Chapter 83- Night and the stampede of one
Ryn ran.
Behind him, the creature thundered forward.
Its limbs slammed into the temple walls as it chased him, ripping chunks of ancient stone free with every collision. Pillars cracked under the impacts. Shattered masonry rained across the courtyard in violent bursts, stones skipping and tumbling across the floor like the wake of a stampede.
The ruined temple groaned.
Dust poured from its fractures as the entire structure trembled under the violence of the chase. Fine white powder drifted through the air.
The entire structure shuddered.
Ryn didn’t slow.
At irregular intervals — or perhaps carefully chosen ones — he struck the walls as he passed. His sword scraped hard across the stone, chipping with every impact. carving deep gouges into weathered pillars.
Steel rang.
Stone cracked.
A long fracture split across one of the columns as the blade tore free.
The temple answered.
A low, structural moan building beneath the noise of the chase.
Ryn noticed it.
Maybe Lilia had too.
But the pattern was obvious.
Clear as day.
The creature was strong—
A limb slammed into the temple wall beside him.
Stone exploded outward.
A wave of shattered fragments burst across the corridor. Ryn ducked beneath the falling rubble and kept running, boots skidding across broken marble as chunks of masonry smashed against the floor behind him.
—but it wasn’t truly immune to power.
Only blessings.
At least… that was his theory.
A shadow swept over him.
Ryn rolled forward as one of the creature’s limbs speared into the ground behind him, splitting the stone where he had been a heartbeat earlier.
The impact sent cracks racing across the floor like lightning.
Whether that immunity applied only to Ariel’s light—
Or to all blessings—
Ryn had no way to prove.
However, like everything, that immunity came with a cost.
Blunt force hurt it.
Badly.
Badly enough that even a rock thrown by him had managed to crack its armour.
He vaulted over a broken pillar, boots scraping across the jagged stone as the creature smashed straight through it behind him.
The pillar shattered.
Fragments sprayed outward in a violent burst.
Ariel’s attack had proven the weakness.
Not the blessing inside it.
The fall.
The impact.
The force.
That was what had cracked its skull.
It was almost funny.
Ryn could keep cutting it—
His sword flashed as he turned mid-run and carved across a reaching limb before sprinting again.
The blade bit deep into the dark flesh.
—but the wounds would close.
Too fast.
He had to finish it in one strike.
One blow strong enough to shatter it faster than it could heal.
Ariel’s blessing would have done it easily.
But that was Sol's challenge—they couldn’t use it, so he would have to find another way.
Ryn kept running, striking at pillars that looked weakest as he passed. His blade slammed into old stone again and again, the impacts dulling its edge. Dust rained down in thick sheets.
The temple was beginning to weaken.
He felt it.
Each strike made the structure groan louder than before.
Behind him, the creature closed the distance.
It's back arched—
The spikes came.
They screamed past him in blinding streaks, embedding themselves into walls and stone with sharp metallic snaps.
Ryn twisted sharply.
He weaved between them as they shattered against the walls and floor.
Another—
Drove straight into his thigh.
His stride hitched.
But he didn’t stop.
It’s fine.
He sprinted harder.
Another strike at the wall—this time with the hilt of his sword.
The pommel slammed into a fractured section of stone.
A crack split through the pillar.
He weaved aside as a limb stabbed down beside him.
The impact shattered the floor where he had been running a second earlier.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Avoid the legs.
Strike the stone.
Run.
Again.
Strike.
Run.
Again.
The cycle repeated.
Over and over.
How exhausting, Ryn thought.
But he was close.
He could feel it.
The temple was now groaning louder under its own weight, old fractures spreading through the ancient structure.
Just a little more.
Just—
His leg failed.
The pain finally caught up.
His stride collapsed beneath him, and he tumbled hard across the stone floor.
His fist tightened against the ground.
No way.
He forced himself up.
A limb slammed down where he had been a second earlier as he rolled to the side, stone cracking under the impact.
Ryn staggered back to his feet.
He glanced at his thigh.
The bleeding hadn’t stopped.
It was getting worse.
Some kind of poison… something interfering with clotting, Ryn realised.
Of course.
He weaved again as the creature’s many limbs crashed down in succession, each strike hammering the ground harder than the last.
Lilia and Ariel had been hit by those spikes, too.
Would they—
He shook his head.
Focus.
The creature struck.
Ryn pulled his blade high and severed part of the limb. The piece collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud.
He ran.
Struck the wall.
Stone cracked beneath the blow.
The creature retaliated.
Ryn jumped, twisting midair as he sliced across another limb again. It fell to the ground
The creature faltered.
Ryn struck another one once more, carving another cut before landing.
He ran again, hammering the temple walls in rapid succession as he passed.
Close.
He was close.
The creature lunged.
Ryn swung his blade—
And met air.
The limb was already gone.
“Huh,” he muttered.
