Thal's gaze swept over the group, his face unreadable, his tone low and steady. "We can't stay in here forever," he said. "That thing is waiting. Watching. The longer we stay, the worse it'll be when we face it."
Nyra's fingers twitched near the hilt of her weapon. "And how exactly do we fight that?" she asked, still shaken. "It twisted the forest like it was nothing how are we supposed to kill it?"
"We can kill it," Thal said. "But we have to be smart. The Threshen isn't just a beast. It is the Shadowfern now. The land bends to it, the rivers move with it. If we think we're just fighting a monster, we'll be dead before we land a hit." His expression darkened. "The forest itself will turn against us."
A silence fell over them, broken only by the faint, distant scrape of something against stone. The Threshen was moving. Listening.
Luken swallowed hard. "It's a spirit of hunger," he murmured, almost to himself. "It isn't just a creature it's a force." His fingers tightened around his staff. "You're saying it is the Shadowfern?"
"Not completely," Thal said. "But enough that fire and silver are our only real weapons." He let those words settle, watching their faces as the truth sank in. "We don't have silver," he continued, "so that means fire is our best shot."
Luken had gone stiff at the mention of fire. His grip on his staff was iron tight, knuckles pale. "You want me to fight the forest?" he asked, his voice sharper than he intended.
"You're the only one who can," Thal answered. "The Threshen will try to smother the flames, drown them in the black water, strangle them with the roots. You have to keep it burning."
Luken hesitated, but he knew Thal was right.
A deep, wet creak echoed through the cave. A sound like tree bark splitting open, like something massive shifting just beyond their sight.
"But fire won't stop the forest itself," Luken said grimly. His mind was already racing, working through the problem. "If the Threshen commands the land, the land will fight us. The trees will close in, the rivers will change course " His breath hitched. "And if it's truly tied to the Shadowfern, then killing it might not be enough."
Thal nodded. "Which is why you're the key to this fight." He looked at Luken directly. "You have to fight the land. Keep the forest from swallowing us whole."
Luken hesitated, gripping his staff tighter. He wasn't afraid of a challenge, but this this was unlike anything he had faced before.
The air inside the cave had changed. It wasn't just the dampness or the suffocating tightness of the space it was wrong. The very air pressed against their skin like unseen hands, cold and cloying. Shadows flickered unnaturally, stretching and shifting where there was no light to move them.
Before anyone could respond, a soft sound echoed through the cave. A whisper.
It was too faint to make out at first, just a murmur slithering through the darkness. Then
"Nyra…"
Her breath caught in her throat. She knew that voice though she thought that was impossible, but she knew it.
A sharp inhale from Valen told her he had heard something too. His entire body had gone rigid, his grip so tight around his weapon that his knuckles were white. Luken as well his head snapped toward the shadows, his face stricken with something between shock and terror.
Then it came again.
"Luken… Valen…"
The voice shifted, bending unnaturally. It was a chorus of voices, all familiar yet wrong, weaving together in a hideous mockery of speech.
"You left us… You let us die… We remember."
Nyra's heart pounded violently in her chest. No. No, this wasn't real. It couldn't be real. But the voices she knew them. They all did.
Valen stumbled back, shaking his head. "Shut up," he whispered, barely audible. "That's not "
The voice laughed. A low, guttural sound that scraped along the walls of the cave like nails on stone.
"You can't escape."
The cave shuddered. Thin, black roots slithered through the cracks in the stone, writhing like fingers groping for flesh. The scent of rot thickened. A dark, viscous liquid black water began seeping up from the cave floor, pooling around their boots. It was freezing. The very touch of it sent a deep, biting chill through their bones, as if it were leeching the warmth from their flesh.
Luken inhaled sharply. "Shit " He raised his staff, its tip igniting with a dim, flickering flame. The light barely reached the edges of the cave before the shadows swallowed it whole.
Thal's expression didn't change. He turned to them, his voice calm despite the growing horror around them.
"Stay together," he ordered. "No matter what it says, no matter what you think you hear ignore it. It's trying to break you before the real fight begins."
Nyra forced herself to breathe, gripping her daggers tighter. "Why does it sound like "
"It knows what scares you," Thal interrupted. "It wants you to listen."
The whispering grew louder, twisting into agonized screams, broken sobs memories dragged from the deepest pits of their minds. The cave walls seemed to pulse, the very stone bending inward as if breathing. The black water crept higher, licking at their ankles with an unnatural hunger.
Luken gritted his teeth, slamming the end of his staff against the cave floor. The flame in his palm flared, sending a rush of heat outward. The roots recoiled slightly, but only for a moment.
"It's coming," he muttered.
The cave trembled violently as the Threshen pressed its massive, twisted form against the entrance, the stone groaning under the unnatural force. The whispers clawed at their minds, thick and suffocating, threatening to pull them into an abyss of madness. The blackened roots twisted and snapped like hungry serpents, slithering toward them with wicked intent.
Then came the crack, a sound like the world being split at the spine. Thal moved.
