Nightblade (Darkest night)

The great hall of the ancient temple had served as a bestiary for the inhabitants of the lost city.

It had been filled with nebulous statues depicting the different species of creatures that populated Tenebris.

The statues had been masterfully crafted, sharing an eerie resemblance to their real-life counterparts.

Time and effort had gone into skilfully sculpting the life-like masterpieces, probably for future generations.

Sadly, all the time that had been invested had been nullified in one day.

The meticulously arranged bestiary was now a ghost of its former glory.

Webs of cracks spread throughout the floor, zigzagging through the hall from the centre of the titanic clash.

Broken statues littered the floor, and debris rained in all directions from the fury of the devastating battle.

Emily quietly hid behind a massive statue at the far end of the hall, ducking occasionally to dodge random bits of flying debris.

"At this rate, nothing is going to be left," she thought in awe.

She kept glancing at Morgan from time to time to make sure he was unharmed.

The drayghar continued to gracefully evade the shadow wraith's attacks, effectively barring it from reaching Morgan.

Despite its large size, the Emperor of beasts moved swiftly, elusively darting around Morgan's limp form, always one step ahead of the wraith's furious assaults.

From the few bits of the battle that Emily's eyes had been able to track, the drayghar and the shadow wraith were evenly matched in terms of strength.

But fortunately, the winged creature surpassed the shadow wraith in terms of speed, giving it an insidious advantage in the ferocious fight.

From what Emily had surmised, the wraith had been triggered when Morgan had begun correctly following the instructions in the temple.

" Could this be one of the tests the inscriptions mentioned?"

From the looks of things, the wraith had been put in place to safeguard the knowledge of the ancient temple.

" One that probably involves preventing anyone from gaining the knowledge inscribed on the wall if they're not worthy?"

Seeing the wraith's violent reaction, a fleeting suspicion formed in Emily's mind.

" Or could this be an entirely new way of becoming an initiate?"

From what Morgan had told her, families passed down their techniques of absorbing umbralis to a select number of aspirants specially handpicked from within the Great families.

But because of the interruption that had occurred at the start of the aspirants' exam, Morgan hadn't been able to get in touch with his mentor for instruction on the Thane family technique.

Emily's eyes widened, the truth of what she'd just realized stunning even her.

" That actually makes sense. This city, this temple, from the looks of things, we're the first people to stumble into this place in a very long time.

That would mean there really is something special about what Morgan just did."

Her green eyes narrowed in suspicion.

" That would explain why the shadow wraith suddenly moved despite having been static this entire time. Morgan may have unknowingly triggered a fail-safe mechanism that was probably left in place by the original inhabitants of the temple and the city."

Emily cautiously peeked around the statue, sneaking a look at the calamitous clash that continued.

The two monsters rampaged through the hall at frightening speeds, their forms appearing like blurs to her eyes.

From her point of view, massive twin beans of darkness clashed, colliding violently again and again.

" But still, that doesn't explain why the drayghar is protecting Morgan? Or the weird thing earlier when it entered his body. And that also brings up the question of what makes the technique so special that they'd take such drastic measures to keep it from ever being learned by any other person."

At that moment, the wraith snarled in what sounded like frustration, then lunged forward, its massive claws flashing through the air.

Then, in the next moment, something strange happened.

The shadow wraith froze mid-lunge, attempting to dodge out of the drayghar's way.

Throughout the clash, the drayghar had been moving around at a frenetic speed, reacting to the shadow wraith's attacks with its light-speed reflexes, always parrying or dodging blows with unnatural ease.

An uncanny intelligence gleamed in its white and gold eyes, and so it continued to observe the wraith for openings even as the fight progressed.

After exchanging several blows with the dark wraith, the drayghar had woven an intricate trap, baiting the wraith, and the dark being had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

In the next moment, the drayghar pounced on the shadow wraith in one fluid motion, pinning it to the ground beneath its massive claws.

A split second later, the drayghar's impossibly long fangs shot forward with blinding speed.

The drayghar's jaws clamped down on the wraith's neck, eliciting an unnatural howl from its dark maw.

