The Slayers: The Black King [Book 1 of the Slayers series]

Chapter 11: The Town of Awakening

Chapter 11: The Town of Awakening

Part 1

After a few more hours of walking and resting, we finally arrived in front of the Town of Awakening at around 5 in the afternoon.

"Woa...this certainly looks like a ghost town..." Rose said.

I could only agree. The buildings, once filled with occupants, and streets, once filled with the townspeople, were empty and deserted. The tall buildings had dirt streaks, and some windows were missing, others shattered. Vulgarities and grafitti were scrawled all over walls, and rubbish littered the streets. Rubbish bins were toppled, some with pests scurrying around it, in search for food. Paints were peeling off the walls of the building, and the town had this eerie silence. Years of negligence to this place after the people had abandoned it turned the place into an old and dirty ghost town.

"So there are places like this...gives me chills, really." I said.

"Me too, but we have to search for the ingredients." Rose replied, shivering momentarily.

"So how do we start?" I asked.

"Well, most of the more unique ones can be found near the exact point where the three worlds are the closest, and in this case, further into the town. I can sense it, so Gerard and I will lead the way." Angela explained, and Gerard nodded.

"Yes ma'am." I gave her a mock salute.

Angela rolled her eyes and we started walking. Angela and Gerard had activated their weapon again. You never know what might come at you at such a dangerous place

We were navigating through streets and buildings easily, like this was actually Angela's home town and she wanted to bring us back home or something. Halfway through, when we were walking past a few tall buildings to our right, I took a peek at the alleys between the buildings. It was darker as I looked further in, and then there was this time when I spotted something jutting out from the shadows. Instinct told me this was bad. And as if to respond to me, a pair of red eyes glowed in the dark.

"Guys?" I called out to the others who were talking, stopping dead in my tracks.

"What, Raymond?" Angela asked, slightly irritated that she was interrupted.

"I guess we have company."

On the cue, a low growl ripped from that creature's throat and it headed towards me.

My training with Angela bore fruit, and I jumped out of the way in time. The others, who were surprised by the assault, were more vulnerable, and that creature decided to head for them instead.

The creature had a body shape of a hound, with two pointed ears, a snout and shaggy fur. But it was around twice the size of a normal dog. And it was black. Pure black.

"Don't get too cocky!" Angela yelled and with a slash of her sword, the hound got decapitated.

Rose gave a yelp as the head dropped to the floor, but the moment it landed, and the body slumped onto the pavement, the whole hound vapourised into thin air. At least it was better than spilling blood all over the streets. That would have been gross.

"Even Ceture's watchdogs are getting bigger..." Angela said.

Wait. "Watchdogs...? You don't mean those dogs when we first met him?" I asked.

Angela nodded, confirming my suspiscion. "And I do believe he has more than one for scouting."

We looked around, wary of more dogs, and just when we thought there were no more, low growls sounded fron everywhere. One by one, hounds identical to the one Angela just killed appeared from everywhere. Some came from the roof of nearby buildings. Others surfaced from the shadows of the infrastructures. This was getting bad. We were surrounded. By at least twenty hungry looking wolves. And it definitely did not look like we could get along. They pawed the ground, eyeing us intently. It would only be a matter of time when they attacked.