With a single, earth shaking strike, he slammed his fist into the already weakened entrance. The stone didn't just break it shattered, exploding outward like glass. Dust and debris filled the air, but there was no time to react. The moment the passage opened, the Threshen lunged its grotesque, elongated limbs stretching toward them, its yellow eyes burning with malevolent hunger.
But before it could reach them a massive force slammed into it mid air with the weight of a landslide.
Tar, the Minotaur warrior, moved like a force of nature, his colossal axe cleaving through the darkness. The weapon connected with the Threshen's chest, the sheer impact sending it hurtling backward, crashing through the twisted trees with a sickening snap of splintering wood and bone.
The ground quaked as the monstrous creature slammed into the forest, its body rolling through the blackened water, uprooting the land itself. The very trees bent toward it, as if trying to catch and cradle the beast, to pull it back into the shadows where it could reform, regenerate, consume.
"Move!" Thal barked. There was no hesitation.
Nyra, Valen, and Luken bolted forward, scrambling over the broken rocks and into the open air of the Shadowfern. The moment they stepped outside, the cold hit them like a living thing biting, cruel, unnatural. Their breath came out in visible puffs, the frost creeping along the ground at an alarming rate, as if the Threshen's very presence was poisoning the land.
Thal and Tar were already ahead, standing like immovable titans between the group and the recovering creature.
The Threshen rose.
Its form twisted and snapped as it moved, its mangled limbs stretching unnaturally, cracking like breaking ice. Its eyes dozens of them, more than before glowed like burning embers in the darkness. The flesh along its chest, where Tar had struck, was split open, revealing something wrong inside. Not muscle. Not bone. Something shifting.
Then it spoke but it wasn't a single voice. It was many, layered over each other familiar, cruel, pleading, enraged, broken.
"You will not escape."
Luken's grip tightened on his staff, the glowing sigils along the wood flaring to life. Nyra and Valen drew their weapons, but their hands trembled slightly, their minds still reeling from the voices.
Thal exhaled slowly. His golden eyes burned in the dim light.
"Stick to the plan." His voice was calm, unwavering. "Fire first. Then we kill it."
The Threshen let out a deep, guttural growl, the sound vibrating through their bones. The land itself shifted beneath their feet, and it charged.
As the Threshen lunged, the very air around them seemed to freeze solid. The trees groaned and bent toward the beast, their blackened bark cracking under the unnatural force it exuded. The whispers grew louder, the voices clawing at their minds, trying to unravel them and then Luken changed.
He drew a breath, deep and calm, and let the illusion fall. The false image of a human shimmered and broke apart like shattered glass, revealing the truth beneath. His right eye flared a burning, inhuman orange, slit like a predator's. From his forehead, a single, curved black horn jutted out, gleaming in the eerie half light of the Shadowfern. The moment he shed his disguise, the air around him boiled. The frost recoiled, hissing as steam rose in thick waves from the damp ground.
Luken raised his staff, flames erupting around them. The fire roared to life, licking hungrily at the twisted trees, catching on the cursed foliage of the Shadowfern. The forest screamed. The very land itself convulsed, writhing in pain as the cursed roots, the living darkness, recoiled from the purifying heat.
The Threshen shrieked. It was an unnatural sound a wail of agony, fury, and something deeper. Fear.
It lunged toward Luken, moving with blinding speed, its elongated limbs tearing through the ground as it closed the distance. The trees bent with it, the very earth shifting, trying to smother the flames, trying to protect the beast.
"You're not touching him." Thal was faster. Like a thunderclap, he slammed into the Threshen mid leap, his sheer force sending it skidding across the ground. The beast tumbled, limbs twisting unnaturally before it caught itself, claws digging deep into the earth. Its burning yellow eyes snapped to Thal with raw hatred. "NOW!"
Tar came next. The massive Minotaur warrior swung his axe in a devastating arc. The weapon sang through the air before connecting with the Threshen's side. The impact sent a deep, resonant shockwave through the clearing. The creature howled, black ichor spraying from the wound, sizzling as it met the still burning flames.
Valen lunged next, twin blades flashing as he drove them into the Threshen's exposed side. The steel bit deep into twisted flesh, black ichor spraying as the beast recoiled, its movements jerking, limbs bending at impossible angles as it twisted away.
Nyra was already moving, fast and low, striking at its legs. Her blades cut in and forced it to shift, stumble anything to keep it off balance.
They didn't give it room to breathe.
Luken's fire spread like a curse unchained. The Shadowfern ignited, burning bright with unnatural flame, smoke rising in thick columns toward the dead sky. His hands trembled, fingers twitching as the raw energy coursed through him but he held.
Surrounded by fire, the Threshen shrieked again, a sound scraped from the pit of something older than language. It writhed, its elongated body convulsing as if tearing against chains that weren't there. The whispers still poured from it too many voices speaking all at once, echoing too close, too familiar.
Then it spoke a name.
Luken's name.
His eyes widened. His grip faltered for only a breath, barely long enough to register. But it was enough.
The Threshen moved.
In the moment Luken wavered, it struck with savage precision. Thal and Valen reacted instantly, instincts honed, muscles coiled but the beast was faster. With a sickening crack, its grotesque maw yawned wide, far beyond anything natural. Darkness pulsed from its depths, and then
It spewed forth the Fernstalkers.
