“What is that?” Travone’s voice trembled slightly as he and Rai stared at the figure before them.

The creature resembled something dead given life, headless yet moving; it was humanoid in shape but exuded an eerie lifelessness, standing tall and lanky in a glimmering silver set of centaurain armour that caught the faintest hint of light. Jagged black cords snaked out from its back, intertwining with silver cartridges that rattled softly along its spine as it strolled aimlessly, an astra spear held loosely in its skeletal hands.

“What is it?”Travone asked again, his brows furrowed in confusion and fear.

“I don’t know,” Rai replied, shaking his head, causing his short hair to frame his face, “I’ve never seen it in the books I read.” Rai felt a surge of frustration.

“Then what the hell are we looking at?” he snapped.

“It looks like a surviving Xyrr’than, only it’s headless,” Rai frowned, his eyes narrowing as he cautiously observed the figure.

“Then how is it moving?”

“It must be using some alien relic,” Rai replied, noting how the iron-jawed hounds in the distance began to move, their wary eyes glancing toward the headless creature.

“Look at how the ironjaws are moving.” Travone nodded in the distance, where the iron jaws were moving slowly, creeping in a low position as they tried to avoid getting the attention of the suit.

“Yes, they’re trying to avoid it; we should too.”

“Wait, let my body cam get a good view,” Travone said, angling his device at the strange armoured entity.

“We should hurry up before the transport ship leaves.”

Cautiously, they followed the hound’s path, keeping the suit in their periphery and trying to avoid the headless suit, not willing to find out what it was capable of or how dangerous it could be; a howl rang out from the direction they were headed, sending shivers down Rai's spine and Travone could do nothing but freeze in terror as he watched the headless suite turn.

They glanced at each other in terror, realizing it wasn’t the suit causing the sudden noise—the alpha had spotted them and glared at them with a mocking wolfish smirk.

The headless suit froze, its armour clinking ominously as it registered the disturbance presence.

In an instant, Rai and Travone felt it. They felt a primal urge to flee, and they both took a step back, retreating swiftly instep from the black hound and from the headless suit; it did not take long for them to kick off in a sprint. They hardly made it far before the headless armoured figure landed right in front of them, blocking their path.

“Move!” Rai shouted, swinging his astra blade down at the suit, but the creature moved faster than either of them could anticipate before he could connect. Its astra spear swang wide, batting away his sword and moving its other gaunt hand, struck Rai’s chest, sending him flying backwards, stumbling hard into Travone, who struggled to steady them both.

“That thing is a Delta Rank!” Rai gasped, breathless, as shock coursed through him, trying to gasp for air that had left his lungs when the creature struck his chest.

“A Delta? We can’t fight that!”

The two exchanged frantic glances and then bolted down a side path, urgency fuelling their desperate blind escape. They sprinted blindly through the darkened structures, into places that were clearly not marked by exploration paint other seekers used to mark the previous passages. They could feel the creature practically on their heels pursuing them, the echoing pitter-patter of their own movements masking the sound of its relentless chase.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They ran for what felt like hours, their lungs burning and hearts racing, the transport ship now a distant memory. Broken rubble of what had once been homes littered their path as they ducked into the shadows, stopping at corners and hiding in dark spaces between crumbling walls. And the headless Xyrr’than in the suit would still be seen following them.

“How does it know where we are?” Travone panted, exhausted but unwilling to slow down.

“Fear and inescapable instinct,” Rai replied, his voice strained.

“It must be something we’re doing.”

“And what is that?” Travone’s voice came out in a rough whisper as they paused against a jagged wall, his body pressed into the debris of a broken wall.

A faint scraping metal sound against the floors caused them to halt; their eyes were wide with terror as they tried to keep their breathing as quiet as possible.

“We should find a way back,” Rai suggested in a silent whisper, glancing nervously down the path they had come from.

They both stood still as the suit moved past them and continued its aimless wandering. Time seemed to stretch as they watched it roam, and they were ensnared by the silence surrounding them as they tried not to make any sudden movements and draw the suit towards their hiding place.

