The woman standing a few meters in front of Young was none other than Sheila, the notorious Weed-Weaver and sister to the supreme leader of the Exiles. Within the faction's hierarchy, she held a position equivalent to second-in-command. However, a vast chasm separated her from KO, who shouldered the actual, grinding weight of the group's administrative duties.
While KO methodically and calmly executed whatever tasks were assigned to him by Eric, their leader, Sheila operated on her own volatile whims. She possessed the unique, unchecked power to either outright disobey her brother or unilaterally establish her own laws and missions—commandments the rest of the Exiles were strictly expected to obey.
Her unpredictable authority made her a wild card within the ranks, a volatile figure capable of turning a routine operation into a chaotic gamble whenever her personal whims clashed with the greater good, leaving every subordinate perpetually walking on eggshells around her formidable, terrifying presence.
Although these acts of subtle rebellion were not an everyday occurrence, they happened often enough—and frequently over the pettiest of personal desires. Thus, Young had every reason to be thoroughly on guard the moment his eyes landed on her. He could only silently pray that she wouldn't fabricate unnecessary trouble or impose some chaotic new directive on the already battered, exhausted cohort gathered in the ruined camp.
However, just a few moments later, Young's deep dread and intense aversion spiked to unprecedented heights. Directly behind Sheila, her brother, Eric, stepped into the light of the clearing. He was such a startlingly uncanny mirror image of his sister that it bordered on deeply eerie.
While there were distinct physical differences between them—such as his imposing, heavily muscular frame, and his eyes possessing crimson pupils rather than green—his most terrifying trait was his unnerving skin. His flesh bore a dark, bruised pigmentation that looked unnaturally raw, almost as though his muscle tissue had been flayed and turned inside out.
His intimidating posture radiated a suffocating pressure that instantly silenced the area, projecting a sinister aura of an ambitious tyrant who viewed every single member of his faction not as comrades to protect, but merely as disposable pawns waiting to be sacrificed for his ultimate ascendancy.
In terms of temperament, Eric was every bit as chaotic as his sister. He possessed that exact same unsettling glaze in his eyes—a constant, subtle warning that he was capable of committing something violently drastic at a moment's notice. He was infamous for formulating dangerously audacious schemes that served solely his own personal interests, callously leaving the rest of the Exiles to pay a steep, bloody price regardless of whether his plans met with glorious success or catastrophic failure.
Young's anxiety was not stemming from the fear that he would personally get into trouble with Eric; ironically, his mind was actually somewhat at ease regarding direct discipline. If they were ever to encounter an unexpected crisis, Eric was more than powerful enough to face any impending danger head-on.
Unlike his sister's erratic area-of-effect spells and bizarre weed-weaving techniques, Eric's martial abilities were an undeniable boon in a chaotic melee. Furthermore, Young was quietly relieved by Eric's arrival for one crucial reason: he was the absolute only person in the realm capable of reining in Sandra's petty whims and dangerous fantasies.
However, where Young had merely been cautious and guarded around Sandra, the sight of Eric filled him with sheer, unadulterated terror. The reason was painfully simple: wherever Eric went, disaster inevitably followed for the Exiles.
His presence was an infallible harbinger of calamity, a dark omen that signaled the peaceful quiet was merely the eye of a storm about to unleash an unprecedented wave of suffering upon anyone unfortunate enough to stand in his vicinity.
Young could only shudder as he mentally calculated how much worse things were about to become for him. Nect lay completely unconscious nearby, with no indication of whether he would ever open his eyes again. KO—once an invincible, formidable warrior—had been savagely broken in a clash against an advanced soul being.
To make matters worse, Willow could only offer the baffling explanation that the monstrous entity responsible for reducing KO to such a miserable state had mysteriously vanished without a trace.
Compounded by the fact that Young's own journey throughout this entire expedition had been an unbroken chain of catastrophic bad luck, he felt as though he were hanging on by a single, fraying thread. He genuinely feared that one more surprise enemy or stroke of misfortune would push him over the edge—a final, fatal shove off the thread of life.
Staring at Eric once more, every instinct in Young's body screamed that his nightmare was only just beginning.
***
Eric felt a sudden ray of hope ignite within his chest when he spotted the makeshift encampment of soul beings on the distant horizon, situated just a few hundred meters ahead. He had no clear idea why the ethereal warriors had chosen to establish a base here, nor how long they intended to remain posted.
However, he instantly recognized it as a golden opportunity to harvest a massive stockpile of life energy—a vital resource his desperate band of followers desperately required to survive.
Even if the others refused to openly acknowledge their impending doom, Eric could accurately gauge the dwindling lifespan remaining for every single member of his squad.
The insidious infection gnawed relentlessly at their core, quietly devouring their vital essences from the inside out and turning their very flesh into ticking time bombs that threatened to detonate the moment their crumbling willpower finally gave way to the overwhelming corruption.
They proudly called themselves The Exiles, blissfully ignorant of their true nature: they were nothing more than unwitting biological hosts holding back a horrific, ancient plague festering inside their own bodies. Their greatest and most relentless enemy was time itself. With each passing day, Eric was consumed by an overwhelming, agonizing anxiety.
He worried endlessly about what catastrophic fate awaited them if they failed to stall the plague's spread—and what the apocalyptic repercussions would mean for himself, his band of misfits, the dark elves, and the wider world as a whole.
Eric was likely the sole individual among them who truly understood the horrific consequences a dark elf suffered without a constant, steady intake of life energy. He had personally witnessed the brutal degeneration take hold of others, and worse, he had felt the agony of the affliction tearing through his own biology.
He knew with absolute, terrifying certainty that there was no ultimate cure—there was only life energy to temporarily stall the inevitable decay. Not even divine intervention seemed capable of reversing it; perhaps if there existed an entity far greater than God Himself, such a cosmic power might stand a chance of cleansing their cursed bloodlines.
Eric was well aware of the foolish rumors circulating throughout the camp—the misguided belief that his cursed cleaver was the sole catalyst behind his grotesquely bloodied skin and warped form.
However, the Exiles could not have been more dead wrong.