Brail was falling.
Maybe gliding.
Or was he raising?
Levitating. Flying?
'Flying where?'
He wasn't certain, he didn't control it.
But he definitely was in motion. Even if there were no sounds of motion, or any sounds at all.
He also felt weightless and… emotionless? How were these two states related even?
Being emotionless felt nice, though.
'A bit unsettling maybe, but nice. Yeah. Is this how serenity feels like?'
A small frown appeared on his face.
'If I'm serene… Am I dying? No… It wouldn't work like that.'
If his Innate Ability did work on him, he wouldn't feel pain. He focused and realized the pain was in his shoulders. That helped him to come to his senses a little.
He looked around, and saw… nothing? The Nothing?
'I thought it should be scarier…'
But no, it wasn't that strange antagonizing and erasing everything substance. If it can be called a substance at all.
It was definitely something. He just… couldn't quite figure out what exactly.
Strange illusory shapes were everywhere, and world was painted in faint circling and swirling colors. The image shifted smoothly but continuously, figures and lines overlapping and separating. Disrupting the most pleasant sight he ever saw.
'What sight?'
What was he seeing again? He wasn't sure.
But he wanted to look at the complete picture.
'It soon will form into something. Definitely. Any second now. It should be beautiful.'
Brail waited, and a second passed. Then passed another, but hazy expance didn't settle.
Was it even a second or an hour? Or more?
How long was he here?
''Here' is where?'
Where was he? Brail was sluggishly turning his head from side to side, trying to discern any landmark. He saw none. He squinted and tried to concentrate in attempt to define at least some familiar shape, but nothing came together as a whole. Anything would be nice to notice in this whirlwind of muted colors, but eyes couldn't catch a single complete figure.
Still, he wanted to glimpse at least one, so if there was none, he just needed to search harder. Or make one himself.
'Right. Then I will be this figure.'
He slowly looked down and raised his hands to focus on at least something corporeal.
His hands didn't look corporeal at all. They were translucent, like everything around him. But the familiar contours at least allowed him to concentrate.
This wasn't normal. His state wasn't normal. Surroundings weren't normal.
'But why? What is not normal here?'
He needed to think more. Focus was a key. Focus on what is wrong.
'Corporeal… Everything should be corporeal. Why it is not? What could cause that? Think. What do you know about this?'
He looked around again. Everything was changing, but nothing was new.
'Corporeal means tangible. Okay, then intangible means what?'
It was pretty difficult to maintain a steady train of thoughts. He probably could think only because of his flaw. He needed to continue.
'Intangible… Can't touch, but can see… Illusions? Ghosts?'
He knew some things about ghosts. He even fought those spooky things. Recently, actually.
'How does this happen?'
He started to remember now. The sky was falling, bits by bits. Then something massive fell. He remembered people dying.
Then came hatred. He felt it again.
Not the most pleasant of emotions, but emotion, nonetheless. Colorful forms started changing faster, more erratically.
'Good, it's working. What was next?'
He was on the roof. The carriage. It was moving.
That explained the sense of momentum.
He was protecting those inside it. The sense of care came, and colors swirled faster again, coming more real.
'Fighting. Shooting. Killing.'
What was he killing?
'Pieces of the fallen sky… monsters. And ghosts. Right. From the fog.'
The fog was intangible too. That matched up. They were moving through it, escaping it. The sense of tension complemented the forming in the head picture further.
Brail imagined how these ghosts looked like and tried to find one around him. There was none. Visible at least.
But how then he ended up in this place? Did the fog get him in the end?
'No, the fog by itself wasn't a menace. Ghosts didn't get me too. It was something else. Something more dangerous.'
The sense of danger was alarming. Good. He was starting to wake up from the daze. Chaos around now resembled something familiar.
'And the face of that danger was…'
Two eyes. He couldn't figure out the full form but remembered two bright cosmic eyes. Almost like Zeph's but glowing with madness.
