Chapter 40: The Veiled Threat

“Lord Qing Yu, the hour grows late; I implore you to seek rest.”

For three days, as Aldoran lay unresponsive, Qing Yu and Thrud had remained steadfastly by her side, never once leaving the room or her presence. Yet, despite the passage of time, Aldoran showed no discernible sign of stirring from her deep slumber.

It was now the dead of night, and Qing Yu, who had foregone rest for an extended period, continued his vigil by Aldoran’s bedside, patiently awaiting her awakening.

Meanwhile, Thrud had been relentlessly scavenging for anything within the room—cabinets, loose papers, discarded clothing—to serve her purpose. The mist outside the window had thickened ominously, transforming the world beyond into an impenetrable expanse of white. To prevent its insidious tendrils from seeping into their refuge, Thrud had been forced to plug every conceivable crack and crevice with whatever she could find.

The demarcation between day and night had long since blurred into an indistinct haze, leaving Qing Yu and Thrud to gauge the passage of time solely by instinct.

“Lord Qing Yu, please, rest now; I shall take charge of the vigil.” Perceiving Qing Yu’s lack of response, Thrud reiterated her plea.

“It’s quite alright, Thrud; you should sleep first. I’m not weary yet.” Qing Yu murmured, sprawling across the quilt, a wide yawn escaping his lips.

For days, he had barely stirred, maintaining his constant watch over Aldoran.

Truthfully, there was nowhere for him to go, even if he wished to.

“It’s perfectly fine, Lord Qing Yu; I can endure. But you, after all, are still human. Prolonged sleeplessness will surely take its toll on your body.”

Thrud, crouched low by the door, vigorously wedged the towel in her hand into the narrow gap, her eyes meticulously scanning every conceivable oversight. She was determined to seal off every single crevice where the insidious mist might otherwise infiltrate.

The fragrant scent that had perpetually permeated the room had, at some indeterminate moment, vanished entirely, supplanted now by a putrid, nauseating stench of decay.

Thrud rose to her feet, brushing the dust from her palms.

“Thrud, do you perceive any particular scent?” Qing Yu inquired, his eyes half-lidded, forcing himself to muster the energy for the question.

Thrud, however, affirmed that she sensed nothing amiss.

Over the past three days, Qing Yu had posed this very question to Thrud on numerous occasions, yet her response had remained consistently the same: her sense of smell appeared remarkably dull.

“I see.”

Qing Yu’s eyelids drooped, relentlessly battling against sleep. He offered a soft hum of acknowledgment, then smacked his lips, betraying the undeniable truth that he was teetering on the brink of collapse.

“I’m so weary…” Qing Yu mumbled, stifling another yawn. Within the oppressive silence of the room, his eyelids slowly, irrevocably, fell shut.

Thrud, sensing his imminent surrender to exhaustion, ceased her attempts at conversation. She gently draped a thin blanket over Qing Yu’s slumped form, then moved towards the windowsill, intending to seize this brief respite to observe the conditions outside.

With Qing Yu now succumbing to sleep, she remained the sole sentinel. Thrud understood she needed to redouble her vigilance.

The two flowers had transformed entirely, their petals now a dense, drooping black, riddled with holes, appearing poised to snap at the slightest disturbance. A series of wrinkles, like engorged earthworms writhing desperately, began to undulate across their surfaces. Thrud, rubbing her eyes in disbelief, looked again, only to find the grotesque folds had vanished without a trace.

“Am I truly so exhausted? To think I’m even experiencing hallucinations.”

Gently massaging her temples, Thrud peered out the window once more.

The mist, however, remained stubbornly entrenched, showing no inclination to dissipate. That peculiar, pervasive ** continued its wanton sprawl through the town’s labyrinthine streets and alleys, drifting with an unsettling slowness.

“Honestly, what in the world is happening?” Thrud agonized, desperately attempting to dredge a rational explanation from the depths of her memory. Yet, having never encountered such a bizarre phenomenon before, she could only sigh in resignation, pat down her clothes, and steel herself to resume her task of sealing the room’s persistent gaps.

“What is that?”

Just as she prepared to turn away, Thrud’s peripheral vision pierced through the pallid, swirling mist, catching a fleeting glimpse of a dark, indistinct shadow.

