— Professor Cornelius Ward, “The Legend of the Old Hunters,” page 110
Emily came to, groaning in pain.
She still couldn’t hear herself, but that was besides the point. Her breathing was shallow, and her skin buzzed. She could hardly move, much less think. There wasn’t a single part of her not hurting. From her feet to her head, she was covered in bruises, cuts, and blood.
Emily tried turning her head, only to receive a sharp pain at the back of her neck. She was surrounded by rubble from the collapsed balcony. It had broken off into several large chunks, with some shattering into even more pieces further away from her. She glanced up at the cliff face and the ruined balcony looming high above her. The fact that she was conscious, let alone alive, was nothing short of a miracle.
Then, panic erupted through her.
Emily frantically turned her neck, ignoring the pain as she searched for the Alpha.
It was lying a distance away from her, still partially on the slope. It’s body heaved slowly as it struggled to get up with her sword still embedded in its side. No doubt the beast toxin was burning its insides and leaking into its bloodstream. It wouldn’t have long to live, but if she didn’t get up, neither would she.
Emily’s hands were glowing faintly, the fractures in her skin pulsing with a soft, red light. Her magic was shimmering beneath the surface like an ocean tide, but Emily knew using it now would push past her limit. The fissures were already creeping up her wrists and would likely spread further if she overexerted herself again.
But she had to move. If it came down to it, she would need to use her magic.
Emily gritted her teeth and forced herself to her knees. Pain shot through her leg and back. Her vision blurred, but she pushed past it, staggering to her feet.
Slowly, the Alpha rose on all fours, struggling at first before finding its footing. It turned its head toward Emily and glared at her, it’s glowing red eyes burning a hole through her soul. One step after the other, it menacingly lumbered toward her, drool and blood dripping from its fangs.
She looked for her gun, but it was lost in the rubble. Her sword was her only option, stuck in the Alpha’s side. Taking a deep breath, she reached deep within, summoning the strength for one desperate act. Telekinetic energy surged to her fingertips, and she focused on the sword.
When her mind took hold of it, she pulled with all her might.
The blade ripped free from the Alpha’s side with a spray of blood, flying into her grip. Emily gasped, stumbling as the hilt slapped into her palm. The glowing cracks along her hand spread slightly, but she tightened her grip regardless, ignoring the sharp sting of pain.
The Alpha staggered at first, almost looking relieved that the sword was out. It was bleeding a lot, though.
Emily dropped into the fighting stance Mina had drilled into her. Her body ached, and her limbs were trembling, but she held her ground.
The Alpha charged, swinging its massive paw, and Emily’s sword met the monster’s fist mid-air. The impact sent a shockwave through her arm, but she managed to deflect the blow just enough to slide past the creature’s bulk. Her blade dragged along its arm, the beast's toxin sizzling as it cut through fur and muscle. The Alpha recoiled, its silent snarl vibrating through the air, but Emily didn’t stop. She twirled, carrying the momentum, and slashed at its twin tails. Both were severed in a single stroke. Blood sprayed across Emily’s face, and the sound-dampening field shattered.
The Alpha’s roar tore through the forest. The sudden return of sound hit Emily like a wave. She stumbled, her ears ringing, and the Alpha whirled around, its eyes blazing. Emily tried to dodge, but its claws clipped her, tearing her garment and crashing her into a chunk of fallen rubble.
Pain exploded through her back as she fell to the ground. Her sword clattered beside her. Air escaped from her lungs, and she gasped desperately as she tried to regain her focus, but exhaustion was pressing down on her like a heavy blanket. She couldn’t find the strength to get up.
The Alpha limped toward her, letting out a low, guttural growl. It opened its jaws wide, barely able to hold back the rage as it twitched and flexed its claws.
Emily braced herself as the creature rose onto its hind legs and raised its paw high. But as the claws came down, so did a shadow from above.
Mina slammed into the Alpha with such speed and strength that the snap of its spine cracked the air. She pinned it to the ground, her claws sinking into its flesh, her fangs bared as she tore into its neck, ripping out a chunk of its throat in a spray of blood.
The Alpha thrashed, its massive limbs flailing, but Mina held it down. Emily quickly grabbed her fallen sword and lunged, driving the blade into the Alpha’s skull with every ounce of strength she had left.
