Eirwen snarled like a beast as the three Skreels tore into him.
The one on his shoulder bit deeper into the side of his neck, its nail-like teeth grinding through skin and muscle until hot blood poured beneath the collar of the Steel Shroud. The wound immediately started closing around its teeth, flesh tightening in a disgusting, painful way that trapped the creature's mouth in place for half a second.
Eirwen felt every bit of it.
The bite, the tearing, and the strain of his own body trying to repair itself while the Skreel was still chewing into him.
His vision blurred from the pain, and his right hand shot up before the creature could rip anything further out. He grabbed the Skreel hooked onto his left arm by one of its large ears and yanked it away with enough force to tear the ear free in his grip. The creature shrieked, its claws scraping along the Steel Shroud and leaving bright lines across the iron-silver surface, but Eirwen did not give it the chance to recover. He drove his long claws between its ribs, hooked them under bone, and pulled sideways.
Its torso opened with an ugly sound, dark organs spilling out across the stairs in ropes while black blood splashed over his forearm.
The one on his chest tried to climb higher and bite through the softer gap near his collarbone. Eirwen could feel its teeth scraping against the edge of his armour, searching for an opening. His hands were still buried in the first creature, so he slammed his forehead down into its snout instead. The impact made his skull ring, but he still did it again, harder this time, feeling the creature's nose cave inward. On the third strike, something cracked loudly, and for a moment, Eirwen was not sure if it was the Skreel's skull or his own.
Pain burst behind his eyes nonetheless, only to fade as the damage in his forehead repaired itself.
The creature's face, on the other hand, folded in around the broken snout, and before it could fall away, Eirwen tore one clawed hand free from the opened body beside him and punched through its throat.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You have consumed a Soul!]
[Devour the Flesh for more!]
The Skreel biting into his neck finally tried to pull away, but by then, its teeth were half-swallowed by the closing wound. Eirwen hissed through clenched teeth and grabbed it by the back of the skull.
Then he tore it forward with all his strength.
Its teeth ripped out of his flesh with strips of skin and muscle still caught between them, leaving his neck opened messily for a second before the torn edges started crawling back together. Blood ran hot down his chest, slipping beneath the armour and soaking the inside of the Steel Shroud. The pain made his fingers tighten until the Skreel's skull creaked in his hand.
He shoved it down against the stairs and drove his claws into its stomach, pushing deep through slippery flesh until he found the hard spine.
His lips twisted, and he pulled.
The creature convulsed violently in response, its limbs scraping against the stone until the bones inside its back gave way and it finally stopped moving.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You have consumed a Soul!]
[Devour the Flesh for more!]
Eirwen spat a mouthful of black blood onto the stairs and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, only smearing more filth across his beautiful face. The wound in his neck closed beneath the mess, skin sliding back into place, torn vessels reconnecting, muscle knitting itself together as if the Skreel had never bitten him at all.
But the pain still remained, and so did the strain on his Essence.
He would heal from any wound, but healing did not mean surviving the next second became easier.
Leviathan's voice drifted through his mind, amused in that quiet, infuriating way of his, saying something about him enjoying himself too much.
Eirwen tried to ignore him as much as possible.
Another Skreel lunged from the wall.
It pushed off with one hand and both feet, twisted its hips midair, then spread the wings beneath its arms to change direction before impact. The motion let it slip past the line of an Awakened's spear and land on the man's back instead. Its claws dug into the soldier's shoulder plates, and its snout snapped down toward the gap beneath his helmet.
Eirwen saw it, but ignored the dying man as something else important surfaced in his mind.
All of his Recordings were gone, but that did not mean he could not copy something else. His Dormant Aspect, Frosted Mirror, also allowed him to replicate whatever moves he saw.
So his eyes locked onto the swarm of enemies before him again.
The next Skreel came low, rushing across the steps on all fours with its head tilted sideways and its mouth already open. Eirwen dashed forward, planted one clawed hand against the wall, and pushed off, changing direction sharply enough for the Skreel in front of him to miss his throat. His knee came up from the side as he twisted his whole body to face the Nightmare Creature, the edge of the Steel Shroud cutting across its snout and splitting one of its eyes open in a burst of black fluid.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You have consumed a Soul!]
