There were far too many bodies covering the once-pristine marble floors of The Academy. Leo leaped over them, boots skidding on the blood and gore. She tried desperately to avoid making much noise, fearing it would attract Brutes. Something is watching me. Leo could not bring herself to turn her head. The eyes staring at her were not alive, not even by the Brute’s sense. The corpses of fallen soldiers lay under her feet, so dense that she had no choice but to step on them to pass certain areas. She could not tell where one body started and the next ended. They were mauled beyond recognition, several beheaded and dismembered, others with their entrails torn out and strewn over their comrades. Lifeless eyes could do nothing but watch as Leo had the mercy of living, stale hands frozen in time as they reached up, begging for mercy. But was it truly a blessing when one had to walk amongst a river of companions' blood, wading against the force of corpses?
As Leo neared the end of the hallway, the bodies were finally starting the decrease in multitude. She clenches her teeth, the smell of death making her insides twist. The Knights were foolish to get into formation in such a tight area. They were asking to be plowed through like a bloody game of bowling. It felt like all of their training went to waste when it came to an actual battle. The Brutes were too strong and unpredictable. They acted on their own accord, every last one of them. The only way to fight them was to be just as spontaneous. It was why Leo was still alive. Lightning is, after all, a freak force of nature.
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Leo jumped over the last body and found herself in the Academy’s cathedral. She used to come here often. She was never religious, but it was a guaranteed quiet place in a school filled with fighting and brutality—such a holy place, now filled with the dangerous aura of the figure before her. Leo comes to a stop, lungs tight in her chest.
The man was beyond recognition, his flesh torn with a blacked liquid oozing from the lacerations. He smelled sulfuric and rotten like a corpse. Leo was not entirely sure if he was still alive anymore. His mouth hung open, raspy, echoing breaths staggering from his throat. Taron… so glad you have made it… it has been too long… A weak voice crept its way into Leo’s mind. She braces herself, readying her fists.
“You don’t scare me,” she spits, eyeing the blackened figure. The voice cackles and the man begins to move, slowly breaking free from his corpse-like state. Oh, I know, old friend... but you will be.