Page 14 of Isle of Beasts and Shadows

“Who are you?” Jonathan’s voice, tinged with a hint of unease, cut through the silence, demanding an answer from the mysterious stranger lurking above.

Despite the intensity of the moment, the soul-eater’s appearance belied the gravity of the situation. His scrawny frame and pallid complexion contrasted starkly with the armored duo below, giving him an air of fragility that seemed to contradict the power he held within. Airella, her gaze meeting the stranger’s, hesitated briefly, a flicker of recognition passing between them in the tense atmosphere of the chamber.

The reaper’s emotionless facade, usually a shield against revealing his true feelings, seemed to crack in the girl’s presence.

As he gazed into her mesmerizing multicolored eyes, an inexplicable wave of emotions surged through him, causing a peculiar itching sensation to creep through his chest and settle in his stomach. Despite these inner tumults, he maintained his silence, observing as Jonathan’s startled expression mirrored his own astonishment at the enigmatic Airella.

“You know him?” Jonathan asked her as he readied his stance.

Airella gazed steadily at the stranger, her eyes reflecting a mix of caution and curiosity.

“This is what I was trying to explain to you on the way here,” she replied, her voice tinged with a hint of urgency.

The yellow-eyed stranger exuded an eerie aura as he tightly gripped his scythe, the metal gleaming menacingly in thedim light. His cloak, tattered and frayed at the edges, billowed ominously around him. With a practiced hand, he twirled the scythe effortlessly in the air, the sound of it cutting through the silence echoed in the room.

As the blade came down with a resounding thud, it embedded itself into the ancient wooden floor, sending splinters flying from the ancient floorboards in all directions.

A chill swept through the room, unsettling the dust and causing the pile of bones to shudder and clatter behind Airella and Jonathan, who could feel the weight of the stranger’s gaze upon them, a gaze that seemed to pierce through their very souls.

As they turned swiftly, they encountered the sight of a child-sized skeleton latching onto Jonathan’s leg. Its bony fingers clawed at his armor in a futile attempt to inflict harm. With a swift, decisive motion, Jonathan forcefully kicked his leg against the nearby wooden wall, shattering the skeleton’s fragile skull into splintered fragments.

The soul-eater, observing the scene with dark amusement, found a twisted joy in the chaos unfolding before him, a rare spectacle in the desolate realm since the disappearance of humans years ago.

The reaper materialized suddenly in front of Jonathan, his dark cloak billowing ominously as he reached out to grab him by the face with skeletal fingers.

With a swift motion, he propelled Jonathan backward through the dusty attic window, the shards of glass tinkling as they shattered against the night air. Jonathan tumbled through the air before landing with a thud on the dewy grass below, theimpact knocking the wind out of him. As he struggled to catch his breath, the distant hoot of an owl broke the eerie silence.

The soul-eater turned his gaze back to the spot where the girl had been standing, but she had vanished into the darkness, leaving behind a sense of unease that hung heavy in the air.

In the heat of the moment, he lifted his scythe in a swift defensive move as her devastating blow materialized out of thin air. The girl’s agility was remarkable, almost too much for him to match.

Surprised by her initial attack, a sense of urgency washed over him. A surge of energy coursed through him as the girl retracted her golden battle axe, her foot striking out and catching his, disrupting his balance. Despite her speed and strength, he realized she lacked the finesse required to master a weapon.

Adjusting his stance, he maneuvered his scythe beneath him, leveraging it to propel himself forward. In one fluid motion, he deftly pushed the girl back against the wall with the hilt of his scythe, causing hairline fractures to spiderweb across the wall.

Pressing his skeletal foot against her gleaming chest plate, a sense of restraint held him back. However, an unseen force abruptly interrupted his actions and yanked his cloak from his body, revealing his decaying gray chest, bony hands, and feet. The only shred of modesty left was the tattered black cloth serving as his semblance of pants.

He turned around swiftly to face the unexpected newcomer, his heart pounding with a mix of surprise and dread. As he laid eyes on the figure before him, recognition dawned—it was none other than their first-in-command, the formidable leader of their group.

Duran felt a shiver run down his spine as he met the intense gaze of the soul-eater, a being exuding an aura of emotionless rage that sent a chill through his very core.

“Miscreant!” Duran’s voice didn’t waver as he uttered the word.

The reaper’s skeletal hand shot out, seizing the soldier standing beside the first-in-command. With a swift, chilling motion, the soul-eater pressed his bony palm against the soldier’s mouth. Time seemed to warp as the unfortunate man’s features contorted in agony, his eyes rolling back as if aging rapidly before their eyes.

“Marcus!” Airella let out a pained scream. She was on the verge of unconsciousness.

A ghastly transformation swept over Marcus, leaving behind a mummified husk where a living man once stood. The room was filled with an eerie silence, punctuated only by the sound of the soul-eater’s hunger.

It had been centuries since the soul-eater had tasted the essence of a human soul, and the surge of energy invigorated him. As the stolen vitality coursed through his veins, a faint hue returned to his pallid skin, rejuvenating his once-withered form. Yet, the insatiable hunger still gnawed at him—a hunger that demanded to be sated.

“End it, men!” Duran’s command cut through the tense air, his voice tinged with desperation as he urged the remaining soldiers to action, their fate hanging in the balance near the ominous stairwell.

The soul-eater dashed toward the first-in-command and grabbed him by the collar of his chest plate.

“You can’t kill what isn’t killable. I. Am. Death.” The yellow-eyed stranger’s voice, deep and ominous, sent shivers down Duran’s spine as it echoed through the dimly lit room, the words lingering in the air like an eerie whisper. The atmosphere turned cold and tense, a palpable sense of foreboding filling the space.

With a sudden, almost supernatural swiftness, Duran’s body propelled through the shattered window, and the glass shards glinted in the scant light as he hurtled toward the ground below.

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