Thick gray smoke rose from the horizon just over the buildings. As the smoke rose, it blocked the sun, casting a dark shadow over the band of mercenaries.
Noah looked back toward the mercenaries and saw that they were already making their way toward the giant plume of smoke. He followed their example and, without much delay, ran with them toward the danger.
Noah glanced at the groups, watching in envy as the mercenaries with higher mobility took to the rooftops. The rest of the mercenaries grouped up and advanced through the streets of the city. Noah joined this contingent and set off toward the signal.
Noah didn't stay in the middle of the group, instead electing to stay on the outer edges of the formation. Sure, he had a higher chance of being attacked, but he could also move around more, which increased his odds of dodging an attack.
Noah kept his head on a swivel. His eyes darted around under his helmet, taking in every little detail around him every house, every movement, every sound. Noah tried to absorb it all. With his spear on his back and his knife in his left hand, he cautiously moved with the group. But after a while, Noah still hadn't noticed any monsters approaching them.
His cautiousness slowly slipped away as time passed. Eventually, Noah noticed that the group had started to move faster. Gone was the slow, cautious approach, and now there seemed to be a higher priority to reach their destination as quickly as possible.
Noah tried to stay alert, but with the fast pace the rest of the group was maintaining, he barely had any time to process his surroundings.
At some point, Noah was just running with the group, not really paying much attention to the things around him and just focusing on keeping up. Then he heard a noise. His body jerked toward it, only to see Blue. Then came an impact. Noah hit the ground hard, losing his knife in the process. He instinctively put his hands up to guard his neck. As Noah recovered, he felt an impact on the top half of his helmet, followed by a heavy weight on his body.
His eyes opened to see the nightmare creature that had attacked him sitting on top of him. It had blue skin, sharp claws, long dagger-like teeth and 2 black eyes with yellow irises. Noah panicked a little but still reached his hand out and started a stabbing motion with his right hand. Mid motion, his dagger appeared in his hand, and the tip found its way into the monster's flesh.
Noah hurriedly pulled back his left fist and struck the monster across the face, knocking it off his body. He quickly jumped to his feet, summoned his spear, and, putting his entire body weight into it, stabbed the creature directly through the chest.
But as Noah was recovering from his strike, another monster attacked him from behind. Its teeth dug into his right tricep. Noah's eyes widened at this unexpected attack, but he reacted quickly. He summoned his dagger again, this time into his left hand, and drove it into the monster's skull. The monster instantly died, and the spell whispered:
(You have slain the dormant monster, demonic servant.)
The monster's body slid to the ground as Noah, regaining his focus, looked around to see that he had almost been surrounded. He looked around only to find three people, two on the ground and one trying to get the monster off his teammate. It seemed that most of the group had left him as soon as he was attacked by the creature, probably thinking he was dead. Noah's eyes twitched in anger.
'Those motherfuckers.'
The spell's voice whispered into his head again:
(You have slain the dormant monster, demonic servant.)
The spell's voice was accompanied by a soothing warmth where his bite wound was. Noah stretched his hand out and manifested his spear. He tensed his right tricep to see if it was still usable. Feeling a little pain, he deemed it usable before being attacked by another creature.
Noah's spear shot forward and pierced the other monster's chest. He then let go of it to let it inject its poison, then landed a haymaker straight into the creature's face, knocking it to the floor. Swiftly turning, he intercepted another creature's attack, slamming his fist straight into the monster's stomach. He then summoned his knife and quickly stabbed it through the neck. The spell whispered softly in his ear, confirming the kill.
But no sooner than this, he was attacked again. The beast's claws dug into his already injured right arm. Noah jerked in response, causing the beast's claws to slip out of his flesh. Noah realized that he couldn't keep this up. He looked around to see where the other people were in relation to his position.
To his right, he saw two people back to back fighting the giant horde, and close to them was the third person, who could not defend against the onslaught and was currently being eaten alive by nightmare creatures. His screams were audible to everyone around him. Noah tried to ignore it but felt compelled to help. He rushed over and killed the monster on top of the person, but it was already too late.
Noah took one glance at the man on the ground. It was gruesome. His chest was destroyed, broken bones from his rib cage were visible, and he was coughing up blood. His neck was in shambles, but he was still alive and conscious, able to feel every bit of pain his wound brought.
Noah could see that the man was in pain and made a heavy decision. He raised his spear and aimed it at the man's heart but stopped. He had never killed a real human, only the fake ones in his first nightmare. Being thrust into this position caused Noah to freeze for a fraction of a second just a fraction too long.
He was again attacked by another creature that tackled him away from the body. Noah was able to keep his footing but was pushed too far away from the man. Now injured and immobile, the man was left to be feasted upon by his merciless assailant.
Noah watched in horror as he was devoured, his screams of pain echoing through the streets of the dark city.
Noah didn't have time to dwell on it. His focus switched to survival. He looked toward the two remaining people and tried to make his way toward their group.
His approach was focused on evasion and did not involve striking back unless it was completely safe. He slowly made his way, but by the time he reached them, tragedy struck. One of the survivors was unable to deal with the horde and was tackled to the floor. The other tried to save him, but she was stabbed and thrown to the ground.
Noah threw caution to the side and rushed toward the group. He stabbed the monster that had tackled the guy to the ground, but it was already too late. The guy had a large wound on his right shoulder and had been stabbed in the neck by the nightmare creatures.
Noah glanced to his right to see that the girl was also dead. She had been stabbed through the heart and killed instantly, and the monster had already begun to consume her corpse. Noah, seeing that the monster was going to eat his former comrades, saw his chance to escape.
He took a second to look around and found a path that was relatively safe, then made a break for it.
