Duskbound-Chapter 38Book 2,

For the last two weeks of her life, Sildra hadn’t felt comfortable. She was far away from every place she’d ever known and every person she’d ever met, except for Jensen. He’d done his best in a sort of awkward but sweet way, but it was incredibly obvious that he was obsessed with his project. He’d seemed paranoid when he’d described what was going on, but she’d gradually started to believe he was right about someone trying to sabotage him.

Then came an ambush in the middle of the night. If there’d been any doubt left in her mind, it vanished there. Finding out Velik was still being targeted by people she’d grown up with was distressing, but he hadn’t seemed surprised—just confused. He’d disappeared, to absolutely no one’s surprise, and Torwin had gone to track him down.

All of that had been stressful and bewildering, often leaving her feeling like a child tagging along with her parents to something she knew was important, but didn’t understand and that no one would take a minute to explain to her. She’d just done her best to keep her mouth shut and fade into the background.

But this? This thing. This I understand.

It was the enemy. The corruption. Morgus had blessed her specifically to fight back against this threat, and for everything else she wasn’t sure how to handle, she knew what to do here. She was a [Druid of the Crescent Moon] now, and while her skills were weakest during the daylight hours, she wasn’t as helpless as she’d been a few months back.

When she’d evolved her class with the class orb her god had granted her for helping to save the frontier, a new skill had appeared on her list. At first, the system had prevented her from taking it. Her two skill slots were full with [Lunar Flare] and [Eye of the Moon]. That had ended when they’d merged together into [Lunar Judgment], freeing up a skill slot to take the new skill, [Fragment of Starlight].

It was a simple change to her build, not one that was useful most of the time, but here, it had a chance to shine. The skill allowed her to use any of her other skills within the limited radius of a few feet as if it were still nighttime, which meant that while she couldn’t smite the monster with [Lunar Judgment] from fifty feet away now that the sun had come up, it had made a huge mistake trying to crawl into her body.

Burn.

And it did. To her, the light was comfort and warmth and clarity. To the monster that thought it could take her over like it had done to that poor man, it was death. She could vividly remember watching a man she’d known for twenty years literally puke up organs to make room for the corruption growing in his body—the same corruption that was coming for her now.

The process of expelling the monster was, if anything, even more unpleasant than when it had forced its way into her body. It was violent, tearing at her throat and forcing her jaw wider than it was designed to open in its haste to escape being immolated by her magic, but Sildra fought back against that, too. If it got too far away, she wouldn’t be able to kill it, so she used her hands to help hold her mouth closed.

There was just one problem with that strategy. She wasn’t like Velik or Torwin with fifty levels in a class that stacked physical, and she needed to breathe. After thirty seconds, she was forced to let the monster flee. It jetted from her mouth despite her intentions, freeing up her chest and leaving her to heave up globs of dark blood, both hers and the monster’s.

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I hope someone has a healing potion. Jensen told me had a few for emergencies, but he’s not here…

The pain was terrible, worse than anything else Sildra had ever felt, but she’d survive long enough to have her revenge. The monster, whatever it was, had been weakened greatly in its attempts to possess her. [Lunar Judgment] had hurt it, but not enough to kill it. Whatever it was, it was far stronger than the corrupted seed bearers who’d destroyed her hometown.

That just meant she’d need to keep trying. The skill was draining, but she’d had hours to recover from the ambush and she was angry enough to ignore the creeping sense of exhaustion trying to weigh her down already.

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The red blob, now stained with both its own and her blood, didn’t get far. It seemed to be angling for the body it had just abandoned, but it couldn’t move much faster than a man might walk. She chased after it, hammering it again and again with [Lunar Judgment]. Pale moonlight roiled across its form, burning away its life little by little.

Torwin helped, too. He didn’t directly attack the monster, but arrows rained down in front of it, forming a cage that it was forced to slip through. Though its form was malleable enough that even the arrows pinning it to the ground could be broken or slid past like they weren’t there, the process slowed the monster down.

