At first, there was only one small light on the horizon, barely a pinprick in the darkness.
It swiftly flickered out, and two more white lights took its place. I blinked, and when I looked again, there were four small white stars on the horizon. The seconds dragged on as the collection of stars grew larger in number and luminosity until a white nebula dominated the area in the distance.
The small nebula of stars didn't stop growing; instead, its growth seemed to accelerate. The shape of the nebula started to bend and twist, curling into itself with an infinite number of loops. The hurricane of stars spun with growing radiance before culminating in a booming white supernova.
A bone-shaking shockwave was sent across the entire Great Plateau, announcing the presence of a creature with no limits—the great devil, Moonlight Surge.
"MOVE!!!" A shrill scream broke the relative silence across the Great Plateau. Even though I couldn't see who screamed, Eternity's voice was unmistakable.
The wind from the shockwave still flowing past my face, I lunged for where Eternity was after being knocked away by Itri's longsword.
I tried to drag Eternity to her feet, but she immediately collapsed with pained hissing. In the growing light, I could actually see the true severity of her wounds. Her left arm was unnaturally bent in multiple places, with shards of bone breaking through her skin. Her right ankle was twisted backwards, somehow making me feel more nauseated than looking at her ruined arm. I felt so stupid for not checking her over before trying to help her up.
'Useless…you should have died, damn it!' I said to myself in my head. Eternity should never have taken the hit for me; otherwise, she wouldn't be in this state.
Why? Why? WHY?
All the while, my heartbeat started to grow stronger, threatening to rupture my chest with its force. Suddenly, the light painting me and Eternity white turned to darkness. I fell silent as I met crimson red eyes.
The crimson eyes belonged to an enormous black wolf, its fur a void that seemed to absorb all light around it. The wolf's form was imposing, muscles rippling beneath its shadowy coat. It stood at least ten feet tall at the shoulder, its body exuding a palpable aura of power. Each movement was fluid yet deliberate, as if the beast was perfectly in tune with the darkness that composed it. The air around it seemed colder, the shadows deeper, and its presence alone instilled a primal fear.
I spotted two human figures on the beast's back, resembling Ford and Lorelei. Seeing their features come into focus, I quickly grabbed Eternity and pulled her up to the riders of the huge wolf.
The wolf, made of darkness, opened its jaws wide, revealing white fangs which clamped around the front of the chestplate of the [Whisper of Steel]. The wolf then swung its head back, flipping me over and making me land cleanly between Ford and Eternity.
"HOLD ON!" Ford shouted in my ear. Promptly, our canine steed blasted forward at breakneck speed.
I clenched hard onto the wolf's dark fur as the wind crashed into my face. When I got used to the speed, I looked over my shoulder to see that the nebula of white stars wasn't as blindingly bright as before, but it was now getting closer.
The Moonlight Surge had transformed the once green Great Plateau into a scene of utter devastation. Water, grass, and dirt were thrown into the air wherever the Moonlight Surge took its steps, leaving behind a barren wasteland. The ground beneath it was scorched and blackened, the vegetation reduced to ashes from the burning air around the Great devil. The sky itself seemed to be torn asunder by the creature's presence, with clouds swirling in chaotic patterns and lightning flashing in silent fury until breaking into earth-shattering thunder. The nebula of stars devoured and desecrated everything in its path, leaving nothing but death behind it.
My ears started to receive indiscernible sounds, a mix of skittering, squelching, and screaming. The unholy sounds coming from the luminescent wave of white could only be compared to the screams of a million people burning in hellfire.
Even though only a minute had passed since the Moonlight Surge appeared, it had already taken over a third of the visible horizon and was still growing. If it was already this huge in a matter of seconds, how the hell were we supposed to survive an entire night like this?!
The Moonlight Surge was also close enough now that I could discern the actual features of the abhorrent nightmare creature and its numerous clones.
The Moonlight Surge had the body of a moon-white rabbit but the limbs and face of an abhorrent, bleached locust. A million different squelching sounds came from the sprinting clones, their insect limbs and mammal bodies spasming incoherently as they chased us. It was as if the nightmare creature body wasn't supposed to be able to work, but moved anyway by the sheer magnitude of the Moonlight Surge's bloodlust.
