The area being too quiet meant being surrounded? How? I'm not smart okay?! I don't understand!
A voice then entered the conversation, but it wawasn't either Emilia or Merlin, it was Rom who spoke up this time. "Sudden disappearance of spirits are always followed by disasters. But why'd they run away now of all times tho? Ain't like there's some Ma–" His coarse and heavy voice got caught in his throat. To be honest, he had a presumption, but it was so ridiculous that it made his lips twitch just at the thought of it.
This reaction was not missed by Priscilla whose smirk widened at the look of his wrinkled face "You're a lot more perceptive than you seem, gutter relic."
Rom's eyes widened in horror but soon turned into an angry scowl after Priscilla's insults, but he held his tongue. If what Priscilla said was true then this is a bad situation, a situation where working together is the only way to survive. Felt come back and clean up your mess already! He internally cursed his own dulled brain for thinking for even once that Felt could do something correctly.
"But this is the capital, lady. How the hell'd they enter this place without being noticed? That's just impossible!"
"That's why myself find this situation utterly ridiculous." Her voice was laced with a strange humor and anticipation, as if the world itself had dressed up as her court jester and laid bare the situation as it's best "joke".
"Look, I don't understand what're you two talking about but Priscilla are you sure it isn't just your intuition?" Merlin questioned.
"Hm? Of course it is my intuition!" She said with the most amount of confidence Merlin had ever seen in a person. "Then why are you so sure about just an intuition?!"
"It isn't just any intuition you simpleton. It's my intuition."
"Wha–?"
"The world turns in my favor, and it shall continue to prostrate itself at this Goddess's feet."
That's it. That's f*cking it! I give up! I. GIVE. UP! Merlin raised his hands in defeat. Rom just turned away while Emilia gave a weary smile.
All of them came to the same conclusion. Priscilla is a different breed that normal humans can't even hope to understand.
CRUNCH!
A disgusting and gooey sound echoed from a house to their left. All talks stopped. The entire scene fell into a breathless silence. All gazes shifted to the direction where the sound came from.
From around the corner of the house came out a wolf—no, it was wrong. It's dark fur, spine like projections coming out of its back, a horn at the very tip of its nose, and its eyes glowing red like the embers in a fireplace, except it did not look at all beautiful.
It opened it's jaws wide, tongue lolling out like a beast blinded by gluttony. Then, something dripped from its jaws onto the dry dirt beneath it. With slow and deliberate steps, the beast walked out of the shadow of the house into the silver illumination of the bright moon. Then only was everyone able to see the true horror.
Its mouth was stained crimson red and in its teeth was something that resembled reddish mud...it would've been mud if it weren't for the long strands of brown hair stuck in between those sharp canines.
"An Ulgarm?!" Emilia recoiled at the sight of its disgusting appearance. It seems that she wasn't able to see the bloody appearance of that mutt.
Merlin's hand wouldn't stop shaking at the grotesque scene in front of him. He had never been good with gore but was able to easily manage those cartel videos...because they were videos. Now that he was seeing it in real life sent shivers down his spine.
So much blood... He thought. The blood constantly dripping from the dog's mouth instinctively made his hand clutch his stomach. He was shaking and he couldn't stop it.
While those two were suffering from their shocks, Priscilla and Rom simultaneously let out a tch.
"Single one? Too good to be true." Rom said before he turned to Merlin. "Ay, brat! Ya can whip up junk with that freaky magic o' yers, right? Craft me a fat wooden club not iron—these old bones can't swing no heavy shit no more, heh!"
Rom's loud voice threw Merlin out of his trance. He nodded, accepting that now was hardly the time to be getting lost in thoughts.He lifted both his hands and was about to start focusing on his mana before he was distracted by yet another loud noise that came from the house on their right.
From it emerged another dog similar to the previous one. Except, in its jaw was something big and round. It was a head. A head of a child that was dangling by its hairs, threatening to rip off the scalp anytime now. It's face lacked any trace of skin and the neck looked like some torn up papers.
"KID HURRY UP!" Merlin couldn't hear anything. His mind was in shambles. No thought could conjure up in his mind. He was trying his hardest to not throw up at the spot.
"Huma!" A swift icicle accelerated through the air at a blinding speed and pierced straight through the dog's head mercilessly. Brain matter splattered onto the ground as the dog fell limp. Along with it, the head in its mouth dropped down with along with it. It rolled only a few inches away from the dog's corpse only to be crushed by another one's paws.
This wasn't the only one that appeared. Countless such creatures started appearing.
Ten.
Twenty.
Fifty.
"Why are there so many?!" Emilia panicked as she looked around at the huge swarms of witchbeasts surrounding them from every possible direction.
