The terrifying distortion of space snapped shut with the force of a vacuum, leaving behind a dead silence.
The air which was sucked during the distortion of space was expelled.
Aegis Valour collapsed against the base of the cliff wall. He sat with his lower body sprawled limply on the ground. His back was resting heavily against the cliff wall. His chest rose and fell— he was breathing in shallow, agonising gasps. All the tolls of forcefully moving his body were catching up to him. He closed his eyes— he was finally letting go of his worries and taking a rest.
It was like a person who did manual labour the whole day and returned at night. The first thing he did was jump on the bed and close his eyes without thinking about anything else.
High up in a tree, Nile clung to his branch. Nile's mind went blank as if a machine was in a lag. He reeled from the sheer madness he had just witnessed.
Nile witnessed the whole thing as though he were in a movie theater, seated in the front row.
From his vantage point, Nile watched the entire nightmare unfold.
When the three wolves appeared, he was happy. Because his plan was working.
During the moment the wolves attack the camp, his focus shifted. He was searching for someone.
'Where is he? Where is he?'
'He is not there?'
'He disappeared!'
'How... how.. how can anyone just disappear? He was just there.'
Nile was talking about the young master. The young master disappeared when he took his eyes off him for a sec.
Nile couldn't focus on him anymore— his attention was pulled towards the horrifying brutality of Guiteng's death. And he also saw how the bandit boss had swiftly killed the wolf which launch itself at him.
But when the two fallen carcasses out of three began to twitch, convulse, and stand back up like a puppets. Nile's blood had run completely cold.
Nile couldn't see that there was something wrong with the wolves before, when they first came out from the forest. Nile couldn't see the blood dripping from their head. He couldn't tell due to the distance between them.
"What the fuck.." he whispered. Fear gripped his throat.
He had not expected the dead to simply rise. He still had no clue that the wolves were being puppeted by an abominable creature.
It reminded him of the zombie movies he watched when he was a kid.
'Are there zombies in this world?'
'If they bite you, will you also turn to one of them?'
'Only one way to find out.'
Nile was afraid, but he was still analysing and studying the wolves.
'So, they can be killed if you separate their head from their body.'
And seeing Guiteng not getting up as a zombie, Nile concluded, 'So you don't turn into a zombie when they bite you. Similar to zombie but different from it.'
'Uff.. at least I know their weakness'
He watched the bandit boss fighting with the one zombie, while the other was dragging itself.
The terror only multiplied when he watched the disembowelled wolf mindlessly throw itself into the campfire, rolling over the fire, extinguishing the fire while its body burned.
"Huhhh???"
Then, the true horror had stepped out into the open.
When the grotesque, three-eyed anomaly with the elongated goat skull walked into the radiant silver moonlight, Nile's breath had caught entirely in his chest. He had never seen something this scary. He thought it was the true horror in flesh.
'What... what is that creature?' he gasped in a low, panicked whisper.
'What kind of world have I transmigrated into?'
'I don't want to stay anymore in this world. I want to go back. Oh God, please take me home.'
He was like a baby crying to his parents. Begging them not to send him to school.
He had watched the desperate, one-sided clash between the bandit boss and the creature. He saw the boss roll, dodge, and make a shallow, useless strike against the creature's back, only to be swatted across the clearing like a ragdoll, slamming into the cliff face.
Nile had truly believed the boss was done for. In the dark moment, Nile found himself cheering for the bandit boss. Because if that monstrous creature won, Nile knew he could also be the next prey to be hunted and killed. But if the bandit boss somehow won, Nile had a chance of escaping and surviving.
Nile saw the bandit boss pulling himself back up with all his strength.
'Yes, you can do it. Don't let that hideous creature kill you.'
It was like a kid cheering for his favourite character in a movie.
'Should I go down and help him? No, I shouldn't'
He quickly denied his thought to help him.
Nile heard the voice of the bandit boss shouting. But he still couldn't understand him.
The bandit boss's voice sounded like he was in prayer, chanting something.
Nile knew it must be the bandit boss's trump card.
The next thing he saw stunned him. It shattered the concept and everything he knew about reality.
He saw the creature being squished, folded, sucked into thin air. No words can describe what had just happened.
It was more like a black hole sucking and squishing a planet, except no black hole can be seen here.
Nile was left speechless. He couldn't think or say for a few moments. Then the words finally came out.
"Are there powers here in this world?"
"Is it possible to gain this type of power?"
Nile was still staring at the place where the space distortion had happened.
Nile concluded the battle was over. He didn't expect the bandit boss's trump card to be this strong.
"I need to finish the last thing."
Right after he said that, he climbed down the tree. His feet landed on the leaves.
He walked in the direction of the camp in the forest.
'I didn't expect to go this way. I wanted to use the wolves to kill them, if not tire them out. But it worked out way better than I anticipated.'
As he walked past a tree on his way to the camp. He saw a small dark figure behind a tree. Fear gripped his heart.
'Another monster?'
He drew his blade from his belt, readying himself for whatever happened next.
'It's small, if it's another of that kind of creature, then it's more reason I must kill it now.'
He slowly walked up to it without trying to alert the whatever creature behind the tree. He slowly peeked at the small dark figure. There he saw not one but two dark figures.