Lunar Awakening-Chapter 57: Bonus - : The Silver Wolf, The Grim Reaper & The Golden Goblet

Eunice Larringbow stood in a formal pose, her silver uniform and metal badge that signified her rank as a military surge officer gleaming proudly. She was known by her title within Glory Base as the stoic, cold-hearted second in command to powerhouse Cassandra Hearth.

She was responsible for maintaining order among her lesser followers and across Glory Base. Her grey eyes held a gloomy look as they rested on them, her hands crossed behind her back as she stood in the office of the commanding officer of their division.

There were several frames that held great reference to the military surge alliance. The one that did stand out above all others was simply the insignia of the powerful group that represented the government all through the world.

The insignia was a silver cage with a white background, and before it was an angel with her huge feathered wings outstretched with an air of power. In the angel’s arms was a small black dagger which she hugged tight to her chest; it almost looked like she was remorseful over something.

There were two cabinets that held files on the side of the room, and in the middle of the office was a table made of polished wood that had been waxed to not reflect the light that came off a lamp that stood on it. There were documents scattered across the table and, more importantly, empty plastic bottles of medicines.

Seated at the other end of the table was a young woman with long black hair falling over her face in a wild manner; the room was filled with the sound of her heavy labored breathing.

"Are you alright, Commander Hearth?" Eunice asked with deep concern evident in her voice.

But Cassandra remained the same; she did not even show any sign that she acknowledged her presence.

Eunice felt her gaze falling down to the bottle that she had just taken. "This has to stop, you just took more than enough pills to knock out an elephant for days. This could greatly ruin your health." Again, there was no reply from Cassandra. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Many times in the past Eunice had tried to stop Cassandra from consuming drugs that dulled her senses. It was not a training procedure; rather, it was an extreme measure taken by her to put her in a near catatonic state. The main reason for doing this was to stop her legacy abilities from taking over her body.

Eunice had tried to find out what this ability was, but she never found any files on it. It was a common thing for legacies to behave differently due to the fact that their abilities were greatly tied to fate and the Hellscape itself, but she had never heard of one drastically weakening her body to the point of near death.

A second later Cassandra’s body jerked forward violently; it almost seemed like she had been possessed by someone or something. Her head banged into the table as she regurgitated the vast number of pills she had consumed only seconds earlier.

"Commander Hearth!" Eunice called out before running towards Cassandra. She had only taken a step before every cell in her body felt the sudden invasion of an extreme bloodlust. "So much aura is spilling out of her," she said as she stumbled backwards.

Cassandra raised her head slowly, her face and hair covered in her own vomit. Her breathing grew heavier as her face paled for a second, her pupils shrank as her eyes rolled back into her head.

The world around Cassandra blurred as she found herself standing in a boundless empty space devoid of light or air. She seemed to float there, her mortal self being caught between existing as a mass of abstract thoughts and solid material.

"It’s happening again," she told herself as she did nothing but exist there.

Seconds passed, stretching to eternity, before the world around her rippled like disturbed water. Then she found herself somewhere new; this time she did not have a body and was merely the observer. She could see a huge silver-skinned wolf falling through the air; the wolf was falling from a castle. Its body was horribly torn; it seemed like it had been butchered by someone or something.

She watched its body impact the ground, her heart grew cold at the sight. For some reason she could not decipher, she felt like she knew the poor animal. She wished to help it, but there was nothing she could do.

Her visions always came without warning and with no way to control them.

She watched the wolf’s eyes roll back into their sockets; she watched its skull explode open with its brain spilling out like a noodle and held her breath. But she was never breathing in the first place.

Barely a second had passed since the bloodied silver wolf had died before her senses were assaulted by the sharp sound of a metal blade cutting through granite.

She turned her head—that is, if she had any—in the direction of the sound to see, several meters away, what looked like a grim reaper she had seen once before.

Grim reapers were believed to be the personification and heralds of death. They hunted the spirits of the dead and also took them.

It was a figure that was neither man nor beast, clothed from head to toe in ash-colored robes. The creature’s face and body were covered in an abyss of blackness, all except for its hand that pulled a long dark glaive. Its hand was constructed of dry broken bone that emanated black smoke from its joints.

As it walked towards the dead wolf, the sharp blade of the glaive cut through slabs of granite like butter and sent rains of sparks flying.

Cassandra watched it approach the silver wolf; when it reached it, it raised its deadly weapon above its head and stayed there for a few seconds. She could hear the reaper mumbling in some archaic tone what she believed to be a prayer, but instead of ending with a somber sound, what came out of the creature was a deafening screech as it brought down the blade for the wolf’s head.

Cassandra’s eyes widened as she watched the wolf’s head being severed from its body with a loud reverberating thud. Her body grew colder, but she did not feel any pain or fear, only a cold solitude.

A fraction of a second later she found herself in what looked like a cemetery; the sky was cloudy and crackling with thunder. All of a sudden, rain broke from it, but what fell from it was not water but... blood.

All the headstones on the graves had their names clawed out; they all looked identical and the same. On this grave there was a golden goblet adorned in images of skulls and filled to the top with red blood. Cassandra felt her heart tighten even more; she pried her eyes away from the scene and looked at the name on the headstone which read: HERE LIES "THE PEERLESS LOSER".

In that moment she felt all the blood rush back into her body as she gasped back to reality where Eunice was rushing to her side.

"Commander Hearth, are you alright?" her second in command asked with a concerned tone in her voice.

Cassandra could not believe what she had just witnessed; she wiped her face of the vomit and stood up with little difficulty. Her gaze was unsettled and her heart pumping wildly. "I have to go." The words slipped out of her mouth.

Eunice looked at her in confusion.

"What, where? You’re barely standing."

Cassandra drew in a deep breath as she shoved Eunice out of the way and started to regain her senses. She said nothing before bolting for the door, her stride likely to that of a drunk. Eunice was left stunned for a second before she ran after Cassandra, who had almost disappeared halfway out of the base.

"What the hell is she doing? Where is she going?" Questions were the only thing Eunice could ask at the moment before she lost her trail. She tried to catch her breath and not cause an alarm within the division building.

Cassandra quickly regained her senses; she dashed through the base faster than any normal awakened, leaving behind a surge of wind tailing behind her. Her eyes darkened with grim determination; she had no idea how she had seen that, but she knew her visions well enough not to ignore them.

They could be true and false at the same time, but was she willing to take such a huge risk and lose Leonardo Hall? Why did she care about him to begin with?

Till recently she never cared about him, but after being drawn to him she felt something between them. It was a connection of sorts; if she was to try to describe it, she could say it was understanding. Or something more?

She approached the ascension platform with renewed resolve. "Enough questions." She could feel something in her heart being pulled tight like a noose, and it passed a message.

Leonardo Hall was going to die tonight!