84 The Gathering Girl III

The sound of their claws knocking against her armor.

The sight of their fangs drooling right in front of her face.

The constant pushing and pulling from the creatures fighting amongst themselves to decide which one would get to destroy her.

The tingling sensation of their skin sliding through her blade, sending cold chills all the way down her spine.

The light of the sun fading away completely as if to announce that all hope was gone.

She had already lost her sense of touch, taste, and smell, and now, even her vision was becoming obscured as the mountain of spider-like beings continued to pile up on top of her and blocking any possible means of escaping.

"Aaaarghhhh!! Stay away!!!" the girl roared as she would swing down her blade to keep her enemies at bay.

Lian Garen's betrail was far from unexpected but the timing of it couldn't have possibly been worse, as the girl had placed herself in the heart of a forest infested with infected monsters who wouldn't stop coming from every possible way.

Trees, caves, underground, from the rivers, from inside the mist, more and more crawlers continued to show up as if they were raining from the sky.

The sudden shock from being stabbed in the back by her former prisoner had completely broken the girl's focus, and now she wasn't sure how to move on and get back on her feet.

Should she try to chase after the red dragon? Hold her ground and fight until she killed them all? Return to the barrier of the tower? Or maybe just run towards a new place entirely?

It was at that moment she realized her mistake. Despite how much she hated him, and how much she didn't want to admit it, she had been relying on Lian Garen too much.

Up until that point, all she needed to worry about was figuring out what she wanted to do and force him to tell her how she could achieve it.

Lian was the planner, and she was the executioner.

Without him, she had no idea how to survive in this world by herself. Where to go? What to do? How to escape?

Her head was in a complete disorder and her body just wouldn't stop thinking about keeping her sword safe as it continued to fend of the arachnids that kept coming.

She would slash a few legs here, a couple of fangs there, maybe even cut off a few heads, but there were just too many of them.

It seemed that the absence of the dragon was acting like a sign for them to realize that the time to attack was now.

Three monsters leaped towards her and were quickly disposed off with a vertical slash, but two more appeared striking her in the back and making her fall down.

The girl rushed to kick them away but a new beast appeared from below the ground as just its head started to bit her legs. She tried to stab it, but yet another smacked her in the torso and made her flinch.

She couldn't really say for sure, but it was almost as if the crawlers were starting to coordinate themselves, playing smarter, using teamwork.

The moment she tried to focus on what was in front of her, others would try to strike from above, from behind, and from her sides.

She attempted to run, but her armor ended up getting caught in a series of threads, so thin that almost looked invisible.

They weren't just juggling her like a group of bullies on the playground, they were in fact secretly leading her to their nest, where they could restrain her movements for good.

She kept swinging her sword with the best of effort, but a feeling that she had almost forgotten started to gently knock on the door of her brain.

"I'm scared..." she mumbled while disposing of the webs and continuing to run towards nowhere.

Eight crawlers could be seen leaping between the trees while chasing her.

"I'm scared! I'm scared!!"

Three crawlers rose from below like zombies right in the middle of her path, forcing her to turn the other way.

"I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!!! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!!"

The pacing of her words began to accelerate.

Nothing she would do seemed to be good enough. Death was surrounding her everywhere.

Killing them wasn't enough. Running wasn't enough. So many times already the beasts came so close to taking away her life by baring their fangs on her blade, her only means of fighting back.

"I don't wanna die!!!"

The fight seemed endless. Unlike the months of battling with the immortal red dragon, learning its patterns and finding its weak points in order to gain control of the fight, facing the crawlers was moe equivalent to being placed inside of a horror movie. All one could do was hope for the best and pray they would succeed.

Slaying them was pointless, for each life she took, ten or twenty more would soon come after.

The girl finally found herself completely surrounded. A siege of crawlers formed around her position. Every single tree in a radius of two miles had an enormous monstrous arachnid in it gazing at her. Their threads were everywhere and the lack of sunlight made it impossible to know where she was going.

"I'm... I'm gonna die..."

Reality finally managed to reach her.

