Chapter 113 - Shepherd
However, subjects number Five, Six, and Seven turned the shape of their heads straight towards him, scrambling out of the room.
Vern's heart dropped and he bit on his tongue, barely swallowing his scream, What the fuck!?
Five leaped out of the room, its limbs hacking away at the floor in a mad dash towards him. Six was the same, and Seven, who had just fully emerged out of the mirror, didn't waste a moment either.
Yet, Vern didn't lose his head. Before any more of them could slip in, he snapped the entrance shut.
His instinct told him to forget everything and run like hell.
No.
Adrenaline wanted to take over, but doing so would ruin everything. These new subjects hadn't reacted to him taking a couple steps back, they only reacted to this louder sound.
That must mean their hearing has improved, but not too much.
Retreating as fast as possible while making not even the slightest sound, he watched the noisy shapes of all three newcomers rush towards him.
They’re coming straight for me!
However, he gritted his teeth and continued to backpedal slowly, not giving in to his fear.
GRrRrrRRR
RRrrRRR
All three of them kept scurrying towards him, and soon, his waving hands caught hold of the railing of the stairs.
HghhRRR
He tightly held one of his palms over his mouth and slowly turned, getting onto the stairs with muffled steps.
At that moment, Five pounced in the air, Six prowled on the wall, and Seven just lunged with the outline of its jaws opening wide—towards empty air a little distance away from Vern.
Crack
Thump
GRrRrrRRRRRRR
Their disturbing noises of falling, growling, and whatnot filled his ears, and he mentally let out a sigh, gripping the railing harder.
Fuck! Almost gave me a heart attack. He wanted to yell and lodge his grievances at something.
What changed? Why did their hearing suddenly get better?
One hushed step after another, he continued to fall back to the second floor. Once safely up there, he moved to a spot that was farther away from all the subjects and let out a silent hiss.
His eyes narrowed as he ran through many conjectures and landed on the most probable one.
The more of them that are out simultaneously, the sharper their senses become.
That had to be it. Because most other ideas contradicted the basic rules of these spirits. Leaning on the wall, Vern reassessed his plan, every idle second making it harder to keep all the glass in the emporium stabilized.
His knuckles turned white as his grip on the amulet became tighter—light leaking out of it.
He still had to get seven more of them out of the mirror without engaging in direct combat and then find some way to herd all of them in one place.
The imbalance within his thought space had finally begun to shoot higher, giving him another constant source of annoyance—also motivation.
This imbalance was something he had to maximize, too. However, he knew his priorities. First came survival, then finishing up these spirits, and finally, his own advancement.
He wanted things to work in that order, but the complexity of the situation was messing it up by the second.
He clapped his hands to his face lightly, then opened his eyes wide, absorbing this mostly dark environment. The light that had been seeping in through the windows was entirely gone—surely a result of the mirror spirits radiating their domain of darkness.
Vern moved again, not too keen on wasting too much time thinking. It would be catastrophic to come so close to finishing them off only to lose control of the emporium's stability in the final moments.
He walked towards the staircase that connected it to the forge at the back. There weren't many other options. He didn't want to spawn any of them on the second floor, or he would be entirely out of places to fall back to.
He took care to not make more sound than necessary as he pushed the door of the forge open. He walked amidst a world of grays that depicted an outline of sand stores, casts, drain channels, tongs, and a dozen other tools to help mold glass into various shapes.
He left the door wide open for his retreat and closed all the smaller ones down here, creating as many obstructions as possible between himself and the portals he was going to unlock.
Doing so would give him enough time and leverage to retreat in case something went south. He couldn't start too close to the stairs, or that would become the 'last known' position.
Standing in the center of the forge, he mentally selected seven different mirrors around him and deliberated, I should unseal all of them at once.
If he waited for the ninth to the fourteenth subject to come out of a single mirror one by one, the first few would have long had their way with his corpse.
That won't do.
So, with a mental command, he focused on the stabilized frames—some leaning slanted by molds, some stacked high while others hung on the wall.
Then he did it.
The sense of imbalance within him exploded, and seven of the dazzling white shapes in his perception, alongside a small trinket on the ground, lost their radiance.
A bony hand stretched out of one while a frazzled head peeked out of another. Three of them gripped either edge of their mirrors and pushed themselves, and finally, the last two came out with their limbs rotated awkwardly.
Vern sucked in a cold breath as goosebumps erupted all over his body. Retreating with as light footsteps as possible, he focused.
He had to stabilize everything again as soon as they were out.
His mouth went dry as his thought space seemed to pulse with imbalance—like an echo of his inner dread.
He retreated one step after another, but then he noticed a big problem.
