(The Blackridge Hunting Party's Perspective)
---
The Hunt Begins
The hunting party moved like shadows through the wilderness, their figures swallowed by the thick mist creeping down from the mountains.
Twelve of them.
Handpicked. Elite.
The best Blackridge had to offer.
Captain Reynard rode at the front, his armor dulled to avoid catching the moonlight. He had led men through war, through battles where the dead outnumbered the living. He had fought things others could barely speak of.
But this was different.
This wasn't war.
This wasn't even a battle.
This was an execution.
Or at least—
It was supposed to be.
---
Reynard glanced over his shoulder.
His men followed in tight formation—twelve riders, their cloaks drawn close, weapons low but ready. Their movements were precise, disciplined. No wasted steps. No unnecessary sound.
They had been trained for this. Prepared.
Or so they thought.
The mist coiled around them like ghostly fingers, rolling in from the mountains, thick and unnatural. It muted everything—the crunch of hooves against brittle grass, the clink of armor, even the sound of their own breathing. The world beyond their torches faded into an endless wall of gray.
They had been briefed.
A rogue undead. A single entity. Unusual? Yes. Dangerous? Perhaps. But not invincible.
They had heard Voss's warnings.
They had listened to his tales—of an undead that could think, that could command, that could fight like a man.
They had listened.
But they had not believed.
"Undead don't think," Davin, the youngest among them, had scoffed back in Blackridge. "They rot."
The others had laughed.
---
They weren't laughing now.
Because as they crept closer to the ruins of the fortress, the silence followed them. Heavy. Watching.
Not even the wind dared to breathe here.
The air was wrong. Still. It smelled of damp stone, of old rot buried beneath layers of earth. Their torches flickered but did not sway. The mist, thick as it was, did not shift. It simply hung there, dense and waiting.
The horses grew restless, their ears flicking back, nostrils flaring. They could sense it before the men could.
Something unseen.
Something watching.
Reynard tightened his grip on the reins.
He had been on too many battlefields not to recognize the feeling creeping into his bones.
Not fear. Not yet.
But the first whisper of it.
The first, quiet realization that they had stepped into something far worse than they had imagined.
---
Hours passed.
No ambush. No resistance.
The only sounds were the rhythmic hoofbeats against damp earth, the occasional creak of leather, the whisper of the wind through skeletal branches.
They had expected wandering undead. Mindless corpses should have been lurking in the trees, drawn to the scent of living flesh.
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But there was nothing.
No movement. No distant groans. No red eyes watching from the dark.
Only emptiness.
Davin finally broke the silence. His voice was hushed, uneasy.
"This doesn't feel right."
Reynard didn't snap at him. Didn't tell him to keep quiet.
Because he felt it too.
Something had been here. The land carried the weight of it—an invisible pressure, like the moments before a storm. But where had they gone?
Then, they found them.
The first corpse was slumped against a boulder, its skull caved in, darkened bone gleaming under the moonlight.
Then another.
And another.
Not human.
Undead.
Torn apart. Ripped to pieces.
One had its head missing entirely, the jagged wound at its neck too precise for an animal, too brutal for a blade. Another had been gutted, its ribcage split open like carrion picked clean. Arms twisted at unnatural angles. Limbs severed.
Davin paled. His hand gripped the hilt of his sword as if that alone could steady him.
"They were… killed?"
Another soldier muttered, "By what? Humans don't do this to undead."
No.
This wasn't human work.
Reynard clenched his jaw, his grip tightening on the reins.
This was the work of something else.
Something that hunted its own kind.
---
The Fortress Beckons
The hunting party moved faster now.
The mission had shifted. The tension in their movements was no longer that of hunters closing in on prey.
This was something else.
Not a hunt.
A pursuit.
They weren't stalking their target. They were following—drawn forward by tracks left with intent. A trail carved into the land, leading them in one direction.
Straight to the fortress.
And then—
It emerged from the darkness.
A structure of black stone, towering and unnatural, rising from the earth like a wound in the landscape. The moonlight barely touched it, as if even the sky recoiled from its presence.
No torches burned within its walls. No banners marked its allegiance.
It was silent.
Waiting.
Reynard pulled his horse to a stop, his breath slow, controlled.
"We go in on foot."
The soldiers dismounted, boots crunching against brittle earth. They tightened their grips on their weapons—muskets loaded, swords drawn.