The shadow wraith strained, cracking the floor around it, several jagged cracks spreading throughout the devastated floor from the terrible force.

It attempted to heave the drayghar's massive body off it with little success.

Emily watched the drayghar violently shake the wraith around with ease.

Her eyes widened in disbelief.

"The drayghar is winning? How is this even possible?

The plaque had called the drayghar the emperor of beasts, which clearly stood for something.

Based on the scene she was witnessing, it wasn't an exaggeration.

But in Emily's own experience, the shadow wraiths she had encountered so far were creatures that had seemed overwhelmingly sinister and powerful, seemingly untouchable by the laws of the world.

The creature that had immobilized Nick at the orphanage had been a wraith, and the shadow wraith they'd encountered outside the cave had taken care of the growler with ease.

If someone had previously told her that there were creatures that could easily take down a creature of that magnitude of strength, she'd have laughed in their faces, but now she was witnessing it with her own eyes.

The wraith struggled uselessly against the drayghar's onslaught.

The wraith's jagged claws raked through its glossy hide, leaving deep gashes in their wake that bled darkness.

The drayghar slammed the wraith into the cracked floor, deepening the small crater that had formed from the fury of their clash.

The wraith turned incorporeal, but the drayghar turned incorporeal as well, clinging onto it even in their mist forms.

They turbulently zipped around the room, crashing through statues and violently slamming into the walls.

Their forms turned corporeal once more, the two creatures turning into a roiling mass of devastation that threatened to wreck the temple.

Emily watched the furious struggle with a mixture of horror and awe.

The devastation caused was akin to two forces of nature colliding.

The drayghar stubbornly refused to relinquish its grip on the wraith's neck, clinging to it with uncanny tenacity.

With a feral snarl, the drayghar planted its massive paws into the floor, cracking it.

In the next moment, it violently shrugged, the motion brutishly snapping the wraith's neck in one gruesome twist.

The victor of the ethereal clash was decided then.

The wraith's struggles slowly turned sluggish, then ceased altogether.

A moment later, its body dissolved into darkness that flowed into the drayghar's body, seeping into its dark fur.

The gruesome wounds on its body healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Emily cautiously crept out of its hiding place.

She had a few bruises and cuts from the debris that had been flying through the air during the tumultuous clash, but she was mostly alright.

She warily watched the drayghar, hesitating for a while, then a determined glint appeared in her eyes.

" This is probably a terrible idea. I blame you, Morgan."

Emily normally wasn't reckless about her life, but spending so much time with Morgan was affecting her more than she'd imagined was possible.

She inhaled deeply, then courageously walked towards the drayghar, taking slow, measured steps.

Emily did her very best to appear more confident than she felt.

She stopped a distance away, furtively glancing at Morgan's unconscious form, then firmly fixing the large beast with her gaze.

The drayghar glanced at her, scrutinizing her with its eerie golden eyes.

"I probably look like a defiant ant," she inwardly thought.

After a while, it turned and walked towards Morgan's limp form.

With each step it took, the drayghar shrank in size until it turned into a small winged cub.

It stared at Morgan's face for a while, then nonchalantly hopped onto his chest.

The drayghar's body dissolved into a dark mist that flowed into Morgan just like the wraith had moved into its body, disappearing completely without a trace.

Morgan groaned, his body shifting slightly on the floor.

The part of the hall where Morgan lay had been untouched throughout the cataclysmic battle.

It stood out like a sore thumb amidst the devastated hall.

Throughout the hall, shattered statues and chunks of clay littered the ground.

Emily walked up to Morgan, then silently stared at him.

His chest moved up and down rhythmically, and his breaths came slowly and steadily.

It almost looked like he was asleep.

" He's definitely still alive."

Morgan had no visible wounds on his body.

She slightly shook his arm.

" Morgan, Morgan?"

Despite her best efforts, he remained unresponsive.

She glanced around at their surroundings, checking for any threat looming in the shadows, but found nothing.

Emily tiredly sighed.

" Ah, what a mess."