'Zeph?'
Where was his little companion? Brail tried to call for her, but his yell was silent. Lips parted, but no sound came. He forced himself harder. Nothing.
Then a complete silence he was in broke with a sound of a quiet echoing meow. Somewhat muted. Like from the very far away. But it was there.
With a familiar sound, shapes rippled in waves, like the water surface from the wind, and formed into something resembling jagged white peaks. Brail looked up. The sky was here too, blurry contours of the heavy clouds slowly coming together.
With all this in periphery, the sense of movement accelerated drastically.
A cold wave of fear washed over him, and Brail felt pain in shoulders again, now searing intensively.
With pain, his vision cleared more. The lines forming peaks stretched further down, becoming more and more like mountains. But these wasn't mountains he saw before. Slopes were somewhat the same, but not identical, and far outlines of roads were different.
A slight tint of panic crept somewhere inside, and Brail called Zeph again. The answer came faster. Closer.
Then something else came close.
As Brail lowered his gaze, following taking stable shapes figures, the picture finally completed itself as he wanted before. It was like the sphere painting itself from the top to bottom, converging directly beneath. His body too, eventually, became opaque, and as soon as it happened, a strange, previously transparent swirling layer underneath became darker and denser in his eyes.
It was the same fog. And it was nearing quickly.
The momentum he sensed wasn't from riding on top of the Rhino. The pain explorer felt was from the talons digging into flesh.
Brail remembered now. He was dragged by the ruler of that fog.
And as the mind hex broke, the creature let him go. Dropped into the swirling mist. Down to the surface.
Now he definitely was falling.
'Well, shit.'
Free from the daze, Brail reacted immediately, summoning winds, and creating a powerful vortex to slow the descend. Attempt was somewhat successful, but with the force he was tossed, that wasn't enough. His abilities won't save him, armor won't diminish the fall damage. He called for the little spirit's help, but it will be at least several long seconds until she catches up.
He didn't have those seconds.
One moment he was under the clouds in open skies, and the next - dived into the mist. Heavy banks of it surged up like enormous waves, swirling and billowing dozens of meters in every direction.
He crushed into the ground like a meteor. The pain was deafening.
Which, in the hindsight, was quite a good sign, as that meant he was still alive.
He was lucky to be thrown not against a flat ground, cliff, or some jagged spikes, but onto the relatively steep slope. And angle, he was falling at, allowed him to only roll through several dozens of meters along it, instead of exploding into shreds and bloody puddles.
The tumbling sack of bones, because that's exactly how Brail felt right now, only came to a stop when his back slammed into a huge boulder. The crash knocked the wind out of him completely, so he couldn't even scream. He was just lying there on his side, eyes wide from pain. For several seconds explorer didn't move a muscle, frozen in bent posture, afraid of any additional disasters.
'My poor back. Am I even capable of walking now?'
This damned Nightmare was clearly testing the strength of his spine.
Still, he was fine, more or less. He didn't die, and most likely didn't even break anything substantial. But what if he didn't snap out? Didn't react in time? Brail shuddered inwardly.
With a drawn-out groan explorer rolled onto the stomach and tried to get on the feet but stumbled and fell onto all fours. Stopping squinting from pain, Brail saw as a pair of worried glowing eyes appeared near his face. Little cloud of smoke coalesced into a tangible form and started looking him up and down, assessing the wounds.
Brail forced a strained smile.
"Hi, Zeph. Don't worry, I'll be okay."
Little spirit didn't look too convinced, but seeing nothing overly dangerous, rubbed her head against his and stood on guard, darting her eyes around, searching for ghosts.
He forced himself up again, and barely made it. Pain still wasn't going anywhere.
'That won't do.'
He needed to move. React on the danger, retaliate.
This damned thing certainly won't let him go. Flying creature for sure knew he was alive, even with the fog around. Because, if he understood correctly, it saw the fog the same way Brail did during the flight.
