Okay, now that I think about it, maybe I should indeed run.
Make a tactical retreat, I mean.
I heard trees being torn apart behind me, the ground shaking beneath my feet as two sets of limbs barrelled through the forest in my direction, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I could already see the first Hollow emerging from the thicket.
The same eerie tentacles twisted around the stump where its face should have been, curling through the air as if it was already delighted by the thought of fresh human meat standing before it.
I mean, there was not even that much of this body for it to feast on. It would honestly just be chewing bones.
I turned on my heels and ran in the opposite direction.
Sometimes it was better to take the loss and run.
The forest closed around me as I moved deeper into it, the trees growing more crowded while their trunks thickened and their roots rose from the ground like they had been waiting for someone to trip over them.
Behind me, the Hollows continued their chase, their dragging limbs and guttural cries cutting through the silence of the Brink as they steadily gained on me.
I could feel it.
The one in front was getting closer.
Dammit, they were faster than me.
I turned my head slightly as I ran, and in that brief second it closed even more of the distance between us, its heavy breathing now loud enough that I could hear it over the pounding of my own heart.
Shit, this really brought back memories of the Trial.
My eyes moved through the trees ahead of me, searching desperately for anything that could give me an opening, until an idea suddenly pushed itself into my mind.
Let’s fucking hope this works.
A thick trunk stood ahead of me, large enough that it dwarfed the other trees around it, its roots spreading wide across the forest floor as I ran straight towards it.
The Hollow was only a few metres behind me by the time I reached it, and I stopped just before the trunk, turning around to face the creature as it came forward.
For a second, the Hollow slowed.
It stood there with its twisted body hunched low, as if it had somehow understood that I had nowhere else to run, while the tentacles around its head moved wildly through the air and the slit across its torso opened and closed with each deep breath it took.
Then it stepped closer.
Slowly.
Unhurriedly.
The bastard was savouring it.
I let the thread slip from my left hand, guiding it into the distance before wrapping it tightly around the trunk of the tree beside me, while I kept my eyes on the Hollow as it raised one of its arms.
The bone-like claws caught the faint light filtering through the branches above us before it swiped down.
It was barely inches away from me when I pulled.
For a second, I thought I had failed.
The thread dug into the glove as it tightened, and the sudden force almost drove the breath out of me. My left shoulder jerked painfully as I was ripped away from the Hollow, my feet leaving the ground so quickly that I barely had time to understand what was happening before I was thrown through the air.
Fuck, fuck, that was too fast.
The world blurred around me as the thread pulled me in a wide arc around the tree, and my side crashed against the trunk hard enough that pain shot through my ribs.
I fell to my knees when I hit the ground, but I forced myself back up immediately, ignoring the ache spreading through my body as I looked towards the Hollow.
A mad grin took over my face.
Got you, bastard.
The creature had followed through with its strike.
Its bone-like hand was buried deep inside the trunk now, the claws lodged in the wood as it wailed and thrashed against the tree, trying to pull itself free.
I could still hear the other Hollow moving somewhere behind the thicket of trees.
I let the thread pass around the tree in the distance, right where the Hollow was stuck.
Let’s try that one more time.
This time, I was careful.
I pulled at the thread again, but instead of allowing it to launch me wildly through the air, I controlled the force as much as I could, using it to pull my body up from the ground and towards the trapped Hollow.
The Jian was already in my right hand, the tip held forward as I twisted my body slightly in the air, letting the remaining momentum carry me directly towards it.
Then I came down.
I landed against the Hollow’s back and drove the Jian through the side of its torso, pushing with all the weight I could gather as the blade pierced through its hide and exited from the other side. This story is hosted at g.com.
Black blood poured over my wrist.
The bastard wailed even louder, its body jerking against the tree as its free arm swung wildly through the air, missing my face by only a few inches before the strength finally began to leave it.
It slowed.
Then its limbs went slack, and its body dropped heavily to the ground.
I barely had time to pull my blade free before I felt another presence moving from my side.
The second Hollow was already there.
It must have seen what had happened to the first one, because the moment it reached the clearing, it came barrelling towards me without hesitation, its twisted limbs cutting through the undergrowth as it rushed forward.
At the same time, I felt the Miasma from the dead Hollow push into my Reliquary.
The familiar force churned through me, caught beneath my ribs before being dragged inward and slowly changed into Ichor, but the process still left me disoriented for a moment.
That moment was all the second Hollow needed.
By the time I managed to take in a breath, its claws were already coming for me.
I tried to bring my Jian up in time, but it was useless.
The Hollow’s hand swept through my side.
I stepped away at the last possible second, and the claws missed the centre of my body, but they still raked across my ribs hard enough that the impact shoved me away from the corpse of the other Hollow and sent me stumbling into a tree.
The leather armour I wore held for a second beneath the assault, but the claws still cut through enough that warmth began to spread beneath my shirt.
Blood.
The pain did not even register properly, only that strange distant feeling of something being wrong with my body without it truly mattering.
Before I could gather myself, the Hollow was moving again.
