God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.-Chapter 798: Talons of Black and Bloom (1).

The Evernight wind was cold and gloomy.

The darkness was still, like a soulless abyss, or a hopeless void, devouring all light and consuming all breathe.

There were many beings that enjoyed the night.

Beings that hated light and loved darkness.

Creatures of madness and rot.

Of decay and destruction.

Heavy, labored breathing came from the shadows of a broken, abandoned building.

"It's been a while since we last saw any {Black-mouth Crawlers}. I think we should take our chances and book it!" A voice within the darkness said shakily and filled with fear.

"You know how those things are. They will not leave until they've gotten us." Another voice said, this one a bit calmer than the first.

"Damn it! Then what do you suggest we do then?! If we don't do something, Alicia is going to die here! We can't just do nothing!"

"I know, I know... But there's nothing we can do now. We set off the {Magic Signal Flare} a few hours ago. If someone saw it, they should be on their way with help any moment from now."

"Joy, do you still believe that shit?! Snap back to reality! There is no one coming to save us!"

Within the darkness, these voices argued in hushed tones. Even as their emotions became unstable, they dared not raise their tones in fear of what was lurking under the Evernight sky, seeking them out to devour.

They were yet another squad of Hunters that had fallen victim to the {Black-mouth Crawlers}.

Due to a series of unfortunate events, they had found themselves within the territory of these profane monsters.

Before they could cautiously make their way out, they were discovered and hunted down.

Their ranged specialist gunman, Alicia, had even been infected with the rot the creatures exuded, forcing them to halt their escape attempts and find somewhere to rest for the moment.

'Damn it!' Joy cursed in her heart.

She turned her head, glancing at another figure in the darkness.

'All this is your fault, Reid! We should have recruited a healer before we left Valestorm! Everything is because of you!' She thought to herself.

However, she could not utter these words even though they were truth. Because saying them would cause their already fractured team to collapse.

They as a Hunter squad had survived for a long time, since the days when the Sandsea was filled with endless white dunes.

They had numbered four initially.

She, Joy, had been their leader.

She had once worked in a school as a teacher. However, she has not done much teaching.

Since the world had been automated, all she had to do was create a lesson a digital lesson plan for the children and have some software grade them later.

It was work, but not hard work.

She had gotten by fairly easily and had lived a life of relative ease.

She had even entertained thoughts of getting married and starting a family.

However, all that had changed when that day had come.

Her entire world has crumbled, and she was forced to find ways to survive in the madness.

Luckily, she had not been the only one to survive.

Ried, a colleague of hers who had shown interest in her in the past had survived as well alongside two others; Alicia and Felix.

Together, they had braved the storm, fighting Devils as they grouped up with others.

Until eventually, they had settled with Valestorm and began hunting in the Sandsea.

Out of the four, she was the only one with access to the system. However, it didn't matter.

With system points, she could easily purchase potions, runes, weapons and all sorts of equipment that would keep her squad geared and happy.

Everything had been going great.

Until it wasn't...

The battle that day had cost them Felix's life.

The blessing Felix has received from Balangol was rather special.

It wasn't a healing ability, but something more. Something strange but incredibly useful at the same time.

It allowed him to remove status effects. He could stop bleeding, nullify poisons, destroy decay, and even reduce the effect of fear and confusion caused by creatures with the ability to influence the mind and soul.

He had been their most important asset and one of the reasons they had survived this long.

When he died, their hunts became more dangerous and less fruitful.

Even still, Ried had dissuaded her continuously from hiring a healer-class to join their squad, with his reason being that they were much less useful than Felix, and they cost a lot of money to hire.

While she did agree with him, they wouldn't be in this predicament if he hadn't been so insistent on it.

'Shit! Damn it all!' She cursed again.

She glanced back.

Behind her, Alicia lay on the ground, writhing in pain as she let out soft groans and moans.

Her body was covered in bulging black veins that kept spreading.

Her arm was wrapped in a bandage that kept leaking black, fetid blood.

It was obvious she wasn't in a good state.

Joy sighed,

"If we wait too long, we will be found eventually. Then, we will be forced to find those things alone."

She walked up to Alicia and whispered,

"Aly, are you still with us?"

Alicia's lips trembled as she spoke through gritted teeth,

"Of course I am. What do you expect? I have balls of steel. No way I'm going down now!"

Joy felt her heart trembled as she let out a sigh. Tears streaked down the corners of her eyes.

She felt a cold hand grasp around hers,

"Joy... Take that fool and get out of here. Get help for me. If we all stay here like this, we will all end up dead without fail." Alicia said, her voice shaking and trembling.