For that abomination, mist was transparent.
For the Ascended and his cat, though, everything around was covered in dark gray again, with the only bright opening right above - a tunnel Brail pierced while falling.
Hearing a faint sound of fluttering feathers, they simultaneously looked up, through the area free of the mist. Right in the center of that swirling tunnel, like some vile symbol of the sky, spreading its wings, soared a big gray bird.
'So that's not just a big ghost. Figures.'
At first he didn't saw how exactly attacker looked like. He just got grabbed from the blind spot, before having a chance to sense the danger. The thing was efficient and quick. And as quickly as he was snatched, came the daze, translucent world, and absence of emotions. The only thing he managed to discern before the hex fell upon his mind, was two glowing eyes staring him down from the fog.
Eyeing its form Brail groaned again.
'Why it's always birds? Did this guy too have a history with birds? Poor fellow, I know exactly how you feel then.'
Judging by what he heard, calling him a poor fellow wasn't quite right. As how Brail imagined, such a thing wouldn't have happened with the guy people called the Devil. If some bird had tried to steal him, or from him, it would most likely end up on a skewer.
Or a grill. He wanted to eat.
'Focus, damn it.'
Brail summoned his bow, but before he managed to aim at the Nightmare Creature, it flapped its wings forcing the mist to surge back, closing the tunnel. He shot randomly, but only felt like something massive moved far in the air, away from the line the arrow flew.
The last thing he saw, before the thing disappeared behind the fog, was two bright purple dots, looking directly at him. These two dots, the cosmic eyes he knew too well, were his main concern right now. Before he had no time to think about it, but now they seemed too familiar. If it was what he thought it was, then he received both perfect and horrible opportunity.
Horrible, because such creatures were cunning, smart, resourceful, and strong. Sometimes devastatingly strong, like the damned Vulture was.
And perfect because creatures like this were Brail's natural enemies. His prey.
The Nightmare Spell, or to be precise, his own Aspect long ago forced him to take a certain path. To encounter what sometimes looked like predetermined events, unravel specific mysteries and hunt monsters of a certain type. A type to which this bird most likely belonged.
Mening he didn't need to search for months again. It was right here. He just needed the last confirmation. Turning to his companion, he threw a meaningful questioning glance.
What came back was a mix of emotions. Subdued anger, determination, pity, sadness… And kinship.
Brail nodded somberly several times, and looked up in the direction where the bird was. Then he forced his legs to step forward, overcoming blinding pain, and set out on the hunt.
***
Kimmy was standing outside the carrier, observing the labyrinth of the crumbled cliffs and a dead end they stopped before. For little while both men were silent, so she decided to cut in and give an Ascended at least some reality check. To say that attempt won't go well was possible before she even started to speak, as Lith closed his eyes in irritation the moment she opened her mouth.
"We all understand it, but what exactly do you suggest? Run who knows where to search for the guy who can already be…"
"Alive!"
His roar made Kimmy instantly shut up. Seeing this, he lowered his voice and looked in other direction.
"He wouldn't die from some fucking ghosts."
The guy was scary in a way, and more than angry right now. And Kimmy was absolutely against another unstable Master hanging around. So she decided not to push more.
Still, his ideas were flowing in certainly wrong direction and following them wasn't that smart. Belle was of the same opinion.
"We choose this path for a reason. It's quickest and safest. Driving off it will be a big risk, you know this yourself."
"Am I the only one who sees a giant pile of boulders here? Can you move it?"
Irregular sighed tiredly.
"I didn't mean…"
"Okay, we took a quick detour, as you want, and came back on our reasonable path. Then what? Can you say there will be no more dead ends like this? No? Then we still need to take another route. So why we can't make some corrections to search for him?"
"Because we don't know where to search? And even if, the farther we're veering off the course, the further we endanger the convoy."
"You mean what's left of the convoy? Like it's not in danger now."