He hadn't thought about this before, but if all fourteen of the spirits were already emerging out of these mirrors, then how the fuck were they peeking at him using that small trinket?
The thought sent his mind reeling, and then suddenly, his footsteps halted, his pulse racing rapidly.
The corruption on the trinket refused to disappear.
He couldn't stabilize the trinket anymore! Every time until now, the corruption had retreated after a short while when it realized it couldn't use such a small opening to emerge.
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But then, what went wrong now?
GrrrrrrrRRRrr
Thump!
Growls echoed from all around him as one spirit after another jumped out of their openings. The ones stacked between multiple mirrors sent everything flying away, while the rest wreaked havoc on everything in their path as they rushed toward Vern.
A shiver ran down his spine, and his backpedaling footsteps grew hasty and unfocused.
There was no point in being silent if he couldn't stabilize that trinket again. They were still 'looking' at him, updating his 'last position' every second.
Fuck!
What the hell was going on!? Cedric had confirmed that there were only fourteen of them left. Then what was this?
The shapes in front of him clawed and raked at anything obstructing their path. Doors were savagely thrashed apart while containers burst open as if struck by invisible forces.
He fumbled for a few seconds, and his balance grew worse. "FUCK!" he shouted and finally turned around, bolting towards the stairs.
Crash!
Thump!
Panic coursed through him as his mind worked on top gear to figure out what the hell to do. This was a direct confrontation; if he used the amulet right now, that would resolve nothing.
All his preparation would be for naught.
However, that's when the spirits closest to him—the one he wanted to call ninth boosted its strides apathetically with its eerily long hands—launching toward Vern at a terrifying pace.
A cold, numbing terror seized Vern as the entity contaminated everything in its path, its trajectory set to collide with him in a deadly arc.
No! Fuck! Vern pre-emptively turned his feet, barely shifting his momentum to an angle. There was little time for him to do anything else.
SKriiiiii!!!
His feet stumbled, and a coarse presence brushed past him, sending chilling droplets splattering across his skin. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, yet he righted his faltering posture and surged past the entity.
Despite his efforts, his keen perception mercilessly highlighted the futility of his actions in any contest of physical strength.
Having narrowly missed him, Ninth dug its nails into the ground, coming to a screeching halt with a grating noise that pierced the air.
It wheeled around to face Vern—its intent murderous. The other six spirits, mirroring its determination, bulldozed through obstacles in their path, relentless in their pursuit.
Badump Badump
His heart pounded like a drum in his chest, loud and frantic—the staircase almost within his reach.
Clatter-clatter-clatter,
His footfalls merged with the cacophony of destruction as he pushed himself to his limits. That door was the only thing that could save him.
He needed mere seconds—a sliver of time! A rough plan to shepherd them all together flickered in his mind, yet events were unfolding at a breakneck pace, giving him little chance to think.
He had to improvise and somehow herd his other subjects in one place right now. He'd planned to corral them one step at a time, but these bastards never stayed within his calculations.
What the fuck went wrong this time!? He asked himself, only to ruthlessly suppress the pointless inquiry as he lunged for it.
Yet, as he moved, a heavy sense of impending doom enveloped him, the focused gaze of number nine burning into his back.
Vern clenched his teeth, shaking off the ominous feeling, and seized the door's edge as he landed on the platform—
Tanggg!
The door bucked under the impact, a deep dent marking where the entity on the other side had slammed against it. Quickly regaining his footing, Vern vaulted up the stairs three at a time, mentally affirming the door's stability.
This should stop them for a few seconds.
Thump!
Clank!
BAMM!
All seven of them converged on the door, hammering against it with ferocious strength. Vern strained hard to keep it from falling apart, the veins around his eyes bulging in protest.
But he had to split his focus with more things. Yes, his thought space subconsciously handled most of it, but the sheer volume of things he had to control was overwhelming.
Shaking his head, he focused, There's one in the entrance hall, three in the right corridor, two in the left, one in the stocking room, and finally, seven behind me.
With this inventory in mind, his pace quickened even as the door endured more brutal assaults. Narrowing his eyes, he mentally tracked the positions of all the spirits, aside from the relentless seven at his heels.
First, I need to deal with subject number Two. It's too far.
So Vern selected a trinket right next to the prowling Two and shattered it with instability inducement. The entity whipped its head around in a grotesquely unnatural motion, drawn to the noise, its maw agape.
But this was just the beginning. Vern caused another piece of glass to explode towards the entrance hall, and like a predator drawn to the scent of blood, Two lunged towards the new disturbance.
In tandem, Vern orchestrated a series of similar disruptions for subjects Three and Four in the left corridor, compelling their forms to advance with intent toward the entrance.