Without Lian, she was simply not good enough, not strong enough, not smart enough.

She was just a teenage girl before all of this started after all. The fact that she managed to reach this point was a miracle in itself, but even someone with an unbreakable armor would have its limits.

At any moment now, they would get a lucky hit against her, she would make a mistake, her fear would get the best of her.

Despite her fears of losing her humanity, in the end, she wasn't a killing machine. She was just a girl.

A girl completely unfit to be in that situation.

"I... I'm so tired..." she mumbled as she began to lower her sword.

What was even the point?

She could keep fighting for days, weeks even, but she knew she would still lose in the end. She was just one, and they were an entire forest. Why prolong her misery? Why not just stop the pain? End the nightmare.

The girl then raised her sword and stabbed it into the ground, ready to accept her fate.

She tried to recall any memories of her past life she could. Anything to make this moment any less painful. The sensation of Lian Garen pressing his claws against her blade was still carved into her mind.

It was like a series of daggers cutting deep into her soul.

Her only hope was that the crawlers would be faster. Make it as painless as possible.

She didn't want to suffer anymore.

"I'm ready..." she announced while letting go of her weapon, resembling a knight giving up her duty to keep fighting, communicating the signal for all the beasts to start coming after her.

In these last moments, all she could think of while waiting for her demise, was the scene of her and another girl enjoying their time on the beach as the light of the sun would warm up their skins, the breeze of the wind would refresh their souls, and the sound of the waves would calm down their hearts.

"I don't know who you are... But it seemed as if we were really close..." she uttered her final words, "Thank you for having been my friend in my last life..."

One of the crawlers ended up jumping ahead of the others.

The beast opened its eight legs as if preparing to give the knight the worst hug of her entire life.

She closed her eyes as her dreadful fate continued to approach when finally...

"The hell are you doing!!??"

The voice of someone yelling at her from the sky suddenly woke her up from the state.

She opened her eyes and saw the figure of a young boy with white hair dressed in black leather clothes with a pair of bat wings on his back dropping from the sky and burying the crawler that was about to kill her deep into the ground.

He was armed with a mace made of bones covered in blood, indicating he already fought with some of the residents of the area.

"Y- You??" she gasped.

It was the vampire boy that she met during her travel with Lian, the only one who tried to defend her and speak on her behalf.

"What are you doing here!!??"

He didn't reply, but instead just grabbed her claymore and raised it in order for her to take it while giving her a serious look, "You remember what I said back then?"

"What you said??"

"Finish what you started!!"

The crawlers were frozen for an instant as they were startled by the arrival of a new threat, but soon realized they vastly outnumbered the two of them and began to charge once again.

"You were going to defeat the dragons, were you not? I'm here to help!" he declared.

"Help... You...? You will help me?"

"Of course!!" he extended her claymore once again, "I'm on your side!"

The girl picked her sword, feeling like she was receiving the greatest gift anyone could give er at the moment, the feeling of hope.

The two hurried to put their backs against each other and kept their eyes focused on the circle of creatures.

"What happened with your pet dragon? Did these things eat him?"

"I wish..." she groaned, "The douche just left me to die while going off on his own..."

"I see..." the boy replied while slapping one of the crawlers with his bone mace, "It seems like you have a score to settle then!"

"A score to settle..." she repeated as a series of four crawlers dropped from above.

The girl raised her helmet and just stabbed each of them with incredibly fast thrusts that ended their lives in an instant.

"Of course... How could I have been so stupid! I can't die here! Not yet at least!!"

The creatures then began to make way as the ground started to shake with great magnitude before opening itself and revealing a massive crawler, four times bigger than any of those present in there.

The girl simply assumed her battle stance as she held her blade at the giant, "I can't die until I make Lian Garen pay for what he did!! I'm gonna find that red lizard, and shove my sword down his throat!!"

The boy couldn't help but laugh at her remark, "That's the spirit!!"

The two of them then stood side-by-side and charged at the beast, as they both knew they were by the side of someone they could rely on, and that the mission was far from over!