The rift pulled them in the second they reached its edge, their vision going dark in the blink of an eye.

One step through the threshold and the plaza was gone, replaced by something that had no right to exist in the same world as cracked asphalt and ruined warehouses. The air hit first, cold and thick, carrying a faint hint of rot mixed with the smell of old stone and something organic, like soil that had been drenched by endless rain, which came next.

Large droplets of water rained upon them from the grey sky above.

Their eyes looked ahead, only to find an entrance to some form of a city.

Of course, it wasn’t the city they just left. Not the familiar metropolitan ruin, but something far older, its architecture looked gothic and towering, built on a scale that suggested it was once a place filled with people.

The buildings rose on either side in dark stone, their facades ornate with carved figures that time had worn into something ambiguous and a little unsettling.

Gas lamps lined the street ahead, burning with a pale blue flame that gave no warmth. The cobblestones beneath their feet were slick with moisture, as if it had been there even before the rain.

Black vines had spread across every surface with the particular thoroughness of something that had been growing for a very long time without anything to stop it. They spread through the building faces, the cracked cobblestone and swallowed the lower halves of doorways.

They looked nothing like any plant Damon recognised. They were completely dark, releasing a faint black smoke in a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat, from their pores.

"They’re not here," Ivy whispered, her gaze trailing across the street ahead.

Damon nodded, instantly noticing the same thing.

Despite entering the rift only a minute before them, the five lieutenants were completely gone, as if devoured by the city ahead.

"Stay on guard," he said as he began to walk through the gates of the city ahead.

Now that he took a closer look, the architecture looked a lot familiar to a Victorian-style building from Earth, though there was something darker about it, as if corrupted by something vile.

They remained quiet as they moved deeper into the city. Although there were no jagged lines across the sky, a first clue that there was something wrong about this place, they had no doubt that the five enemies must have gone that way.

The rain fell steadily, heavy enough to darken their clothes within minutes. It collected between the cobblestones and ran in thin rivulets that stained darker than water should.

The gas lamps burned their pale blue on either side, creating cold pools of light between stretches of deeper dark.

The city felt abandoned suddenly rather than gradually. Shop fronts still had signs, though they weren’t in any language either of them could recognise. And just like at the outskirts of the city, everything continued to be covered by the black vines.

Up close, the black smoke they released drifted consistently in one direction regardless of wind, drawn toward something deeper in the city, exactly where they were headed now.

Then, Ivy, who walked a step ahead of Damon, suddenly paused midstep, her head snapping to the alley to her left, where there were no gas lamps to fight against the dark.

Damon followed her gaze immediately, at first seeing nothing but a shadow, which then moved in a way no shadow should.

It emerged slowly, grey skin pulled tight across a frame with too many joints. Its limbs were one too many on each side, the extras hanging slightly lower, moving with subtle independence that made it look assembled rather than born.

Where its eyes should have been were two hollow recesses, deep enough that no light reached the bottom of them, making the creature only look more eerie.

It carried a cleaver nearly as wide as its torso, holding it with the casual grip of something that had never considered losing. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

It paused for a moment, the second it reached the cobblestone street they were on. It had no eyes to look at them with, and yet the hollow recesses pointed directly at them. The rain continued to pour around them, breaking the silence that weighed on them before the figure finally moved.

The speed was the most wrong thing about it. Its crooked frame suggested a lurching gait. Instead, it crossed the distance between them in less than a second, cleaver already mid-arc before Damon’s hand reached his sword.

Although everything about the monster in front of them seemed wrong, its speed was the wrongest part about it. Its crooked frame suggested a lurching gait, maybe an askew walk. Instead, it crossed the distance between them in less than a second, the cleaver already mid-arc before Damon’s hand reached his sword.

CLANG!

The blades met right in front of Ivy’s face with an impact that sent a shockwave of displaced air across the narrow street.

Her face turned a shade paler, not from fear exactly but from the particular realisation of how close the margin had been. Another half second, and it wouldn’t have been Damon’s sword that met the cleaver.

The impact reverberated through Damon’s arm with terrifying force, letting him know that the creature before him wasn’t just fast.

Ivy’s flames roared to life a second later, cutting through the air just as Damon retaliated with a strike of his own, carving a large gash across the monster’s torso before stepping between its shadow and thrusting his blade from behind.

A loud shriek escaped the monster’s maw as the flames hit it. Damon’s blade cut only a split second later, cutting the loud noise short as its neck split open and black blood sprayed across the cobblestone before its body slumped to the ground.

[You have slain a Level 66 Town Keeper]

[New Monster Index bonus: +11 Strength, +15 Dexterity, +9 Vitality]

[You have reached Level 68. You have received 1 Stat Point.]