[Devour the Flesh for more!]
Seraphiel's power pressed past him a heartbeat later.
One Skreel froze in the middle of a leap, its thin body jerking as an invisible force caught it. Its limbs kept moving for a moment, clawing at nothing while its torso stayed fixed in place. Then it turned violently and smashed into two others coming through the snow that kept drifting into the ruined stairway. The impact broke its ribs and sent all three tumbling against the wall.
Seraphiel raised his other hand, fingers curling, and a faint silver pressure wrapped around a cluster near the breach. He held them there while they clawed, screamed, and twisted against the force, their bodies pressing into each other hard enough for bones to start bending.
Then his hand closed fully.
The cluster collapsed inward as limbs snapped, skulls cracked, and black blood burst between their bodies before the pressure released and the remains fell in pieces over the broken stones.
Eirwen glanced back at him.
Seraphiel had not moved from his place, but his breathing had become slightly heavier. He was not exhausted yet, but he was pretty damn close. His white attire was stained now, not with his own blood, but with black splatter from the creatures crushed too close to him.
The sight was strangely satisfying to Eirwen.
That pristine image, that annoyingly clean little angel look, had finally been ruined by the same filth covering him.
But there was no time to admire him, since the Skreels did not stop.
They crawled over the corpses of their own kind and came faster.
One dropped from above and raked its claws across Eirwen's face before he could turn fully, catching him off guard. Four lines opened from his cheekbone to his jaw, deep enough for the skin to peel apart and blood to spill hot down his neck. Another bit into his forearm hard enough to grind its teeth against the gauntlet, while a third slammed into his side and hooked its hands under the edge of his armour.
Its nails found the gap beneath his ribs and pulled, tearing skin and muscle open in a long, wet strip.
Eirwen groaned, the pain loud enough to make his knees tremble.
'This is harder than I thought it would be!' he groaned inwardly, killing the one on his arm by grabbing the back of its head and driving it into the wall.
The first impact cracked bone, while the second burst its skull open, splattering the black stone with brain matter. The creature at his side tried to pull free with a chunk of flesh still in its claws, but Eirwen caught its wrist, twisted until the bones snapped, then kicked it down the stairs. It vanished beneath the feet of two more Skreels and a stumbling soldier.
The one that had cut his face tried to jump away, but Seraphiel quickly caught it midair.
The Skreel hung there for the length of a breath, limbs twitching, eyes wide and wet. Then it shot upward and struck the ceiling hard enough to flatten its body against the stone.
Blood squeezed out from its mouth and ears.
When Seraphiel released it, the corpse dropped between them with its limbs bent in too many directions.
Eirwen's cheek healed slowly, the torn lines crawling shut beneath the black blood smeared across his face.
And every time he healed, his Essence dipped, more and more of it disappearing.
'It's eating through me way too fast,' he thought. 'And there isn't much I can do to not get hurt when there are this many enemies!'
'Leviathan! Don't you want to strike a deal, maybe?!' he screamed inside his mind, but the ancient creature did not respond.
Maybe this situation was not worth it for him.
'Bitch,' he spat inwardly as he considered his options.
The best one was obviously to Devour something.
Devouring would give him enough to keep healing, but stopping to devour in the middle of a swarm was not as easy as it sounded. He needed space and a second or two.
In a fight like this, even that felt expensive.
A Skreel landed badly near his foot, one leg broken because of Seraphiel and one wing dragging uselessly against the stone.
Eirwen grabbed it by the neck before it could crawl away.
His thin gauntlets dug into the mangled flesh, and he lifted the creature as it twitched weakly in his grip. For a moment, its dark eyes stared into his, right until Eirwen opened his mouth.
His lips stretched wider and wider, the flesh of his cheeks tearing with sickening snaps until his face became a gaping chasm.
Something deep within his Cores and Soul twisted, and a growl like the roar of a wrathful storm tearing through an ocean rumbled from within him.
He pulled the dead Nightmare Creature closer and inhaled it whole.