A tide of writhing, skeletal horrors erupted from its throat. Mangled beasts with too many limbs and glowing yellow eyes poured into the firelight, their forms slick with rot and malice, screaming without mouths. They hit like a flood of nightmares.
Thal barely managed to brace before three of them slammed into him, jagged claws raking across his arms as they shredded his cloak. He grunted, holding them off with brute strength alone. Valen found himself pressed back under their weight, blades flashing, cutting through the swarm, but more kept coming always more.
The Threshen didn't pause.
It surged forward, limbs cracking as they bent in impossible directions, and hurled itself toward Tar. The Minotaur didn't flinch. With a roar that rattled the trees, he stepped into the charge and swung his axe in a brutal arc, aiming to cleave the abomination clean in half.
The blow met resistance with a metallic clang that echoed like a bell struck by thunder. The Threshen had caught it.
Its long, twisted fingers closed around the steel mid swing, stopping the weapon cold. Sparks danced from the point of impact, the sound still ringing in the scorched air as the two titans locked into place neither yielding, neither blinking. The earth beneath them cracked and groaned beneath the strain.
Tar growled, hooves grinding into the charred soil as he pushed forward, veins bulging beneath his furred arms. His muscles rippled with the force of his will, each breath a growl torn from his chest. The Threshen hissed in reply, its claws digging into the metal, nails biting so deep the axe began to groan under the pressure.
Nyra moved. She saw the opening Tar had the creature's focus, even if only for a moment. She surged forward, gripping her axe tightly, ready to strike but she never got the chance.
The Threshen turned fast, faster than anything that size should move. Its clawed hand lashed out, grabbing her arm in a vice like grip. Pain exploded through her limb.
The freezing touch of the Threshen seeped into her skin, numbing it instantly. It wasn't just cold it was wrong, an unnatural chill that sank into her very bones. Her breath hitched as she struggled, but its grip was unyielding. She clenched her teeth, trying to yank herself free, but the Threshen's grip only tightened, pulling her closer. Its gaping maw loomed before her, breath reeking of decay and frost, its rows of jagged teeth stretching wide.
Then, the whispers shifted. It wasn't clawed. It wasn't monstrous. It was human.
Her breath caught in her throat. She turned and saw his face. Her heart stopped.
"Nyra," it whispered. "It's me."
A voice from the past. A voice she knew. "Big Brother…?"
Her grip faltered. Just for a second. The Threshen lunged.
A blast of fire tore through the cave, knocking Nyra backward. Luken's magic sent the creature sprawling, flames licking hungrily at its twisted flesh. It smiled. A grotesque, knowing smile.
"DO NOT LISTEN TO IT!" Thal roared, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade.
Nyra gasped, snapping back to reality. The illusion was gone. The thing that had spoken to her was no longer human it never had been. It was a monster.
The moment Thal's voice thundered through the chaos, it shattered the Threshen's hold on her mind.
"DO NOT LISTEN TO IT!"
Nyra's breath hitched, the haze of whispers unravelling in an instant. Her body reacted before her mind could catch up.
With a primal roar, she swung her axe not at the Threshen, but at herself.
The blade cleaved clean through her arm just below the shoulder.
The severed limb dropped to the ground.
The Threshen let out a piercing screech, its jagged maw gaping in twisted shock as its prize slipped through its grasp. It had expected fear, surrender. But it had not expected this.
The others froze in horror. Luken's face paled, his mouth opening as if to shout, but no words came. Valen took an instinctive step forward, eyes wide, unable to process what he had just seen. Even Tar, still locked in a battle of raw strength with the creature, briefly faltered.
Then they saw it. The blood from Nyra's severed limb didn't spill onto the ground. It didn't fall, didn't weaken her.
Instead, the crimson liquid stretched from her shoulder like a taut stream, pulsing and writhing as though alive. Veins and muscle extended through the air, forming a connection no, a link between her body and the detached limb moved. Nyra's fingers twitched then clenched. The severed arm was still hers.
Luken blinked rapidly, barely able to comprehend what he was seeing. "What in the…."
But Nyra wasn't listening. A manic grin spread across her face as she surged forward, using her own severed limb as an anchor.
The blood link contracted, yanking her forward like a slingshot. The momentum hurled her into the air, high above the fight. Her remaining arm gripped her axe tightly as she twisted midair, angling her body to crash back down toward the Threshen.
The creature's empty, glowing eyes snapped up. For the first time… It hesitated.
Nyra came down like a meteor.
Her axe slammed into the Threshen's elongated skull with a brutal, crunching impact.
The force sent a shockwave through the clearing. The twisted trees groaned, the ground splintered. The blackened water of the Shadowfern recoiled, shuddering away from the sheer force of her strike.
The Threshen let out a bloodcurdling screech, its body convulsing under the weight of the attack.
Nyra landed, crouched in the dirt, her severed arm still twitching in the air beside her, connected by nothing but living blood. Then she lifted her head, her silver hair wild, her crimson eyes blazing. "Round two, you ugly bastard!"