This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom.

Joy shook her head,

"I'm not leaving you here! There's absolutely no way I'm doing that!"

Alicia chuckled, her body shivering as she spoke,

"Don't worry. I'll be fine. I told you, didn't I? Look, I feel absolutely fine. I can still fight."

Streaks of black blood poured down her nose and eyes as she tried to sit herself up.

Joy held her down lightly,

"Stop moving. It will get worse."

Alicia struggled for a bit before falling back to the ground with a wince.

She was silent for a while.

Then she spoke,

"Joy... Are we going to die here?"

Joy trembled, unsure of how to answer.

Felix had been their healer, but every other person had their role to play. Alicia was a ranged gunman who specialized in both mid and long range firearms.

She was a decent shot, and could easily blow the head off a {Blister Rat} from a thousand yards away.

Ried was a rather competent spearman. He used a glaive that was effective in mowing down weaker enemies, and very good at keeping stronger ones at bay.

His Divine Blessing was also a physical, combat oriented type that gave him enhanced strength, agility and endurance in battle. Coupled with the many runes Joy had given to him, he had become a rather decent warrior that could hold his own with a low to mid level Tier 1 creature.

And then, there was her...

She had been a teacher in the past.

Maybe that was why she had been so drawn adj fascinated by the idea of magic.

Thanks to the system, using magic was not impossible for her.

Since she was not gifted physically, she had chosen to go down that route and invent fully in the mage archetype.

She had seen great success.

She had even created an original spell that was effective against the mid to high level Tier 1 Aether Creatures in this place.

Despite their impressive resume, their chances of surviving against an entire swarm of {Black-mouth Crawlers} was close to nothing.

Not only were those things relentless, they also did not give up until their target had been devoured, regardless of how many of them it took.

This was because their reproductive rate was fairly high. They could afford to spare some numbers.

They in the other hand, couldn't.

Their endurace was limited even if they tried to run, and the {Black-mouth Crawlers} were faster so it was still futile in the end.

Truly, it seemed like their only option was to sit here and wait for death.

Suddenly, a gasp drew her attention.

Ried retreated into their dark shelter and held his breath. Joy quickly and quietly stood up.

Reid motioned to her.

Her eyes widened. Their pursuers were outside.

She let out a sigh and looked down at Alicia who looked like she was already at death's door.

She smiled bitterly as she looked up.

The ceiling was broken, allowing for a tiny sliver of moonlight to pierce the darkness.

They were going to die here.

"I guess that's fine too."

She smiled then glanced down at Alicia,

"Don't worry. We'll make it out of here."

She could only lie to her friend in hopes that her final moments would at least have some hope in them.

The sound of metallic claws raking into the ground became more apparent a moment later.

"Ried, we need to discuss a plan of attack."

Ried glanced back at her, his eyes widened,

"Attack?! Are you crazy?!"

Joy shook her head,

"We can't run. There's no way. Our only option is to fight and hope for the best."

Ried pursed his lips, the look of fear and apprehension in his eyes growing.

Joy sighed, 'It doesn't matter anyway.'

She had already accepted her fate.

A moment later...

BANG!

The remnants of the building they were hiding within finally turned into dust and rubble, blowing away with the wind.

Dispelling her barrier, Joy looked around her.

Surrounding them were ten {Black-mouth Crawlers}, each one larger than a regular human despite standing in all fours.

Their bodies were black, with streaks of white, green and sickly yellow running around their bodies in stripes to form strange, off-putting runes and sigils.

On their backs were mysterious growths that looked oddly like the flowering bud of a beautiful flower. It made the creatures look even more unsettling and malevolent.

They had four eyes and a wide maw that stretched from ear to ear.

When their mouths opened up, inky black saliva dripping onto the ground, causing it to sizzle.

Joy felt an instinctual repulsion from these creatures. It made her want to throw caution to the wind and run away as fast as she could.

But she couldn't. If she ran, she would be abandoning these two here, especially Alicia, to a fate worse than death.

She sighed and turned to Ried who's eyes darted around nervously,

"Ried. If it looks like we aren't going to win, I want you to kill us. The both of us."

"What are you—"

"Please!" Joy cried out.

Ried went silent.

Then he nodded,

"Okay."

Joy sighed.

Retrieving her magic staff from her inventory, she pointed the glowing white gem attacked to the Blackwood stick at the {Black-mouth Crawler} standing right before her.

Her eyes were as dark as the Evernight sky above her as she spat out,

"Which one of you would like to die first?"