Immediately, Thrud braced herself against the windowsill with both hands, straining to peer out into the obscured expanse.

Amidst the churning, opaque white, several sporadic strands of black were faintly discernible. Thrud strained her eyes, endeavoring to discern the true nature of the shadowy form. From its vague outlines, she surmised it stood roughly two human heights tall, and she could faintly make out what appeared to be two arms.

The remaining portions, however, were swallowed by the pervasive white mist, eluding Thrud’s most strenuous attempts at clarification.

“Could that be a person?”

Thrud rose onto the balls of her feet, as if the slight elevation might grant her a clearer, more distant view.

The dark figures glided slowly through the mist, their towering forms intermittently emerging and receding, leaving Thrud utterly baffled as to their intent.

As the shadows moved, points of crimson light began to flicker in the air, appearing one after another, like a procession of spectral lanterns dancing within the swirling fog.

Each of these crimson glows appeared a full circle larger than the shadows themselves. Wherever the dark figures drifted, the lights trailed faithfully behind; and when the figures paused, so too did the eerie luminescence.

Peering further into the distance, beyond the crimson lights, Thrud could vaguely discern colossal, elongated black forms that appeared to be ceaselessly undulating. From her vantage point, she estimated there were at least thirteen of these monstrous appendages.

“Am I merely seeing things?”

Thrud rubbed her eyes once more, but this time, the grotesque forms stubbornly persisted, indeed appearing to have drawn closer.

Thrud then realized that, at some point unbeknownst to her, several non-humanoid shadows had materialized within the mist. These figures appeared to possess four horns and moved on all fours. From Thrud’s perspective, they seemed to dwarf the humanoid shadows, standing approximately twice their height.

In essence, these were clearly a congregation of colossal beings.

But why had such entities manifested within the mist? Thrud had not the faintest inkling. She could only continue her wary observation of the drifting shadows, ensuring they posed no immediate threat to Aldoran and Qing Yu.

With Liliya vanished, Aldoran comatose, and Qing Yu utterly devoid of combat capability, any impending danger would inevitably thrust the entire burden upon Thrud. Faced with such a multitude of threats, even if she possessed eight arms, she would be overwhelmed.

The horned shadows, the humanoid shadows, the tentacled forms, the fish-like specters gliding through the mist, coupled with the intermittent, chilling howls, left Thrud no room for complacency. Her gaze remained rigidly fixed upon the patrolling figures.

Abruptly, one of the crimson points of light seemed to register Thrud’s presence. As she watched, its orientation abruptly shifted, turning to aim directly at her. Concurrently, the dark figures halted their movement, all raising their heads in unison to peer in her direction.

“Ugh…”

Thrud instinctively recoiled, scrambling to conceal herself beside the window frame.

“Hoo… hoo…”

The room’s flickering lights, alternately brightening and dimming, cast an erratic glow upon Thrud’s shadowed countenance.

Even with her back pressed firmly against the wall, Thrud was plagued by the unnerving sensation of being relentlessly scrutinized.

A chilling draft snaked up her spine, the icy tendrils of fear creeping into her mind.

For a few disorienting seconds, Thrud found herself plunged into a brief, unsettling stupor.

“Hoo… hoo…”

A deathly hush descended upon the room, so profound that Thrud could distinctly hear the faint, ragged sound of her own breathing.

‘Please, don’t let me be seen. Don’t let them find me. Don’t let me be discovered.’

Thrud prayed fervently within her heart, her pulse quickening its frantic rhythm.

Finally, after an agonizing five-minute wait, Thrud gently patted her chest, then cautiously extended her head slightly from the room, peering into the swirling mist.

The dark figures had, in the interim, vanished without a trace, and the crimson lights had likewise disappeared. Only the indistinct, waving, tentacle-like shadows remained.

“Are they… gone?”

Thrud’s voice was a mere whisper, as if she were questioning herself.

“Snap!”

Abruptly, a sharp, distinct tap jolted Thrud backward, her hands instantly enveloped in a golden radiance. A halberd-shaped glow materialized in her palm, while a shield-like luminescence solidified around her wrist.