"It is, but if…"
"If 'if' happens, I'll be perfectly fine with reducing that danger. And with him we will protect the caravan even better."
Irregular just pinched his nose, trying to find what to answer.
"Listen…"
"No you listen. If we…"
Kim stopped paying attention to another round of their bickering. This arguing was caused by the sudden disappearance of Lith's partner. One moment he was there, everyone knew it, as his barrier was guarding the APC from the mist. And the next moment he was just gone.
The same next moment one of the crystal parts of communication bracelet impostors used shattered.
When Irregulars asked, why warrior had such a face, he explained in quiet and disbelieving voice. These memories were a part of a cheap but efficient crafted set. She never heard of someone capable to craft the whole sets of them, but apparently, in the region their cohort was in before the seed, this was only one of many types of unusual local products. Memories were tied to each other and allowed simple communication in a moderate radius, as well as, regardless of the distance, an indication of wearer's status.
A simple status. Dead or alive.
Additionally, indication had another option. If one of the memories will be destroyed, one of the crystal petals will just tarnish. So, considering it didn't, and instead cracked, the outcome was quite clear to Irregulars.
Though, it wasn't as clear to the angry Master.
Why? Because there was no way to say, which of the bracelets' holders was dead. So even with such an evident coincidence, Ascended didn't want to believe it was Brail, unless he saw it with own eyes.
How exactly he wanted to check it personally nobody knew. Him included.
So the situation was simple. They needed to move to the Siege Capital. They couldn't continue to drive this road. They needed to correct the route.
Belle didn't want a completely new one, and instead wanted to stick to the current path as close as possible. Lith agreed to disagree and insisted on searching for his friend.
Kim didn't want to risk it all, but also didn't want to lose another Master.
And almost nobody else was trying to oppose Lith's determination. Mostly because there were not so many people discussing the topic.
Basically, there were Kimmy and Belle on one side, and Lith on another. Sam clearly didn't know who she wanted to side, so she just stayed there silently, contemplating something. Others were inside the Rhino. Tei apparently didn't want to participate, so he sent Aneris, one of his sergeants, instead. Girl was actively trying to stop the argument, so they could regroup, and move at least somewhere, before some horrors attacked again.
'Regroup. Who's left to regroup at all?'
Kimmy glanced at the armored vehicles parked behind.
As fog disappeared, remnants of the convoy found themselves in a quite strange situation. Maybe strange was too gentle word for this. In a dire one, considering human loses. But strangeness remained still.
Before, they were constantly fighting almost the whole day. There was no escape, and the cage was slowly snapping down. They were encircled from all sides, quite literally. Except that no abominations were creeping from under the ground. Which was ironic, considering they were fighting worms.
Then the balance of the enemy's offense was disrupted, and they get a chance to run. Thanks to another enemy, escape was even more chaotic, as nobody knew what was happening. All Kimmy could do was glancing on the radar from time to time, imagining what was happening by noises, and trying to search for unexpected dangers in front of them with her ability.
'As if at least something was expected today.'
Even the end of it all was unexpected. If it was the end, of course.
Nobody eradicated every last Nightmare Creature. Nightmare Creatures also didn't eradicate every single human. Humans at some point were just left to be. Devouring Cloud either was destroyed or escaped before they drove into a dead end. Then disappeared the fog.
The silence was so sudden, that Kimmy even might have thought that none of it ever happened. If it weren't for how many of them was left right now.
Seven APCs. Eight with the Rhino. Three functional and three barely moving MWPs. Heavily protected vehicles and war platforms were attacked the least during the escape. So that's what was left.
No trucks. No light-armored transport. They were all gone. Confirmed by the crew of the last arrived carrier, from the tail group.
She tried to think about positives.
At least nobody attacked them at the moment. At least their transport was in running condition. At least all the people left were capable of fighting.
Uncapable… There was no uncapable anymore, only injured.
