Creatures of the Mist

Fourteenth Mist

Fourteenth MistCreatures of the Mist

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##### Fourteenth Mist #####

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Doing the impossible is like kissing flames....

Except if you were a fire licker.

It is Carvel Blancort who says that declaration of war.

He seems to be the one leading them. I don't see Valline stand among them, or Freddrickson. Some faces that I know aren't here too, which means not everyone from the Blancort are here. Only some of them are.

It is snowing outside, and the sunlight is peeking from the farthest horizon. The Blancort blends well with the background.

"By whose order?" I ask as loud and firm as Carvel.

"The answer doesn't matter for those of you who are about to die," he replies.

I snort. "Do you really think that you can beat us? Do note that if such possibility exists, your family would have made us extinct centuries ago. But let's face it, the Blancort isn't capable to do so."

"Maybe not before, but we are capable now. Why do you think we're able to get through here in the first place? It's because we have something you don't have now."

"That's ridiculous!"

"He's bluffing, right?"

I can hear the whispers of my clan from inside the castle, something the Blancort can't do. They are preparing to attack, which gives me cue on when to start myself. But Artro and Link beat me up to it, approaching in front of me and blocking my way.

Artro shakes his head. "Let us take care of this. There's no need to involve yourself in such trivial matter." Carvel snorts after hearing this. I look at them. The Blancort's army is all armed, while the family members are rather strong. Seems like a group that the two can take care of. So I nod, giving my permission.

Carvel charges in first in an instant. He runs in a steady speed while throwing his hands to the back and let the wind pass him. His white battle uniform is drifting in the air by the long edges of the blazer. His eyes look ready. The shoulder-cut blonde that crowns his head is played by the wind. Halfway close to us, he stops and then summons white ray from both of his light palm. The ray comes out like laser, wanting to destroy everything that is on its way. And Carvel's aiming it towards us; or rather in particular, me.

Link gets it covered by his own magic. He raises his left hand high in the air, symbolizing a call for the sky. A black thunder strikes the tip of his finger in a split second, making its electricity way down to his body without causing him actual pain. Link then reflects the black thunder to create a shield around us just before Carvel's ray hits. The contact of two opposite elements makes a loud pitch sound that almost tears our ears and bleed.

The ray eventually runs out and the piercing noise calms down. Link's barrier fades just for Artro to have an opening and charges back towards the enemies. Artro draws ancient words in the air, making them appears in inked smoke. The Noirmelns' ancient language allows him to pull out a shadow monster from another dimension, borrowing it according to their previous blood promised contract.

Carvel gives out a smirk for an unknown reason that if I don't know any better, can be considered as a smug. I can see him pulling something green out of the pocket of his inner blazer; a tube, perhaps. He takes off the lid and just holds it in his hands, standing on the snow without doing anything else while Artro charges him with his shadow monster. It takes me quite a while to figure out what is going on. But by the time I do, we are already falling in a critical condition.

Carvel pours the bubbly green liquid into the shadow monster when it is close enough, and the monster melts instantly like candle being burned by a giant fire, making Artro vulnerable for the Blancort. But others are still not taking any action to move. Link chooses that chance to create another barrier, this time to protect Artro. Carvel pours the liquid again and the barrier melts instantly like how the shadow monster did.

Artro gasps in shock. If that mysterious liquid can melt the darkness, then it can also—

"Get away from there!" I warn, but it's already too late.

Carvel is about to pour the liquid again, this time targeting Artro. My shadows move like haunting ghosts and appear just in time to take the hit. But it's still not giving enough time for Artro to escape and a few drops of the destructive liquid kisses his pale skin. Artro hisses in pain and his hand bleeds in black, but at least he manages to run off to our side.

"Keep your distance," I tell Link before taking a better look on Artro's injury.

Link nods and distracts them.

Artro's blood stains the white snow when drops of his black blood leak out. I fold his dirty right sleeve up and he hisses again in pain. Something is wrong. I know that since the moment my eyes land on his injuries. The green liquid has disappeared from sight, just like when it did after destroying the darkness of Artro's and Link's. But the drops left some unhealing flesh open. A few drops like these shouldn't have stayed open for so long—the blood would have instantly healed it in a brief. The problem is not only that it's not healing, but it seems to have got worsen. By the lacing of his teeth, I realize that Artro is in pain. That means the liquid is poisonous.

"It's poisonous!"

I warn Link, who seems likes to be in a trouble himself. Carvel and his clan is caging around him, giving him an impossible chance to escape without getting hurt. But he decides to take a risk and jumps out of the dangerous circle. They pour the green poison and some soaked on him. He groans and winces in pain while landing hard on the snow, but it is better than let himself getting crowded any longer and take a greater hit.

Then the groans soon turn to screams of pain and that's when I take my action on them.

Shadows come from all over places, each in the same size. They all gather in one single place in the center of the snowy field. I launch the solidified shadows when I think that they are enough. They wrap around the Blancort wizards, making sure to stay away from the tubes of poison. Although some of them are being splashed on my shadows, I just keep on summoning more so that the circle never ends. Carvel then starts throwing smaller tubes at my shadows when he has the chance to slip away from their grips. The small tubes hit the shadows and they explode, consuming a lot of shadows in the progress. This opens the chance for them to attack again, but before any of them can completely break free from the holds of my darkness, I pull Link and Artro with my hands and get back in the castle.

The situation is in a bad shape. Both of my personal guards are injured. Carvel has a poisonous green toxin that can hurt and stop us from recovering. The dark shadows are fragile against the liquid. And the exploding ones are putting us in a lot of tight spots.

But at least I know that they can't get in...for the mean time.

