Chapter 7
Carter could feel it—something shifting around Varka. The man's stance wasn't just defensive; it was as though he had wrapped himself in an armor woven from his very will. The air thickened, reality itself bending to his resolve, and for a moment Carter felt that armor around himself too, as if Varka's determination was shielding him.
The creatures didn't hesitate. They lunged, moving faster than Carter's eyes could track. Snezna had vanished from his sight entirely, swallowed by the chaos. Varka's world narrowed—his entire being focused on the nightmare abominations.
One of them snapped its arm forward, hurling something that shimmered like glass but flew with supersonic speed. Varka barely registered it in time, his instincts screaming: Fast. He slipped aside, but before Carter could even exhale in relief, everything around him darkened.
A blink—and Carter was somewhere else. Teleportation? He had no time to question it. Varka's body moved without hesitation, conjuring a blade of shadow and severing a nightmare's head from behind. For an instant Carter thought they had won—until the creature's body ignored the loss of its head, staggering forward unfazed. These things weren't bound by flesh.
But Varka wasn't striking flesh. He was striking existence. Die, Varka thought, the will hammering through Carter's mind as though it were his own. The nightmare froze. Its wound filled with Varka's denial, and the abomination began to unravel, its form evaporating into nothing.
Another lunged instantly, shards of reality-glass aiming for Varka's chest. He blocked, the sheer force sending him tumbling backward. Using the momentum, he flipped in midair, teleported before touching the ground, and reappeared behind his attacker. His blade thrust for the heart—yet the nightmare caught it barehanded.
Two more attacked at once. One clapped its hands, releasing a shockwave that shattered the forest in a violent roar. Another sprinted, its hands stretching unnaturally toward Varka's neck, but its grip warped, as if reality itself was twisting around his throat. For a breathless second Carter felt it too—the wrongness of that touch, like the world itself bending to snap.
Then came the snap.
A thunderous crack split the air, followed by a shockwave that hurled the nightmare back and carved a tunnel of destruction through the trees. Varka teleported away in the chaos, his eyes catching a glimpse of Snezna high above, loosing an arrow that detonated like a meteor strike. I owe him one, Varka thought grimly.
The fight was only beginning.
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Varka reappeared above the nightmare that had unleashed the supersonic waves. Sword in hand, he dove. The creature looked up, its alien gaze almost human in its mockery: Your tricks are getting old.
Varka smiled. One word filled his thoughts. Fool.
Darkness lunged forward, swallowing them both. In the void, Varka released his sword, letting it fall. His will echoed through Carter's skull like a commandment: Become heavy. Strike true.
The blade plummeted, but the nightmare still deflected it with unnatural precision. Yet that had never been the true strike. The instant the creature's focus shifted, Varka appeared before it, his bare hand piercing its chest. Carter screamed inside, feeling the jagged glass-like resistance shred flesh from bone. Varka's blood poured into the wound.
And then that blood boiled.
The nightmare convulsed as Varka's command forced his own lifeblood to erupt within it. In the same motion, he severed his own hand with a dagger of shadow and hurled himself backward. A blinding flash tore through the battlefield, the explosion gouging a crater into the earth. Trees toppled like kindling as Carter's senses rang with ringing silence.
There was no reprieve. Another shard streaked toward Varka's head. He twisted aside, the projectile grazing his cheek. The cut festered instantly, flesh blackening at the edges. The bleeding wouldn't stop—it reeked of rot.
Varka snatched the shard mid-spin and hurled it back. The nightmare dodged easily, but Varka's blood clung to the fragment. It detonated midair, blasting the flying creature out of the sky.
Varka was already waiting. He stood beneath its falling body, shadow-forged sword planted vertically, both hands gripping the hilt. He didn't thrust—he simply held.
Gravity did the rest.
The abomination slammed down, its body impaling itself on the waiting blade. Varka dragged the sword upward, splitting the nightmare in half as its screech dissolved into nothingness.
Carter could only watch. His mind screamed to move, to help, to do something—but he had no agency, no control. He was a prisoner in Varka's storm, watching a man tear apart nightmares with sheer defiance.
And beneath the terror, a darker thought stirred in him.
God help me… this is beautiful.
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