A few hours had passed and the black rain had nearly stopped, and the first streak of dawn had started to pierce through the gloomy, empty black sky. Mira, Lyria and Brennan, despite the initial shock and revelation of the events that had unfolded a while ago, had sat below the Ironside, who had been unmoving for a very long time now. None of them wanted to talk, to touch the surrounding tension; they simply wanted to recollect their thoughts, and so they did.

  They were confused, they hoped for an answer, yet they couldn't reach any of it, even in the deepest layers of their mind, and the only one who could answer them, is now nothing more but a scrap of metal drifting in the sea of darkness, but perhaps even then in the deepest shroud of darkness a flash of light might escape. Nothing is absolute in this world after all, and so they sat and waited.

  However, as more time passed by, the light which burned with such intensity from a few hours ago, had now gone even more stale and dim. It was losing, dying or perhaps it was never alive in the first place?

  Mira's eyes dilated as she observed the streaks of light had finally burned their final embers of light and finally snuffed out of existence, and along with it a wave of energy passed through her skin, self and entire existence at the same time. She snapped her head towards her companions, who were Lyria and, with the exception of Brennan, had noticed the anomaly.

  "What?" Brennan grunted as he noticed the weird facial expressions plastered all over Lyria and Mira's faces. However, before they were even able to react, Brennan suddenly had a forboding feeling, and so with years of instincts and experiences under his belt, he immediately grabbed his axe from his side and stood up with extreme vigour. This action severely confused his companions, nevertheless he made haste and turned his body around, facing the open air.

  Then, with a sudden vindication of his actions, a Stygian was able to creep up against them. Mira and Lyria were immediately flustered, and upon sensing something was very wrong, he immediately raised his axe using both of his hands to deflect the coming attack.

  The Stygian immediately reformed its limbs into small blade-like structure, it raised its foremost part and slammed it in a downward arc, which Brennan deflected by using both of his hands and maneuvering the handle of the axe, so that the attack would slide into a different direction.

  A loud thud came ringing towards Brennan's ears as a mound of dirt came rising beside him. However, he did not let it bother him any further, so he moved back one of his feet, and redirected another attack, and as he was redirecting it, he used the power of his core and lower muscles to turn in a three-hundred-sixty-degree, and using the momentum of the turn he shifted his body to effectively transfer most of the energy into the axe, and slammed it towards the body of the Stygian.

  The Stygian was sliced in half in a forty-five-degree angle. The Stygian screeched and squirmed as it fell to the ground. With it now fallen to the ground, Brennan hastily tried to find its heart and crushed it under his boots. The Stygian gave its final struggle and finally let out, and perished.

  After he crushed the heart, he pivoted his head back into the open area, and found that the rain had settled down, but the dozens of Stygians were still rampaging around them. He was initially confused as to how they were able to get near them, however, with just one look, he was able to deduce that the Ironside, which had been protecting them, may have finally perished too.

  He felt a grave weight within his heart, "A waste of such discovery! Many people would have been saved by this." Brennan quietly noted as he gripped his chest in frustration.

  He glanced towards Mira and Lyria who seemed to have realized it already, which finally gave him the idea as to why they were staring at him a while ago. "If only I had sensitivity to magic too." The frustration in his heart grew stronger. He didn't know why, or understand, but he knew that for some reason he felt pissed, pissed at the events that unfolded since yesterday.

  "We need to go, dawn of light has finally appeared, at the very least we could find our way back now." Brennan commanded, effectively taking leadership of the entire group, when Kaelen was supposed to be the one leading as he was the leader of the party.

  They accepted Brennan's leadership, which they should have given to him in the first place since coming to this forsaken part of the forest. Thus, despite knowing their misfortunes and mistakes, further resentment towards Kaelen grew within their hearts. They knew they were going to be punished, which meant they would surely bring Kaelen down with them when they arrived back at the base, which was a few days from their location.

  Mira held her bow tightly. By now, she had rested fairly well, and she should have more mana stored for immediate use within her body. Before she would need to gather more mana from the surroundings to replenish it. She glanced towards Brennan, who was waiting for their answer, and so she simply nodded in agreement.

  When she came back, she will have a lot of things to do and to study; after all, numerous discoveries were made by her and her party. From the whispers of dead people to the purification of water. However, she was deeply saddened and heartbroken as the ancient construct who was known as the Ironside had finally perished under the heavy battle it fought yesterday. Nevertheless, she steeled herself and faced forward; at the very least its corpse or now scraps would be valuable research data when the kingdom finally retrieved it.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Brennan, Lyria and Mira immediately moved out of and into the forest, whilst Lyria looked back at the now fallen Ironside. As she took a final glance her eyes dilated as a spot of dim light shone atop one of the antennas. She smiled, "It's still alive." She whispered to herself.

  At their back, a few dozen Stygians were following them. However, with the benefit of regained magic and being well-rested, they were able to outrun the Stygians and rested deep within the woods, letting the pursuers go past them.

  As the party of alien natives moved out, deep within the mind of Altair, something incomprehensible was transpiring.

  "!!!" Altair snapped awake, his face covered in sweat. He glanced from left to right in complete panic, "Vigil!" He bellowed.

