CHAPTER 216: DIE CLEAN

The Awakened had collapsed wherever their legs had given out.

Maggie on a rock, her halberd planted between her knees; Zirel leaning against a tree trunk, motionless like a cracked sculpture; Elisa sitting on the ground, spear resting on her shoulder, head tilted back, eyes closed; Rony and the other two—Armin and Inès—more or less slumped together.

All around them, ordinary soldiers bustled. Filthy blades, soaked gloves—they butchered the carcasses like hurried butchers, digging through blackened entrails to extract the anima gems. Each shard ripped free gleamed for a moment in the dust before being tossed into a sealed metal box.

Due to the many restrictions imposed by the guilds and clans, no one except recognized Awakened had the right to buy or sell anima gems. And even for absorption, one had to be sponsored by a clan or guild.

So for these ordinary soldiers, the essence gems were forbidden fruit.

"They’ve got it easy, huh?" growled a corporal, low enough for only his comrades to hear—but not low enough to escape Maggie’s sharp ears.

She smirked faintly but didn’t move.

Zirel answered without even opening his eyes:

"We can trade if you want. You take the front line and the gems, and I’ll stay safe in the rear."

A few nervous laughs burst out, smothered almost instantly.

Maggie sighed, rubbing her face with sticky hands.

"Shut it. If I hear one more word about ’who deserves what,’ I swear I’ll throw my share in the river just to see your faces."

Elisa cracked her eyes open, looking distant, and muttered in a tired but biting voice:

"You’re too stingy for that."

This time, genuine laughter erupted—even from the soldiers.

For a second, the dust and blood faded behind that absurd little bubble of relief.

Then Zirel spoke again, more serious this time:

"Laugh all you want. Those were just scouts. If they’re prowling around here, we’re close to a nest—or something worse."

He straightened slightly, eyes fixed on the horizon where the sky seemed swallowed by a dark mist.

"And when those things realize their scouts aren’t coming back, you know what they’ll do?"

Silence fell, thick and heavy, until Maggie broke it:

"So what do we do? It’s not like anyone came here expecting a stroll in the gardens."

Elisa spat into the dust, finally standing, her spear tucked under her arm.

"Let’s take the time to absorb the anima gems. We came here for that too. Strengthen our cores and our chances of survival."

The silence that followed was heavy, thick with dust and the metallic stench of dried blood. Elisa’s proposal—pragmatic and brutal—hung in the hot air.

Maggie slowly turned her head toward the sealed metal box, placed near a soldier whose hands still dripped with viscous blackness. Her gaze, weary but sharp, swept over the group of Awakened.

"The elf’s right, for once," she grumbled, hauling herself painfully to her feet. The rock had left deep aches in her muscles. "We’re all drained, and whatever’s coming won’t ask nicely like some courted maiden."

She jerked her chin toward the box. "Corporal! Toss that here. Now. Keep a handful for yourselves—just in case you run into a stray beast. But not one more, got it?"

The corporal—a burly man with a face carved by exhaustion and an old scar—stared at her for a moment. A flash of greed flickered in his eyes before fading into resigned professionalism. He nodded wordlessly and carried the heavy box to Maggie’s feet. The cold metal clinked against stone.

"Rony, Armin, Inès," Maggie called, her voice regaining a shred of authority. "On your feet. This isn’t a picnic, but we’re patching ourselves up. Equal shares. And absorb fast. No time to admire the scenery."

The other three Awakened, who had seemed half-melted into the dusty ground, stirred with muffled grunts. Rony—a tall man with broad shoulders but a soot-streaked, youthful face—dropped to one knee. Armin, leaner and perpetually tense, pushed himself up using his shortsword. Inès, the only other woman in the group, her short black hair matted with sweat, simply rolled onto her side and held out a hand, eyes half-lidded.

Zirel, still leaning against his tree, finally opened his eyes—steel-gray and cold. They locked onto the horizon, where the dark mist loomed. "It’s getting closer," he murmured, too low for anyone but Maggie and Elisa to hear. A new tension coiled through his shoulders. "No time for whining. Elisa was right. Absorb. Now."

