Chapter 19

Layan fled into the night, the fluid shadows chasing him out of the dying fire light as the feeling of something powerful grew behind him. He was just fast enough to keep one step ahead of the monsters. With sudden quick flicks of his swords keeping the fastest from catching up to him.

There was a sudden explosion of light and pressure booming out from behind him and for a moment the night was lit up like it was noon. Layan was picked up by a massive wave of pressure and flung into the trees hundreds of meters away. He slammed into the trees breaking through one, two, three before he lost count as the pain of being pinballed through the forest overwhelmed him.

The inky shadow monsters were simply flash fried into particles in the intense burst of light. Thousands of monsters killed in an instant. The pressure wave hit the tree line just after Layan bending the trees nearly in half before they bounced back smoking and burning.

Layan was pushed free from the trees, his broken body flying out into the night like a leaf in the wind. The massive force of the explosion sent him tumbling into the air. When he hit the earth, he cartwheeled across the ground like a rag doll. His consciousness long gone, the combination of impacts and g forces giving him no chance.

In the center of the explosion a cloud of smoke and dust was rising the heat forming it into a growing mushroom. And deep inside the black and red glowing cloud a throbbing light was visible. The beating of a vast powerful heart, pulsing in the aftermath of the destruction.

A hunched over figure was glowing in the cloud. It was huge, towering at least four or five meters even crouched down on its heels. The figure had the vague shape of a woman. Only there was nothing human about it. The edges were blurred with the heat radiating from the glowing light which made up its edge. It was a figure made up of pure energy. A being made from light and heat.

It stood amongst the ash and waste of all that was left of the people of Ben's Hollow. Raising its face to the sky the mushroom cloud growing slowly above. A roar like the sound of a raging forest fire filled the night as the monster screamed its rage into the night. Its feet slowly lifted from the ground, rising its seven-and-a-half-meter form into the night sky raging and roaring as it reached for its head trying to rip out its hair.

The floating figure unable to hurt itself, she finally flashed away like lighting in the night sky. One moment she was filling the night with her pain and anger, the next all that was left was the damage to the earth from her of rebirth.

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The shock and flash of the giant explosion was easily seen across the nearby countryside. A pair of curious eyes lifted towards the sudden flash of bright light. The distant sound rumbling through the night moments later.

A small figure stood from her resting place in the large open field. She was someway outside town and her mother would be pissed since she was not supposed to be outside at night. Especially since the monsters started. Not that she would listen to that old hag. What did she know anyway?

The world had changed, sitting inside drinking and fucking her latest dead-beat boyfriend to hide from the world was not going to change anything. The creep had even started with those signs that he was looking at her. She shivered at the memories of being touched in the night by dark figures always whispering and threatening as they hurt her.

Looking into the night where the light had come from, she decided at that very moment that she would never go back there. Her face was hard with determination. While her heart quivered with fear of what was waiting for her back in that house. Driving her out into the dark woods less afraid of the monsters outside than she was of being trapped like she had been her whole life.