The beast stilled for a moment, a low, weak sound escaping its throat before it finally went limp.
Emily slumped back against the rubble, panting. Her chest heaved, and her body trembled as adrenaline and exhaustion surged inside her.
Mina rose from the Alpha’s corpse, drenched in blood. Her silver eyes were wild with a frenzied, predatory gleam. Blood gushed from her mouth, staining her face and coat. Her nails were as sharp as knives. She looked more like a vampire than Emily had ever seen. Feral, unstoppable, an absolute force of nature.
A monster.
And yet, Emily had never been more glad to see her.
“You alright?” she asked with a growl. “Anything broken?”
Emily opened her mouth to answer, but only a sob came out. A sudden wave of emotion washed over her, and the weight of realization came crashing down. She’d nearly died. Her hands were shaking, the glowing fissures pulsing faintly. Tears stood in her eyes. “I… I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Everything hurts.”
Mina looked over her. “Can you stand?”
“I… I don’t know…”
Mina nodded and helped Emily to her feet. Her legs wobbled, but she managed to stay upright, leaning against Mina for support. “I can tell you’re hurting,” she said. “But the work’s not done. The rift’s still up there, and more Sangrevoro could be coming. Can you keep going?”
Emily swallowed hard. She didn’t know if she had the strength to keep going. She could barely keep upright as it was. But there was something about the tone of Mina’s voice that convinced her she needed to keep going anyway. They couldn’t stop until the rift was closed.
“Yeah,” Emily said, then looked up at the cliffside. “B-But can you carry me back up… please?”
The ruins of the elven estate had become a slaughterhouse and smelled of death.
Sangrevoro corpses littered the floor. Some were torn in half with their entrails spilling across the cracked marble. Others were crushed, their skulls caved in as if they had been struck by a battering ram. Some were so riddled with bullets that they were hardly held together.
The further into the ruin they went, the more Emily’s heart pounded. She had no reason to be afraid, not when she could still hear everything, but a dreadful feeling was slowly overtaking her. The vicera and heavy stench of blood in the air, the very fact that she could have ended up like any one of these beasts, made her sick. Emily tried to maintain a straight face, but found herself cringing occasionally, glancing away from the mangled corpses. She had seen death before, a dead animal here, a back alley stabbing, but none of it compared to the grisly sight before her. Mina hadn’t just killed them; she had brutalized them.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“What did you do?” Emily whispered as she stepped around a Sangrevoro with its chest split open.
“What I had to,” Mina responded quietly.
A chill shot down Emily’s spine.
The pain hadn’t lessened in the time it took to get back here from the bottom of the cliff. If anything, everything was starting to hurt more. The adrenaline was wearing off, and she could feel the gradual climb of soreness radiating across her body. The magic coursing through her blood was making her skin tingle, almost like she was standing out in the cold with nothing between her and the frigid air.
Ahead, a staircase opened into a vast chamber. As opposed to how the estate was above, the lower levels had little, if any, windows or entryways for daylight, but despite that fact, it’s not like Emily needed it to see anyways. Around the corner, an ominous red aura shone. The air was vibrating in a way Emily couldn’t quite comprehend, but the sensation of it sank into her bones. It grew more intense the closer they got, until finally they entered the central chamber.
There, in the middle of the empty room, was a gash in the air. It was like someone had taken a serrated dagger to nothing and cut through it like paper, leaving a fiery, jagged, uneven portal. The writhing, churning void of swirling reds and blacks was hypnotising, and Emily struggled to tear her gaze away from it. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat, or perhaps her heartbeat had begun to match its rhythm.
Her skin prickled harder, and the fractures in her hands glowed brighter.
“This is the rift?” Emily asked hesitantly.
Mina nodded, her silver eyes fixed on the gash. “Yes.”
The rift shifted, its surface rippling like disturbed water. The swirls within morphed as a Sangrevoro broke through the tear, coated in a viscous, crimson fluid that dripped to the floor before evaporating. The monster’s red eyes gleamed, and its twin tails lashed. But before it could take a single step, a bullet tore through the creature’s skull.
The bang of the gunshot startled Emily, reverberating through the room.
Mina lowered her revolver and placed a hand on her hip as she returned to studying the rift.