The transponders connected to the transport ship kept on blinking red, reminding them that the ship had left the planet and they would not be escaping any time soon. They had to find a place to banker down.

Hours passed slowly, and if any man were courageous enough to close their eyes in search of sleep in the dark and dead city, Travone would have called them a madman. He simply could not bear thinking of closing his eyes to the noises and death cries of prey and predators of the monsters in the city, amplifying their fears and making everything seem more real and a mere step away.

They stifled their breaths every once in a while, holding tight to the walls, silent shadows hoping to go unnoticed.

As the new day dawned, their resolve began to solidify. It was hours later when the transponder signals came back to life, buzzes signalling that it was time to return. They moved cautiously toward the junction where Rai had faced the headless suit the first time and hopped to head back across the deep trench in the ground and to the higher levels; their hearts were racing, and deep down, Travone knew he had to give up, on the power gem.

But just as they neared, they paused first in confusion, then in anger, before a dreadful understanding washed over them—the hounds and their alpha were already waiting at the junction, sniffing the air with alertness.

When the alpha caught sight of them, it howled, a sound vibrating deep within Travone’s chest, and flashes of how the headless suit quickly rushed to the forefront of his mind as he realised the creature was trying to get them killed by the hands of the suit. Travones conclusion was further bolstered by the smaller hounds that were shivering nervously and tucking their tails between their legs.

“It's no doubt drawing the headless humanoid suit of armor to us,” Travone said, panic flooding his words.

His eyes traced around the alpha hound, and he thought to himself as he cursed inwardly.

The bag that I came for is nowhere to be found!

“Fuck! Is it trying to get the suit here?” Rai exclaimed, glancing nervously at Travone.

“We need to fight them before the headless suit finds us!”

But before they could react and attack the Hounds, the sound of scraping metal against stone grew ever closer, like an oncoming hailstorm; louder and louder it grew until suddenly it came into view, an astra spear coated in black blood in its hand.

The few hounds unable to control their fear quickly ran away, leaving only the alpha and one other behind, resolutely glaring at Travone and Rai with predatory mockery. It was as if they were all waiting for the suit to notice the other party as none of them, man or beast, dared to move; the alpha and the remaining hound were unwilling to make the first move against the two humans. The headless suit appeared between them, its silver armour gleaming ominously even in the dim light, moving slowly among them. It approached Rai, stopping inches from his face before pivoting and continuing toward the far wall. Travone seized the opportunity, drawing his astra shield instinctively, when suddenly, the creature stopped and faced him, inspecting his presence curiously.

For a moment, time stood still as Travone tried to hold his breath and grimaced as bile rose as he looked at the clean smell lump of neck bone and flesh where the head had been cut off just as he felt he could no longer hold his breath in the suit moved on.

Watching the scene unfold, the alpha hound seemed strangely smug, an expression that ignited something within Travone. He suddenly got an idea and focused his energy on another skill—a Spectacular Arrow. The creature remained still, an almost amused look upon its dead features as it regarded Travone.

When the arrow struck, The Black Alpha hound yelped and recoiled back and suddenly glared at the two who still remained motionless. The hound looked to the side and watched as the suit tensed and turned towards the noise.

For the hounds, there was no time to waste, and the remaining smaller hound ran off, not willing to wait around to see how the suit would react to its alpha's cry of pain.

The hound looked between them, and Travone and Rai froze, then it looked at the suit; it was the instinct for survival greater than those to relish a hunt took off, sprinting around a corner, scrambling to escape the oncoming chaos and slaughter.

Travone prayed for the suit to move, and just like that, it obeyed; its headless form dropped low to the ground, touching the floor, sensing vibrations around it. And in an instant, it was gone, darting from sight faster than either of them could properly register.

The two seekers did not hesitate, dashing in the opposite direction and aiming for the surface. The power gem they had come searching for had been forgotten as their steps took them closer to the surface. Travone ran hard and fast, daring not to look back, the echo of his pounding heartbeat drowning out everything else as they fled back up on the known path of the ancient city they had used to descend. The fear of the unknown twisted in his gut, urging him onward, knowing that to stop could mean the end.