The rest of the family welcomes us with gasps and shocks as they spot both the bleeding Artro and Link. Artro doesn't look that bad, except for the part where his left hand is now corrupted. But Link is a different story. He has poison splashed right across his chest, right leg and head.

They all soon crowd us and try to help the two.

"Don't go outside. Believe me, they've discovered a secret weapon that might be able to wipe all of us."

The news makes them worried and afraid, obviously. Some even started to panic. But Salomo's reaction is more than that when I spot him from the corner of my eyes. The color is being completely drained from him. He stands in shock, looking at the direction of the door.

"Oh, no." The words barely escape his dried lips. "This is bad. Raion hasn't gone back since last night...."

It is my turn to have the color drained from my face. Between the groaning of Link's pain and panic family members, I know what's going to happen, and I know exactly what to do.

"Witches and elders, please bring the injured to the nursing chamber and take care of them. I am well aware that we can't cure them just yet with this unknown poison, but please do as much as you can to make the pain less painful. And warlocks, please follow me. I have a plan to retrieve Raion safely."

The Blancorts refuse to back down and stay outside the castle. They have limited our movements while we watch theirs. Things can't go on for too long, calculating the chance of Raion meeting them. I send a rescue team consisting six warlocks through our secret passageway in the hopes that they can find Raion before the Blancort does.

Meanwhile, while waiting for them to come back, Link's condition is getting worse. The poison has spread through half of his torso and leg, making him impossible to move. We try to use the time-slowing spell in order to make the poison spread less faster, but the poison seems to know about our trick and even tricks us back into making the spell becomes useless, making Link falls in pain even more.

I know by that minute that I have to take action soon.

This time, by myself.

They are ready, so I have to be ready as well. They have exploding poison and light, while I have darkness within—something that they can't match, because mine has an endless depth inside the core.

I open the castle's front door in the most unexpected moment. The Blancorts are surprised by my arrival, while none of my family knows what I'm doing. They are armed with the chemical bombs, but I'll make sure to attack them alone and boldly.

Dashing towards the enemies, I can’t help but to take in a couple of hits. Green toxin is slashing everywhere when the small bomb tubes hit me. My flesh all melts down like heated candles and black blood is staining everywhere I step. Yet I still doesn’t decrease my speed, still running in the same steady balance and ready to take more. Having a lack of flesh is not an excuse to put a stop to this.

Even when they use their light magic to attack me, I can still dodge them and even fight back with my own shadow.

They are starting to mortified when I force my body to keep moving towards them, closer and closer until they realize that they have run out of poison. My tentacles rise from the ground, pulling back high and fast, before slashing the wind by whipping back the air in front of them. Each of the tentacles are already snaking everywhere, coiling around the bodies of Blancorts and petrifying them in their places. Some of them try to move, but that will only make the convolution tighter.

Last sight of the sun, I let each of them face it before my darkness starts swallowing their bodies, minds, and eventually souls. They call for their light, waving their hands and hopes high. But it’s already too late. My shadows are consuming every part of them ─ from the edges to the center ─ hungrily. They aren’t able to breathe for so long, their bodies finally give up and stop working.

Saving the best for the last, I know turn to the now solo threat, Carvel. When I turn to face him, who’s also being convoluted robustly by my tentacle, my eyes notice how hard he’s sweating and now in shock his whole system is. His eyes are widen, to the point that they are all dried and almost died. His aura is drifting apart from focus, caused by a great traumatizing experience. I’ve just killed a number of his family members, after all.

“Now, tell me. Where is the antidote to this,” I squint my eyes, “toxin?”

I have to wait for a while before he finally half recovers and replies to me.

“I’m not going to tell you anything.” He shakes his head.

But I simply form a smile ─ one that is neither kind nor serene. “You know, you should better answer it now before I get the information out of you in the worst, possible way.” My warning comes out casually dangerous.

Carvel’s eyes land on the dead bodies behind me in pure horror. “No.”

It’s the answer I already predicted way before. “Fine, we’ll have it your way, then.”

I drag him inside the castle while he keeps on screaming and cursing me and my family, but never even stopped to take a look at him as my black tentacle pulls him against the ground. Luckily, everyone is too busy to care about the fit Carvel is putting, so I don’t have to take care of the clamor.

We reach the abandoned part of the castle and into the rows of prisoner’s cells. Intentionally skipping them and on to a more closed cell, I walk casually to open a steel door and then throw him roughly inside with my tentacle. He lands with a loud thud on the cement. I dismiss my tentacle and lock the door, letting only the two of us inside.

Actually, make it three.

I walk to the figure sitting on the torture chair and touch her hand. I kiss the back of it and start turning into a unscented smoke. My shapeless body floats in the air as an attempt to seep back into my original body, which I previously placed in here so that I wouldn’t exactly be harmed. My sight becomes slightly framed by darkness in the edges ─ just like when I use sight-seeing ─ but will recover to normal soon. I blink once, and then I am already back.

Carvel who has been watching the entire process can only gape. His surprise soon turns to fury as he starts cursing me again.

“You ─ ! You cheated on us! How dare you use a clone to trick us? Unforgivable. My entire family died because of you. Why you cheating ─ !”

“Technically, you are the one who started all of this in the first place.” I rise from my chair, trying to do brief movements in relaxing my muscles, before placing him on it instead by grabbing his wrist and pulls him to the chair.

He hisses from my touch, as if the contact of our skin is deadlier than his green toxin.

“Why don’t we just start right away now? My personal guards are in critical condition, so why don’t we cut to the case and let me see,” I say, stepping closer as his eyes widen with a new level of horror.