Giller’s shield slammed onto it, then lifted back into the air before smashing into the ground again. Throughout all of that, Sildra never let up, not until she felt the familiar kill notification in her mind.

[You have helped slay an elite agent of corruption (level 48).]

[You have been awarded 2 decarmas.]

[You have advanced to level 16. +2 Mental, +2 Mystic.]

[Lunar Judgment has advanced to rank 4.]

[Fragment of Starlight has advanced to rank 2.]

Immediately, she felt the radius of [Fragment of Starlight] expand a few feet farther from her body. It wouldn’t make much of a difference, but it was a start. If she could get the skill to rank 10, she’d be able to affect targets fifty or sixty feet away at any time of day. That would be huge. Someday.

All three of them relaxed at the same time. Both Torwin and Giller turned to stare at Sildra, who croaked out through blood-smeared lips, “Can I have a healing potion?”

Then the pain and the exhaustion caught up with her and she collapsed on the spot.

* * *

Torwin was already moving before Sildra dropped. He’d seen new hunters push themselves too hard plenty of times and have the exact same reaction, though admittedly, doing so while hacking up a monster that had forced itself into their chest cavity was a new one for him.

Regardless, her request for healing was easily managed. Every smart monster hunter kept some emergency healing on hand and enough decarmas on their status to buy some of the more esoteric remedies if the situation called for it. In this case, he wasn’t sure how bad the internal damage was and opted not to be stingy.

Wincing slightly at the price of a system store potion possibly being wasted, he uncorked the vial with his teeth and tipped the contents into Sildra’s mouth. A few moments later, her eyes flickered open and she started coughing.

“Easy,” he said, holding her tighter when she tried to sit up. “Relax for a second. Drink the rest of this before you try to move around, then give it a few minutes to do its work before you stand up, alright?”

Mutely, she nodded and did what he’d asked. This is going to be some trauma for her. What that monster did… I guess this is where we find out if she’s got what it takes to commit to her path now that she’s been hurt.

Torwin hoped she’d be alright. She’d been helpful during his investigation, one of the few people from Deshir who had. It was obvious she was important to Jensen, though Torwin wasn’t sure to what extent exactly, and though Velik didn’t show it, she was probably important to him, too. More than that, Torwin couldn’t help but feel responsible.

He was the strongest in their little group. He should have protected her. Worse, he’d literally brought the monster to Sildra, carrying it in his arms. If she hadn’t had some way to hurt it from inside, she’d likely be dead. Maybe not dead, he thought, remembering that Gorlath had been alive until Velik had killed him, but possessed in some way? A hostage? Either way, this is the better outcome. We got lucky.

“Care to fill me in on what that thing was?” Giller asked, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m not exactly a monster hunter, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not familiar with this particular variety.”

“The guild has never seen anything like this,” Torwin said with a shake of his head. “Not until a few months ago, at least.”

“This thing was hiding inside a body. Is that how they get into towns and cities? Find a corpse, crawl in, and wait for someone to carry them inside the walls?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Torwin told her. “It’s worse than that. I think it was already inside him before he died. I saw Velik kill him. That body never left my sight.”

“That reminds me,” Giller interrupted. “Who is he?”

“The [Beast Tamer] who sent that cat after Velik, except Velik said the kill notification called him a [Soul Binder]. He’s a gold-ranked hunter named Gorlath.”

Giller looked back at the body and let out a low whistle. “Well, this is a colossal fuck up, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid it’s worse than it appears,” Torwin said grimly. “If this thing was already inside him, walking around, talking to his friends, living Gorlath’s life, and nobody knew about it…”

“There could be more of them,” Giller finished the thought. “Oh, gods. Whole cities could be infested.”

Or maybe just the leadership of the country’s premier Monster Hunters Guild. But for how long? And how much damage have they done?