The word had barely left his mouth when the limb regenerated, flesh snapping back into place with violent speed—
It slammed into his shoulder—sharp.
***
Lilia limped forward.
Each step dragged. The grass caught at her feet like it was trying to stop her.
She had wrapped Ariel's wound as well as she could manage, hands shaking — but the bandage was already soaked through.
They had to do something before things got worse.
She pushed forward one step at a time.
Ahead, she could hear it, metal striking stone, the crash of the creature's limbs, the whole ancient structure groaning under the weight of something it was never built to survive.
Just a little further.
One more step.
I'm almost —
Her leg gave.
She hit the grass hard, shoulder first, and lay there for a moment, breath ragged. She turned her head and looked at her calf.
It was drenched in crimson blood.
She stared at it.
Preventing coagulation, she realized. Her mind worked, the way it always did when things were falling apart around her.
It wasn't just the spikes.
The limbs too.
She looked back toward where she'd left Ariel.
That's why Ariel wouldn't stop bleeding.
That's why she couldn't either.
And Ryn —
The thought finished itself without her permission.
If nothing changes....
Well die.
She dragged herself forward, fingers pulling through the grass. Her vision blurred at the edges, soft and grey, the way it had the last time she'd been close to passing out — that same familiar dimming she'd promised herself she wouldn't let happen again.
Tears slid down her face before she even realized they'd started.
She didn't wipe them away. She didn't have the spare hand.
Her thoughts churned — She wanted to sort through it. To find the thread that made sense. To figure out the answer.
But the strands kept slipping. Like it had been doing for a while now.
"We might actually die here," she muttered.
Her voice came out smaller than she'd meant it to.
She didn't want that.
She didnt want to die in a trial.
She didn't think that was too much to ask.
She pulled herself forward again.
Then the stone cracked.
Not a small sound. A deep, grinding fracture that she felt in her teeth — tearing through the air and rolling across the grass like a wave.
Lilia lifted her head just enough to see the dust cloud rising above the temple in the distance, pale and enormous against the torchlight.
Then the whole structure came down.
***
The creature struck his shoulder with brutal force, pinning him against the temple wall.
The stone shuddered under the impact.
Ryn clenched his teeth, pain ripping through his chest.
With his one working arm, he dragged his sword up and tried to strike the limb holding him.
But that limb was quickly pinned against the wall, too.
He shouted as the pressure increased.
The creature pushed harder—
Until the wall behind him finally gave way.
The Stone cracked open behind him with a sound like a thunderclap, and Ryn was thrown through the breach and swallowed by the dark interior of the temple.
He rolled through scattered relics and old bones, sending fragments skipping across the tiles, crashing through things he couldn't see before finally grinding to a stop.
He lay on his elbows.
Breathing.
Just breathing, for a long moment.
Each breath scraped through his lungs, dust and blood burning his throat as he tried to pull air back into his body.
Everything hurt.
His ribs.
His shoulder.
His leg.
It hurt so much.
The temple interior groaned around him, ancient stone settling after the impact. Dust drifted slowly through the air, thick enough to dull the faint torchlight creeping in through the broken wall.
Then—
Something moved.
Its limbs scraped across the stone floor in a dry, rhythmic clicking — claws finding purchase between shattered tiles and old bone, picking through the dark with horrible patience.
Its red eyes found him immediately.
Two burning points in the dust-choked black. The only light left inside the temple.
It unfolded slowly, its massive body rising to fill the space, casting a jagged, broken shadow across the floor where Ryn was still trying to pull air back into his lungs.
Another step.
Stone cracked beneath its weight.
Then another.
Closer.
The temple shuddered around it, deep cracks spreading through the ceiling as loose fragments of masonry began to rain down into the dark.
Ryn stumbled backwards, trying to create distance.
He grabbed loose stones from the floor and hurled them at the creature. Each impact created small cracks across its armour—
But they healed almost instantly.
He kept retreating.
Backwards.
Step by step.
The creature followed.
Until Ryn’s back hit a column—one of the few still standing.
He threw another stone.
Then another.
Except one of them wasn’t a stone.
It was his sword.
The blade struck the creature square in the face.
Its head snapped back violently.
For a moment—
Then it slowly turned to face him again as the wound sealed shut.
It raised one of its limbs.
And struck.
The limb drove through the side of Ryn’s torso and buried itself in the column behind him.
Pain exploded through him—white-hot, overwhelming.
He groaned.
Blood filled his mouth.
But that was all.
He didn’t struggle, he didn't scream.
Didn’t strike back.
Didn’t even try to pull away.
His head hung low as silence filled the temple.
Seconds passed.
Then he slowly lifted his head.
The expression on his face wasn’t defeat.
It was confidence.
Victory.
Maybe it was instinct. Maybe something in its fractured mind registered the look on his face and understood what it meant.
It tried to pull its limb free from the column.
But it was stuck.
And it was already too late.
The temple groaned.
The column broke apart.
And the whole temple fell with it.
