Chapter 35: Darkness Vs Shadow(1)
Dale sheathed his sabers and adjusted his collar. He walked to the edge of the camp where the other four were.
Austin was like him wearing his gauntlets and his military-issued tracksuit.
The only people with slight differences were the Awakened trio.
Unlike the Dormant two, their uniforms were black but the insignia was woven with silver threads instead of the more familiar bronze.
Sarah’s bone necklace hung neatly from her neck, Gary’s shield was fixed on his back and Trevor’s crown sat on his head and he had recovered but still refused to tell them what he had been up to.
Despite seeing it before, Dale couldn’t shake off the feeling of wonder from him.
For them to have pulled out their weapons showed how seriously they were taking the beast... and this wasn’t even the Ascended one.
"Are we all ready?" Trevor asked and they nodded.
He lingered for a moment and then turned into the forest.
The last few days had been hectic for all of them. One of the main issues was finding the bird since their last encounter.
The damned ave had moved closer to the beast horde. Luckily, the horde decided to shift away from it.
Clearly, even the beasts of the forest hated the bird just as much as they did.
Either way, killing it would shift the balance of power and hierarchy within the forest. Years, maybe even decades, of a delicate equilibrium will be tilted.
Dale and Trevor finally managed to track it down to a stream not too far from their camp. It was as they expected... the bird was planning on attacking them.
They had just barely managed to catch a glimpse of it before stepping within its range of shadow sense.
Now that it was daybreak, they started their expedition with one simple goal. The afternoon sun shall shine its light on the dead body of the bird... or theirs.
Naturally, the former was more favourable.
Dale swung Blight, cutting down a vine. Rather than taking a linear path, they decided to curve around the beast, slowly approaching it.
It was a last-ditch effort in case they failed.
They would try to escape and the swirling path would confuse it if it tried to follow the path they came from.
Austin crept over the tail of a sleeping Dormant beast; Trevor’s command was still in effect.
It would serve as a nasty surprise if the bird tried to give chase and by the time the ave killed it, the blood would attract more beasts.
Dale smiled at the thought. That part of the plan had been his idea.
He had quickly realized that Trevor’s vocal commands couldn’t notably affect the beast so why not have it spring a trap that would snowball and potentially kill the bird for them.
It was a devious plot — something Dale had years of experience with.
As they continued their approach, they tried to remain as silent as they could.
Their plan wasn’t as foolproof as it seemed. The path they took made them get closer than was comfortable to the horde.
If even one of the scorpions happened to see or sense them, it would quickly spiral out of control.
At least it would have been the case if Trevor hadn’t given himself the adjective, ’safe’, before they even started their departure.
That way, as long as he was with them, they’d have a bit more reassurance that the beasts wouldn’t attack them.
Whether it was wishful thinking or actual planning that secured their safety they didn’t know but finally, they approached a clearing that led to a stream.
From behind the bushes, they could see the eagle.
Its feathers were as black as its lightless, beady eyes. The bird used its claws to dig at the soil and pulled out a worm.
’The early bird gets the early worm? Really?’
The bird rubbed its dark beak against a rock, scraping it to sharpen the weapon.
It flapped its wings, generating a large torrent of wind that ruffled its feathers and showed its talons.
The claws looked to be made of obsidian. ’How dastardly.’
If not for the malice the bird was capable of, it would have been quite beautiful. Alas, they weren’t there for sightseeing.
The moment they moved closer, even by just an inch, it would sense them.
Dale turned to his teammates and they nodded, ready.
Gary wrapped himself and Sarah in a forcefield and Austin’s muscles clenched, launching them to the beast.
The head of the bird snapped to them and its shadows started to flare.
"Freeze!" Trevor’s voice traveled forward and made the shadows falter for less than a second yet that was enough.
The forcefield shattered a few meters away from the beast and Sarah jumped in the air, unleashing a smaller star around herself.
Flames erupted from her skin, blinding everyone stupid enough to stare at it.
While all these were happening, Dale had already taken his stance in the forest. He pulled his hand back as he aimed Decay at the bird through the bright light.
Their plan was simple. Overwhelm the beast before it could react and kill it before the initial flash died out.
Some would call it a coward’s tactic but cowards often lived to see another day.
His memory of its position remained strong even as he couldn’t directly see it.
He thrust Decay forward with a loud bang, the recoil twisting his shoulder out of place.
Despite the white that drowned the world ahead, a small black dot was visibly travelling through it.
It covered the distance between it and the bird in an instant and passed through undisturbed.
As the light died, Sarah landed on a patch of ice she had created.
The area around her had turned red-hot. Waves of gases and crippling heat rippled in the air.
The only thing saved from the wrath of her flames was the area within Gary’s forcefield which he had managed to summon before she had gone through with the next phase of the plan.
No, that was not all that survived.
The bird was in place, smoke rising from its body. Part of its form was a mass of shadows while others remained as flesh.
It raised its head, revealing a hole that went through its chest, and shrieked.
’Shit!’