The only good thing in this hopeless situation was that the pitch-black wolf that was our group's steed wasn't really a living creature. It was Lorelei's echo, and an echo didn't need rest so we could continually keep running away.
As I held tightly onto the wolf's dark fur, I could feel a palpable strength that exuded from its strength, something that wasn't ordinary. What was its rank, and where did Lorelei get it from? I looked forward, seeing Lorelei on the head front of the wolf, gritting her teeth as she controlled its direction by harshly tugging on the wolf's wispy mane.
Lorelei looked back and extended one arm out to me, "Give me Eternity!" she shouted over the ear-piercing screams of the Moonlight Surge following us.
I complied immediately, moving Eternity to Ford, who placed her between him and Lorelei's back. Eternity grimaced under the sharp pain of moving her body, but the rest of us couldn't truly spare her any careful movements with Lorelei's wolf moving at lightning speed and the monsters at our heels.
Even though Eternity was in unimaginable pain, she didn't complain about our haphazard treatment of her. She looked back and up to meet Ford's eyes. "Go to the back and use your aspect!" Ford nodded, looking back at me. We both quickly slipped past each other, careful not to fall and be trampled and eaten by the Moonlight Surge.
Ford turned his back to mine, fully facing himself against the tsunami of white light quickly closing the gap between itself and Lorelei's wolf. Ford took a sharp breath and pulled on the long fur of Lorelei's wolf and wrapped it around his waist, tying it as securely as possible. He then raised his hands and glared right at the Great Devil.
Ford flicked his right arm up, and a sparkling geyser of water erupted into the sky. The water shot upwards with incredible force, illuminated by the countless luminescent nightmare creatures surrounding it. The geyser shimmered like liquid silver, each droplet catching the eerie glow of the nightmare creatures. As the pillar of water grew in size and intensity, it created a mesmerizing spectacle against the furious thunder clouds that covered the sky.
More and more nightmare creatures collided with the geyser, their bodies momentarily disrupted by the torrent of water. The geyser roared with a fierce intensity, sending shimmering arcs of water cascading down like rain. However, despite its power and beauty, it was clear that the geyser was not enough to kill or even significantly slow down the nightmare creatures' advance. The Moonlight Surge was a Great Devil, an entity of immense power, while Ford was merely a sleeper, his aspect was impressive but ultimately outmatched by the devil's pure number and individual might.
The water splashed harmlessly off the nightmare creatures' moon-white bodies and insect-like limbs, barely slowing their relentless advance. The creatures continued their charge, their luminescent forms weaving through the sparkling curtain of water with ease. The geyser, for all its brilliance, was a temporary distraction at best.
However the abrupt burst of water made a few of the clones of the Moonlight Surge pause, which made other clones collide into them, hurling a large number of them into the air. The clones involved in the crash then tangled up with the others and created an artificial blockade which slowed down the other running clones surrounding them. Though they recovered quickly, it did slow them down.
Now that was with only one use of Ford's aspect ability, but what if Ford kept on using at rapid-fire speed? Ford shared the same thoughts as me as he started to move his arms wildly, creating humongous pillars of rising water. Whenever Ford would swing his arm, the earth would split and a tower of water would rage high into the sky, acting as a wall of liquid that blurred the fiery light of the Moonlight Surge. Ford was the orchestrator and the water itself were his destructive dancers. Ford laughed maniacally as he created more and more geysers, eagerly enjoying the amazing strength of his power.
It almost seemed like Ford was unstoppable until he bent over and vomited. Vomit flew away from his mouth and splattered on some of the white locusts' faces, the lower half of the locusts' faces ripped open and a long tongue like the thorny stem of rose licked up the specks of vomit. Ford coughed as he watched the gut-wrenching spectacle, "Disgusting bastards…"
"YOU OK?!" I shouted over the deafening noise of the horde of locusts, Ford smiled with a twinge of pain. "I'm good…It's just these uglies are making me nauseous."
