Chương 85: Rabid Beast And Quivering Fawns

The brother Dreamer hissed.

"Did you hit him!?" A Triton Aspirant nodded his head in dejection.

"… Only once, he stood there and took it? Felix, I don't think this is a good idea, man." The Dreamer compulsively rubbed his thumb along the weight of his meteor hammer; the weapon had a line of embedded dried blood and skin permanently stained on it.

"So-so… So do we just leave Felicity to die? R-River! What do we do?" The Triton Aspirant took a deep breath in through his gills and let the warm rainwater seep in.

"You know that's the Lord of Light, right? He already died like 3 times; do you really think he will stay dead the 4th time around?" Felix continued to scrape his thumb against the weight, his fingers whittled into a bloody mess.

"I-I-I! I am going in alone then to save my sister!" River's eyes narrowed, and he suddenly stood up from his crouched position.

"If YOU and Felicity die, the rest of us are going to die too! We're Aspirants fighting against that monster." The Dreamer inhaled and walked into the veil of rain while holding his breath.

"DAMMIT, FELIX!" The Triton Aspirant and the other 10 healthy Aspirants followed behind, leaving two of their injured companions in the safety of a small nook.

June stood invisible, watching the rain clearly run around his figure, highlighting his position.

"You know, I was going to turn invisible and kill the rest, but this rain isn't doing me any favours." The sister Dreamer weakly heaved as the sword impaled her against the tree. June's head tilted a little, and his ears twitched.

"Oh, would you look at that? My little friends have told me that your friends are coming." He began spinning the meteor hammer around, mimicking the sister Dreamer's form. He inhaled and let the armor form around him to close in on his face, leaving it flat and expressionless.

Felix stomped through the mud, trying not to slip by accident in front of the silent, frightening figure. The Lord of Light's face was now covered with a flat and expressionless mask, except for the fact that one gilded eye shone through a hole in the mask and almost pierced through his soul. The Dreamer looked around for his sister, but the battering rain made it difficult to open his eyes, let alone allow him to see a short distance, even an arm's length away from him.

River traversed the muck and rain with relative ease, managing to keep pace with his Dreamer superior, while the rest of the cohort lagged behind. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. River was the first to see the disturbed rain being jolted around by a familiar meteor hammer in a different owner's hands; the situation was hopeless.

'Felix can't operate without his sister beside him; we won't win in a fight like this.'

"Felix, I think we have no choice but to negotiate with the Lord of Light; you can't handle him without Felicity."

'That is if she still lives.'

June watched the cohort approach him and readied the meteor hammer as best he could. He had no idea if his mimicry would be sufficient enough to wield the slithering weapon, so he prepared himself to abandon the nebulous weapon in exchange for his fists.

"One, no two are in front, eight are lagging behind, two are catching up to the front, and two are unaccounted for." June whistled a tune to convey to the spirits to search for the unaccounted double and to verify their deaths or location. He tilted his head to the pinned Dreamer to make sure they weren't attempting anything. The sister Dreamer had lost quarts of blood by now; their death would be all but guaranteed unless a healer or a medical practitioner with the supplies to save her spontaneously appeared.

He stayed alert despite the impaled Dreamer's condition. If he could spontaneously survive a wound like that, there was a possibility that the Dreamer had a backup plan or an ace up their sleeve. He needed to be prepared for anything.

River slowly raised his hands and nudged Felix to the same. The Lord of Light's poise suddenly shifted as the meteor hammer he was spinning at high speeds, from a whistling blur of thrown water to more deliberate rotations, controlled rotations; his visible eye flared up, and wisps of golden light streamed out.

'That… That's… visible will… Felix shuddered. The controlled spins and the flaring eye of the visible made him feel like he was placing his throat in the jaws of a blood lusted animal. He glanced to the side and saw his sister impaled against a tree, and instead of anger, he felt an impending dread.

'If I fight… I'm next.'

For June to fight, he continuously had to spur a flame within himself; the exhilaration of his fight in hindsight was intoxicating, and as euphoric as it was, he understood it would soon come with a crash; his state was one of self-imposed delusion to the extent that his agape mouth behind his emotionless mask was nearly overflowing with drool in anticipation of an atypical lust for violence.

His opponents walked to him with their hands surrendered, but June readied himself for anything, hundreds of lines connected, and imagined a path of violence and brutality; his will exploded within him, overflowing into his mask, streaming out of his eye, his awkward and tensed spinning of the weapon slowed as he readied it as a flail instead of what it was. The pounding rain and drowned footsteps approaching him were overwhelming his senses.

His mouth slowly gave out, and swallowing his abundant saliva became an afterthought. His knitted heart pounded violently as if it wanted to rip itself out and fight.

River looked at Felix. The cocky Dreamer was capable, but without his sister, his entire attitude and ability to perform crumbled under the weight of his anxiety. He expected to see rage on his face, similar to every other time his sister even retained a scratch from the battle; his rage propelled him to a level beyond his sister. River's blue skin turned a ghostly white.

'Why is Felix…?' He followed the gaze of the Dreamer and stumbled, his jaw dropped, holding in a stifled scream; his legs felt weak before he realised he had already fallen to his knees.

'God… Felicity… Leviathans of the deep, please watch over this foolish fry.' One of the strongest Dreamers that he had ever had the fortune of meeting was against a tree with a grotesque blade piercing through her stomach and into the tree, holding her several metres up.

'Her arm is missing….' River dropped his raised hands in front of him into a hopeless bow of submission.

Felix felt the world pulling him down to his knees. He understood that no one dies within the simulation, but to overwhelm his sister and mutilate her to this degree was something unthinkable to him.

'A Dreamer to Dreamer battle doesn't end like this…. WHERE ARE HIS WOUNDS!' The Lord of Light was unharmed; his milky white armor was undamaged, with not a scratch in sight.

'Did my sister not even land a single hit!?' Felix finally gave in and dropped to his knees. The entourage behind him had already dropped to theirs. The second battle ended before June could satiate his stoked bloodlust.