It was a total disaster.
But at least they had more people than if they escaped alone. And all her team was alive. Except for one guy, who now was the problem. She turned back to arguing, and focused on what they were saying.
They will gather up a quick meeting, count resources left, exchange the information about surroundings, their computers and awakened collected, and pick a new route. Will they be searching for the evaporated Master remained to be determined.
What was determined is that they will move soon. Brail said it himself.
Whatever happened, move forward.
***
'Move, you idiot.'
His body refused to do its task properly, while he was under assault. Yes, he probably had a couple broken, if not crushed, bones, and he hit his spine to many times for this month, but that was not really the time to falter.
"Sky against me. Then fog against me. Shit… Fuck off."
[You have slain an Awakened Monster, Ethereal Catcher.]
Another ghostly silhouette dissolved into the mist.
"Where was I? Sky, fog, right… Winds apparently against me too. And now my body is against me. Fucking hell, how did I deserve this?"
Catchers were jumping him constantly from all sides. He didn't even count how many he already killed, but he was dead tired. Tired, beaten, and in pain. And the pain was mercilessly pressing on his body and mind, forcing him to stop the hunt, to hide, or run away.
How he was supposed to run away, if even relatively slow movements required enormous efforts? An interesting question.
Absorbed in own ramblings, he almost missed how nearly imperceptible and silent object whizzed behind him again, searching for another opening.
'This damned bird. I'll catch you. Just you wait.'
The bird appeared from behind the fog several times already. Each time that cursed thing tried to peck away bits and pieces of his battered body. Apparently they both considered themselves the hunter here.
Still, its assault was too careful. It was afraid of the direct clash for some reasons, diving him from nowhere and escaping as quickly as it could. For now abomination didn't manage to get him even a single time. Except for maybe couple of scratches.
That was the good news. The bad ones?
If drop such things as constant agony, disorienting mist, and dozens of flying around Catchers, trying to put him under the hex again, he had problems with his main target.
The target had too wide range of capabilities to be a simple Tyrant. Hypnosis, some type of phasing, ability to summon and control an impenetrable cloud to camouflage a big area, and, of course, minions. Brail didn't know which else cards flying abomination had in store. The only thing he was certain about, is that the Terror wasn't too strong physically.
Evil thing was clearly Awakened, otherwise he would be probably dead already. But even being of the higher rank, Brail too couldn't get an enemy even once. Each time it tried to dive and wound him, explorer noticed the attack, was agile enough to dodge, but too slow to retaliate. Bastard was just too fast.
So they were in a stalemate. At least until Zeph catch this phantom menace. Or until the menace will make a mistake.
Little cat was peering through the fog, trying to trace unseen movements of the zooming around predator, only diverting her attention, when one of the minions was managing to touch her master. It happened occasionally, but after bird's mind hex, it was easy for Brail to snap out of the similar but weaker version of the ability. He didn't become immune, or less affected, but after he experienced a translucent daze and understood how to get out, ghosts' attempts to hypnotize him looked like minor obstacles.
Though, even minor obstacles were capable of slowing him down, so Zeph's assistance was necessary to wake him up quickly enough to avoid being ripped apart by the Terror.
Right after killing another spooky minion, his leg gave out and he stumbled, almost falling face first, but caught himself in time. Unfortunately, one of the sneaky wretches managed to caught him too, and he plunged into the daze again.
This time though, Zeph was ready even before a cold incorporeal hand reached his back, so Brail snapped out right in time to sense the Terror's next move.
The moment he got touched by the ghost, feathered horror tried to seize the opportunity and strike. It wasn't a reckless attempt, as it had the same subtlety, speed, and precision, but Brail was ready.
He didn't know how to make himself fast enough to overcome bird's mobility, but he knew it will definitely put a lot of force into the dive if he will look vulnerable. So hopefully, it wouldn't be able to retreat in time.
