Cherreads

Chapter 24 - Chapter 24: Nightmare

The Thing that Sleeps!?

This... this was one of the beasts that the Creator's Hunt wished dead! 

His eyes glimmered with anticipation, the muscles in his arm tensing as he grasped the hilt of his blade with enough force to turn his knuckles white.

Right now, he was staring at the first step to his return home. And he refused to waste it.

Artemis flourished his sword, rushing towards the horrid Knight in an attempt to get ahead of its strike. It brushed against his shoulder, spilling crimson in heaps onto the ground. But Artemis had become unrelenting in the past few hours. He drove his blade into the Nightmare's skull, straight through the thick onyx armour. He twisted his blade furiously, causing spouts of shadow to spill from the helm's opening. 

What the hell is this thing!? 

It cast him backwards with a powerful, bone-breaking force. He felt as if his ribs would shatter as he was struck in his abdomen, sent flying away from the Nightmare. Artemis spun backwards and reached out the tips of his toes, landing deftly on the ground before raising his blade once more.

At the same time, the Nightmare burst into a thousand miniscule strands of darkness, stretching out in a wide circular distance around him. They slowly seeped together, clinging together in one abyssal mass underneath him.

And while the ground was solid underneath him, it resembled a terrifying hole down to the deepest depths of the world. It was disorienting in how vast it seemed.

This was why Artemis was unable to notice when a portion of this abyss upended behind him, wielding a menacing scythe as it lurched towards him with full force.

He tilted his head to the side, the tip of the scythe digging deep into his cheek, a tearing sound echoing through the calamitous world as his flesh was opened. Artemis grimaced, swinging his blade towards what he expected to still be the mimicry of the Daemonic Knight.

There was nothing there anymore. The figure had moved in a flash several meters away. 

This time, the Nightmare wasn't portraying that role.

Past the veil of shadow that covered its entirety, Artemis noticed many key traits in the human-shaped form it took. A head of midnight-black hair intermingled with strands of violet. Its eyes were the same shade. While the figure seemed shorter and thinner than Artemis was now, this visage had been burned into the deepest corners of his Mind. His training was all in pursuit of dominance over this indomitable foe. 

This was a reflection of August Lunastre, his older brother!

He approached with a fluttering white cape outlined with tasseled gold trim. He held a sword in his right hand that radiated a light as bright as a lantern, and blossoming ivy had slowly begun to crawl up his left. On his face, through which his gleaming violet eyes froze his nerves, he wore a sinister ebony mask with a mouthpiece that resembled a writhing sheet of interwoven worms.

A flash of gold weaved through the field of shadow, striking at Artemis with malice unparalleled. Sparks shot outwards behind him as their blades clashed, its light carrying on far past their duel. Underneath the Nightmare August's step, the shadow seemed to waver, as if the light he produced was capable of expelling its very existence. 

The Witch-King had always refused to divulge the secrets pertaining to the Lunastre family, always furthering the idea that he really wasn't the King's son at all. The biggest secret he wished to learn of was what exactly August had done to gain such immense power like his father did. Artemis imagined that they had, in secret, Contracted themselves with Daemonic Spirits, despite having spent their lives speaking against Daemons. 

If this was really the truth, it was too hypocritical for Artemis to even fathom.

But after coming to the Shadow, he had encountered so many different, unfathomable things. Perhaps he had been wrong from the start. 

He parried Nightmare August's blade and threw himself backwards, distancing himself from his enemy for the few seconds he needed to ascertain this crucial information. If it was really mimicking August down to his very abilities, wouldn't it display what Spirit Contract August had taken?

Artemis willed Daemonic Essence to rise up towards his eyes, activating [Eyes of Discernment]. 

"[Name: The Thing that Sleeps: August Lunastre]

[Status: Returned]

[Lineage: N/A]

[Aspect: Terror (Stage 5: Nightgaunt)]

[Mimicry Ability: Aspect: Witch-King (Stage 6: Anti-Polaris]

[Spirit Contract: N /A]

===

[General Description:]

The Nightmare of the King of the Fog has taken form of a Prince destined to foster prosperity for his people, ????????

