Moravian grinned. In the vast moonlight, his sharp fangs shone as he watched the rushing soldiers. The enemies—or rather former enemies—rushed toward their army in search of refuge. ‘Lyra’s quite the propagandist,’ Moravian thought with a gleam in his eyes. ‘Very good.’
About five hundred of the three thousand or so soldiers retreated to the rebel's army. They rushed away in waves lest they get captured.
After only a couple of minutes, the new additions to the army were all behind the lines. Luckily, through Moravian and Lyra’s planning, they had prepared a designated group of people to explain the situation and the new soldiers' roles.
None of them would fight in this battle. After all, they couldn't simply take in new soldiers and make them immediately turn around and kill their former colleagues and friends.
Moravian didn’t care about that, however. He rubbed his hands as he saw the small army emerge from the gate; ‘Now it's time for war!’
Looking back to his army, Moravian’s sable energy surged to his vocal cords; “PRACTIONERS ATTACK!”
He, as well as the others, rushed forward! Moravian was the fastest, but he purposely lowered his speed so he could be behind Procka—the bulkiest member of the army. Of course, she was the one who was attacked first.
“KILL THE ROCK MONSTER!” A voice shouted. Moravian scowled, ‘They rotated too fast!’
During the war council, they had planned for this army to take out the non-cultivators, making the following battle easy. The enemy's army was formatted in a way that placed all the non-cultivators in the back while the actual cultivators took the brunt of the frontal assault.
The rebels had hoped that the army in the back would take them by surprise. Unfortunately, the enemies reacted with haste and created a tight perimeter as opposed to their previous lines of soldiers. Now, cultivators lined the army on the edges, creating a circular glob of people. Inside the circle were all the non-cultivators who could provide support fire with ease.
‘Whatever, we'll just kill the cultivators instead then!’ Moravian grinned mercilessly. They soon reached the circle's edge, and instantly, Procka was flooded with attacks. There weren’t many cultivators in this city capable of long-range attacks, so most attacked with energy-coated swords or spears. In response, Procka created a wall of fire in front of her before the enemy's vast barrage could land. The primal flames surged with the devastating intent to kill, and most of the attacking cultivators pulled out—fear evident in their eyes. The unlucky few caught in Procka’s trap did not die a slow death.
They dropped their weapons, and seconds passed agonizingly slow as their flesh melted off their body. Moravian watched with a smile as he saw the terror sprout on the escaped enemies. ‘Now, it is my turn.’
He ducked behind Procka and ensured that no one knew his whereabouts before he activated his ability; “Draugr’s Cloak.”
In an instant, Moravian became invisible and formless. He prepared energy in his legs as he walked close to the wall of flames. The corpses of the enemies lay on the burnt sandstone floor. Their acrid scent and wriggling bodies repulsed Moravian, who sneered at them. Bracing, he activated the energy in his legs and leaped through the wall of flames!
Only a couple had died in the initial blaze; thus, dozens of strong cultivators remained ripe for the picking. As Moravian flashed through the fire, he analyzed the best victims: ‘Red, black, orange.’ Out of the present cultivators, only one was in each of those three spectrums, while the rest were all brown cultivators and one sable.
Innately, Moravian knew the duration of his invisibility, so he moved with haste, knowing he would soon be unveiled. With silent steps, Moravian sprinted to the closest of the three, the black cultivator. It was a pale man, which was unusual for desert-raised individuals. He had slicked-back hair and a stubby nose.
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Creeping behind him, Moravian retrieved his sharpest dagger and thrust forward. The man lurched forward and died instantly—the sable energy infused in the blade entering the man's body and destroying it!
‘Now I got to go fast.’ Moravian thought with a racing heart. Not able to admire his kill, Moravian rushed forward to the next. It was the orange cultivator. Unlike the others, this cultivator—an upright, seemingly disdainful woman had no fear for Procka’s wall. She sneered at it.
She stood with arms crossed and no weapons drawn. ‘She’s trying to provoke Procka, ' Moravian realized, a wry grin forming as he got close to his next target. ‘It would be easier to anger a mountain than her.’
With perfect precision, Moravian reached the woman and slid his blade across her throat. Just like the man before, she had no time to speak or react in any way before her cold corpse fell to the ground.
