Chương 79: True Nightmare

A team of three men and two women moved through the forest, glancing nervously in every direction, flinching at the faintest rustle of leaves, hands gripping their weapons tighter than usual. Sunlight broke through the dense canopy in uneven, trembling patches, and the air around them hung unnaturally still, as though nature itself were holding its breath in dread of something terrible. The trees around them stood too close together, too uniform, as though forming a silent wall cutting off any path back.

One of the men walked in front, dragging a massive two-handed sword behind him, its blade glinting dully in the scattered sunlight, while beside him walked a lean guy with a scythe held ready, his eyes darting nervously from one shadow to the next, catching every twitch of a branch. Then one of the group called out to the Leader, his voice quieter than usual, as though the forest itself discouraged loud conversation. — Hey, Leader. You really think the Mountain King's out here?

The Leader clicked his tongue in irritation, not bothering to turn around, striding confidently ahead of the rest. — God, you're all idiots. Who'd actually believe that nonsense? We've been out here a whole day and haven't even run into a Phantom, let alone a Nightmare. Who in their right mind would throw something like that into a Rookie Exam?

He jabbed a thumb at his own chest, slowing his pace and turning back toward the others with a confident, faintly condescending smirk, smoothing down the fabric on his shoulder. — Don't be idiots. Just follow me. I'll lead you all straight to victory. The Leader glanced back at the guy with the scythe, who'd fallen a couple of steps behind. — Wasn't I just— The guy wasn't there anymore.

Turning around, he saw the guy's scythe lying shattered into small fragments, scattered across the trampled grass, and of the guy himself, not a single unbroken bone remained — his entire body looked as though it had been fed through some monstrous press, bones jutting out at unnatural angles through torn flesh, a rapidly spreading dark pool already soaking into the ground beneath him.

Looking at the rest of the team, the Leader saw them all collapse to their knees in horror, faces drained to a sickly shade of blue-white, one of the girls' shorts soaked through, her hands shaking so violently that her weapon slipped from her grip and hit the ground with a dull thud, skittering off to the side.

— What the— He turned around — and saw the thing he would remember for the rest of his life, assuming "the rest of his life" was even going to last long enough for him to remember it, assuming he even had a single second left to hold onto the memory. In that same instant, something enormous swallowed the upper half of his body, surging out from the shadows between the trees with an almost silent, terrifying speed, as though the darkness itself had taken shape and grown hungry.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Four young men walked through the forest, glancing around warily, feeling the air grow heavier and thicker with every step, saturated with something indefinably unsettling, a metallic taste settling on the tongue.

The silence around them rang out, unnatural — no birdsong, no rustle of small creatures in the underbrush, as though the entire forest had died all at once, holding its breath in anticipation of something even the trees themselves preferred not to resist. The ground beneath their feet felt somehow wrong, springing back just a bit too much underfoot, as though some monstrous heart were beating somewhere deep below the surface.

Then suddenly Lorian, walking ahead of the others, stopped dead, his long ears twitching faintly, catching some sound beyond the reach of ordinary hearing, his eyes narrowing as he stared into the depths of the thicket. Lloyd stepped closer, raising an eyebrow slightly, feeling an unpleasant chill crawl down his spine, his hands curling into fists on their own. — Something wrong, Lorian?

Lorian's face was unusually serious — so serious that Lloyd had never seen him like this before, not during the fight with the Examiner, not through any of their countless clashes with other Players, not even in their most dangerous moments. — Yeah. Looks like we're not alone out here. He gestured toward one side of the forest and immediately took off in that direction with a swift, almost imperceptible burst of speed, the hem of his white robes flickering between the trunks before vanishing entirely.

Brand and Casper broke into a run after him, the former leaving a trembling orange trail of flame among the trees, the latter's thin coating of frost over the grass dissolving almost instantly behind him. Lloyd, meanwhile, struggled to keep up in a pathetic, breathless effort, stumbling over roots and tripping over his own feet, lungs burning from the lack of air.

The three of them suddenly came to a stop in some clearing, and Lloyd, barely able to breathe, finally caught up to them a few seconds later, feeling his heart pound as though it might burst from his chest. Reaching them, he doubled over, bracing his hands on his knees to catch his breath, gasping greedily for air that wasn't enough to form even a single word, sweat pouring into his eyes in salty streams. — So... what?

The answer to that question — and to every question that had gnawed at him for the past three days, robbing him of peace even in sleep — came the moment he lifted his head.

Before him lay several trees split clean in half, bark and splintered wood scattered in every direction, jagged shards embedded in the neighboring trunks, the ground all around soaked in rivers of dark, already-drying blood, seeping into the soil in uneven, spreading stains, while shapeless remains of what had once been Players lay strewn across the grass — scraps of clothing, weapons, pieces of bodies scattered with such indifference, as though someone had carelessly emptied out a butcher shop without a thought for where the scraps landed.

The air hung thick and sickening with the smell of iron and something else, something feral, something primal, a smell that stirred an involuntary wave of nausea, and the silence here was so dense it felt almost alive, wrapping around them, pressing against their eardrums like the crushing weight of deep water. But the most terrifying thing wasn't even what had happened to them — it was who had done it.

Lloyd swallowed back bitter saliva, lodged in a lump somewhere in his throat, his face breaking out in a cold sweat that trickled down his temples in icy trails, his knees trembling traitorously beneath him.

"You've got to be kidding me." Right in front of them, in the middle of this bloody clearing, sat something — enormous, motionless, radiating an almost tangible, crushing aura of primal, inhuman power, an aura so overwhelming that the very air around it seemed to thicken, the light itself seemed to dim, as though the creature's mere existence were draining the color and sound out of the world, leaving nothing behind but cold and silence. A Nightmare. The Mountain King.