They were running across the bridge. The Cursed looked back and saw a tall female figure in white high-tech armor chasing them. She had just crossed the palace's double doors. Then she passed through the courtyard and raced onto the white-stone bridge. The steady sound of her boots rang in the fugitives' ears and kept increasing in tempo, as though it was not a human pursuing them, but a tireless, merciless machine that knew no fatigue.
Only a short distance remained before the forest.
They plunged beneath the dark canopies of the trees, intending to disappear into their twilight shadows and set an ambush. They hid behind the rough ancient trunks and cast glances toward the bridge. But they saw no one. The formidable figure in white armor that had been pursuing them was gone.
Then she suddenly appeared behind them and entered an uncompromising, ruthless battle. She appeared behind the Dark Lady. The Dark Lady turned around, sensing the unnatural appearance. The tall female warrior with white hair and white armor was delivering lightning-fast strikes with her arms covered in thin but durable high-tech armor. The Dark Lady was barely managing to block them with her hands reinforced by magical shields. She let one strike through. And it, like an explosive hurricane, lifted her from the ground and threw her through the air toward the distant trees standing 150 feet from the place of the battle.
The white-haired warrior went after the fallen one, intending to finish her off.
The Cursed fired several shots from the ray gun while standing behind a tree trunk. Blinding rays cut through the night. The warrior seemed to sense them. She dodged to the side.
Several rays struck from the Dark Lady's side. The warrior disappeared. All the rays flew past.
She appeared in another place behind the trunk of a tree. The rays flew there. The Dark Lady intended to finish her off without delay.
The Cursed fired from his side.
The warrior disappeared. She appeared somewhere else. Disappeared again. Appeared again.
She raised her hand and fired a large charge of green energy, which flew and exploded exactly where the Dark Lady was standing. Black splashes of liquid were left on the trunks of the nearby trees and on the ground. Part of the black liquid soaked into the soil.
The warrior appeared in that place and picked up the ray gun left by the White-Haired.
She disappeared again and appeared in front of the Cursed, grabbing him by the throat with one hand and lifting him above the ground. His breath was cut off. He dropped the ray gun.
The warrior examined him carefully. A white, cold face with perfectly symmetrical features and beauty. Piercing emotionless eyes, as if they were penetrating into his energy structure. She glanced at the amulet he was wearing.
"Who are you?" she said slowly and clearly. A strong, firm voice.
He felt himself losing consciousness from the lack of air.
When he woke up, he found himself lying on the ground in the forest. The ray gun was nearby. And the other weapons he had taken in the fortress. The white warrior was nowhere to be seen.
As if it had been a nightmare that had come true.
But why had she left him alive? And why had she not taken his weapons?
The ancient forest began to come alive. The Cursed felt the night creatures awakening, which had been afraid to show themselves while the white warrior was here. But now their time had come.
He stood up, took all the weapons, and ran back to the Dark Castle.
He was moving quickly along the road.
The tall towers of the castle appeared ahead.
Inside a hill in the forest, there was an entrance to the tunnel. The Cursed plunged into it and ran onward. It was the tunnel through which they had traveled by carriage to the fortress of the Ancients.
He returned to the castle and discovered that he was alone in the numerous halls and rooms. In the black containers found in separate halls, strange creatures with white skin and sharp teeth lay. But they did not move and showed no signs of life. Their red eyes were open and stared at one point in front of them.
Having found no answers about what to do next, the Cursed lay down to rest on a bed in one of the large rooms. And when he woke up, he discovered that he had slept through the entire day and night had already arrived. Three Dark Lords came beneath the walls of the castle. But this time they did not stop at the entrance as before; they went farther beneath the dark vaults of the castle.
They entered the room where the Cursed was and smiled at him with their long, sharp teeth. Their smiles promised nothing good.
"The white-haired creature is dead," announced the Dark Lord in the black hat with black feathers, dressed in a black leather suit. The one who was called the Pale. "I do not care how and where she met her death, but the important thing is that now her castle has been left without protection. And we were able to enter without hindrance. And now we will kill you."
He rose into the air and rushed at the Cursed. But he received several blasts from the ray gun that pierced his body completely. Black streams of blood splattered the walls of the room. Parts of his body landed on the floor.
The other two Dark Lords were not as skilled in combat as the white warrior from the fortress of the Ancients. They looked at the Cursed in shock, having just witnessed him so easily kill a supernatural being.
The Bloodthirsty shot into the air, extending her long nails toward the enemy, and immediately shared the fate of her predecessor.
The Diseased-Headed tried to slip into the corridor and disappear from the castle, but the deadly rays caught up with him as well.
The All-Seeing stood near the window.