As he sprinted, he was blocked by another creature. Noah charged at the monster and crashed into it with his shoulder, causing it to fall. He left it behind and continued to run. His mad dash to safety allowed him to break through the group, but as he looked back, the monsters had already started to chase him.
Seeing the actual crowd from afar, Noah realized the depth of his situation. There were no fewer than 30 creatures surrounding him. Seeing the number of enemies instantly shot alarms off in his head. His stomach dropped, and his mind was filled with one singular thought: survival.
Noah booked it, running as fast as he could away from the group of monsters, but he could barely outrun them.
Thinking quickly, Noah looked for a building that was relatively intact and had two floors. Upon finding one, he ran straight into it, stopping just to pass through the doorway. He looked around for any large objects, spotting something big at the top of the stairs.
He quickly turned to the doorway to see that the monsters were about to crash into it. As they hit the doorway, they created a bottleneck effect, stopping them from entering but putting a large amount of stress on the already damaged doorway.
Noah summoned his spear from his back and stabbed the first monster in the doorway. Using the doorway as a choke point, Noah was able to take out 3 or 4 monsters, but as the monsters clawed and pushed against the door frame, Noah knew his choke point wouldn't last long.
When he started to see signs of the doorway's destruction, he readied his spear and threw it into the crowd of monsters. He then turned away and ran up the stairs. As he reached the top, he heard the door frame give way under the weight of the sea of monsters, so without a second thought, Noah grabbed the large object from earlier and chucked it down the stairs.
He then once again summoned the spear and threw it like a javelin into the sea of enemies. After the throw, Noah looked toward the window of the house and ran toward it. He broke the window with the handle of his dagger and slipped through, climbing onto the roof of the house. Once there, he made sure there was no way for the monsters to follow him.
Seeing that the roof was clear, Noah allowed his body to loosen up. Sitting on the roof, he took long, deep breaths to calm his harsh breathing. As he was trying to catch his breath, Noah looked around to see that his panicked running hadn't taken him much closer to the plume of smoke, only really moving him around the fire.
Then he heard a little scratch on the ground below him. His head swiveled around, trying to find the source of the noise. Then a crack, a blue hand shot up from the roof. It clawed around, trying to find something to dig its nails into.
Noah knew the roof was a temporary fix, but he thought it would last longer.
Noah let out a deep sigh, then grabbed his spear and stabbed it into the hand, injecting his spear's poison into the foul creature's body.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another hand spring forth, cutting through the roof. Then another, and another then like five more. Like the deadliest game of whack-a-mole, Noah stabbed hand after hand, injecting his spear's vial sting into every hand that dared to pierce the roof.
But soon, the already decrepit roof started to break. Noah didn't notice it at first, but after a while, the roof became unstable. Every step he took to stab the next hand was accompanied by a groan from the floor below him.
Noah slowed down, trying to put less force into every movement. But his slow movements meant slower reactions to the creatures, and finally, after minutes of holding on, Noah heard a crack.
Then the floor was pulled from under him. The roof caved in exactly where he was standing. As he fell, he saw the entire gaggle of monsters waiting for him on the floor below. Before even landing, Noah was already summoning his weapons to fight.
As he touched the floor, Noah tried to ready himself for the onslaught of monsters that were waiting for him, but as he got up, he noticed that all the monsters looked half-dead. The poison had done its job, nicely softening the enemies up for an easy kill.
Upon realization, Noah's face turned into a grin, and without much hesitation, he engaged his weakened targets with murderous fervor.
Noah peeked out of the broken building, taking a ragged breath. He looked down the streets to see that his slaughter had attracted another group of monsters. He quickly pulled his head back into the house and clenched his fists to stifle a kick.
He took a second to steady his breath, then with repressed annoyance, walked back up the stairs. He climbed out of the broken roof and looked around for a good building to move to.
He then jumped into the building beside him and landed on the second floor. He quickly got up, ran downstairs, and peeked his head out of the window. Seeing that the coast was clear, he let out a sigh and exited the building.
Knowing that his landing might attract more nightmare creatures, Noah ran down a few blocks and found an empty house to hide in. Entering the building, he made sure to check every section of the house before finding a nice place to sit down.
He set his back against the wall and finally allowed the tension in his muscles to ease. As his neck loosened up, Noah's head slid upward, and his gaze met the ceiling. As he stared at the ceiling, his mind drifted to the deaths of his comrades.
He didn't know them personally, but they were still human beings. As his mind clouded with thoughts of what he should have done and what he did wrong, his fingers started to fidget with each other.
His gaze found the floor as he sat there in silent contemplation. He then bit his lower lip.
This was one part of combat that Noah hadn't really thought about before. He was always hunting alone, never really doing group work. So the thought of comrades dying because of his actions was not something that came to Noah's mind.
Sure, the first guy was a lost cause, but the other two he could have saved them. If he hadn't tried to save the first guy, he could have saved the other two.
Two lives were lost because of his poor judgment. No excuse, like it was impossible he just made the wrong decision.
And sure, it wasn't his job to protect them. They knew what they were getting into. But still, if he had made the right choice, he could have saved them.
Trying to regain control of his mind, Noah tried to change the subject. He began reviewing the options of his situation.
And to put it lightly, his selection of options was abysmal, to say the least. If he left, he would survive, but his friend would die, and he would probably be hunted down by the king's men.
He could hide in the dark city, but thinking back to all the horrors lurking in its streets, his mind drifted to all the monsters he had encountered in this damned city.
'Yeah, nope. Not doing that.'
So realistically, he only had one option that would let him survive and also save his friend.
He stared at the doorway once more, conflicted about whether it was worth it. He then stood up and walked toward the door. His jaw clenched as he approached it.
'Dammit.'
Noah hit the doorframe as he walked past it. He held his fist there for a second or two, taking a deep breath, and then once again made his way toward the perilous fight ahead.