“Did you hear about what happened to Skrixis last night?”
“Yeah, I still can’t believe it. That cockroach has been a Savant for a while now, pretty much as long as I’ve been here, which is saying something.”
The two Sleepers strolled down another residential area.
One had a hood over his head, and a skull mask over his mouth and chin, likely an assassin for one of his Aspiration Classes. This was further supported by the tight cloak and multiple daggers around his waist.
The other one had an elongated brown face, half a horse and half a man. His black mane dropped down to his bare, sinewy back. Beside the few scars on his muscular torso, he only wore some trousers to cover his lower body.
“I’m with you, he partied it up a few months back. Laughed his pincers off saying he can’t be killed anymore.” The horse man brayed.
“Well, that didn’t really matter when he got completely eaten… What a way to go.” Despite the implied empathy, the assassin sneered.
Soon, both were chucking and snorting as they kept a steady pace.
“What is he going to do about our new friend though?” The cloaked man said after some pause.
“Who knows, he barely makes contact with me since my initiation, and when he does, it's the same requests here and there. ‘Keep an eye out for a white-haired and purple-eyed boy while out of the fort’ and ‘that honeybee lady looks beautiful, kill her’.” The horse man huffed, expanding his nostrils. “You know, the usual stuff.”
“Well, we have to do something about this. Especially if we are the target.”
“You’re overthinking, friend. Who in their right mind would go against the Blood Fiend if they knew who he is and the army supporting him?”
“Back where I come from, we call that thinking a cliche. Whether he knows who the Blood Fiend is or not, this new friend already managed to make the entire fort aware of their existence.” The assassin explained as the two came to stand in front of a door leading to a private quarters.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s one guy! As for us…” The horse man neighed, slamming the door open, revealing multiple other figures inside. “We’re at least half a dozen Savants banding together in this room alone!”
Instead of a nice apartment, the room consisted of a small stable instead.
“Make that five, we had to kill the cow.” A pig-faced woman called out from a few stables down.
“Her fault for not accepting the offer.”
“How stupid, isn’t it obvious that if you don’t accept, you become another victim?”
Two sheep-faced men sat next to each other, looking towards the dead cow woman.
“That’s a shame.” The horse man snorted. “Make sure to display the body somewhere with the usual motif. Don’t let it get linked back to us.”
“What about the Luscairna? They keep increasing the patrols everywhere.”
“Worst case, call them here and show them the body with the symbol. They’ll just link it to the Blood Fiend. They only care about him, you just need to know how to lie.”
THUD!
“?!”
Before they could finish their plans, suddenly interrupted, the five Savant turned their heads toward a stable door that slammed close on its own.
“What was that?!”
“How should I know, maybe the wind?”
“There is no wind inside this room, idiot!”
“There is something in here with us!” The assassin quickly shouted, alerting everyone to take immediate battle stances.
“Who is it?!” The horse man summoned a whip and stood back-to-back with the assassin.
“I see snakes… a few of them.”
“Oh? I’ve never killed a snake person before!”
“No, I mean normal sized snakes.”
“What?” The horse man relaxed his posture. “Man, you got me almost excited there. Who cares about some small snakes.”
“I… do… help!”
“?!”
Looking towards the voice, they all saw the pig-faced woman reaching out for help. A long, smoke-covered snake was wrapped around her body, squeezing her thick neck out of air. Another serpent clone was done eating her left leg, while another took a big bite of her protruding belly.
KAPPUSHHH!
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The horse man swung his whip, immediately hitting one of the snakes, turning it to smoke.
A moment later, the assassin jumped out of the pig-faced woman’s shadow and in one fell swoop, cut the serpent around her into pieces.
The two sheep men bit down on the remaining snake, only for it to turn into smoke as well.
“Level up if you have a reserve!” The assassin shouted at the bleeding pig.
“Already did, where did that thing even come from?!”
Everyone kept alert, looking around the entire room, studying every single movement.
“There! Another snake!”
The assassin sank into the shadows after pointing in one direction. However, the moment he came out, he fazed back, dodging an immediate swing of a sickle that had aimed for his head.
“!”
When he looked again, no one was where his attacker should have been standing.
“Keep alert! There is a Sleeper hiding even from my eyes somehow!”
“What?!”
“Get back here!”
The assassin sank into his shadow again, only to hear a scream as he re-emerged next to the horse man.
“No!!”
“What happened?!”
