Chapter 49: Requiem of ice and shadow

Edward spend the entire day practicing the Water Curtain spell and was barely able to use it by the evening. His mana already a bit under half and there only being a few hours left until midnight, he decided to rest for the remaining time.

Looking at the full moon lighting up all the surrounding area, Edward sat up and said: “Let’s get closer to the village, Minx. We don’t know when that thing will show up.”

Minx nodded and stood up as well. The two of them made their way slowly towards the village entrance. Since it was already close to midnight, he figured the shadow might appear at any time. When he were able to spot the village lights in the distance, Edward stopped and waited patiently.

Not even five minutes later, he noticed Minx’s ears perk up and knew it was about to start. Throwing his clothes to the side, he slowly turned into his wolf form and turned to look at Minx. After letting out a small whimper, he started running towards the village’s entrance, Minx in tow.

Now that he used his wolf form, he was able to feel a slight discomfort as well, like someone or something was always watching him.

The two wolves kept running towards the village, when they noticed the air distorting slightly in front of them. Stopping their run at around 100 or so feet from the distortion, Edward observed the phenomenon with interest.

The distortion slowly grew larger and larger before it turned into a black-purple vortex from witch a shadow identical to the one they encountered last night slowly floated out.

Edward and Minx started running again, ready to engage the shadow in combat. The shadow also appeared aware of their presence and let out a loud screech, making Edward regret turning into a wolf, as it charged towards them as well.

As the distance between the shadow and the two reached around ten feet, Edward started expanding his mana outwards, ready to envelope the whole area using his Water Curtain spell. He knew that expanding his mana all around the shadow was the only way to disrupt it’s ability to dodge magical attacks. Just as the spell was about to form, Fenrir’s words sounded from the mark on his arm: [Stop it. Retreat.]

Edward didn’t know why, but without a second through, he canceled the spell and started running back. Minx, noticing Edward started retreating, followed after him immediately. The shadow seemed undaunted by their retreat as it continued charging at them.

[Take a look at that rift. I think it would be better if you got a bit further away before fighting. Whatever that is, it’s giving me a bad feeling.]

Edward took a look back and noticed a giant completely red eye fixed on him from the space inside the rift. A feeling of powerlessness engulfed his very being. All his instincts were telling him that, if he were to go against that thing, he wouldn’t even know how he died.

Turning to look ahead once more, he cleared the uneasiness from his heart and continued running. Minx kept throwing spells at the shadow, allowing the distance between the two parties to increase. The chase continued until the rift was out of their sights.

Once that happened, Edward stopped and started focusing his mana once more. As Minx also turned around and started throwing spells at the shadow almost continuously, Edward’s mana was finally expanded to it’s maximum and a thin membrane formed out of water droplets covered the area around the three of them.

The curtain’s initial purpose was to confuse the enemy and limit their senses and vision, but against this shadow, just as Fenrir has said, it became a confinement spell. Every time the shadow came into contact with the water droplets created by mana, small wisps of smoke will escape it’s ethereal body and dissipate into the surroundings.

The shadow, noticing the situation was not favorable, turned around to force it’s way our of the spell’s area of effect, but Minx didn’t give it any chance as she froze the entire water curtain before moving all the small ice droplets towards it.

Not long after, the shadow ended up completely engulfed in ice, forming a 10 or so feet ball of ice floating slowly in mid air.

Edward undid his wolf form and looked at the ball of ice before asking: “What now? Is that thing dead?”

“I can feet it struggling..” Replied Minx from the side, making a small frown appear on Edward’s face. He didn’t use much mana so he was relatively alright, but he could see that Minx won’t be able to hold on for too long.

“Fenrir, any idea?”

[It would be better if you could keep it sealed until morning. It might be vulnerable to light since it always hunts at night.]

“I doubt Minx will be able to hold on like this until morning. Any other idea?”

[I…] Fenrir started replying, but before she could speak more than one word, the ball of ice exploded, throwing small pieces of ice all around. Both Minx and Edward quickly moved away, dodging a big part of the ice, but still ended up hit by some of them.

Sitting behind a few water barriers Edward used to avoid getting hit in any vital point, he turned towards Minx and asked: “What happened?”

Minx looked confused as well. She managed to protect herself using magic to make the chunks of ice fly by her, but she didn’t understand how the shadow has exploded inside her ice prison.

As the two of them were talking, the explosion area cleared up and they both noticed a sphere made out of complete darkness floating in mid air at the place the shadow used to be. Edward stood up and canceled his water barrier spell.

“Fenrir, what is that?”

[If I’m not wrong, it should be a monster core.]

“A core? Shouldn’t those only appear in dungeons?”

Fenrir stayed silent, not having the answer herself. Edward waited a few more minutes to see if anything else would happen before slowly approaching the floating core.