I couldn't blame him after seeing what those locusts did to his own vomit but there was likely another major factor. All nightmare creatures had a rotten aura of corruption and bloodlust surrounding them, and it only grew exponentially with rank. Ford was only a sleeper and he was facing off against the Moonlight Surge by himself, not only that, the locusts' wrath was mostly directly at Ford at this point, which made the pressure he was under even higher than the rest of us.
It was like having the rage of a natural disaster aimed straight towards one person, it was too overwhelming. However, after catching his breath, Ford wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a toothy grin on his face. "My essence is a bit low right now…gimme a couple minutes and I'll go right back to blasting those bastards away."
Even though Ford exuded complete confidence in himself, I couldn't help but worry. Sure, Ford was slowing them down bit by bit, but he would quickly exhaust his essence. Eternity could probably heal any physical and mental exhaustion he had but she couldn't help him recover his essence. Also that wasn't accounting for how well Ford's aspect would do in the next confrontation with the Moonlight Surge. What if the Moonlight Surge adapts to Ford's attacks? Devils were the smartest types of nightmare creatures and adapting to Ford's attacks definitely seemed easy for multiple Great rank creatures.
"Wait--What the hell is it doing now?!" Ford shouted, his gaze rising up to the clouds for some reason. The rest of our group followed his gaze, the locusts were piling on top of each other with intense determination with no sign of stopping. Higher and higher the locusts went, trying to peirce through the thunder clouds above it. Lightning flashed and thunder exploded warning the locusts to stop, however the vile devils didn't.
I couldn't take my eyes off the mass of luminescent stars which were rising to the heavens. "Where are they going?" I muttered.
"They're trying to build a makeshift drawbridge." Lorelei said in a calm voice, seemingly undisturbed by the harrowing pillar of locusts.
"Why--" I started but Ford cut me off as he started to speak at lightspeed. "They're multiplying while chasing us, and trying to create new clones while going at their speed seems to be difficult. Even if they do create the clone, the clone has to quickly reach max speed like the rest of the horde or else it will just slow the rest of them down." He shook his head while looking at his trembling hands. "My geysers are slowing them down while they move, so the extra amount of clones they make is hindering them even more."
"So some of them stay behind so they can create clones without being interrupted--okay, I get it but how are they going to reach us here?! Staying back to multiply does nothing for them in catching us, anyway why are they making a pillar of all things…" I paused, looking back up at the ever growing mountain of locusts.
"Drawbridge…" The moonlight surge was going to cover the distance between us and the horde by making an equally long pillar, and considering the speed at which the mountain of locusts were growing--it would achieve it in a few seconds.
"The sides!" Eternity shouted, prompting us to look at our right and left. On both sides were waves of flashing white stars separating from the main horde and curling inwards in pincer movement, simultaneously creating a wall of light.
"They're trying to cut off our escape route!" Lorelei shouted pain setting into her voice. It made sense, the makeshift drawbridge the moonlight surge was trying to create with its clones would only work if it was on the path of our group, we could easily dodge it if we simply changed directions away from the impact point. However, if the locusts cut off our paths to the right and left, even if we changed direction, we would be swallowed up by the wall of gluttonous light.
Damn it, can't we get a single break?! What can I do?!
My aspect…I'll explode myself. I don't know how powerful it would be but it would probably slow down the Moonlight Surge by a decent amount, maybe it would even be our saving grace--I would die.
No, I don't care, I've already been saved once by Eternity and look at her now--I'm going to die--It was my fault she's in that state!
My body would explode into a million pieces, bone, flesh, and blood splattering everywhere.
IF I was powerful enough, if I used my aspect more early in my fight with Itri, if I figured out Itri's intentions beforehand we would have been prepared for the Moonlight Surge--I don't want to die…
FUCK OFF--THIS IS ALL MY FAULT. YOU WERE USELESS-AT LEAST DIE PROPERLY.
My chest started to hurt as I looked at the hurricane of locust closing the gap between itself and the wolf--with my friends.
"Get up…" I whispered to myself. My breathing grew heavier as I slowly started to rise.
Tears stung my eyes and I could feel bile burning my throat as it reached my mouth. My blood started to flow through my veins faster and faster, my body's temperature reaching an inhumane level. Blood leaked from my nose and down my lips.
DIE.