Chương 98: Evil Spirit That Devours Mankind

Leonard's eyes slowly widened, and the cut on his cheek bled, with blood dripping at an increased pace.

'What the hell is that!?' Its figure was stanced up near one of the lamps surrounding Leonard's tipi; he hoped it was a trick of the mind or an elaborate shadow of June casting a disturbing visage through his home's thin-skinned walls. It stood almost as high as the tipi. Leonard hoped it was a trick of light.

Its shape was eerily human but too thin and too tight; its proportions were elongated, its fingers were as long as swords, and its impossibly thin and long legs held a torso that looked too big but was too small. Its head tilted and jittered as Leonard's tipi began to strain and bulge. As the creature slowly pushed both of its six-fingered hands onto the tipi's walls, a soft pink finger protruded, then the next, then another.

The tipi stood, but its fingers peeled his humble home's skin like a spoiled banana, and its pupil-less, glowing white eyes pierced through the canopy of darkness, and not a grin nor a smile was on its face. In fact, the skin around its mouth was seemingly torn and devoured, showing gum and teeth alike, its pale skin wrapped around emaciated cheekbones. It had no nose, but two angular holes in its place and a vague outline of pink skin filling in where its nose should have been.

Its hazy white orbs in place of eyes were fixated on the sound of blood dripping; its head tilted with each drop, triangulating its location with its earless hearing; its breath hastened, sounding like a strained old man's dying breaths; its gums began to drip with both blood and drool as it slowly began to awkwardly peel the tipi's skin.

Leonard stepped back and lifted a finger to block the small cut on his cheek, but the increased blood flow from his hastening heart did not do him any favours as blood rushed around the finger and continued to run down his pristine porcelain skin. He reached a free hand behind his back and plucked a bell that was woven into his pants and kept it still within his hand. It was a bell that Martin gave him; as much as he hated the fool, he didn't have the heart to refuse gifts.

June's tent was nearby; he would hear the bell ring, but so would the humonoid creature. The entrance led where it stood, so there was no way out.

'Shit… Shit… Shit… This is the IMP!' Like waves splashing onto land, its drool mixed with blood flowed out suddenly and stopped; its breathing had hastened, and its gaze slowly tilted up to where Leonard stood. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

'Shit! Holy shit! Should I just scream, 'No, no, then it'll get me!'? It stood motionlessly outside the tipi, peering in through a hole held open by its gnarly fingers. It suddenly snapped its head to the wall next to Leonard, and he slowly turned his head around and faintly heard footsteps coming.

'SHIT!' It slowly peeled the tipi further to its waistline, its head fixed to the noise of footsteps; its torso was also dead still, making it seem like a statue with hydraulic arms instead of a living monster. It suddenly, within a second, fell to its stomach and slid right beside Leonard. His eyes widened further. He had jumped to one leg, but now that it was meters away, he was in no position to put it back down; its drooling, bleeding mouth was close enough for the heat of its breath to caress his hovering leg.

Leonard failed to breathe; his eyes were deathly wide. Consistency was expected when something moved, but this monster had none. Its arm peeled his tent with a slow and even consistency like a hydraulic press, but it slid in and next to him before he was able to properly blink, and now it was unmoving. Only its strained breath indicated life; its stomach and body refused to expand and depress when respiring. A drop of blood finished flowing down Leonard's arm and plopped against the floor.

And before he noticed, its face had turned to him.

June awoke suddenly and already found himself running towards the sound of Leonard's gut-wrenching cries for help. He was still half-asleep, but he had never found himself waking up and moving so fast. In the first second, he stood up and manifested a revenant bracelet into a sword; in the next, he tore through his tipi's walls, and as his foot touched the outside ground, he clocked a large inhuman silhouette and a tall, dangling silhouette hanging from its mouth.

He mustered all of his will within the next second, and before even his eyes could process his actions, he leaped with enough force to uproot the tipi behind him and violently pop his legs, flying through Leonard's domicile and limply cannonballing into the large figure at breakneck speeds. On the fifth second, he righted himself on the towering monster midair and witnessed something that snapped something in him like a frayed bowstring.

In the seventh second, he grabbed his friend's torn leg out of the monster's maw, leaving a pound of flesh in its mouth, and in an act of inspired wrath, his salivating mouth plunged into the creature's neck and sank down into it.

In his split second, River stumbled over at the sound of Leonard's deafening scream, a moment of thinking of fleeing, then considering saving someone who treated him nicely, followed by the idea of fleeing again, which had caused him to stumble face-first. Almost immediately after the scream, June's dwelling exploded violently, and a large blur burst out. Savage screaming, pained screaming, wrathful screaming, and his own terrified scream mixed together into a macabre song.

He watched a golden blur afterimage form in what he could only assume was June's trajectory through Leonard's tipi. River held in his fear and hesitantly ran towards Leonard. The sound of June's tipi exploding was loud enough to catch the attention of most of Brighthaven.

Leonard listened to his own screams with an unknowing disassociation.

'Why am I bleeding?' His eyes warped his vision with tears, and a gushing red stump was barely visible to him.

'Oh yeah, I cut myself with the razor!' A beautiful streak of gold from June's afterimage shone past him, and he reached for the friendly light.

'I hope I wasn't too hard on June.' The streak of golden light slowly faded away. As did his vision. As did his hearing. And eventually, so did he.