Moravian knew for a fact that two kills would be possible, but three was a bit extreme. He circulated the sable energy to his legs. The energy moved in erratic zigzags through his body, making his quick movement strange and inconsistent.
He tried to control the energy. Using all his remaining concentration, Moravian threw himself at the stoic-looking red cultivator. Due to his speed, he couldn’t discern their appearance, but he knew something was wrong when the cultivator turned his head and looked directly at him!
‘What!’ Moravian gasped audibly. He looked down at his dagger-wielding hand and cursed himself: 'Bleed me dry again! I’m a failure!’ Moravian’s face creased into lines of anger and frustration. It had been going so well: two clean kills, none the wiser, and then this: ‘It seems I’m not an elite assassin…yet.’
“GO!” Moravian heard a familiar rumbling voice behind him. Was Procka… encouraging him? Moravian nearly lost his concentration at the voice, but instead, he smiled. If Procka, the being who never spoke a goddamn word, finally said something, furthermore, said words of encouragement, and Moravian let her down…he would never live down the shame.
“Sable’s Pull!”
The red cultivator held out his sword—a two-handed iron beast! As they were nearly a dozen feet away, the man lurched forward, intending to rush at Moravian! Suddenly, for some reason, he stopped. His face was struck by endless confusion as he gaped at Moravian. The draugr's body had…stuttered. It was like a bee stuck in time. Moravian’s face, muscles, ears, eyes, everything all twitched and seized as if they were out of control.
BANG!
The spot on the sandstone road where Moravian once was vacated, and Moravian appeared right in front of the red cultivator! He gripped the man's sword with undying conviction and grinned at him. With his free hand, Moravian lurched forward and plunged the black dagger into the human's gut! Moravian reveled in the death; this man dyed slower than the others, and Moravian could see the moment when the light left his eyes, and hope was lost. ‘If only I could stay longer.’ He sighed and kicked the now-dead man off his blade. ‘Time to escape.’
A surge of volatile energy caused Moravian to plummet backward. The enemies, as he knew they would, discovered him. Moravian’s breath caught as he looked toward the source of the attack. ‘Is that a…nightwhistler?’ Moravian face paled as he saw the attacker. It was a man of average height without much muscle definition. He was in a dashing suit—a piece of clothing that Moravian was not familiar with. What Moravian was familiar with, however, was the man’s light purple spectrum crystal. Combine that with his ghoul-like visage, and Moravian could only come to one conclusion. ‘The legends…the nightwhistlers are real!’
A slight grin played across the pale face of the man. Moravian froze. How could he fight a nightwhistler? These were the things of myth that terrified even the most fearless Draugr warriors.
As his heart raced, Moravian—in his temporary state of senselessness—felt a probing sensation from where the man stood; It was energy!
Forced to act, Moravian scrambled his energy to his legs. Taking advantage of the natural erratic nature of sable energy, Moravian was just able to dive out of the way before the earth ripped where he had once stood! The tough sandstone road tore up in many pieces! The debris soared in the air toward Moravian!
Retrieving his longest daggers, Moravian imbued sable energy into the blades as he cut the stone out of the sky. His crystal complained and whined about using so much power, and his body ached due to the physical exertion. The flying rock attacks kept coming, however.
‘I need to get the hell out of here!’ Moravian screamed inwardly.
The air was hazy and almost clouded his vision, but in the distance, he could spot the looming Procka battling with arcs of fire. She was hundreds of feet away, and it would be quite the trek, especially when facing a nightwhistler.
Wriggling, Moravian opted to start dodging as many of the rocks as he could in order to conserve energy. But it still wasn’t enough. He had to cut the occasional rock, and his energy reserves were dwindling. Adding to that, the nightwhistler kept tearing up new chunks of the rod with ease, which kept the barrage against Moravian steady.
Turning to avoid a sharp piece of debris twice his size, Moravian saw something out of the corner of his eye. The Draugr eye was extraordinary and was among the most effective in the outer universe, especially at night. But, when he saw the near-miracle figure in the distance, he doubted his own race's capabilities.
‘It can't be.’ He thought, panting heavily.
He wasn’t able to get another glimpse due to the constant barrage. He danced like a puppet, and the only reason he survived wasn’t because of his small frame, or exceptional agility. No, it was due to the hope that burned in his heart. Hope that the person he had seen was actually Thorne.