Its other arm came from below, tearing through the space where I had been standing a moment earlier as I pushed myself back. The claws struck the tree beside me instead, cutting through bark and wood with enough force that splinters flew across my vision.
Damn bastard, would not even give me a break.
I raised my left hand, sending the thread around the side of the tree before drawing it back towards the Hollow from the other direction and wrapping it around one of its bone-like arms.
The strand encircled its wrist.
Its sharpened edge dug into the thick hide, and the Hollow wailed as dark blood ran down the thread, but it had already learned that the thread existed. It raised its other arm immediately, clearly intending to cut through it in one strike.
I did not let go.
Even with my side burning beneath the armour, I forced my left arm back and pulled, letting the thread bite deeper as the Hollow’s trapped limb jerked to the side.
By then, I had already figured out the greatest limitation of my Imprint.
I could only create a single thread.
More importantly, it could not truly leave me. The thread had to remain tethered to me in some way if I wanted to keep it there, whether that meant holding it, wrapping it, or guiding it with my body, because it was formed from my Ichor and continued drinking from my Reliquary while it remained active.
That meant I could not simply throw it somewhere and leave it to do whatever I wanted.
Not yet, at least.
Some part of me still felt that I would eventually overcome that gap, that the thread would grow alongside me and become something more than this single fragile strand, but for now I had to work with what I had.
The Hollow brought its free arm down.
Its claws cut through the thread in one brutal swipe, snapping the strand apart before it vanished into nothing.
But it had given me enough time.
This is what you get for making me bleed, you damn bastard.
I dashed forward.
The Jian came in from my right in a sharp arc, cutting through the tentacles around the creature’s knot of a head. Several of them fell away at once, black blood spraying across my clothes as the Hollow wailed and threw its arms out wildly.
I ducked beneath one of them, moving closer before driving the Jian straight into the slit across its torso.
The blade pushed between the jagged teeth, sliding deep into the creature’s body as I twisted it with both hands, forcing it further in while the Hollow trembled around the weapon.
For a second, it continued struggling, but then the strength slowly went out of it.
The body collapsed around the Jian before finally going still, black blood running down the blade and over my hands.
Fuck.
I had written fights like this with such enthusiasm before, filling page after page with the glory of some protagonist cutting down evil and standing tall over the bodies of monsters, but the reality of it was nothing like that.
There was nothing clean about it.
There was nothing glorious about feeling the blade cut through something that had been alive only seconds ago, about seeing its blood cover your clothes and hands while its body shook beneath you, about knowing you had kept stabbing because you were too scared to let it get back up. This chapter was taken from novelping dot com without permission.
With a short breath, I pulled the Jian slowly free.
The same pull from before moved through my ribs, though this time the feeling was fainter, less disorienting as it settled and became Ichor.
I shook the blood from my blade before sheathing it again, taking in a deep breath as my chest continued to rise and fall too quickly.
The bleeding at my side had already slowed, though the traces of red were still there beneath the torn leather.
Thankfully, I was no longer human.
I was Touched.
This much was something any Awakened could handle.
And I for one had long since stopped giving pain the weight it had once carried anyway.
As I turned, intending to head deeper into the forest before more Hollows found me, a faint rustle behind the trees drew my attention.
You have got to be shitting me.
Someone stepped out from between the shadows.
His eyes moved over the chaos around us first, taking in the two corpses and the dark blood staining the ground, before finally stopping on me.
Violet pools met my own.
Denn.
One of the Morph family’s sub-line members.
Of course it had to be this bastard.
God knew how long he had been sitting there waiting, watching me fight while I was busy bleeding all over the forest, only to emerge now that I had just finished dealing with two Hollows and was tired enough for him to think I would be easy prey.
"You sure had a busy morning," Denn said, a small smile resting on his face.
"And you just made it busier."
His smile widened slightly as he glanced down at the dead Hollows again. "I was going to ask if you needed help, but it looks like you managed."
"You watched two Hollows try to kill me and considered helping?"
"I considered it."
"How generous of you."
Denn let out a quiet laugh, though he did not look away from me. "You did well, Yun. Better than I expected."
There was something about the way he said it that made my hand move closer to the hilt of my Jian.
"And what exactly were you expecting?"
He shrugged lightly. "Someone who would run once the first Hollow appeared."
"Well, I did run."
"You ran into a tree."
"That was a tactical decision."
"Of course it was."
I almost smiled.
Then Denn’s eyes dropped to the badge at my side.
The amusement in his expression remained, but something else settled beneath it.
"Well," he said, "you could always give me your badge now. We both know how this plays out."
Looking at that slight smirk, I could not help the smile that spread across my face.
"And how would that be?"
Denn’s gaze moved from my bloodstained armour to the torn place at my side before returning to my face.
"With you losing, of course."
My hand settled around the hilt of my Jian.
The forest around us had gone quiet again, the bodies of the Hollows lying between the trees while the blood on my clothes slowly cooled against my skin.
But as I looked at Denn standing in front of me, clearly convinced that all of that made me easy prey, I could not help thinking that maybe this was exactly what I needed.
"Then come take it," I said.