He made himself appear still hexed and waited for Terror's attack. Half a second later he sensed an enemy right behind him. Sharp talon touched his shoulder, but before it managed to rend it, Brail swiftly turned to catch the Terror. Sadly even for this plan the thing was too elusive, as his hand slipped from slick feathered belly.
In the same motion he sent a whistling blade forward, intending to slash abomination in half on the escape trajectory, but Terror outplayed him even up close. Dodging the following saber strike, bird spun in place, seemingly unaffected by laws of gravity, letting Vulture miss. Maneuver was gracious, and almost perfect in execution, with a single exception.
As Terror turned, his gaze locked precisely on little Tyrant's eyes.
A brief eye contact wasn't enough to fully hypnotize abomination with similar powers, but enough to stun it for a fraction of a second. Brail didn't waste the chance and redirected the downwards slash. Winds pushed the saber, turning it instantly, and sharp blade reached the bird, cutting right into the wing's base.
Shaking off the daze, feathered Terror spun away from the slash, preventing the saber from cutting wing off completely. The next moment another wing slammed in Brail's head throwing him on the ground. Given the force of the hit, explorer was lucky, that talon only grazed a forehead instead of piercing his brain.
Elusive creature completed its maneuver and rushed away. But before it managed to hide behind the mist, Brail noticed as escaping silhouette fading in and out of the sight. It seemed like Zeph somehow interfered with birds phasing powers. Several seconds later Ascended heard a loud crash.
Getting on feet, Brail quickly found the ghost, who was left aside during the brief clash, and now was creeping up again. But no sooner had he dealt with it than a new wave of ghosts pounced on him.
This time literal dozens of enemies simultaneously appeared from behind the fog, but all of them were somewhat sluggish and were not using any tricks. Before they tried to creep up from unexpected angles to reach him, but now they were throwing themselves directly at him, not caring about the swinging blade.
Getting rid of these ethereal abominations turned out to be an easy task, but apparently not all of them were mindless. The last one after all managed to sneak up on him. He felt cold touch on one of his heels, and the world started dissolving into the chaotic mess again.
Brail instantly forced himself to remember anger and pain, but for some reason didn't receive any help from his companion, so it took him a short while to wake up. Sneaky Catcher was already trying to drag him off the ledge, but whistling saber fell down on his head and translucent thing dissipated into ghostly gusts.
'Why didn't she help me? Did something happened when she hypnotized the Terror?'
As quickly turned out, nothing like this happened, and Zeph was just fully absorbed in another task. Cat was peering to one direction, not averting her eyes even for a second. And that direction wasn't somewhere in the air. Brail knew what that meant - the thing couldn't fly anymore. He got it good with the last strike and after it crashed into something.
Apparently little spirit was already sure about the location, as the sense of pulling appeared in his head, so he pushed himself further, walking towards the marked spot.
Ghosts were continuing to fly at him mindlessly, if of course they had any mind before, but that was not the only change Brail noticed. The fog became somewhat shallower, so after a minute of a slow pursuit, he managed to see a partially shattered rock with the blood on it.
Bloodstains marked the same way Zeph was pointing to.
After another minute of walking, Brail found a strange small indent in the slope, barely bigger than human, with all the area inside shrouded in a much heavier fog.
Unassuming cloudy alcove was of the same color and was swirling in similar way as the surrounding mist. Sly creature even fabricated air currents, so Brail sensed as there was nothing inside.
Unfortunately for the evil bastard, the lack of transparency, a little pool of blood nearby, and cat's unwavering gaze gave him away.
Not even thinking, Brail threw the saber inside the crevice, definitely hitting something, and heard abomination's voice for the first time since he encountered it.
For the fraction of a second he thought it was a scream of pain. Maybe it was. But this scream almost instantly grew into something terrifying.
Brail didn't expect for the silent hunter to be so overly loud. Terrors' scream was like a thousand of most unpleasant bird cries intermitting each other.