Once he reached in front of it, he had to admit that it looked exactly the same as the cores he has seen before in the dungeon, the only exception being that this one was emanating an eerie darkness out of it.

Curious, Edward extended one hand towards it, willing to grab the core, but the core surprised him by flying away from his hand in the direction of the city.

[Edward it’s trying to return to the rift. Grab it.] said Fenrir.

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Edward didn’t waste any time and started running after it. Quickly noticing his speed was nothing compared to the core, he was about to turn when he noticed Minx approaching fast from behind. Thinking she might be fast enough and that he might lose too much time while turning, he said: “Minx, grab it. Fast.”

Minx increased her speed and size while rushing past Edward before plunging towards the core with it’s mouth open. Seeing that Minx was about to grab the core in her mouth, Edward regretted not telling her not to eat it, but it was still better than letting it go so he just silently observed the situation.

The moment Minx’s maw closed around the core with a loud swallowing sound, a shock-wave followed by an enraged voice came from the direction of the portal.

“NOOO.”

The moonlight from before started fading in front of an expanding darkness as a gigantic silhouette appeared in the distance. Seeing the single red eye in the middle of the dark silhouette, Edward gulped and yelled: “Minx, run.”

His words fell on deaf ears as Minx, to Edward’s surprise, was laying unmoving on the ground at the place she has swallowed the core.

“What the hell happened?” mumbled Edward as he turned into his wolf form jumped in front of Minx, ready to fight whatever that thing was.

The gigantic silhouette only hovered there for around half a minute with it’s gigantic eye focused on Minx before slowly fading away together with the rift it came from.

Edward was sitting in his wolf form in front of Minx’s unconscious body and turned back the moment he noticed that the danger appears to have gone away. Rushing to her side, he undid dis transformation, grabbed the now normal sized wolf in his arms and asked: “Fenrir, what’s happening to Minx?”

Hearing Fenrir say she didn’t know either, Edward quickly checked Minx’s body all over and heaved a sigh of relief once he noticed that while weakly, she was at least still breathing and had a pulse.

“It must be because of that damned core. Why did she have to eat it?” said Edward, feeling a bit guilty, he being the one who asked her to get the core. Not knowing any healing magic or what to do, Edward asked: “Fenrir, will she be alright by herself?”, desperation obvious in his voice.

Fenrir didn’t know the answer this time either so she chose to remain silent.

“Damn it Fenrir, say something. Will she be alright?” the silence of Fenrir’s part only served to make Edward even more anxious.

[I don’t know.]

“Argh.” Edward grunted in frustration before turning to look at the village not that far away. He clutched his fists, knowing full well that even if they were willing to help, the chances of there being a priest inside were quite low. He then turned his eyes in the opposite direction.

“I guess I have no choice…” mumbled Edward before looking at the wolf mark on his hand.

“Fenrir, I need you to take control and carry her to the dungeon entrance.”

[Are you out of your mind? The wolf will…]

“I feel her body getting colder by the minute and she’s barely breathing. I would carry her myself but I can’t increase my size in my wolf form and I’m too slow like this. Please.“

[But even if you reach there, there is no guarantee there will be anyone willing to help a magic beast.]

“What other choice do I have? It’s the only thing I can think of.”

Fenrir stayed silent for a moment before a sigh came out of the mark on Edward’s hand and he felt his consciousness appearing inside his mind.

Feeling a warm breath at the back of his neck, Edward slowly turned around and saw a giant black wolf with a pair of hungry black eyes right next to him. He looked the same as Fenrir, but he knew from the eyes it was not her. Fenrir eyes that shinned intelligence while the wolf’s looked clouded by an unstoppable hunger.

Being face to face with the curse that has always hunted him for the first time, he felt terrified, a fear coming from the deepest recess of his soul. He froze and waited for it to attack, knowing he was powerless against it.

The wolf stared at Edward with saliva flowing continuously out of his mouth. The hunger in his eyes increasing by the second, but there was also something else in them. A sign of struggle.

Edward was too terrified and stood rooted in place, his mind numbed by fear. The situation continued for a few minutes until Edward’s consciousness crumbled by itself in terror and he blacked out.

The next moment he opened his eyes, Edward was laying down next to Minx’s body by the side of the road. The memories of what happened before he passed out were still clear in his mind, but seeing Minx’s unmoving body next to him, he quickly forced himself to forget them and said: “Fenrir, where am I?”

[You’ll reach the dungeon just two or so minutes. I didn’t want to get too close.]

Edward didn’t waste any more time as he picked Minx’s body in his arms, but when he did that, he froze as he noticed that she was not breathing anymore. Her body was also completely cold. Quickly moving one of his hands under her belly to feel for her heart, he was horrified when he didn’t feel any beating coming from it.

“No… it can’t be..” Said Edward with a heavy heart, falling to his knees while still carrying her cold body in his arms.

[I’m sorry Edward, I moved as fast as I could.]

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