Ep. 79 A Demons Mask Part 3

I took one final look at what I'd done. The innocent man—controlled by some unknown force—lay dead at my feet, his life cut short by my blade. A necessary evil, perhaps, but it weighed on me nonetheless.

"Kai, come on," Rowan urged, his voice snapping me out of my dark thoughts.

I turned to face him, but as I did, my heart turned to ice. Rowan stood framed in the window, oblivious to the horror behind him. The monster—the same grotesque creature we'd narrowly escaped—was already in motion, mere feet from the building, charging on all fours with terrifying speed.

"ROWAN!" My scream echoed through the building, but it was too late.

The beast crashed through the window in an explosion of shattered glass. Drool flew from its blood-thirsty maw as it raised its deformed head over Rowan's left shoulder, making feral, rabid noises before clamping down with jagged teeth.

I saw the light in Rowan's eyes fade into terror, his mouth opening to say something as he was swiftly dragged backward through the broken window.

"KAI!" he yelled, reaching for me as the monster's jaws tightened. With a violent twist of its head, the creature hurled Rowan across the street with impossible force.

My friend's body slammed into the stone wall of the building opposite us. Even from where I stood, I heard the sickening impact—the crunch of bone, the wet thud of flesh. Rowan slid down the wall, leaving a crimson trail in his wake, his broken body crumpling to the ground.

Beside me, Maya stared in horror, a soft whimper escaping her lips. "R-Rowan?"

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, her expression transformed. The fear in her eyes hardened into burning rage, her hands clenching into tight fists.

"ROWAN!" she screamed, her voice raw with grief and fury.

Flames erupted around her clenched fists—her magic responding to her emotions, burning brighter and hotter than I'd ever seen before. With a guttural cry, she unleashed a fireball at the monster still hovering at the broken window.

The flames struck the beast's chest, making it flinch but doing little else. It pushed through the lingering fire and screamed, its hideous head peering through the shattered window frame.

But Maya didn't relent. She launched another fireball, then another, and another. With each blast, she let loose a desperate grunt, the continuous barrage of flames pushing the monster back into the street. It waved its arms frantically, screaming as the fire scorched its gray skin.

"MAYA!" I yelled, but my voice couldn't reach her through her rage. She was beyond reason, consumed by grief and the desperate need for vengeance.

Again and again, she struck the monster with her flames. "I'LL KILL YOU!" she roared, her voice emerging from the deepest part of her soul.

With a final, tremendous effort, Maya summoned a pillar of flame from the ground beneath the beast. It engulfed the creature entirely, its screams of pain piercing the night air until finally, Maya released the spell, her strength nearly spent.

The flames dissipated, revealing the monster collapsed on the street, motionless. Its limbs didn't twitch; no sound came from its mouth. It lay still in a charred, smoking heap.

Had she done it? Was it dead?

Maya's face remained contorted with rage as she stepped through the broken window, approaching the monster's body. "Is that all you got?" she spat, venom dripping from every word.

Something didn't feel right. My stomach knotted with dread as I looked closer at the scene before me. There—barely visible beneath the char and ash—the monster's eye... opened.

No. No, no, no.

I grabbed my sword tighter and sprinted forward as fast as my legs could carry me. "MAYA, IT'S STILL ALIVE!" I screamed.

I saw Maya's body tense as she took a step back, beginning to summon another flame in her right hand. But it was too late.

The monster leapt from where it lay with unbelievable speed. Before Maya could even raise her hand to defend herself, it grabbed her face with its pale, slender fingers and hoisted her into the air.

Maya immediately fought back, shooting fireballs into the creature's torso at point-blank range. The monster didn't even flinch. Instead, it smiled—that same terrible, inhuman smile I'd seen before.

I was almost there, just a few feet away. I could save her. I had to save her. "MAY—"

My words died in my throat, my sprint halting abruptly when the sound of Maya's head... popping... entered my ears.

The monster had barely exerted any strength at all as it crushed her skull in its grip. It released her, and Maya's lifeless body fell to the ground. There was nothing left of her head, only a smear on the monster's palm and dark spatters across its grinning face.

I dropped my sword, my legs trembling as I stared at her body before me, then at Rowan's broken form behind the monster. My two closest friends, the people I'd sworn to protect, both gone in mere moments.

"Er... agh..." I tried to speak, to say something—anything—but only broken sounds emerged from my throat.

I fell to my knees, looking up at the monster still smiling but not attacking, almost as if it was giving me time to absorb the horror before me. A psychological torture worse than any physical pain it could inflict.

And then, from somewhere deep inside me, a scream erupted. It tore through my body, rattling my bones as it escaped my lips. The sound was primal, inhuman in its intensity—a howl of grief so profound it might have traveled across the entire continent.

I kept screaming without stopping, tears flooding down my face, until minutes later, my voice finally gave out. As I blinked through the tears, but as I opened my eyes everything had changed.