One by one, they crossed the threshold.
And the air changed.
Heavier.
Thicker.
A weight pressed against their chests, as if something unseen coiled through the corridors, moving between them, through them. Watching.
No footsteps echoed. No voices carried. The fortress swallowed all sound, turning their presence into whispers, their existence into something smaller.
Davin gritted his teeth.
"This place is cursed."
Reynard agreed.
But curses could be killed.
---
The hunting party fanned out.
Rooms were checked. Hallways were cleared.
Nothing.
Only the weight of silence pressing down on them.
Then—
A sound.
A scrape of movement down the corridor. Faint. Measured.
Reynard raised a fist. The men halted instantly—muskets lifted, blades poised.
Silence.
Then—
A blur.
Something moved.
A shadow slipping between the pillars—too fast, too fluid to be a normal undead.
"Contact!" a soldier shouted, firing his musket.
The shot rang out, a thunderclap in the still air. The muzzle flash lit the darkness for half a second—stone walls, flickering shadows—
But no target.
The bullet struck stone.
Missed.
Then—
A scream.
Short. Cut off.
Reynard turned just in time to see Lionel yanked into the darkness.
Gone.
Blood spattered across the cold stone where he had stood.
Davin stumbled back, his breath coming fast. "What the hell was—"
Another scream.
A second soldier.
Ripped into the void.
Panic took hold. The hunting party turned wildly, weapons raised, eyes darting between corridors, pillars, every blind spot that suddenly felt too large, too close.
"We need to regroup!" Reynard barked, his voice hard, commanding.
Then—
Laughter.
Soft.
Mocking.
Not human.
Not undead.
Something else.
A figure stepped into the dim light.
Tall. Too thin.
Kendrick.
Or what had once been him.
His skin was wrong—stretched too tight, pale as bone, his lips curled into something that might have once been a smile.
And behind him—
Shadows flickered.
More figures emerging.
More waiting.
The hunting party wasn't alone anymore.
The hunt had become an execution.
---
Reynard barely had time to react.
Kendrick moved first.
Not like a mindless corpse. Not like the shambling dead.
Like a predator.
Like a hunter.
He lunged, faster than any undead had the right to be, closing the distance in a blink. His claws tore through the first soldier's armor like parchment, ripping flesh from bone in a spray of red.
Davin screamed, musket rising—
Too slow.
Kendrick was on him in an instant, his grip vise-like, his teeth flashing—
And then—
Blood.
Davin collapsed, hands clutching his throat, gurgling, drowning in his own breath.
Then—
Chaos.
Gunfire.
Swords clashing.
Screams.
But this was no battle.
It was a massacre.
They had come thinking they were the predators.
They were wrong.
They were prey.
And Kendrick was starving.
Reynard fought. He killed. His sword struck true, carving through undead flesh, his blade slick with blackened blood.
But it wasn't enough.
There were too many.
They weren't fighting a lone monster.
They had walked into a den.
The fortress wasn't a ruin.
It was a tomb.
And they had sealed themselves inside.
---
Reynard was the last one left.
His breath was ragged, each inhale sharp and broken. His vision blurred—blood in his eyes, on his hands, pooling at his knees. His own. His men's.
Kendrick stood before him. Unfazed. Unbothered. His long, skeletal fingers dripped with fresh carnage, black and red streaking his pale skin.
Behind him, the undead gathered.
Silent. Waiting.
Not attacking.
Not finishing him off.
Because this wasn't about killing.
This was about sending a message.
Reynard's body failed him, his strength leaking away with every drop of blood soaking into the cold stone. He collapsed to his knees, gasping.
Kendrick watched.
Then—he tilted his head.
And spoke.
"You thought you were hunting us."
The voice was wrong. Not entirely human. Not entirely dead.
Reynard trembled.
Kendrick crouched in front of him, slow and deliberate, meeting his gaze with hollow, knowing eyes.
"You were wrong."
A pause.
Then—Kendrick smiled.
Behind him, the fortress doors groaned.
Opening.
Reynard's breath caught in his throat.
No.
Not for him.
Not for escape.
For Gufran.
A shadow beyond the threshold. A presence. Waiting.
And then—
The last thing Reynard saw—
Glowing eyes.
And that awful, awful smile.
Then—
Darkness.