  When the tension of the situation finally disappeared, he scanned more of his surroundings, and with a look of shock, he saw himself naked. "W-What's this? This is our house?" he whispered under the air. He was sure it was his and Elena's house, which they bought together, and something on which they planned on starting their family.

  Which they weren't able to, and as the war continued, the house almost became deserted year-round, if it weren't for Elena coming a few times a year to clean it up, still lighting up the dream they once held together. Thinking about it gave a pang in his heart, a sense of longing, something that could never be filled again.

  "A family…" He gripped his chest as he struggled to breathe. He moved his other hand and pinched his legs so that he would calm down, and soon enough he was able to.

  "Throughout this damn world, can something like establishing a family be as far away as a distant galaxy?" He clenched his fist and slammed it on the soft bedding beside him. "Yet… it was," he slouched and said with a defeated tone.

  However, things were too different, as if there was something wrong. His view was a little blurry, which was weird as he had a perfect twenty-twenty vision.

  As the reality dawned upon him, "Is this a dream?" he thought to himself. He stood up from his bed and moved towards one of the cabinets to confirm something. He opened it, and there was the picture he treasured so much. It was something he so dearly missed, it was his and Elena's picture from a few hundred years ago, when they were still dating and not yet engaged.

  "Hm?" He noticed something was off along the frame of the picture. There was a crack in the glass that travelled from the edge, slicing his face and moving further towards the opposite side. "Why is there a crack here? I don't remember this having a crack? Are my memories now failing me, that it even began to leak into my dreams?" He questioned himself.

  Suddenly he felt a presence behind him, he immediately turned and faced the entity.

  "!!!" His eyes dilated in surprise, "Elena?" He said with joy that soon turned into horror. "No, there's something wrong!" He internally screamed to himself.

  The lady in front of him was dressed in white with the face of Elena, however, she didn't have any eyes! Not only that, she was pale, as if she had been in a mortuary cooler. Her mouth was hanging, and blood began to leak out of every orifice she had. The lady with the face of his fiancee moved closer.

  "You've abandoned us!" She bellowed as blood continued to leak and for a moment she paused and stopped moving closer, "And you've abandoned me…" She said in a distant voice.

  Altair opened his eyes wide, and moved closer, forgetting that he was just struck in fear earlier. "No, no, please listen to me!" He beckoned as tears streamed along his cheeks, "Elena, I have not abandoned you, and I never will, I swore!" His words were already beginning to be jumbled as he kneeled in front of the lady in white, whom he wasn't even sure was his fiancee.

  "No, no, no, no…" As if something clicked inside his head, he started to mutter a single word, finally breaking him.

  The lady in white watched in pity, however, sinners must be punished.

  "I'm sorry." The lady in white said, as she raised her foot and pushed him back.

  "Ah." He broke out of his stupor as he fell down a giant hole, which he was sure was not there earlier, and as the lady in white grew distant from him, a sudden gust of wind followed, which for a moment of time, the lady in white turned completely into Elena, without blemishes, a living one, not the pale one from earlier.

  Unfortunately, as the gust of wind disappeared, the hole also disappeared, and along with it the image of Elena was snuffed out of existence, and he was engulfed in an eternity of darkness.

  He felt his body crash into a body of water; the coldness of the water wrapped around his ribs, squeezing and suffocating him. He kicked and clawed at nothing; there was only water and nothing else. There was no light, completely shadowed in eternal darkness.

  Then suddenly, a slow but deliberate ripple of waves moved towards him. To which was then followed by another, and another. Tendrils, of an unknown creature, they were thicker than his thighs, slick and filled with blades. They did not thrash, but they reached, in a very calculative manner. One coiled around his ankle, pulling him further down, but he resisted, he tried to stay afloat, trying to stay alive, but alas, it was nothing against an ancient threat. The tendrils brushed along his cheeks, as if tasting him, it was also intimate, and obscene. Altair thrashed around, his lungs burning oxygen as time passed by, but every movement he made only resulted in the water pulling deeper inside him.

  Then more emerged.

  From every direction they came, now a forest of writhing limbs rising from the abyss called the ocean of darkness, some ended in barbed hooks, others in clusters, they showed their teeth, their mouths, and their blade-like tendrils. They slid around his body as if trying to slice him up to be partitioned by them. Eyes were around him, there were too many, too many to count, he felt fear, fear that he had never felt anywhere in the world. They began surrounding him further and further. The tendrils and creatures looked at him with glee, as if they were savoring their meal, the panic he was expressing was exhilarating.

  He twisted his body, and in his peripheral vision he saw a shape, it was large, larger than the rest that was gathering around. A shadow that was so vast it dwarfed those around him in comparison. A maw began to open from under him, it was slow, and inevitable, rows upon rows of teeth curving like the petals of a flower. The water trembled under the pressure, along with low, bone-deep vibration being emanated from deep within the sea of darkness.

  The tendrils tightened further, lifting him up and drawing him down.

  He felt the pain, the lack of oxygen, and the blade-like tendrils brushing against his back, and then all around his body.

  Then, as the pain was at its peak, Altair snapped awake.