It was strange to imagine so many monsters could come through such a thing. Hell, it was strange to imagine such a thing could even exist. How many more monsters could be on the other side? Why hadn’t they all come through? The longer Emily stared, the more questions she had. What was on the other side? Were there even monsters, or did some unseen force create them before spitting them out? There had to be something, though. From everything she had heard about the Great Rupture, Iltharin, there were thousands of these. They remained open for months, and by the time the majority of them had closed, Ageria was never the same. Would that mean this rift would close on its own? Would they just have to remain here until then, watching it like armed guards?
“There had to be a way to close it…” Emily said.
“I’m not sure.” She started circling it, and Emily followed her lead. The gash hung in the air, entirely two-dimensional, a flat impossibility that defied comprehension. Its frayed edges shimmered, but the void within was depthless, a paradox that made Emily’s head spin. Staring at it too long brought a wave of nausea, and her stomach twisted as her mind struggled to make sense of something that wasn’t meant to exist.
“It’s… weird,” Emily whispered. “It’s like it’s not even here, but it is.” She felt a pull, an urge deep in her chest that drew her closer. Emily took a step toward it before stopping. It wasn’t just curiosity inside her; it was as if the rift recognized her, or she recognized it. Her hands buzzed. The fractures in her skin glowed brighter. The magic within her was stirring despite her exhaustion.
She took another step toward it.
“Emily,” Mina said. “What are you doing?”
“I… don’t know?”
She took another step.
“Be cautious.”
Emily nodded, but she couldn’t look Mina in the eyes. The rift had such an ironclad grasp on her attention that it was impossible to turn away from it. Her breath hitched as she got closer. The buzz grew stronger, and the red shadows within the void churned faster. They were beckoning her. She wanted to… no, she needed to know what lay on the other side. Where did the Sangrevoro come from? What was this place that bled monsters into her world?
Her hand hovered inches from the rift. Her fractures glowed brighter, the cracks spreading up her fingers, pulsing in time with the rift’s light. She hesitated, but the pull was too strong. She had to know.
Her fingers brushed the edges of the rift.
And a flash of energy erupted inside her.
Emily’s eyes went wide as her body flared with power. Magic rushed to her fingertips and poured into the rift like a dam breaking. Her breath was stolen as a flood of incomprehensible sensations poured into her. Her mind reeled as her soul was unmoored, cast into a void where time and space felt one and the same. She saw stars that weren’t stars, burning with a color she couldn’t name. Grief, fear, pain, rage, and power, it was all sucked out and violently shoved back into her all at once.
She was trembling. Her skin was fracturing, cracks spreading up her wrists like veins of molten light breaking through darkness. Cities of black stone, spires piercing skies of liquid fire, and beyond that, oceans of writhing shadows. A lattice of bone stretching across a crimson void, and a hand made of starlight was clutching the only thing she could see with clarity: A pair of skeletal hands, six long fingers. It didn’t look human. It looked… monstrous. The hands reached toward her, gleaming like polished obsidian against the blackened sky. The hands… no… claws… they parted, revealing a face of impossible beauty. Half of it was covered by a mask of liquid mercury, while the other half glowed with an ethereal red light. Black hair writhed around the face like living snakes, and the eyes, that familiar burning silver, they locked on to Emily’s, and she felt a connection, a recognition that sent a shiver through her soul.
Then…
Emily stumbled back, wrenching her hand free from the rift, the connection snapping in an instant. The swirling red waves collapsed in on themselves, and the gash sealed shut with a soundless implosion. The red light vanished, and the chamber was plunged into darkness.
The air stilled. The vibrations were gone.
For a moment, Emily stood there, trying to comprehend what she had just witnessed, but her mind was a jumble of half-formed images and emotions she could barely process. She felt hollow, as if part of her had been left behind in the void. Then her legs gave out.
Mina was quick to catch her. “Emily! Are you alright?”
She shook her head. “I… I don’t know.” One by one, the images faded from her memory like fleeting smoke. Emily looked back at where the rift had been, her brow furrowing. “It’s gone,” she said, confused. “I… closed it?”
Mina gently set her down. Then, she walked over to where the rift had been. “It’s gone…” she confirmed with a nod. “What did you do?”
