The Lone Rider Of The Wild Hunt

Deep.

Deeper.

Yet deeper.

Within my lifetime, both in the real world and Carcosa. I always found bigger fish. 

Appropriately, a bigger, and crueler place for it to inhabit.

The only way to find such places is to go deeper. 

Deeper, into curiosity. 

Deeper, into hubris.

Deeper, into the state of creation.

And what I often found were the ones who were able to thrive in the depths. Those fallacies of power and administration. Those who lurk in the calm, dark abyss at the bottom of everything.

I was about to directly confront one of such fish.

And I doubted that I ever left the sunny clear surface.

"Odin, Herne, Hernnunos—Twisting and contorting? Forever scalded in hunger."

The lone man-like horseman emerged from the foreboding fog, like a lost island that resurfaced to greet the promised apocalypse. 

Armored by steel of darkness mending, it was carefree of anything threatening.

Its right hand split into two limbs, with one of them holding on the reign of the hellish steed—while the other held a red spiked cudgel, resting on its back shoulder. As for its human-like left hand, the palm was pressing on the metal pummel of its sheathed sword, comfortably strapped to the waist.

And then there was its steed—devoid of anything alight, the fleshy skeletonized mare of lost soul was ready to abide by everything that its master commanded.

The Lone Rider of the Wild Hunt set its purple blighted gaze on us.

Its distorted voice attempted to enter our terrified minds.

"Unmistaken, ??T?EMPT?IN?G and mending." The haunting steed stopped its frightful gait. "Is this ??FEA?R??"

Lupina was the first one to move by instinct. At first, I was baffled by her action, until I saw the clashing spark of her steel broadsword by something that was almost indecipherable.

And then I realized it, the Lone Rider's right hand that was holding a cudgel had changed its position.

"Urgh, it is hostile!"

Seeing that the sign of war had been raised, Verina immediately aimed her musket and pulled the trigger.

The shot of a lifeline-infused propulsion was echoed throughout the fogged forest.

However, whatever was chambered within her musket had missed. The Lone Rider's steed back-stepped so fast and so long of a distance, it returned back to the eerie fog where they originally emerged.

That was not something that a normal horse could do.

"Be cautious of the surroundings!"

Just as I warned everyone, a pair of floating fiery purple orbs moved so fast behind the fog, it created a wavy trail as it headed toward us.

It was faint but not fully concealed, I noticed the faint glimmer of moonlight reflection from a long moving surface was traveling straight to Verina.

"Guh!"

Just a centimeter away from being decapitated, I managed to pull the fabric of Verina's robe from behind, all while avoiding the on-rush myself.

Tahlia then retaliated by unleashing a jet stream of corrosive smiles from her Hardmelter. But just like before, the horse was fast enough to react and guide its master to escape the close proximity without any injury.

"So close." Verina immediately regained her foundation, brushing off the near-death experience. She chambered another spell into her musket. "So dangerous."

"A-Are you okay, Verina!?"

But just before Lupina could check on her friend, Tahlia had already issued another warning, "Another attack!"

It was from above, the Lone Rider leaped forward and onto us.

Everyone jumped away to avoid the attack. 

But I planned to end this reckless encounter. 

As such, I thundered my muscles and threw my wooden spear onto the night-striding mare. Unable to change its trajectory, it eats my spear straight on its skull.

It wasn't enough to kill it, so I hurriedly ducked forward, lunging right below where the rider and its steed was about to make its landing. At the same time, I swung my obsidian dagger as I spun my body in the air, crippling the equine entity by removing three of its hoofs from its legs.

What happened after was the horse failed to stabilize its landing and fell, rolling disastrously to the floor.

Using my momentum, Verina fired another spell onto the Lone Rider.

But the Lone Rider repelled it with a mere swing of its cudgel. 

"Tch."

The fiery orbs on its eyes glowed with wrath. Without a moment of hesitation, the Lone Rider unsheathed its sword and stabbed its own befallen horse right on the heart.

Sensing something imminent, I immediately voiced my realization.

"Verina, move!"

Before I could do anything, the Lone Rider then swung the sword at Verina's direction, throwing the blood that its sword soaked as a long-range wave of projectile.

That incomprehensible projectile hit Verina on her lower part of the legs, severing both of the feet from the shin. Without any foundation to maintain her stature, she fell without any sense of balance.

Angered while still in her Feral Rage, Lupina growled as she rushed toward the Lone Rider.

But before Lupina could connect her strike, the Lone Rider strikes her with a deafening, mind-bending shockwave created by the shout of its warcry. 

That warcry affected every single one of us, worsening our sense of self and reality.

With the wolf staggered, the Lone Rider used this chance to dash forward with its cudgel ready to be hurled.

"Move!"

Just right before the Lone Rider's strike hit Lupina, Tahlia slammed his body toward the Wild Hunt's horseless cavalry with all his might, that it was enough to shift the trajectory of the cudgel to hit the ground.

But immediately after, the Lone Rider grabbed the cat by his neck with one out of its right hands.

If we follow the brute instinct and prowess of the Lone Rider, it would definitely harden its grip and crush Tahlia's neck under immense physical pressure.

Before that could happen, I was already there beside the cat, swinging my obsidian dagger from below and onto the crevice gap of the Lone Rider's intersection between the dark-steel gauntlet and the elbow protection.

At that same time, Lupina was already on her way to jam her steel broadsword right into the Lone Rider's heart.

While laying on the ground, Verina also had pulled the trigger that propelled a spell projectile directly onto the Lone Rider's head.

Three different strikes, performed at the exact same time to put this Wild Hunt's follower down.