A Deep Nightmare

Katherine eradicated seven Fallen within less than five minutes. Record time, if her memory served. The only remaining problem was the last one. All of them behaved exactly the same as the first, falling for the assumption that their Negating Roar worked against her. This final Fallen, however, changed behavior entirely and ran for its dear life.

The Lady of the Void knew exactly what was going on. The Forest Jaws were baiting her, dragging her far away from Frein and the rest with this diversion. It gave Katherine pause, abandoning the chase entirely. She softly landed on a sturdy tree branch after breaking momentum.

Completely giving up finishing off the last Fallen, Katherine assessed her condition. She barely felt any Art fatigue despite the continuous Gathering and Milling, albeit she had to maintain them at a steady rate. Still far away from her peak before she left Brymeia, but this was serviceable enough. With that settled, she considered her next steps.

Coordinating multiple attacks by manipulating lesser and weaker Nightmares, she could understand. But even for those Jaws Lurking in the Forest, this was too cunning a move.

Something was wrong.

Katherine focused on her Void Control Technique. I, Alone, Am the Center pushed to its utter limits. Still, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t detect the three main suspects leading this entire assault.

Maybe Elizzel got it wrong? she thought.

Frustrated, Katherine Drew her Rivasia and soared to the skies to survey their surroundings. A troubling sight sent shivers up her spine.

Not far from them was a wide section of rolling, blue and purple mists, shrouding a good portion of the forest. It was compact and moved in one direction.

“Not good,” she mumbled to herself. Quickly scanning her memories for any Nightmares—monsters, natural phenomenon, or anything else—narrowed down her options to a few but possible answers, all of which not like the other, all of which she didn’t like.

It would be a different matter overall if she was on her own. Even if this mist eventually became a challenge, all she would ever realistically need was enough time to overpower it. However, a few important and dear companions that couldn’t survive for long in this environment changed the entire dynamic.

At the very least, one thing was for sure: These three Forest Jaws, if they were actually here lurking about, were under the influence of a much greater force.

A Deep Nightmare.

Katherine headed for land, but her flight abruptly stopped when an unnatural movement from the mist grabbed her attention. A particular section of the mist swirled and exploded. About a second later, a large figure of a pseudo-dragon with a twisted, sideways maw appeared in mid-air, heading straight towards her.

The Lady of the Void had barely any time to react. She kicked off her Rivasia to fly away, but the surprise attack caused her acceleration to botch-up.

The speeding Jaws Lurking in the Forest’s saw-toothed maw snapped shut, latching onto her abdomen.

Razor sharp teeth pierced her through the front and back and it was taking Katherine’s all to blaze her Siffera and Samesia to their utmost emphasis in order to strengthen her muscles, internal organs, and skeletal structure from getting smashed and torn while continuously healing her punctures to prevent the teeth from digging deeper. All this while prioritizing her nerves to be intact first and foremost. One false concentration, one simple weakness at this fatal point, her body would give in and snap in half due to the Nightmare’s tremendous jaw strength.

She was pinned down, shocked, and in pain as they both plunged from almost a thousand meters in the air. As though the Forest Jaws had no regard for its own life, it dove down snout first—Katherine first.

The Void Lady gave up trying to pry open the Nightmare’s locked jaw. If it were that easy, then they didn’t deserve their namesake. Instead, she opened her Display and Drew Dai-Siffera and Dai-Samesia at the same time.

With precious seconds left, Katherine focused everything she could at fortifying her body, preparing for impact. Reality dragged on as they plummeted to the ground. A boon and a curse at the same time. The realization only hit her a second too late as the sight of the ground went to meet her.

The Forest Jaw’s trajectory forced her I, Alone Am the Center out of Frein’s range.

Impact.

For a moment, Katherine blacked out.

The entire weight of the adult, pseudo-dragon Nightmare crashed on top of the Lady as they both slammed on hard ground. She was lodged into the impact crater, the pressure created by the surrounding dirt and rock pressed deeper into her already distressed wounds. She was losing meiyal at an absurd rate. Gathering, Milling, and Drawing in maximum output all at the same time had hastened Art fatigue.

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It was getting hard to breathe.

She could feel her Siffera and Samesia wane. Her Display had completely collapsed.

Literally buried to the ground with large teeth fastening her movement, made the shock of her crash a slight wonder. She had forgotten for a second, only to be reminded by the large amount of blood flowing from her skull. A nauseating feeling overcame her, causing her to vomit. The flow of coughed up blood and digested food covering her face reminded her that she was buried upside down.

It was getting really hard to breathe.

Her only saving grace was the subtle relaxation of the Forest Jaw’s jaw lock on her abdomen. It was dead. But that itself was a curse in her current predicament, for when its entire body fully dies and relaxes, so too would all the glands inside its body.

The acid of the Jaws Lurking in the Forest would secrete slightly or fully. Whichever way, they would only go one way. If she didn’t do anything, it only meant either she’d die slowly or quickly.

Katherine ignored the smoke coming from her Art fatigue. She ignored the blood from her cracked skull. She ignored the hallucinations and bright colors assaulting her brain. She focused on one thought.

