Horrendous cries echoed behind them, sending chills down their spines as they tore across the sea of bones. Each step cracked and shifted beneath their feet—skulls splintering, ribs snapping—threatening to drag them down into the graveyard itself.
The entire legion of white monsters was upon them.
Their cries came from all sides now—shrill, guttural, inhuman—layering over one another until it became a single, maddening roar.
Henry risked a glance over his shoulder—and instantly regretted it.
They were everywhere.
Pale figures surged over the bone dunes like a living tide, their elongated limbs jerking unnaturally as they crawled, leapt, and skittered forward. Devilish eyes burned with a dim, sickly glow, all fixed on the same target.
Them.
"Don't look back!" Darius snapped. "Just run!"
"I am running!" Henry shot back, breath ragged, lungs screaming as the cold air tore through his chest.
One of the monster was coming even faster from behind them, screaming.
Krahhhh
"They're gaining!" Henry yelled—too close, too loud.
Darius stole a glance at the creature and realized it was already dangerously close. If they kept running like this, it would catch them eventually.
"Henry!"
Darius skidded to a stop and turned back—against all logic—forcing Henry to stop as well.
"What the hell—"
Henry looked behind him just as the monster leapt onto him, its thin arm lashing out. A jet of flame struck it in midair, hurling it off to the side in a burst of shrieks.
More of them were coming now, from every direction.
"Let's take the high ground!" Darius shouted.
They ran up the heap—more a hill—of bones, scrambling to the top as fast as they could.
From there, the boneyard stretched out around them, clearer and more terrifying than ever. The white monsters were everywhere, covering the sea of bones in every direction, their horrendous cries echoing through the darkness.
"This did sound like a good idea!" Henry said, his voice a little strangled. "But now what? Can your flames take all of them?"
He looked at Darius, who was breathing heavily as he watched the Vomeks swarming up the hill.
"They're like… a thousand…" he breathed, terror clinging to his voice.
One of them had already climbed the hill, snarling as it scrambled upward, its limbs jerking with unnatural speed.
Darius reacted instantly.
A burst of flame roared from his hand, slamming into the creature and sending it tumbling back down the slope. Its scream ripped through the air as it burned, twisting in agony among the bones.
But another surged up from the opposite side.
Darius turned—fired again.
Flames exploded outward, catching it mid-lunge and hurling it back into the swarm below.
Then another came.
And another.
Each time he struck, the fire lit the darkness for a split second—just enough to reveal the truth.
They weren't slowing down.
They were multiplying.
"They just keep coming!" Henry shouted, stumbling back as more pale figures clawed their way up the hill, their hollow eyes glowing brighter with every passing second.
"Can't you cast a spell or something — anything?" Hollered Darius as he bathed them with flames.
"I told you — "
Henry opened his mouth to say something, then froze.
One of the monsters had already climbed to the top.
It stood only a few steps away, watching him in silence. No shriek. No guttural cry to draw Darius's attention, who was already turned toward the surge of Vomeks climbing up the other side of the hill.
The creature's lips slowly pulled back.
Henry could not tell if it was a grin, but it exposed row after row of chisel-shaped teeth—hundreds of them, jagged enough to bite through iron.
The thing snarled and crept closer.
Desperately, Henry snatched up the nearest bone—a hand, by the feel of it—and hurled it at the creature's face.
The bone struck with a crack.
The monster only gave a low, hostile groan.
Then it lunged.
Henry shrieked, yanking his hands free as he spoke in a sorcerer's tongue: "Nightcurse."
It worked—unexpectedly.
Dark blue essence erupted from his palms and struck the creature, hurling it backward off its feet.
But it was more of a shove than a decisive blow. The creature staggered under the impact—yet it didn't fall. With a guttural snarl, it lunged again, faster this time, as if the spell only drove it forward.
Henry's breath caught.
No… that wasn't right.
"The Circle…" he muttered, forcing his mind to focus through the chaos. "They don't suppress magic—"
The Vomek was already on Henry, its weight crashing into him as it lunged for his face.
Before it could tear in, Darius slammed into it from the side, knocking it off balance. Flames erupted from his hands in a scorching blast, engulfing the creature mid-motion.
It never even got the chance to scream before it was burned to ash.
"Watch out!" Darius shouted at the Henry as another Vomek lunged from the side.
A blazing arc slammed into the creature, searing through its pale body. It shrieked as flames clung to it, eating into its flesh.
"It's the Vomek!" he shouted. "They're immune to spells—direct spells! They don't take the magic the way anything else would!"
Darius didn't stop firing. Another blast tore into a lunging Vomek, ripping it off the slope in a spray of embers.
"Then why are they dying?!" he barked.
"Because your fire is real!" Henry snapped back. "You're not just casting—you're creating it! The flames burn them, but the spell itself doesn't bind them, doesn't stop them!"
Another Vomek burst through the fire, its body half-charred, yet its claws still reaching.
Darius stepped back, jaw tightening, and unleashed another blast of fire, hurling the creature back down the hill.
"They don't fall easy…" he muttered, flames flaring hotter in his palm.
Henry swallowed, staring as more pale shapes flooded the ridge, their numbers swallowing the firelight of their fallen comrades bellow.
"We need to think of a better plan if we want to get out of this alive," Darius said under his breath, his voice tight but controlled despite the chaos closing in around them.
Another wave of Vomeks surged up the ridge, their shrieks merging into a single deafening roar that shook the very bones beneath their feet.
Darius stepped forward and raised both hands.
For a moment, the battlefield seemed to hesitate with him.
Then the fire changed.
It did not come in scattered bursts anymore—it erupted as a living storm. A spiraling inferno roared down the slope in a blazing torrent, tearing through the darkness as if it had been unleashed from the heart of the world itself.
The advancing legion of Vomeks was swallowed in an instant.
Flames devoured the ridge, carving a burning path through bone and shadow alike, turning the endless swarm into a collapsing wall of ash and screaming light.
The darkness was no longer dark.
It was gold—violent, blinding, and unstoppable.
Henry watched the inferno spread, his mind racing through fragments of ancient texts and half-remembered details. Then, a thought cut through the chaos with terrifying clarity: not to fight them one by one—but to end this in a single, devastating strike.
His eyes hardened as he turned to Darius.
"I think I know how to stop them."