Lunar Awakening-Chapter 68: Something’s Off.

The two awakened stood side by side, unmoved by the sight before them. The huge awakened took a step forward only to be stopped by a simple hand gesture from Roxy.

The young woman with long blond hair and bright blue eyes took a step forward to face the other two awakened with a serious look on her face. "I’ve been itching for a fight since forever."

The huge awakened glanced down at her and said in a low tone. "Are you sure you can take them both on?"

Roxy’s lips curled slightly in a grin as she faced Kriss and Sharma without a hint of hesitation or fear. "Don’t tell me you’re worried about me, big guy. Don’t worry, these two have got nothing on me."

Kriss and Sharma charged towards her with their hands dripping red blood, their eyes empty and devoid of life. They made no sound even as Roxy engaged them in combat. She reached for Kriss, who was in front of the two, and drove her elbow into his neck.

Roxy expected to hear him choke or groan in pain, but he made no sound. To her surprise, she heard a loud cracking sound, almost like she had struck a hard rock instead of a man. "Huh?" She took a few steps back, avoiding Sharma’s attack at her face.

She looked at Kriss to see that his neck had shattered, her eyes widened slightly. "He’s made of rock, is that his ability?" As she fought them, she realised that a few things did not add up. For one, they both did not summon their artifacts, which was something a superhuman would never do.

Roxy pulled Sharma by the hair and punched her in the face with so much force that her hand blew her head open and came out the other end. For a second, she was stunned as she watched Sharma’s body fall to the ground without making any resistance and simply dying.

"They are made of rock?" she said in a low voice as she caught Kriss, who was already on her, and snapped his hand in all the wrong ways. Kriss did not cry out in pain or resist, he did not even bleed. It was almost like she was fighting a lifeless doll. "So the schmuck was right, something was wrong with these two lovebirds."

She observed Kriss for a split second before eventually ripping his head off his body with relative ease. The body fell down with a loud thud, she could still see his spine in his body. It seemed the body had been drained of blood and somehow hardened.

The huge awakened looked at Roxy in shock, he was clearly confounded by how efficiently she had handled the threat in seconds. "I knew you were strong, but not this strong."

Roxy looked at him with cold indifference and said nothing for several seconds. Her eyes stayed on the scene before her as she thought, What on earth is going on? Are these Kriss and Sharma? Why did they kill the other two, did the schmuck know of this? I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

"Something’s off," the huge awakened said.

Unknown to any of them, Kriss and Sharma had been killed by Hinata the night before at the abandoned warehouse, which begged the question—were these two Kriss and Sharma to begin with?

In that moment, they heard the sound of glass shattering, but it did not come from their end, but from the other side of the door.

Roxy’s eyes shot up as she faced the door. "Something’s going on on the other end," she said in an alarmed tone, but before they could reach the door, they felt a sharp sting in their head, almost like something had stabbed them.

A second later, they could hear the clopping of horseshoes behind them and singing. The song sounded depressing and horrific, but the lyrics themselves were more disturbing.

"Donkeys, calves. Bloody hearts. The devil comes for us all, what is dead is already gone. What died can always return. Mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, all who bleed and never die. Pray to the mother, pray to the goddess, pray forevermore for death to come."

"What in the fucking hell is that?" Roxy said with a deep frown as she looked back to see... well, whatever she saw did not make much sense, and it took a lot of believing to know that she was still sane. "Are you seeing this, Ipkiss?"

The huge awakened grumbled and said, "Unfortunately so."

Approaching them from the bottom of the stairs were two unusual figures. The first was what appeared to be a young girl, looking to be no older than twelve. She wore a beautiful purple gown with embroidered silver beads decorating it all over. Her face looked warm and sunny, both her eyes were a dark shade of red. She sang the strange song that caused the two awakened to be at unease.

The strange young girl was currently seated on what appeared to be a dark horse. The horse seemed to have part of its face and side rotten to reveal its ribs and parts of its skull. The eye sockets of the horse were empty and filled with an endless black depth. Yet somehow, the horse continued to advance towards them despite looking like a corpse.

The second figure with the young girl was a man that was several meters tall. He was three times the size of an average man and was lean—giving him the attributes of a sickly man. The man wore a Victorian-era coat like that of a duke, and a long curved hat on his head with a white feather sticking out of it.

His boots were made of dark leather, and on his waist was a long silver cup-hilt rapier with a solid bowl-shaped guard that offered superior, full hand protection.

The man’s face was long and jagged, it looked like it had been cut by several sharp objects.

They slowly came to a stop several feet from the door and the two awakened. The strange girl stopped her horrific song and looked at them both before glancing down at the destroyed bodies of Kriss and Sharma.

"You broke my corpse puppets, you meanies," she said in a childish tone brimming with annoyance. "I haven’t even finished working on them yet." The girl broke into a light sob.

"Corpse puppets?" the huge awakened asked in a questioning tone. "Are you saying they are corpses?"

Roxy tried to gauge their threat levels as best as she could but ended up with a startling revelation. The two people before them were filled with the thick scent of death. "When did Kriss and Sharma die?"

The young girl stopped sobbing and looked at them with cold disgust in her eyes. "Those fools thought they could beat the monster, but they failed, so I put their pitiful bodies to good use. And you trashed them."

Roxy gritted her teeth. "Intriguing. So you killed those two in the club? Why?"

This time, the one who spoke was the tall man, his voice hoarse and jagged. "To move you all here. The Abyssal Octet has been planning this for months. Bloody Bride just had to draw the monster out, any other party is an inconvenience."

Roxy could feel the air begin to grow colder by the second, all her six senses were on high alert. "It seems they are after the monster, but who’s this Bloody Bride?"

The huge awakened took a step forward. "I don’t know who these fools are, but they seem dangerous. I’ll deal with them while you see what’s going on at the other end of the door."

Roxy locked eyes with the huge awakened for a second before giving him a nod, and then facing the two before them. "Are you sure you can take them? They don’t seem simple. And if my hunch is right, they’ve already killed everyone in the mansion." She had no idea how many people were in the mansion earlier, but she could guess they were over two hundred.

So, of course, they both came to the conclusion that both of the figures before them were superhumans, but their rank was left to be determined.

Before the huge awakened could object, however, they felt the same stabbing feeling in the head, almost like a dagger had been thrust into it.

"What the hell!" Roxy screamed as she clutched her head tight in anguish. A few seconds later, the pain was gone, almost like it had never been there before.

The tall man drew their attention with his lifeless words. "My ability might give me power over human minds, but I can still cause some brain damage to awakened superhumans."

"Mind attacks?" the huge awakened groaned as he opened his hand to summon an artifact. "Just who the hell are you two?"

The tall man spoke again. "I am Avan Lahor, the fifth arm of the Abyssal Octet, and your demise."

Roxy chuckled nervously, she could feel her hair standing at the back of her neck but was powerless to stop the feeling. "And who’s the bitch?"

The young girl glared at Roxy with murderous intent and lashed out. "How dare you talk back to Cotton, the seventh arm of the Abyssal Octet. I will kill you and make you my corpse puppet."

"Big guy?" Roxy said in a cold tone.

The huge awakened had just finished summoning his artifact, which appeared to be a flail. "Yeah?"

"Fuck shit!" She smiled as she opened both her hands and felt the dots of luminescent light coalescing on them as she started to summon her artifacts into existence.