Yet, upon the windowpane, only a long, viscous crimson streak marred the surface. The thick, red liquid oozed slowly down the scratch, each drop hissing with an unsettling ‘sizzzz’ as it descended, like tar bubbling in a cauldron.

Accompanying this, dark scorch marks appeared on the window, and a putrid stench assaulted her senses.

Beads of sweat trickled down Thrud’s face, each one slowly, deliberately, falling to the floor.

“Plip.”

The solitary sound of that dripping sweat was amplified to an unbearable degree, keenly registered by Thrud’s hyper-alert ears.

Peering out the window, she could discern nothing. Only white, an endless, swirling expanse of opaque white, filled her vision; nothing else existed beyond its suffocating pallor.

“Thrud, Thrud, Thrud, Thrud.”

Amidst her heightened state of alarm, a whisper, almost imperceptible, seemed to breathe her name into her ear.

‘Thrud, Thrud, Thrud.’

The voice echoed, relentlessly hammering against the confines of Thrud’s mind, like an awl slowly, inexorably, piercing her very nerves.

It gnawed at her heart.

‘Thrud, Thrud, Thrud.’

‘Thrud, Thrud, Thrud.’

‘Thrud, Thrud, Thrud.’

“Hoo—”

Within the sealed room, an ethereal breeze stirred, fluttering the thin curtains by the window, swaying silently in the air like an eerie phantom displaying itself.

“Hoo, hoo.”

The flowers by the window drooped further, their petals detaching to drift as dust in the frigid air.

Her weapon and shield gradually solidified, Thrud’s expression taut with tension, her gaze fixed intently on every anomaly beyond the window. Her nerves, stretched to their breaking point, dared not relax for an instant.

An unspeakable dread began to pervade the room.

“Crack, crack, crack.”

“Crack, crack, crack.”

More scratches appeared on the window, one after another. With a series of guttural roars, the window shuddered violently, glass shattering into countless fragments that scattered across the floor.

Drops of blood splattered onto Thrud’s head, trailing down her face.

“Drip, drop.”

A sudden gust of wind ruffled Thrud’s hair, and something grazed lightly against her neck.

“Hoo, hoo.”

Thrud retreated a step, crouching low, her shield held firmly before her, the haft of her halberd protecting her back. Her pupils dilated slightly, her nostrils flared with each breath as golden energy coursed through her hands.

This potent energy enveloped Aldoran and Qing Yu, shielding them protectively.

A peal of thunder reverberated across the sky, and once more, streaks of scarlet light flashed within the mist. Innumerable dark figures flickered into view, their tentacle-like appendages resuming their frenzied motion, surging directly towards Thrud.

A cacophony of piercing shrieks, mingled with the unearthly sounds of instruments, erupted, tearing through every corner of the room. Wood splinters flew, and the very earth seemed to tremble.

“Lord Qing Yu! Wake up!” Thrud roared, a burst of golden light erupting to form a barrier before her.

Now, she had to rouse Qing Yu, had to get him and Aldoran to safety.

But the empty room offered no response, save for the fading echo of her own voice.

“Lord Qing Yu! Wake up! Lord Qing Yu!” Thrud cried out again and again, her gaze fixed on the approaching tentacles, yet no matter how desperately she called, Qing Yu remained unresponsive.

“Lord Qing Yu!” As the tentacles lunged forward, Thrud spun around. In the room, apart from herself, there was no one else.

“Hey!”

The mist dissipated instantly, revealing a sky rent by thunder. The town had been utterly transformed into a vast, churning sea of blood, its surface a maelstrom of vibrant, surging waves. Countless bolts of lightning cleaved the dark heavens, and fiery serpents of flame connected the sea to the sky. Sparks danced upon the crimson waters, and mournful wails echoed from the abyss. Human-limbed tentacles burst forth from the ocean, raising colossal waves, and, under Thrud’s horrified gaze, slowly opened the myriad eyes that studded their grotesque forms.

Howling winds, towering waves.

Torrential rain lashed furiously against the viscous sea, each tiny droplet capable of stirring up a sky-spanning curtain of water.

“Hoo, hoo.”

Before these monstrous entities, Thrud felt as insignificant as a speck of dust. She stood in the center of the room, and in that moment, all her restrained power erupted, unleashed in its entirety…