Emily stared at the ceiling of the elven ruin. “Nothing,” she said. “I just… touched it.” But that wasn’t true, not entirely. She’d felt the rift pull at her, draw her magic into it, as if it had been waiting for her. The connection she’d felt, the recognition in those silver eyes. Who was the figure? What were those hands? And why did it all feel so… familiar? She wanted to know. She needed to know. But she knew she wasn’t going to get answers now. The only thing she was certain of was that it was over. The rift was closed, and the Sangrevoro were defeated.
Mina helped her sit up. “Did you see anything?”
Emily leaned on Mina for support. “I think? Most of it was… I don’t know. But there was this… woman, I think.” She paused to catch her breath, and looked back. “Her hair was alive, and her eyes were silver like yours.” When Mina didn’t respond, Emily’s gut churned, and she turned again to stare at the woman. “...Your mother?”
The next breath Mina took was a deep one, like she had been holding it back for years. She opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. “She’s… not my mother…”
Emily stayed quiet.
“My sister and I were just kids. We were young, even for elves. Our parents brought us from the archipelago south of Ageria to Peccatum. Thought we’d have a better life there. They died. We were on our own.”
“What was her name?” Emily asked quietly.
“Lucy… We were twins, but I tried to be the bigger sister. Tried taking care of her. We lived off scraps, slept in the alleys. One night, we were found by a woman. She couldn’t have children of her own, and she said we were a blessing. We had a home, finally. A castle, far from the mainland. We were scared at first, but they pampered us. Our mother was the Queen of the Vampires. No one would go against her word. But between the two of us, she likes Lucy more. She treated her like royalty while I was just… there. She waited until we had matured into grown women before biting us, said it was a gift so that we could always be together. After that, I found out how cruel she truley was…” Mina’s voice faded, and Emily glanced to the scars disfiguring her face. “I didn’t run soon enough,” she continued quietly. “But I met someone. He trained me to fight, to survive. To use my abilities and rage not for pleasure but power. He made me a different kind of monster.”
“What about your family?”
“I met Nathan after I had stepped away from monster hunting. Didn’t like what I had turned into, and he… he helped me through it. Then we had Luna, and I had a real family again. But she took that away from me too.” Mina fell completely quiet. A minute passed without a word said between them, and the uncomfortable weight of the silence started to crush Emily. She wanted to ask how it happened, but it didn’t seem right to push her.
Then, finally, Mina spoke again, after she had collected herself. There was a faint, wet shimmer in her eyes. “I should have told you, but I couldn’t. I don’t…” She paused. “I don’t like thinking back on it.”
“I understand,” Emily said quietly. “I’m… sorry if I overreacted a bit.”
“You had a right to. Shouldn’t have kept it from you.” Mina paused again, then took a seat beside Emily. “I’m sorry.”
Emily smiled back. “Thank you.”
Mina nodded, then cleared her throat as she quickly changed the subject. “I’m proud of what you did today. You did a good job.”
“I think you did most of the work,” Emily replied with a light chuckle.
“Don’t discredit yourself. You helped. You saved the people of Cresthill.”
Emily smiled back. “So… what now?”
“We’ll sit and rest for a moment. But then we head home.”
Emily nodded and relaxed a bit. Looking back to the space where the rift had been, though, she couldn’t help but wonder why she had seen Queen Lockhart. She was left with more questions, but knew they weren’t going to get any answers. They’d have to find out, though. Did Lockhart know where they were hiding? How did she know a rift would appear here? Did she… summon it? Emily’s stomach tightened into knots as she theorized.
They’d have to be more careful from now on.
I'm going to share something cool with you guys. A few days ago, a friend of mine made a mockup of Mina using descriptions from . It's honestly really, really accurate to how I've envisioned her as a character, with the only thing missing being even more scars. I still think it is very cool, and just thought you guys would find it cool to put a face to the name.
I HOPE YOU ENJOYED TODAY'S CHAPTER!
Please leave a comment!
- Any theories on what might happen next?
- What do you want to see more of?
- Wanna go on a typo hunt? (You’ll find something, I promise)
Follow the story to stay updated.
Favorite it if you enjoy the journey.
Craving more right now? Join my and help support the story!
- Read 8 chapters ahead!
- Bonus & cut content!
- Behind-the-scenes stuff ;)
VOLUME 2 IS NOW LIVE ON PATREON!