Its body coiled, segments flexing, then it launched.
Harlen met it head-on.
The spear drove into the gap between two chitinous plates. The impact rattled up his arms, nearly tearing the weapon from his grip.
Not deep enough.
The centipede shrieked—a grinding, metallic sound that clawed at the inside of his skull.
One of its hands came down in a blur.
Harlen twisted aside. Claws scraped across his shoulder, tearing through cloth and skin. Blood welled immediately.
He gritted his teeth and struck again.
The spear bit deeper this time, cracking through armor. Black ichor sprayed.
The beast recoiled, feelers flaring.
Then it pulsed again.
Harder.
Harlen staggered as the frequency wave hit. His nose bled freely now. His vision doubled for a moment before he forced it back into focus.
Too slow.
The centipede adapted.
Its body shifted, plates overlapping differently, minimizing the gaps he'd been targeting. It moved faster now, more aggressive, learning from every exchange.
Harlen circled, breathing hard.
He was strong. Experienced. Blessed by the Goddess herself.
But he was also old.
And tired.
The centipede lunged.
Harlen sidestepped—but not far enough.
One of its hands caught his left arm.
The impact was devastating.
Bone snapped with a sound like green wood breaking. Harlen screamed, the spear falling from nerveless fingers.
The centipede reared back, preparing to finish him.
Harlen dropped to one knee, cradling his shattered arm.
His vision swam. Blood dripped from his chin onto the cracked earth.
*This is it*, he thought distantly. *This is how it ends.*
Then he thought of Vesperyn.
Bleeding. Unconscious.
Alone.
…..
(POV: Vesperyn)
What… was that?
The thought barely formed before the pain pulled him back.
Vesperyn groaned and tried to move. His body answered with a dull, spreading ache instead. Everything felt wrong—heavy, distant, like his limbs were wrapped in soaked cloth.
Blood covered him.
Not in one place. Everywhere. His shirt clung to his skin, stiff and damp. His hands were slick when he pressed them into the dirt, fingers trembling as if they didn't quite belong to him anymore.
He didn't remember bleeding like this.
He didn't remember anything after Harlen threw him.
The barrier around him flickered.
Thin lines of light crawled across its surface, brightening and dimming.
Vesperyn swallowed and clutched his chest.
Will he be alright?Harlen—
Something shifted nearby.
His breath caught.
"Oh no," he whispered. "Not now. Please—not now."
The barrier flickered again.
And with it
Metallic. Sharp. Fresh.
Blood Smell.
Harlen's barrier wasn't failing outright—but it was thinning. Leaking. Letting the scent slip into the forest like a signal flare.
Vesperyn squeezed his eyes shut.
This is the worst timing. This is the worst place.
He tried to push himself up.
Pain flared instantly, white and nauseating. His arms gave out, and he dropped back down with a weak sound that barely counted as a groan.
Useless.
Something moved again—closer this time.
Two shapes emerged from the bushes.
They were wrong.
Brown and black flesh stretched over frames that didn't quite match, joints bending too far, limbs too long or too short. Their heads hung low, noses twitching as they tested the air.
Echoes.
They noticed the barrier.
Both lunged.
The impact rang through the field, a dull, hollow thud that vibrated straight through Vesperyn's bones. The light flared in response, then dimmed again—slower this time.
"Stop," Vesperyn whispered, though he didn't know who he was talking to.
He forced himself to sit up.
His vision swam. Dark spots crowded the edges. His body refused to listen.
More shapes appeared.
One. Then another.
They circled the barrier, clawing, striking, throwing themselves against it with mindless persistence. Each hit stole a little more light.
Harlen had told him Echoes couldn't break the barrier.
He hadn't said what would happen if the one who made it was bleeding somewhere else.
Vesperyn's jaw clenched.
I can't even stand.I can't help.I'm always like this.
The barrier cracked.
A thin fracture split across its surface, spreading slowly, like ice under pressure.
An Echo slammed into it again.
The light shattered.
Vesperyn shut his eyes.
He didn't scream.
He didn't run.
He just waited.
Vesperyn felt hands close around his throat.
Not hands.
Claws.
The Echo's grip tightened, crushing his windpipe. He tried to gasp and couldn't. Tried to scream and only managed a thin, broken wheeze.
His vision flashed purple.
Then red.
Then something darker.
His lungs convulsed, demanding air that wouldn't come. Panic flooded through him, animal and overwhelming.
*I'm going to die.*
The thought was clear. Final.
*This is how it ends.*
Then—
Something inside him cracked.
Not bone. Not flesh.
Something deeper.
The sensation was immediate and wrong, like a seal breaking.
The world lurched.
Reality stuttered.
One moment, he was being strangled in the forest.
The next,
He slammed down onto a surface that felt like broken glass, Pain flared sharp and absolute, tearing a hoarse sound from a throat that had just been crushed.
He rolled instinctively, gasping, tasting ash instead of blood.
*What—*
His hands pressed against the ground.
Not dirt.
Not stone.
Grey ash Fine and cold, stretching outward in every direction.
Vesperyn forced his eyes open.
This wasn't the forest.
There was no sky. No ground, not really. Just endless grey, flat and featureless, like the remains of something burned too completely to remember what it had been.
And above him—
A Crimson eye.
Vesperyx's breath stopped for an entirely different reason.
The eye filled everything.
Not floating. Not attached to anything visible. Just there, vast and unblinking, so massive that looking at it felt like standing at the base of a mountain and trying to see the peak.
His mind couldn't measure it.
Refused to.
The eye wasn't looking at him specifically.
It was looking at everything. Through everything.
Into everything.