“He’s dead! My brother…!”
One of the sheep men had lost his head. It was gone, nowhere to be found. The blood gushed out of the severed neck as the headless body fell to the ground, spasming out of control.
“Horseshit! Leave him! Use your skills!”
The horse man suddenly summoned a blue aura around him, increasing every movement he took. However, as he ran, he immediately staggered on a serpent clone and hit a stable door.
A single dagger from the assassin immediately turned it to smoke before it could attack him.
The remaining sheep man joined the fray, increasing the wool on his body, and hardening them.
The pig woman summoned a butcher knife that she held with her right hand, but was forced on one knee due to her missing left leg.
“A stable, how nice.”
“?!”
Everyone turned toward the exit door, looking at the silhouetted figure that just spoke. The chilling air surrounding it almost made the very stable tremble as if an unstoppable butcher had just appeared to collect the disposable cattle.
A moment later, before they could make out any details about it, a storm of straws rushed at them viciously.
“I got this!”
The sheep man immediately put up a wall of hardened wool, blocking some straws. The horse man easily dodged what came his way, and pushed back the rest with a quick wind attack.
“Dammit!”
The assassin had already disappeared and reappeared where the figure was supposed to be, only to find no one there yet again.
“Hey, you good back there-?!”
As soon as the attack settled, the horse man looked back towards the pig woman, only to witness her entire plump figure being devoured whole by a massive row of jagged teeth stretching as wide, if not wider, than her.
CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!
The assassin immediately appeared from under it and slashed it open, exposing half of the devoured Sleeper.
“Horseshit!” The horse man immediately zapped forward, and grabbed onto the pig woman’s right leg, hoping to get her out in time.
However…
“Behind you!”
A silhouetted figure appeared right behind him, completely naked and holding onto two glowing violet sickles.
With a single swing, an invisible amalgamation of slashes hit the horseman at point blank, shredding him into small pieces. With his grip cut out of existence, the pig woman was devoured whole.
The cut on the stretched fabric of the wide mouth had completely closed again.
“Shit!” Just as the assassin was about to use the shadows beneath his horse friend to save him, he had to dodge weird flying disks that continued to follow him everywhere.
He blocked some, and allowed others to land some minor hits before escaping into his shadow again. Remerging back-to-back to the shivering sheep man, he surveyed the surroundings again.
“Snakes, a beast, a man, flying weapons…” He murmured, seeing nothing of what he was counting, as if they were all being haunted by ghosts.
Perhaps even ghostly butchers. The thought crossing the two remaining survivors’ minds made them all shiver in place as a new chill ran down their spines.
That feeling, it was all too familiar to the experienced Savants.
“What the hell are we up against here?!”
“It’s… It’s a Dreadbeast! It has to be! I heard there was one in the fort! The Fortmaster has finally sent it out to punish us!”
“Shut up and keep your eyes open-”
“?!”
As he said his last word, the assassin strangely seemed to be looking at another Sleeper, who was clothed similarly to himself, except there was nothing from the neck up for him to recognize. The light in his eyes disappeared before processing the truth.
The sheep man noticed some flying disks which had flown out of his back to cut off the head of his last ally.
With all dead except the sheep man, the silhouetted figure walked down the stable with slow, silent steps, trapping the remaining Sleeper between it and the door. It was wearing the deep plum outfit, with the jagged teeth closed like a full-head hood.
CLUNG! CLUNG! CLUNG!
It repeatedly hit the sickles against each other, marking the hour of slaughter.
“Aghh!! Stay away!” With shaking knees and shivering lips, the sheep man rushed toward the door and opened it. “Help! Help me-”
“?!”
Just as he alerted everyone nearby, causing screams and chaos, the supposed Dreadbeast stabbed him in the back, then devoured him whole in front of the stunned, paralyzed crowd, forced to bear witness to the feast.
As Luscairna guards rushed in with spears, the figure suddenly exploded in a cloud of black smoke. Inside the stable, it had left a dreadful symbol depicting a hollow, melting face with a wide crazed smile, drawn in the blood of the dead.
The victims’ corpses were gone, leaving only enough traces to identify them.
Sleepers in the hallway ran about or stood in shock, crying and shouting in fear.
The Unseen Dreadbeast of Lethe was here.
***
Somewhere else, a one-armed blind scarecrow was conveniently taking a shower and enjoying the warm waters purifying his body for a good five seconds.
