What the hell is that?!? Astor instinctively took a step back the moment he saw the figure. He couldn't make out its shape or intent.
But whatever it was, it was staring straight at him. In the next instant, Astor heard a scream coming from behind, and when he blinked, the figure vanished...
Wh-?! It vanished?! How could it vanish within a flash? He then turned around to look at where the scream came from.
"Ambush!" The leader screamed as multiple howls echoed from within the darkness of the silent forest.
A small, pitch-black wolf jumped at the leader from the shadows as he unsheathed his sword. Everyone surrounding the bonfire stood up and armed themselves.
What the hell is happening over here?! Astor turned to look at Dawn, but Dawn, too, had vanished. Astor was now alone on top of the dead tree trunk…
He looked around for a bit before jumping down the dead tree and rushing towards the bonfire, mainly to search for Dawn, but also to tell others of what he had seen lurking in the darkness...
But as he reached near the group, he noticed that the group of criminals were busy fighting a pack of wolves.
Not wanting to get involved, Astor watched from afar, hiding behind a fallen branch, which was almost as big as a tree back on Mytherra.
He saw as the criminals slaughtered every last one of those wolves. It was very clear that the wolves were losing.
But then suddenly, Astor was spooked by the Voice of the Artifacts…
Runes in the Language of Artifacts started to emerge from the empty mouth of his pendant, showing him a single message,
[You have encountered a Shadow Dormant]
What? Shadow? Did it say Shadow?
On alert, Astor unsheathed his dagger and looked all around him. It was only when he looked in the direction of the bonfire once again that he saw a wolf, lying on the ground, whimpering as it stared at him with its blood red eyes.
Is the Voice of the Artifacts talking about that wolf?
He got the answer to his question after a minute, when he saw a man walking past the half-dead wolf and noticed it was still alive. The man aimed his sickle down at the wolf and delivered the final blow.
And then Astor saw another message, delivered to him by the Voice of the Artifacts.
[You have survived an encounter with a Shadow Dormant]
Interesting… I didn't know Gatebearers could use the Voice of the Artifacts like this. But what's Shadow?? Another Element I've never heard of.
***
By now, the battle was over. Some of the men were even cutting into the dead wolves to remove their meat…
As Astor was walking back to the bonfire, he witnessed the leader pointing his blood-stained sword in the sky.
"Brothers! You see this! We can easily return to Mytherra if things keep going this way."
Although Astor couldn't care less about what happened to the others, their death would still weaken his own odds of surviving… So, seeing the criminals celebrating a victory over mere Dormant Beasts irked him a little.
The strength of a Gatebearer is determined by the tier of their Gate. Apart from humans, who are born with a Broken Gate, all other creatures are born with a Dormant Gate of a fixed affinity within them.
Even tamed Beasts such as "cows" and "pigs" back on Mytherra had a Dormant Gate within them.
Meaning, the wolves they had just fought were nothing more than ordinary creatures, who hadn't even begun climbing the ladder of life.
As Astor reached the outer edge of the bonfire's light, he raised his hands and drew in a deep breath, ready to shout — to tell everyone what he had seen in the shadows.
But before he could, Dawn stopped him by placing a hand on his shoulder.
"It's a misunderstanding."
"What...?" Astor turned around, confused.
"There's nothing in the shadows. I went there to check."
He went there to check...? What is he saying?! Is he crazy?!
Astor knew Dawn had a screw loose in his head, but was he insane enough to go check if there was a deadly creature hiding in the shadows?
After a moment passed, he forced himself to calm down. What would Dawn gain by lying to him?
Dawn had to be telling the truth — it didn't make sense otherwise. However, something still felt odd about the encounter with the pack of wolves...
Astor couldn't point it out immediately. But as he stared at the corpses that lay on the ground, he noticed something strange.
Every one of them was the same... A small wolf with fur as dark as a starless night sky. He couldn't identify the corpse of the pack leader.
Where's the alpha? There must have been an alpha. Wolves always have an alpha. And for Gatebearers, the alpha is usually the one who has the highest-tier Gate.
As if to answer his thoughts, in the next instant, a chill ran down his spine, and he saw a giant figure staring at him once again, this time it wasn't in the shadows, but rather it was standing right above the leader, behind the bonfire...
Astor unshethed his dagger and pointed it at the behemoth, as he took a few steps back.
"What's wrong, Astor?" Dawn asked.
"What?! What do you mean, what's wrong??" But Dawn's expression didn't change.
What was even stranger was the fact that everybody was looking at him rather than the giant shadow of a wolf standing right behind the leader.
As seconds passed and nothing changed, Astor started to get convinced he was going Insane.
"You brat! Who gave you that dagger?!" The leader shouted, pointing his sword, drenched in the blood of the Shadow wolves, towards Astor.
Why?! Why can't they see it?! Why?!! Astor wondered... and as he kept on thinking it finally stuck him.
Eyes of wisdom! That was the only thing different between him and everyone else in the crowd. He wasn't going insane. Everyone else was simply not capable of seeing what he saw.
"Drop that dagger, you brat!!" The leader grunted as he took a step towards Astor.
However, the shadow behind the leader moved, and the step the leader just took became his final one...
A distorted figure started to form above him. And almost instantly, his entire body disappeared. Consumed by the thing behind him.
[You have encountered a Shadow Invoker — Regulus]
I-I-Invoker!? Did it just say Invoker?! And it's like 5 meters tall! Astor's muscles froze in fear as he stared at the distortion.
Slowly, that distortion transformed into the figure of a beautiful wolf. A wolf with gleaming white fur, blood-red eyes, large fangs protruding from its unusually long snout, and a single leg sticking out of its maw — the leg of the leader.
Apart from Astor and Dawn, who were already staring directly in that direction, nobody had noticed what had just gone down behind them. And by the time they slowly turned around to look, it was already too late.
The next thing Astor heard was a deafening roar, something he had never expected to come from a wolf, and he also saw flaming wood being flung in all directions as the wolf stomped on the bonfire, creating havoc.
The men standing right next to the giant were either turned into puddles of blood by the wolf or were crushed and burned by the burning logs. The only few men who had survived were the ones standing next to Astor and Dawn.
The hope people had built in the last few hours was shattered in less than a fraction of a second. Even Astor's will dwindled as he saw the chaos unfold... but before he became completely hopeless, Dawn brought him back to his senses.
"East! Astor, we head East! Didn't you say you wanted to survive?!" Dawn screamed at Astor as he pointed to his right.
"Survive... Survive.... Yes! I'm going to survive!" Astor came back to his senses and sheathed his dagger before sprinting behind Dawn as they both headed East.
A few people who hadn't lost hope decided to follow them, including the red-haired girl from the beach.
However, before Dawn could escape the area where the criminals had scavenged for firewood, he slowed down and then came to a halt altogether. Screams still echoed behind them, mingling with the sharp crackle of the bonfire's dying embers
But there was another sound... One coming from in front of them. A strange periodic thud, followed by the trees and bushes around shaking.
That does not sound good... Astor slowly came to a halt. The wolf was still causing mayhem behind them, so it couldn't be that.
His eyes strained against the darkness, trying to find something. But there was nothing there. All he perceived was the trees and branches creaking, and the periodic thud getting louder.
thud!... thud!... Thud!... THUD!
And when he finally saw what was causing the noise, he realised he had severely underestimated Borealis. He had never seen the true Borealis — not until now.