The nun’s claws dug into my scalp, each nail like a poisoned needle burning through flesh and bone.
A blinding pain split through the side of my head as her nails scraped deeper. Another second. Just one more, and she’d crack my skull like an egg.
She jerked back, almost like a bounce.
Only a centimeter from sinking fully into my skull, she was yanked away with brutal force. My head bobbed a little as my fire waned. I was panting hard, blood running down the side of my face.
I looked to my side to see what had happened. How did she go flying back like she had been pulled into a spider’s web.
Bleeding from his head, gashes torn through his chest and shoulders, His clothes hanging off his chest in shreds. His horned head was down, breathing hard. His tail lashed once, and he lunged at her, ramming her back into the debris.
But she got up fast. Finally, she was looking desperate now. Most likely because her core, her sustenance to life was in my hands.
They clashed like two storms colliding.
Drakkar’s fists, claws, fangs—they tore at her in a flurry of rage. But she wasn’t just holding her ground—she was retaliating with brutal, insane strength. Her limbs bent in ways they shouldn’t. Her long black sleeves fluttered as her thin arms lashed like spears. She ducked, spun, slashed.
Each strike echoed through the ruins of the courtyard.
I forced myself to rise. My whole body ached, but I couldn’t let it end .
I looked back at the dark core in my hands. It pulsed in rage, like a living thing. My throat burned, chest heaving. It hurt so damn bad.
Then I opened my mouth again. I had to burn this thing to end it and then I breathed fire.
Red-orange flame burst from my lungs with everything I had left in me. My throat felt like it was splitting apart, but I didn’t stop. I bathed the core in fire, pouring all my fury into that one breath.
As the core began to crack, I felt the nun come for me. She dashed her way to me and I moved away, keeping the fire still going.
It cracked some more and I saw the fury in her eyes. Her long limbs reached for me but I wanted to keep all my focus on destroying the core.
Thankfully, Drakkar slammed his body into hers from the side, trajecting her away from my direction. While they both skid into a wall, bursting it apart, I landed on the broken ground.
Letting the last bit of my fire onto the core.
It cracked more. And I heard movement where the two had crashed. The dust hadn’t settled but I could see her coming for me.
Her nails came past the heavy dust, reaching for me.
Then finally, it burst. The core broke.
The nun’s body froze, arms mid-motion as she tried to stand. Her eyes—those cold, grieving eyes—met mine for a heartbeat as the dust blew to the side.
We looked into each other’s eyes.
And then she collapsed, her body folding like a marionette cut from its strings.
I let out a breath of relief, then dropped to one knee, coughing blood and smoke, my entire body screaming. This is the kind of pain I experienced when I first went to the war, with no idea how to fight these things.
I let out a deep breath.
The nun was hard to fight, but at least the same principles applied to her as well.
Finally, it was over. I looked around and saw that the other monsters were mostly gone as well.
Across the battlefield, Drakkar lay slumped against a pile of shattered stone, blood streaking his face, one leg twisted beneath him. He looked at me.
I didn’t move. I just gave him a single, firm nod—my silent recognition. The job was done.
For a heartbeat, that was enough.
Then I straightened, wiped the blood from my jaw, and walked toward him. My steps were slow, heavy from pain and exhaustion. Dust and black ash swirled through the morning air as the first full rays of sunlight crept over the broken palace.
I reached out and offered my hand.
Drakkar looked up and grunted, clasping my wrist. I pulled him up, and he winced as his weight shifted onto his good leg.
"I got worried," he muttered, voice hoarse, "thought that thing would never break."
"You and me both," I said in a low voice, glancing back toward the place where the core had burned to ash. "No core has ever been that hard to destroy. Not even Ruoxy’s." But then again, I wasn’t the one who had destroyed Ruoxy’s core, but she at the same point, she wasn’t that hard to fight either. I could par her and overpower Ruoxy. I did the same with Alishay, but this thing.
She was far too strong.
I looked away and let out a soft sigh.
We both stood in silence for a moment. Breathing. I closed my eyes for a moment
A chill rippled down my spine, forcing me to shoot my eyes open again.
It was like the air itself froze.
Drakkar stiffened beside me. Without a word, we both turned our heads toward the courtyard’s far edge—toward the place where we had left the nun’s body in a pile of soot and bone.
Like she had never fallen.
The black ash around her feet swirled in the air like a waking storm, and her silhouette rose from it as if it had been born again.
I instantly noticed something different about her.
She was taller now—by at least a foot. Her once-calm face was contorted in fury, not loud or wild, but cold, burning with the fury.
A sound echoed—subtle, but wrong. Like bones unhinging.
From beneath her torn robes, more limbs emerged. Another set of arms unfurled like a spider revealing its full form. The new arms cracked into place, their fingers long and sharpened, twitching with unnatural precision.
She bent down, in an unnatural way, coming to take a position to be Visit NovelHub for more amazing novels and chapters.
She grotesquely looked like a mixture of a spider and centipede.
It wasn’t just wind—it was her. The air around her pulsed with some unseen force, kicking up dust and debris, spiraling around her like a warning from the abyss.
We didn’t even have time to look at each other.