Frein.

She pushed her arms against the Nightmare’s jaws to secure a hold and prevent the pressure of the ground from closing them any further. She emphasized her Samesia for a second to allow her a clean intake of breath before she erased the Art and swiftly dedicated the emphasis to Siffera. At the same time, she opened her Display and turned the Art to Dai-Siffera. Within that same instant, she pushed against the cursed jaws.

In a sudden burst of strength, she broke the jaw’s lock and crushed them on the ground pressing against it. Blood spilled quickly from her wounds, but she couldn’t focus on them yet.

Katherine turned to the side and clawed through the rocks and soil, tunneling her way out as quickly as her Dai-Siffera allowed her. As soon as she got out, she Gathered and Milled. She desperately Drew Dai-Samesia to attempt to close one giant hole and two gaping gash wounds on her midsection.

Her internal organs were punctured—some of them might be missing. So, she quickly stitched them while driving Dai-Samesia to substitute for the missing parts. In theory, only the heart, the brain, and the meiyal system couldn’t be replaced by this Art when empowered by a Display. Still, those would need more accurate assessment and she didn’t have the time. Broken bones were all over the place, and she decidedly prioritized her skull first.

It was taking her all to repair everything and keep her mental faculties functioning.

Art fatigue squeezed at her meiyal core. It was burning, but she ignored it. Her life depended on it. Either her meiyal system gave up on her, or she died. It was an easy choice to make.

A small portion of rock crumbled, nabbing Katherine’s attention away from her impromptu self-surgery.

The Jaws Lurking on the Forest’s neck slowly moved and began to retract. Soon, Katherine saw its eyes and broken jaws, and realization hit her.

This Nightmare had been long dead.

Behind it, two more Forest Jaws unveiled from their pseudo-Nature’s Favor. They were much larger than the first. One, the largest in particular, had jaws crackling with red flames rather than drip with acid.

Both were also dead.

Faced against these three, Katherine realized too late that the mist had crept up behind her. How it got around so fast was beyond her current worries. Her Void Control Technique had long since closed. She couldn’t even survey the situation, or determine where Frein and Kristel were. Her meiyal system was so stressed that she couldn’t even properly gauge how much it would hold or if it could give her enough strength to escape.

Katherine didn’t want to die. Not here. Not when The Mist That Carries the Nightmare would turn her into one if she did.

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Frein snapped out of his trance to find a dead corpse of a half-orc burning to ashes in front of him. Enza immediately greeted him and pointed her snout at Kristel who were fighting against three other sluggish bipedal creatures.

Lesser Nightmares. She decapitated them with a flaming meiyal blade in an instant.

He looked around and saw no one else except from the approaching zombie-like abominations that suddenly rushed at him from a certain distance.

“Where’s Kat?” he inquired while punching through a half-elf’s face. It exploded on impact and fell on the ground, only to regenerate its skull and rise again. “Gross.”

“She went to exterminate all the Fallen around us,” Kristel replied while regulating her breath. “Maybe if she did, the Forest Jaws would be too scared to act. But if one suddenly shows up now, I don’t think I can handle it.”

Frein frowned. He turned to Enza. “Can you fly up a tree and see if you can find her? Don’t go too far.”

“On it!” Enza replied and vanished. Five lesser Nightmares tried to grab her but missed. Frein sent a flurry of kicks and punches their way.

It only took them a single hit to shatter their heads, but they kept regenerating and getting up.

“So, only fire works against them?” he asked as he shoved another lesser Nightmare on a group, causing them all to fall on their backs.

“You don’t have fra Arts?”

“Siff-fra!” Frein invoked, half-heartedly attempted an image in his head, and began to Draw.

Nothing happened.

“Siffefra?” he tried again.

“Good try!” Elizzel encouraged and laughed at him telepathically.

“You’re joking, right?” Kristel glared at him.

“You seemed stressed out. Figured you need to laugh a little.”

“Just push them around and I’ll deal with them when I have the time.”

“Frein! Up there!” Enza called out.

With a quick burst of the actual Meiyal Art, Siffera, Frein climbed up the tree where he thought his yuma hid. It only took him three vertical strides to reach the top.

“Towards the sky,” Enza said.

Frein peeked from the tree’s canopy and found a person flying in the sky. She was quite a distance away, but he assumed that was Katherine.

“You smelled her from here?” he asked Enza just to make sure.

“I’m sure that’s her.”

“Okay, call Kristel. We’ll rendezvous with Kat.”

As soon as his yuma jumped down, a large pseudo-dragon, a Forest Jaws, materialized in front of Katherine and swallowed her. Within a fraction of that second, before the Nightmare could even begin to fall, Frein was already gone. He skipped from tree to tree regardless of whether he fell or not. All that mattered was he got to her in time.

Without even any words, without a single question, Kristel and Enza were beside him.

The earth quaked, and rather than lose their balance, they simply picked up the pace.

“Frein, slow down,” Elizzel called from within their Tether. “You’re Gathering, Milling, and Drawing at an absurd rate! I can’t keep up! The Nightmare influence might get you.”

“Keep up.”

That was all he said.

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