Chapter 4: Ambush in broad daylight (2)

Searing black flames erupted between the carriages, hurling splintered wood and chunks of earth in all directions.

The triplets reacted on instinct—Nicholas threw up a shimmering barrier just as the shockwave hit, but the force still sent them tumbling into the dirt road.

Their carriage flipped sideways with a sickening crunch, the horses screaming as they thrashed against their harnesses. 

Across the wreckage, the girls' carriage burned with unnatural violet fire. 

Lucien rolled to his feet, his dagger already in hand, crimson hair wild around his face. "Now that's more like it!" 

Nicholas rose slowly, his grey eyes scanning the treeline. "Ambush. Professional." 

Julien was already moving toward the flaming wreckage, his boots kicking up ash.

The raven-haired girl burst through the smoke first, her black coat singed at the edges, amber eyes blazing. "What in the seven hells—?" 

Her companion emerged more gracefully, though her silver braid had come half-undone, frost crackled at her fingertips as she took in the scene. 

Then the shadows moved, the forest erupted in violence. 

Men clad in reinforced leather and iron half-masks poured from the trees—twenty, maybe thirty—their weapons glinting in the firelight, no battle cries, no wasted movement, precise and deadly 

Lucien met the first wave with a laugh, his dagger a silver blur.

A swordsman lunged; Lucien sidestepped, his blade carving through the man's wrist before reversing grip and slashing upward across his throat.

Blood sprayed, painting his face crimson.

He licked it from his lips with relish, already pivoting to the next, two came at once—one with a spear, the other a hatchet. Lucien ducked the spear thrust, grabbed the shaft, and yanked the man forward into the hatchet's path.

The second attacker barely registered his mistake before Lucien's dagger found his kidney, a twist, a shove, and he collapsed, choking on his own blood. 

Nicholas "fought" without moving, a masked assailant sprinted toward him—then jerked mid-step as a spike of stone erupted from the ground, impaling him through the gut. Another raised his sword, only for the dirt beneath his feet to liquefy, swallowing him to the waist before hardening instantly.

The man screamed as his bones cracked under the pressure. 

Julien guarded Nicholas flanks, his movements precise. and defensive

A masked swordsman lunged at him; Julien parried with a flick of his wrist, disarming the man in the same motion.

Before the blade hit the ground, his elbow crashed into the attacker's throat, crushing cartilage. Another came from behind. Julien spun, caught the man's wrist mid-swing, and twisted until bone snapped. A knee to the groin, a palm strike to the nose, and the man dropped. 

When an attacker swung a spiked mace at he intercepted, catching the weapon's chain and yanking the man off-balance before driving a knee into his ribs.

The attacker crumpled, but another took his place, this one wielding twin blades that dripped with something dark and viscous. 

The silver-haired girl wasn't idle. Her chant cut through the chaos, and a shard of ice, jagged and massive, materialized midair, impaling an attacker through the chest and pinning him to a tree.

Her companion fought with controlled fury, her every strike from her rapier leaving trails of ember in the air.

A masked assailant swung at her—she caught his arm, and flames engulfed him, his screams cut short as his lungs seared. 

For a moment, it seemed they might prevail. 

Then the air stagnated. 

A figure emerged from nothingness—seven feet tall, its form wrapped in undulating shadows that drank the light, where its face should have been yawned an abyss that made the eyes water to behold. 

The temperature plummeted, their breath fogged in the sudden winter that clung to the shadow-creature's form. 

Lucien attacked first—because of course he did. His dagger struck the creature's chest... And shattered like glass. 

The backhanded blow lifted him clean off his feet., he hit an oak thirty feet away with a crunch that definitely meant broken ribs.

Pain flared white-hot through his torso, but worse than the agony was the shock—the seemly durable dagger he got from his parents broke with 1 hit

Julien barely had time to shout his name before the creature was upon him, it's speed superior and blinding

Its clawed hand—(when had it grown claws?)—pierced through his shoulder like parchment, lifting him bodily before slamming him into the earth hard enough to crater the road.

Julien's vision swam, his mouth filling with the copper tang of blood. 

The girls unleashed their magic in unison—a torrent of fire and ice that would have leveled a fortress, the flames died midair; the ice turned to mist before touching its cloak.

The silver-haired girl's breath hitched—while her companion took an involuntary step back, her fists still smoldering uselessly. 

Nicholas rapidly chanted arcane spells in the Aethos language

The ground erupted in obsidian spikes, each etched with glowing runes— 

The creature walked through them like they weren't there. 

Its claw reached for Nicholas's throat— when suddenly Lucien slammed into the creature from the side, his broken ribs screaming in protest.

He had no weapon left, so he used his teeth, sinking them into the shadow-flesh where a shoulder should be.

The taste was wrong—like ink and rotting leaves—but he held on like a stubborn animal, buying Nicholas half a second to react

Nicholas didn't waste it, he brought his knee up in a brutal strike, not aiming for the creature, but for the ground.

The earth beneath them heaved, throwing the creature off-balance just enough for Nicholas to twist away from its grasp. 

Julien was moving too, dragging himself up despite the blood pouring from his shoulder, he snatched a fallen sword from the dirt and swung—not at the creature, but at the silver-haired girl's ice shard still embedded in a tree.

The blade struck true, and the shard exploded in a hail of razor-edged fragments that peppered the creature's back. 

It hissed—the first sound it had made—and for a single, glorious moment, they saw it flinch. 

Then the shadows moved

Darkness coiled around Lucien's legs and yanked, slamming him face-first into the dirt.

Julien's stolen sword shattered in his grip as an unseen force crushed his wrist, the girls cried out as tendrils of black mist wrapped around their throats, lifting them off their feet. 

Nicholas stood alone, blood dripping from his split lip, his breath ragged. 

The creature turned its void-face toward him and gave what seemed like a smiled

Nicholas spat blood onto the frozen earth, bis body screamed at him—broken ribs, a gash across his collarbone, the taste of iron thick in his mouth—but his mind had never been clearer. 

One chance.

The creature advanced, its shadowy form rippling like a banner in some unfelt wind. Behind it, his friends hung suspended in the air—Lucien cursing weakly as dark tendrils squeezed the breath from him, his fingers twitching toward a dagger he couldn't reach, the girls' magic flickering uselessly against their bonds. 

For a second death seemed so close and hope so far~

-------

-------

Bleh!!! We all already know that some sh*ts gonna happen and all of a sudden bro gets a power up right.

Well it's quite normal, I can't let my little kids die in the first few chapters right....so atleast I'll introduce a reasonable excuse for them to be saved.

√(ツ)✓