Soundwave hit him hard, and even though it wasn't physical, he staggered and almost fell on the ground. His vision blurred and he began to feel extremely nauseous. Simultaneously, horrible pain bloomed in his head, overshadowing even the pain in his body.
Then a new excruciating feeling grew somewhere across his torso, bringing him back to senses. Forcing himself to look down, Brail saw blood on his chest. Something partially went through the Vestments' protection, leaving three ghastly red lines, stretching from where his heart was. From the corner of an eye he saw a vicious pair of these somethings coming back for another strike.
Still disoriented from the horrible screech, Ascended couldn't react in time fully, and fierce talons tore into his shoulder. Terror definitely aimed at the heart again, but didn't gain enough speed, so Brail's enchanted armor managed to pull the strike off.
Though, bird's momentum was still enough to throw both of them down.
They fell rolling on the ground, trying to grab, punch, and cut each other. Simple physical hits were weak in this situation, so they both immediately tried to envelop themself in winds to empower their attacks. Both were trying to tug the controls of surrounding air currents on their side, simultaneously depriving an enemy from the magical acceleration.
Fighters quickly realized that they countered each other wind powers, so the obvious solution was to throw into this mess every other tool they had.
Terror tried to use its only ability for the close combat, but with constant pain, a mind hex was failing to consume the Master.
Zeph raced behind, somehow managing to periodically catch bird's gaze, but her hypnosis was constantly fading too, because of the wounds accumulating on Terror's body. At least she interfered with its phasing ability, preventing him from using it effectively. Some hits it still managed to evade with this strange ability, but it didn't help shake off the swordsman.
Beside their abilities, the only tools creature and human had left were pointed beak, sharp talons, and even sharper blade. So while rolling, they were cutting, piercing, and pecking each other down, with all ferocity they could gave out.
Eventually they fell over the ledge's edge and rolled down the slope, while ripping each other's bodies.
Brail was stronger, but the bird continued to scream with myriads of voices, dazing explorer, preventing him from hitting the vitals properly. Feathered abomination, entangled in close combat, couldn't make a good hit too without usual momentum, and weak attacks that landed were mostly deflected by Fogwalker's Vestments.
With a loud thud, they finally landed on the flat surface and flew several meters off each other.
During the descend abomination's wounds were becoming more and more grievous. Terror couldn't manage to concentrate as before and maintain the same density of the fog. Now it almost completely dissipated, leaving only frail dark gusts around the monster.
So when Brail got up and turned to his enemy, he saw the creature clearly for the first time. Had it been thousands years ago, he would have stood before a beautiful, even majestic grey owl, with eyes shining with wisdom, each of whose cosmic-purple pupils would have seemed to hold entire galaxies.
Now he was met with a ghastly sight of a wretched abomination, whose dark feathers were disheveled and painted in dirty, greyish-red blood almost entirely. One wing was heavily cut, pressed against the body, another hung aimlessly, twisted, and broken. Defiled owl's eyes were dim from pain and fatigue, and only madness shone inside.
Terror was breathing heavily, not yelling anymore, steadying itself to fight to the end. Brail was in far worse shape, but ground fight against the half-dead bird was hard to throw. So he raised his saber, ready to attack.
But before any of them lunged forward, the ruler of the fog's body slackened and then froze, it's mad eyes lost focus.
Brail slowly lowered his blade and turned to look at now just calm and sorrowful companion, whose glowing gaze was locked with defiled spirit's one.
He gave out a long and shaky breath and spoke almost in whisper.
"Good job, Zeph."
With unsteady steps, explorer approached once gorgeous descendant of the Wind Spirit and raised the blade again. Hypnotized creature didn't make any attempts to resist.
And with a quiet whistle, a Vulture took the head of an Owl.
[You have slain an Awakened Terror, Ala Nebulosa.]
[Your winds grow fiercer.]
[Your Aspect Legacy gain a new path.]