Eighty.
Hundred.
Three hundred.
Rom gnashed his teeth together in an attempt to stop his body from shaking. Their numbers did not seem to stop at all.
Six hundred.
Eight hundred.
The numbers climbed higher and higher, stacking upon themselves until they blurred into the horizon, fading beyond the limits of sight like an endless tide.
"KID!" Rom smacked Merlin's head, which made him fall on the ground. The force of the impact was enough to bring his senses back.
With wide, shaking eyes he looked up at the scowling old man, and then only did he remember what he had to do. "...Ah! O-on i-it!"
A torrent of mana crystallized into a solidified form in his hands until they hardened enough to form a large wooden club with metal spikes protruding out of it in every direction.
The weapon fell on the ground with a heavy thud, just barely missing his leg, but Merlin couldn't care any less at this moment. He quickly forced his shaking knees to stand up and lifted the heavy club with his hand.
Rom whistled as he took the club from Merlin's hand. He looked carefully at weapon. It looked brand new and sturdy as hell. This gave him a little bit of confidence as his old scary face made a smug smile. Unfortunately, the confidence was short lived. It died down as soon as he turned around. His eyes caught something that made his throat run dry.
Coincidentally, Priscilla's brows were also knitted as she looked at the same figures that the old fool was looking at.
The swarm did not only consist of small wolf like dogs, it also had quite a few double headed gigantic wolves, some huge pig like beasts, snow blights and worst of all, guiltylowes.
She looked up at the night sky and thought to herself. The sun's down, my divine protection is of no use at this moment. My mana is already insufficient, summoning the Yang blade for a long time is not possible.
She turned around to look at Merlin, desperately trying to get his mind together. He looked utterly pathetic in this state. It made her question whether the world had led her astray this once. Why had she even agreed to help this pathetic man who so easily lost his composure in the face of fear? It was her whimsical thought that she had agreed to help him, that isn't like her.
Normally she wouldn't even bat an eye at a commoner such as him. But right at that instant, she saw that same thing in his eyes that made her even think about helping him in the first place.
A smile formed on her beautiful face as she continued into look in his eyes. That glint…she thought.
Those eyes are of a person who's faced death before. A person who is afraid of death but would also laugh in the face of it. She had barely seen someone like that so this was something that intrigued her deeply.
With a light snort she put away her fan in between her chest cleavage and with a swift fluid movement, that had no wasted movements, she pulled out her Yang sword and readied herself for confrontation.
Emilia too raised both her hands, ready to attack.
Merlin too focused on his shadow, it seemed like it could form a few shapes so he had to use it to it's fullest while also work efficiently because he was already running low on mana, he could feel it draining away rapidly inside of him.
Rom too raised his thick, spiked baton and waited for any of those creatures to close in even slightly so that he could smash the f*ck out of those ugly bitches.
A heavy silence smothered the slums-turned-battlefield, the air thick and breathless, as both sides stood still, waiting for the other to make the first move.
Until one ulgarm barked loudly and charged forward.
Seeing one of theirs make the first move, the rest of the witchbeasts started rushing in too.
Not wasting a heartbeat, Priscilla surged forward like a cutting wind, her blade flashing once—clean and effortless—and the first hound fell before it even understood it had been struck.
But her strikes did not just stop at that, with the elegance of both a warrior and a petal dancing in the wind, she decapitated nearly twenty ulgarms in less than a second.
Merlin looked at her beautiful yet ruthless swings with awe.
Just then, "El Huma!" Hundreds of icicles formed in the air above Emilia. With a swift downward motion of her hands, the icicles went propelling forward, tearing and destroying anything in their path.
The witchbeasts could only look at the icicles as it demolished nearly 50 of them in a single spell.
Emilia let out a frosty exhale. Pushing the El Huma spell at this level took quite a bit of effort.
Rom also did not stood idle either. "RAAAAHHH!!!" He crushed any witchbeast that slipped past the girls. Although his moves were a little rusty and lacked agility, his sheer raw strength was more than enough to compensate for it.
Merlin observed the witchbeasts' behavior very closely. From the way they were trampling and even tearing each other apart just to get to their food was good. It showed that they lacked even the slightest form of intelligence and coordination.
Even obvious traps could work. His shadows would do that job splendidly, but looking at Priscilla's expression, she didn't seem to be in the best condition, so Emilia here would be their best bet at winning. Utilizing her long-range devastating attacks is a must as we'll at least be able reduce their numbers by alot and even buy time before help arrives.
Like no way the guards or whoever the fuck the police were in this place would ignore such a huge commotion right?… Right?