War of Dawn

Chapter 27: Hungering Darkness

The Wraith stands tall amid the fort, its hulking mass dwarfing everything around. It waits by, unmoving, but everyone present can feel its gaze set upon them from behind the black whirlpool that makes its face. Faint breathing echoes from within, its whooshing sound filling the silence that's set upon the revolutionaries' fort. Like a soft gale traveling from the bowels of Hell, it sends the white flame nested in its sunken head aflutter.

As an undead, however, it does not breathe to live. Rather, every breath it inhales strikes Hilda like that of a beast: it is smelling its surroundings. The swirling energies in its face dance across the flame, transforming into dozens of black, eye-shaped markings that appear and disappear as it spots potential targets. It has certainly seen the revolutionaries writhing about the ground, still wounded; however, Hilda and Paula are the ones who seem to truly warrant its attention. Once it spots them, the Wraith twitches in anticipation but keeps still as the Necromancer leader raises his hand up high.

The two Scions find themselves daunted, staring down a foe far greater than anything they'd imagined it being. No undead they've ever seen has filled their souls with such a tangible sense of dread. Staring into its swirling face, it feels like a minor slip is all it'd take to be dragged inside its depths; the creature wafts hunger, pure and absolute, and Hilda and Paula are gazelles staring into the maw of a humongous lion.

A few months ago, just being in the presence of this would have crushed Hilda beneath its might. Now, however, she has stood before beings far stronger than her – if anything, it's somewhat tempered her spirit. Breathing in for what feels like the first time in minutes, she musters her voice back.

"Paula... Paula! This is it!" she calls out, trying her best to hide her own worry.

Her yells dispatch Paula's torpor, breaking her stunned stare at the Wraith. "I-I know! We... We can do this!"

The two Scions clutch hard on the grips of their weapons, holding onto them like they're the lone branch keeping them from falling down a cliff. Hilda takes a sideway glance at Paula, knowing that she'd have crystal shards with her. They could flee but, then, there'd be no one to stop the Necromancers from carrying out their attack on the nearby town. By the time they came back, the death toll would be at least in the dozens.

This is the mire Hilda and Paula deliberately walked into; it was their attack that sped up the Wraith's summoning and now they've a responsibility of seeing this through.

"Hear the name of he who gave you form and etch it upon your heart: Vladimir Dragov. Until the covenant is met, you are bound to my will," the necromancer leader chants as another mass of black energy bubbles and materializes above his raised hand. With a wave of his fingers, strings of darkness fly towards the Wraith's head and into its white flame, encircling it from within.

"There is your prey." Vladimir points out to the Scions. "Take them!"

Upon his words, the Wraith lets out another heart-rending howl and makes a mad dash towards Hilda and Paula. Despite it girth, the monster runs faster than a speeding horse and closes the distance in the blink of an eye. It bashes its massive arms down upon them and though both girls evade it, the impact on the ground leaving meter-wide craters. Pressing against the cracked earth, the Wraith flings itself forward, hurtling towards Hilda.

An odd maneuver but not good enough for an experienced Novitiate. With a Haste glyph, Hilda zips off the monster's path and to its back; an easy kill now. Streaks of violet electricity fly off her blade as she sets up to cleave the Wraith's rotten flesh in twain... but it is not that simple. The creature twists its body around the waist like a piece of rubber, turning a hundred and eighty degrees and parrying Hilda's sword in the bones jutting out its arm.