Elisa was already reaching into the open box. She grabbed an irregular shard, the size of a chicken egg, deep black streaked with pulsing veins of electric violet. She clenched it in her fist, closed her eyes. A near-imperceptible shiver ran through her, and a dull violet glow briefly emanated from her whitened knuckles. A long, ragged exhale escaped her lips, as if expelling the weight of accumulated exhaustion. When she reopened her eyes, a hard, almost feral gleam shone in them, barely masking the lingering fatigue.

Maggie took another, smaller gem—a dark blood-red one. She didn’t close her eyes. She stared at it, and intense heat seemed to radiate from her palm. The air around her hand wavered slightly, distorting the light like heat over a fire. The gem’s redness flared—then snuffed out abruptly, reduced to a dull pebble that Maggie dropped into the dust. Color returned to her pale face, and her fingers tightened with renewed strength around her halberd’s haft.

Around them, the soldiers watched, fascinated and uneasy. The corporal held a small bluish gem, rolling it nervously between his slick fingers—unable to use it, doomed to be its temporary keeper. The envy in their stares was palpable, a mix of forced admiration and quiet resentment. They were the butchers, the laborers—never the beneficiaries.

Then—a harsh, distant screech tore through the heavy silence. Not the cry of any known beast, but something organic and deeply wrong, vibrating through the very ground.

Every head turned toward the dark horizon. Zirel stood fully upright, his statue-like stillness shattered.

"Too late for the rest," Maggie growled, snatching the half-empty box and slamming it shut with a sharp clang. The metallic sound rang like a death knell. She hurled it at the corporal. "Move your asses! Positions! And if I catch anyone pocketing a shard, I’ll ram it through their eye myself!"

Elisa had already pivoted, her spear held low and ready, gaze locked on the shifting mist. The brief laughter from earlier belonged to another world. The bubble of respite had burst, replaced by the acrid taste of dust, fear, and the burning anima now coursing through their exhausted veins—ready to be spent in the blood and fire to come. The mist advanced, devouring the light.

A sudden commotion shook the soldiers’ ranks. The men, who had been hacking flesh and gems from corpses, now scrambled to grab spears, bows, their pitiful shields. The cracked, dry ground pulsed rhythmically—as if each thud came from the heart of some unseen monster buried beneath the dust.

Maggie planted her halberd before her and took a deep breath. The fatigue she’d just eased crept back in like a rusty blade twisted too fast. But her voice, when it rose, cracked like a whip:

"Form up! Two ranks, hold the line! And I better not see a single gap in this damn wall of flesh!"

The corporal nodded, bellowing orders in turn, and the men scrambled into a feverish chaos. The Awakened, meanwhile, spread out instinctively—Zirel climbed a rock for a clearer view, Armin positioned himself slightly back, fingers twitching on his shortsword as if ready to lunge. Rony gritted his teeth, breathing hard like an ox, and Inès, still half-asleep, rolled her shoulders as if shaking off stiffness.

Elisa didn’t move. Her slender frame, planted firmly on steady legs, looked like a statue. Her blue eyes stayed fixed on the creeping mist, swallowing the horizon. She seemed to be waiting for a signal only she could sense.

"This won’t be pretty," she murmured, not turning her head. "Not pretty at all."

A hush fell over their small band, broken only by the whistle of an unnatural wind. Then—something emerged from the mist. Not a full beast. Not yet. Just a fragment. A limb. An enormous, oil-black leg, studded with chitinous hooks that scraped the ground with a hideous screech.

The front-line soldiers took an involuntary step back.

"Hold the line, you shits!" roared the corporal, his voice raw with dust. "You step back, you’re already dead!"

Behind him, Maggie shrugged, bared her teeth, and raised her halberd. The residual heat from the gem still burned in her veins.

"Perfect," she muttered to herself. "Let’s see if all that suffering was worth it."

The mist finally split open—and what emerged was nothing like anything they’d fought before: a shapeless mass, stitched together from too many parts, with too many eyes and too many legs. A warped abomination—or worse, something from elsewhere.

A fetid breath washed over their ranks. Some soldiers vomited on the spot. Elisa’s lips curled into a cold smile.

"Dylan would’ve loved to see this."

Then she planted her spear in the ground and settled into her stance.

"Let’s die clean."