??????????????????

????????????????????Sonetto?????

???

...?

=== 

F-ck!

I really was wrong this whole time!

This crushing realisation sent his mind into a spiral, barely able to focus long enough to slash forward and send the Nightmare's scythe flying. It rushed through the air in a wisp of shadow to reclaim it, pivoting its body before spinning in a terrible spiral, landing harshly on the surface of a faraway pillar.

August... Aspect... what even is an Aspect...!? 

Leon, Gardner, supposedly this Nightmare, that God that Gardner serves, now August... they all have Aspects! Does that mean father has one too, is this the true might of the Witch-King?

A path of power that leads one to Divinity, in Leon's case... in the Red Prince's case. 

Did I ever have a chance to beat August in a duel!? 

The abyss below erected dozens of shadowy pillars, catching up underneath the both of them as they were hurtled high into the sky, suspended above the distant calamity. Artemis shifted his weight on one of these pillars, hurtling himself towards another not far to his left. It was like the texture of ice underneath his feet, it took all he could just to focus on keeping himself balanced. 

But before either of them could move to seek the life of the other, something dire occurred. 

A terrifying roar rang out through the world of destruction. Both of their gazes shifted to the calamities that had been fighting in the distance. That flurry of dust and ash seemed much closer than it had been before...

Before he could even comprehend what had happened, flames bathed the field of Nightmare's shadow. The dragon and the sea of black fog quickly enveloped them.

The dragon hurtled itself into the sides of many of the black pillars, causing them to crack at their base and begin their descent down towards the ground. Artemis's pillar tilted underneath him, causing him to wobble and curse in a mad fury. He drove his blade into its surface, trying to keep himself upright. 

Dozens of pillars away, the Nightmare stood on its surface, not wobbling in the slightest as it tilted underneath him, its feet planted adamantly to the ground. It wasn't wearing August as a costume anymore. This time, it had become a titanic figure wearing a mask. Like the Daemonic Knight, it wore a suit of black-steel armour. At least... that was what Artemis assumed it was. 

The substance it wore was skin-tight, as if it were simply its natural skin. Its head, which was covered in the same glistening obsidian armour, sported a brilliant crimson mane that fell to its waist, with several hundred spikes like razor-sharp daggers peeking out from the tufts of hair.

It carried a black-steel broadsword in one hand, and a stalwart shield on the other. 

"Artemis... Lunastre..." Its hollow, ancient voice echoed through the air. The night that he seemed to speak towards, which casted the area in darkness, seemed to quiver at the sound. Almost as if it was at his command. The words crackled like thunder.

The Nightmare's language seemed… eerily familiar. 

It raised its shattered, decaying black hand, it grasped at its helm, pulling it away.

Underneath the armour, pitch-black skin that shimmered like metal met the starlight. Eighteen prongs lined the rim of his head like a curved crown, sharpened like blades, and he had visor-like irises that stretched along the front of his face, no visible seams for a mouth or nose. 

The mouthless figure stared at Artemis as they both descended. He could sense nothing but hate in his gaze. 

Artemis let out a stifled yelp as his cloak was grasped from behind. Turning his gaze, he saw the familiar visage with piercing orange eyes.

"Ah- Leon!" He exclaimed. 

She spoke in a lovely, illusory tone. Each word uttered from her lips sounded like the most brilliant reverie, the most gorgeous song, the most euphoric poem. The words bloomed like spring, they caught him up in a stunned silence that he couldn't particularly explain. Even though they were expletives, they were somehow overwhelmingly pleasant. 

"Bastard Prince, you shouldn't have come this far!"

Like the effect of the words uttered in the strange language displayed by [Eyes of Discernment], was this something similar? The speech of a near-Deific being unrestricted by a Cognitive Tether? 

Leon clutched at his shirt, spinning in a mad circle as she hurled him as far into the endless darkness as she could.

As he felt this abyss wrap around him, he saw the calamitous world seep away until nothing was left before him. 

More Chapters