Clank
Crunch
Without pausing, Vern shifted his focus to the last trio in the right corridor, setting off another sequence of deliberate noises, when suddenly—
BAMMM
As if someone had clobbered him on the head, his perception of the door he'd been barricading cracked, and shadows made manifest surged upstairs, their mouths emitting nightmarish sounds.
Gritting his teeth, Vern veered into one of the rooms, initiating a cascade of destruction among the displayed items on this upper floor.
Clinkk
Crunch!!
The ensuing cacophony was so overwhelming that, despite their proximity to Vern, there was no way they could discern his exact location.
That’s all that matters for now.
Yet, when all seven of them split and stormed into various rooms—including his own—Vern crushed a few more objects out of sheer panic.
Just a few more seconds!
Krichh!
Two was the furthest from the entrance hall, and luring him was taking longer than he'd expected. Why didn't I think of this beforehand!
He wanted to curse at himself but didn't have the mental capacity for even that. Shards and chunks of exploding glass flew all around him, some cutting his exposed skin without any mercy.
He might have managed the situation better if he wasn't preoccupied with restabilizing every piece of exploding glass, preventing them from using it to track his movements.
Number Thirteen was hot on his tail—tracing his route closely. The moment Vern dashed out the room's opposite door, it seemed to notice the sound and turned towards him—
SKRIIIII!!!!
A shiver coursed through Vern as he attempted to block out the ghastly visage of the entity from his mind, his steps crunching over glass shards.
Vern's Thought Space pulsated with the discomfort of imbalance, yet he pushed these sensations aside, strategizing a path that would afford him the precious seconds needed to align all elements of this 'experiment' perfectly.
One of them was mere steps behind him, with the remaining six wreaking havoc on the same floor, tearing through the contents of other rooms as they converged towards the entrance hall.
That was the result of a calculated move on his part. He orchestrated the destruction of glass objects in a deliberate wave that rippled from the rear to the front.
Vern's hair whipped around wildly as he gripped a shelf, propelling himself towards the emporium's center, running alongside the railing that offered a view of the entrance hall below.
Down there, Number One darted in random directions, confused by the cacophony of sounds, its erratic movements making it even harder for Vern to focus.
Redirecting his attention, Vern spotted two entities emerging from a nearby room, swiftly joined by three more from the opposite side.
Almost there! Only subject Number Two was left!
The amulet in his grasp trembled, radiating intense heat as he funneled vast amounts of energy into the artifact, preparing for what was to come.
A profound, disconcerting cold swept through Vern as the other six entities on his floor burst through walls, panels, and shelves, converging onto the same corridor he was in—their heads whipping in his direction instantly.
Two more besides his pursuer emerged behind him while the rest rushed at him from the front.
Feeling exposed, vulnerable, and imbalanced, a torrent of fears threatened to overpower him. Yet, he compelled himself to keep a steady pace, determined not to falter in these critical moments.
The end was nigh.
Thirteen, the entity that had been doggedly pursuing him, also emerged from a room and turned towards him, choosing to defy the laws of physics by crawling along the balustrades of the railing.
It then propelled itself towards Vern with unprecedented speed, intent on closing the gap.
"Hahhh!!" Vern's shout pierced the charged air as he rapidly calculated the dwindling seconds before the entity would be upon him.
It was at that moment he saw it—subject number Two was nearly at its intended position.
This is it!
It was time.
There was nowhere to escape.
No mercy to be found.
Nowhere to hide.
.
.
.
For his enemies.
Taking account of every piece of intact glass on this floor and underneath, Vern finalized the details.
He let out a grunt and, leveraging all his momentum, jumped, His front foot finding precarious purchase on the railing. Controlling his muscles precisely, he somehow managed to hoist the other one up, too.
The railing was perilously narrow, and Vern teetered on the brink of losing his balance, his upper body lurching from the sudden shift in momentum.
Eventually, his frenetic steps stilled, and there he stood, poised on the edge, back turned to the entrance below, as malevolent spirits surged towards him from both directions, their presence intensifying by the second.
A sense of impending doom settled over him like a dark cloud.
Yet…there was also an inexplicable thrill.
A crackling energy surged through him, igniting his fatigued senses with a fiery anticipation.
Three seconds…
The amulet in his grip crackled, its heat threatening to sear his flesh.
Two…
With every leap, the gaping maw of Thirteen stretched impossibly wide, shattering any semblance of human anatomy in moments.
One…
The mass of pursuing spirits swarmed onto the railing as well, their collective force vibrating the whole floor—unsettling Vern's precarious balance.
"Zero," he whispered, propelling himself from the ledge with a determined kick. As he twisted the amulet's knob, he spread his arms wide.