NOVPUB
Chapter 155: BloodBath
"Are you sure about this?" Elisse asked, her voice barely above a whisper as she tightened her gloves.
Zayn adjusted the sword strapped across his back, his face set. "We’re not sitting this one out."
Kara and Bran nodded in agreement, grim but ready.
The tension was a heavy thing between them, like a storm cloud following each step.
Even Althea, the half-elf receptionist who normally spent her days behind the counter with a gentle smile, stood armed with a slender sword at her waist and leather armor covering her lithe form.
It was a reminder that she wasn’t just a pretty face — she was a skilled herself, and a capable one at that.
The town square loomed ahead. They turned the final corner — and the world shifted.
Zayn immediately fought the urge to throw up.
The stone streets were slick with blood, the metallic scent so heavy in the air that it clogged his nostrils.
Bodies lay scattered across the square — some twisted unnaturally, others in still pools of crimson.
He stumbled slightly as his foot brushed against something soft.
He glanced down — and recoiled.
A cult member.
His skull was caved in, a single brutal blow having ended him. His hollow eyes stared upward at nothing.
Zayn clenched his jaw, breathing through his mouth.
He had seen the mangled bodies of monsters before — bears torn apart by fangs, goblins split open by swords — but this... This was different.
This was human.
A hand touched his shoulder gently — Elisse. Her face was pale but she gave him a silent, steady look.
’Ground yourself’ it said without words.
He nodded once and exhaled slowly.
Around them, the battle raged.
There were far more than fifteen cultists now — twenty, maybe even thirty.
They moved erratically, striking with poisoned daggers and twisted spells that crackled with foul magic.
Fortunately, the adventurers were veterans.
A spear tore through a cultist’s chest as a C-rank warrior charged forward.
An archer perched atop a building loosed arrow after arrow, pinning robed figures to the earth.
Magic exploded through the air as mages countered the dark spells with blasts of light and fire.
The cultists were dangerous, but poorly coordinated. One-on-one, they couldn’t compare to a trained adventurer.
It was a slaughter.
Kara grinned as she swung her staff like a club, smashing a cultist in the gut with a thud before casting a rock bolt that knocked another out cold.
Bran moved like a tank through the crowd, his axe carving wide, brutal arcs. Blood splattered his armor, but he didn’t stop.
Elisse supported from the back, healing wounded adventurers with precise beams of light and occasionally blasting foes with a holy ray when they got too close.
Zayn stayed mobile, his sword flashing as he struck down cultists trying to flank their friends.
He kept an eye on his surroundings — particularly for Seren, who they had left behind at the Guild for safety.
They were holding their own. In fact, they were winning.
Zayn started to believe they could clean this mess up without too much trouble.
Until it happened.
The ground trembled.
A shadow coalesced from the cracks between the cobblestones — a writhing, unnatural thing.
Zayn caught sight of it a heartbeat too late. 𝒏𝒐𝙫𝙥𝙪𝙗.𝒄𝙤𝙢
An adventurer nearby — a young man wielding twin daggers turned just in time to scream as a giant hand made of pure shadow materialized behind him.
CRACK.
The shadow hand crushed him like a bug.
Blood and viscera splattered across the cobblestones. The scream cut off instantly.
Gasps and shouts rang out across the square.
Zayn’s blood turned to ice.
He spun around, sword at the ready. "Regroup! NOW!" he barked, voice cutting through the chaos.
The others obeyed immediately, forming a tight circle back-to-back.
"What the hell was that?!" Bran growled, tightening his grip on his axe.
Kara looked around wildly, chanting a detection spell under her breath. "That wasn’t just any magic... It was... something high level."
Another tendril of shadow slithered across the ground, wrapping around the ankle of a nearby adventurer and yanking him screaming into the air.
Zayn’s heart pounded in his chest.
’Don’t tell me... he’s here...!’
Above them, standing atop the fountain in the center of the square, a figure emerged.
Unlike the other cultists, he wore a full black mask, and his robes were embroidered with crimson threads that pulsed faintly with power.
His very presence seemed to warp the air around him, like reality itself was rejecting him.
He raised one hand — and from it, more tendrils of shadow erupted, lashing out at adventurers.
Panic spread through the ranks but Zayn exhaled in relief, at least it wasn’t ’him’.
"Shit," Zayn muttered under his breath. "We’ve got a real caster."
"How do we fight that?" Kara asked, voice tight.
Bran’s eyes gleamed with determination. "We hit it fast and hard. We can’t let him keep casting!"
Althea, who had been fighting nearby, rushed toward them, sword drawn.
"That’s a Cult Priest!" she shouted over the chaos. "If we don’t kill him now, he’ll summon something worse!"
Zayn took in a deep breath, the GUILD seemed to know about these people.
He tightened the grip on his sword and gave a small, grim smile.
"Then let’s show them what we’re made of."
Together, they charged toward the source of the darkness.
The Cult Priest raised his arms high, his tattered robes billowing as more appendages of shadow ripped free from the earth.
They shot toward Zayn and the others like a barrage of black lances.
"Scatter!" Zayn barked.
They moved at once, like they had been a group for years.
The moment they split, the shadow arms twisted midair, each locking onto one of them individually.
Like bloodhounds on a scent, they refused to let their prey escape.
Behind a ruined cart, Elisse knelt, whispering rapid incantations under her breath.
A faint glow surrounded her hands and spread outward in shimmering waves.
One by one, thin layers of light wrapped around her teammates — Zayn, Kara, Bran, and even Althea.
