The leader of the Corpse Purification Squad stepped back, black sweat running down his forehead under the crushing aura.
He said in a hoarse voice: "It looks like a destructive battle will break out between them… this is our only chance to escape."
The deputy, trembling under the pressure: "Escape? How? I… can barely breathe… let alone move!"
The leader, his eyes tired but firm: "I have an emergency teleportation talisman of the sect… a rare one. I obtained it after ten years of searching. But… activating it needs time… and a lot of energy."
The deputy gasped: "The battle between them will take time, yes… but how can we activate anything? My energy… it won't move!"
The leader, speaking as if negotiating with death itself: "Don't worry, I have a solution… but it's temporary."
Slowly, almost like a dying man, the leader reached inside his robe… his fingers trembling… his bones cracking under the pressure…
until he pulled out a blood-crystal tablet engraved with twisted symbols, as if they were letters born from nightmares.
With all the strength he had left— he shattered it.
Crack… crack… KAAASH!
The sound of breaking crystal echoed through the gloomy silence… then a transparent blood membrane exploded around them, forming a large bubble sealing the air like an organic shield.
Suddenly… the pressure on them dropped. They breathed deeply like men rising from the depths of the ocean. Their knees almost collapsed from the sudden relief.
But…
after only two seconds, something worse appeared.
The bubble… began to twist.
The blood membrane that was supposed to protect them started to ripple violently… like the skin of a dying creature.
The symbols on its surface shifted.
They actually moved. Shrinking… expanding… then intertwining like fighting worms.
And at the top of the bubble— two small crimson eyes formed, staring at them from inside the barrier…
radiating an aura of savagery and ruin.
The deputy fell to his knees, trembling: "Dammit… what the hell is this?"
The leader lost part of his voice: "Those eyes… no… impossible…" "Damn it… don't they look like… that boy's eyes?"
The leader raised his shaking hand and pointed at Ashen standing in front of the monster: "Yes… it's the same look… the same aura… the same… damn it! Run! We must escape before this disaster reaches us!"
The deputy: "Disaster?! Man, the disaster is standing right in front of us!"
But there was no time to think. No time for fear.
The leader quickly pulled out a red metallic disk, engraved with blood runes that moved like fleeing creatures.
He shouted: "Pour your energy into it!! Quickly!"
The deputy placed his palms on the disk, blood dripping from his nose from the pressure.
The disk began to shake… and bloody runic letters formed around them, spinning… fusing… gathering above them like a fateful vortex.
They shaped the same pattern engraved on the disk… but larger… and with a darker aura.
With every segment that completed, the bubble around them contracted more and more, and the crimson eyes grew larger… as if watching them with hatred.
While the spell was weaving itself…
Ashen stood facing the giant monster, staring back at it.
No words. No movement.
Only their pressure… spreading through the black forest and breaking its silence.
The ground cracked under their feet. The air turned into burning dust. And the horizon… shrank between them.
That silence… was a declaration of one thing:
A battle of monsters was coming… and everything around them was nothing but victims waiting their turn.
The leader looked at the two for the last time and said: "If they clash… nothing in this forest will remain standing… faster, for the love of everything, faster!"
And the runic vortex above them began to complete— line… after line.