23 Chapter 22: Soul Eater (2/2)
As the Nightmare came closer, the Huntsmen Spider opened up its under the belly and let loose every spider it held within, seeking to completely overwhelm this new threat with numbers. But when the swarm of arachnids approached, it was to no avail. As soon as spiders got close to the Nightmare, their legs began to turn rapidly decay and turn to dust. In a matter of seconds, every spider that had been used to attack the Nightmare was reduced in ash.
As the humans watched from a distance, all they could do was stare in fear. Wondering what evil, the newest member of their team had awoken and unleashed. The sheer in the air was stifling, making it difficult to breathe and started to cloud their reason. Every single set of eyes were transfixed on the impossible scene before them, the Nightmare from another world, and the giant spider it was going to kill.
Tatiana let out an audible gasp of fear as they all watched the Nightmare thrust its hands into the blighted earth, causing the blight to rapidly expand its area of influence to include where the Huntsman Spider was. Though the monster was unaffected by the newly expanded blight, it seemed the intention wasn't to try and use the decaying ability. Skeletal arms emerged all around the gigantic spider, spawning out of the blackened and blighted earth as the Nightmare that summoned them looked on in glee.
White ivory fingers of bone embedding themselves into the chitin carapace of the arachnid. Tearing off the outer layer of armor and further tearing into the soft flesh underneath. The Huntsmen Spider screamed an ungodly shriek of pain as those skeletal hands dug into its body and seized hold, systematically beginning to butcher the monster. Though the spider tried to shake the skeletal hand's loose, fighting for its life to free itself from their clutches, it was to no avail. The monsters doom was sealed.
Without a sound, the Nightmare pulled its hands out of the blighted dirt. The arms of the Nightmare seemingly more shadow than flesh as everyone struggled to watch and keep up with its rapid movements. It reached down a dark hand and grabbed at the pale flesh of its own leg and began to pull. Tearing at the skin until both the flesh and bone ripped off. its arms seemingly more shadow than flesh as everyone struggled to watch its movements. A dark hand grabbed at the pale flesh of its leg, pulling and tearing at the skin until the leg ripped off. The Nightmare smiled as it lapped at the leaking marrow of the jaded bone it now held in its hand.
What remained was completely over wordly. An oily darkness began to materialize in the shape of the leg the Nightmare had lost. A shadow leg upon which the Nightmare easily walked upon as it approached the entrapped and terrified arachnid. In its hands, it wielded the severed leg like an executioner blade. As the Nightmare moved, it began to shuck the pale flesh from the bone, using its clawed hands to sharped the edge of the bone in even powerful strokes. The sound and sight of which put the fear of death and the knowledge of true fear into all who heard it.
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The Huntsmen Spider realizing its death was approaching tried to resist up until the very end. Snapping with its jaws and trying to bite at the Nightmare, hoping to disembowel or behind it like it had the humans. But it never mattered. The difference in their strengths was simply overwhelming. Ar Goethe, a Nightmare Duke had no reason to fear such a pathetic creature. With a simple forward thrust, the spear of bone stabbed through the lower mandible of the Huntsman Spider. The Nightmare not content with just that bit of damage, continuing to cut and stab, completely unstoppable until it had cut its way all the way through the spider's underbelly, splitting it cleanly in two as blue spilled out from the massive wound.
The spider stopped struggling to get free as its lifeforce and blood disappeared, lapped up by the blighted ground that had spread all around the battlefield, feeding upon the death of both the land and the spider. The Nightmare was not content in simply letting the spider die, not after it had harmed its master. The Nightmare carefully examined the spider before walking around to the spiders back and thrust a hand through the abdominal wound it had created. Destroying all the useless organs inside until it, at last, the Nightmare found what it was looking for and grasped at the still-beating heart of the spider and tore it out. The white organ was continuing to beat, even as the spider collapsed in death. The bone arms that had been holding it in place, releasing their hold on the Huntsman Spider's body and retreated back into the blight.
Boss monsters, unlike regular minions, were not instantly reabsorbed by the dungeon after a battle. They decompensated at a rapid rate. The skin first turning to dust as the muscles and organs turned to paste. But even then, within minutes, the dungeon would have reabsorbed the rapidly decayed body of the arachnid if not for the presence of the blight that absorbed it instead.
The entire time, Luca remained unconscious as the remaining members of his team looked around at each other uncertain of how to proceed or what to do. Not one of them wanted to die, and the monster this Nightmare was, spoke towards a primal fear within them of fates worse than death. Instead, they all held their breath from where they watched, hoping the Nightmare wouldn't turn its attention to them.
Walking over to the unconscious boy, the Nightmare looked at the heart in its hand, imbuing it with the same dark energy that made up parts of its own body. The nether energy swirling around the heart corrupting it until, at last, only a bit of dust remained. The Nightmare grabbed Luca and shoved the dust down his throat, causing the unconscious boy to began to cough himself awake, even as the dust worked on healing the few remaining wounds he had and adding a dark glisten to the metallic hue of his body.
As soon as Luca opened his eyes, the Nightmare disappeared. It's mission completed for now until its master called for him again. All around, the blighted area around Luca disappeared. Leaving a dead spot where nothing would ever grow there again. Proof of what had happened in this spot, proof of the blight. But in the very middle of where the portal had been remained a single obsidian jewel that held all the energy the blight had taken from the land. A parting gift from the Nightmare to its master.
Elsewhere, the remaining members of the team were reeling, wondering just who Luca really was, and what he really was. Wondering if they had made a mistake with him or if he might just be their salvation.