Size was no longer an issue as the Skreel vanished into him, swallowed by something strange inside his body. With a groan, he snapped his mouth shut, torn cheeks knitting themselves back together immediately while a disgusting taste lingered on his tongue.
[You have Devoured an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You grow stronger!]
A surge of alien Essence flooded his Cores and quickly spread through both of them.
The exhilaration of receiving Essence passed through him as another Skreel rushed low across the stairs.
'Let's try something,' he thought as his golden eyes began to glow brighter.
Essence rushed through his body as something activated.
Snow moved around his ankles, shifting against the wind.
[Echoes of the Drowned] activated for just a second, and the snow immediately became thicker, almost like mud. It shot toward the Skreel and wrapped around its hands right as it tried to push itself forward. Eirwen wanted to fully trap it, but he lost control, and the snow fell apart.
But he was still lucky.
The Nightmare Creature's claws slipped on the mixture of snow and blood.
As it lost its balance, Eirwen lunged forward like a beast, using the same movement as the Nightmare Creatures. His body nearly brushed the wall as he launched himself low, claws scraping against stone before he slammed into the Skreel's chest. The impact drove it backward.
His teeth sank into its shoulder while his claws opened its stomach. He tasted cold flesh again and then drove his knee into its ribs until the edge of the Steel Shroud split them open.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You have consumed a Soul!]
[Devour the Flesh for more!]
Snow rushed harder through the breach.
The wind had changed slightly, intensifying with each passing second. Frost spread across the broken wall, crawling over the edges of the breach and down the steps in thin white veins. Snow swirled around the Skreels, clinging to their blue bodies and to the black blood coating Eirwen's armour.
Something in Eirwen's eyes gleamed once more, and the snow near his feet shifted again, a little more obedient this time.
Seraphiel also moved beside him.
Quietly, without looking away from the swarm, the white-haired boy raised his wrist.
A bracelet of pale metal glimmered beneath the sleeve of his attire, and from it fell a thin chain that seemed too delicate to hold anything. A short sword materialized at the end of that chain, narrow and clean, with a simple silver blade that reflected the snow-filled light pouring through the breach.
Seraphiel caught the hilt without ceremony.
The chain remained attached to the bracelet, loose but ready, swaying slightly with each breath.
More footsteps thundered from above. Awakened soldiers were finally pushing down from the platform, their armour clanging violently against the stairs as they shouted for the Sleepers to hold the line for a few more seconds.
Eirwen heard them coming, but he could not even let out a breath of relief, because at that exact moment, the tower was struck again.
This impact came from higher up, and the entire eastern tower rocked.
Something slammed into the upper section with enough force to tilt the world for half a heartbeat. Eirwen's feet slid on the bloody step, and he drove his claws into the wall to keep himself from falling forward into the swarm.
The stairwell groaned, and a crack tore through the ceiling above them before running down the inner wall in a jagged line.
The soldiers descending from the platform shouted as the stairs beneath their feet buckled. Stone blocks broke loose from above and crashed down between them and the trapped Sleepers. One Awakened tried to leap past the collapsing section, Essence flaring around his legs as he activated whatever Aspect he had, but the ceiling came down before he crossed the gap.
Eirwen saw him vanish behind a curtain of dust and falling debris, heard armour crumple beneath stone, then lost sight of him completely.
The rest were forced back as more of the upper stairway gave way.
The path above disappeared behind rubble, while the breach below still crawled with Nightmare Creatures.
The lower stairs were full of screams, fighting, and the distant crashing of the fat creature that had rolled into the fortress.
For a moment, the two Sleepers stood surrounded by snow, black blood, corpses, and broken stone while the tower continued to groan around them.
Eirwen's fingers flexed, claws opening wider as torn flesh on his side stitched itself back together beneath the armour. The snow around his feet moved again, curling upward like pale smoke.
Seraphiel lifted his chained short sword, the silver blade hovering near his side as faint pressure gathered around him.
Eirwen stared at the swarm pushing through the breach and felt his lips pull into a bloody grin.
'Come at me then!'
Ecstasy burned through his mind as his Flaw forced his body to remain full of energy while consuming a frightening amount of Essence.
The Frostbitten Skreels screamed and rushed them again as if responding to the Sleeper's thoughts.