"Uff…uff… How the hell does Aurelia…? Huh, damn! Blargh!"

With her head hanging low, Tristessa vomited for the third time that morning. A yellowish-orange liquid, hot and with the occasional undissolved solid, sloshing around tree roots, grassless soil, and threatening to dirty the toes of the girl's black boots.

"Haaa… Ufff, fuck… Hehe, perhaps I'm pregnant? Oh, what a naughty girl, Tessa… Could it be Severus's, or Reiden's? Auron's? Or, by some divine miracle, Astoria's?" she muttered, giggling and letting out a belch accompanied by reflux that made her esophagus feel on fire. "If Endrel and Margules managed to have the Dullahan, then maybe I could… I-I!… BLARGH!"

More vomiting interrupted her futile attempt to distract herself from that horrible feeling of vertigo that made her legs and stomach tremble.

"Ha… How hopeless I am. Saying lots of stupid shit... Useless bitch, even for riding on the back of an animal."

Her first experience riding an aracross was both terrible and pathetic. She'd been forced to stop after traveling halfway across that narrow stretch of land, unable to bear the nausea brought on by the movement and speed of her new traveling companion.

"Graa!"

"Damn, you have to listen to me say all that nonsense, on top of that. What a pathetic rider I am..."

She had one hand braced against one of the hundreds of trees that formed the first barrier separating the Meridion Highway from the Feydra Forest, and with the other, she wiped away the cold perspiration that was accumulating on her forehead. A continuous trickle of drool fell from the lowest point of her lower lip as she inhaled great gulps of cold air.

"I-it's not your fault, okay?" She spat out the accumulated saliva, looked to the side and tried to smile. Which was difficult, amidst all the spasms and dizziness. "I've never ridden an animal like a horse…I think so. I'll be as good as new in no time, I promise."

"…graa."

Another intense and powerful shiver ran down Tristessa's spine, distracting her from the faint roar of the black-furred aracross sitting on its hind legs. There was nothing she could do about the tears, brought on by nausea and the burning in her throat.

"Uh…again…!"

"Yes, yes, more! For me and my sisters!"

The new wave of vomit froze in the pit of her stomach, in the terror of hearing that high-pitched female voice. The words were interspersed with devilish, mischievous, and evil giggles.

Slowly, Tristessa looked down and saw six eyes, a mixture of black and yellow… No, they weren't eyes, but patterns that formed the color of two butterfly wings, so beautifully rendered with nature's brush that the black details looked like pupils surrounded by all that yellow that covered the rest.

"F-fuck...!"

Tristessa covered her mouth to resist the nausea, which wasn't brought on by dizziness, but by the memory of that horrible experience she had with Melian Nicodemus and a swarm of those same creatures. Fear snaked through her veins like worms, swimming through putrid waters, as she watched the flapping of those wings that were synonymous with malice.

That movement allowed her to see below, the owner of those wings: a small, female creature, like a faerie, naked and with long, blood-red hair. A palkuria.

"Raaaa!" the aracross growled in threat, but the creature didn't flinch. Food was even more important than its own life.

"Delicious!" The palkuria licked at the pool of vomit as if it were a lake of punch worthy of an extravagant gala party. She raised her head so her four black eyes met Tristessa's and gave her a wicked smile that covered almost the entire lower half of her face, lined with sharp teeth. "Thank you! If you didn't smell so bad, I'd eat you too!"

Tristessa took several steps back, looking with newly born paranoia at all the surrounding trees, expecting to see a swarm of those bloodthirsty and cruel little beasts. The aracross followed her, not breaking eye contact with the palkuria and blocking the path to its owner.

She was so focused on that little faerie, the possibility that her sisters were lurking nearby, and the burning and bad taste in her mouth from the vomit, that she was completely caught off guard by a loud sound that echoed inside her head.

"No... No! Now?!"

Without warning, without any sign that it was coming, that sound transmitted by thaumaturgy to all inhabitants within Imperial territory. A harbinger of despair, the air-raid siren announcing the arrival of malice made Darkness.

"AH! IT'S HER! HER VOICE FALLS FROM THE SKY!" the palkuria shrieked, over the sound of the sirens that she might not have been able to hear. But she did feel what was coming. Forcing her to take flight instantly to escape, in search of shelter, like hundreds of birds and other flying creatures that rose above the treetops of the entire forest. "FLY, SISTERS! FLY AND DON'T SAY HER NAME ALOUD!"

Tristessa watched her disappear into the shadows of the trees, abandoning that pool of puke she had been enjoying so much. If food was more important than life to a palkuria… what could possibly frighten her so much that she wouldn't think twice about running away and abandoning her sustenance?

What was capable of making even the Aracross growl, sensing the imminent danger, yet terrified enough to cling to Tristessa as if their survival would be enhanced by being together?

An obvious answer, easy to read between the lines... The Dark Enemy of the World, who was plunging that part of Nekrom into the Evil Dream, a nightmare came true for every living being.

"ATTENTION, ATTENTION...!"

"Come on, we must get to Entrana!"

As the warning message of the Empire pf the Night's Watch echoed inside her head, Tristessa mounted her aracross and they rushed north like lightning.

The beast understood what had to be done; Tristessa had sensed it from the start. Where they had to go and why, so he ran as fast as he could. Pure survival instinct, guiding him toward the divine light.

Toward the salvation and protective aura offered by that pillar that pierced the skies of Entrana.

"...SHIELD CITIES, AND IN EVERY AREA OF IMPERIAL TERRITORY THAT POSSESSES AN [EVIL-WARDING PILLAR]! I REPEAT, TO ALL CITIZENS...!"

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Faster!" she exclaimed, oblivious to the fact that they were traveling at such high speeds that the cold wind slashed her face and left a trail of dirt along the Highway. "Let's go!"

Looking back, Tristessa feared for Madame Luchie's caravan and the Mercer-Archeos. She didn't know if Arkon, the ruined fishing town they were heading to, had defense mechanisms against the Evil Dream. She had no doubt she wouldn't be able to rest easy with the uncertainty about the fate of all those people.

But it was too late to turn back… She had no choice but to trust the mercenaries and that naturalborn from Crywolf, who had surely lived through countless dimensional shifting events and always emerged alive. Always so she could live to see her nation saved once and for all.

"Everyone… Please be safe!"

The trees were blurry silhouettes, impossible to interpret her actual location from what she had memorized on the map Jin had given her. Her head was in turmoil, but complaining about nausea and the fear of falling off the side was unnecessary next to the fear the Evil Dream provoked.

"You can do it, faster! Before…!"

"…ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL, THREE MINUTES!"

And so, Tristessa's heart stopped. Frozen, unlike time, that cruel river of the Universe that moved forward without mercy.

"Why so little…?" she whispered, looking up at the heavens with a hideous veil of terror covering her face. "My God…!"

She didn't need her vision clear off tears brought on by the painful wind. She could see the heavens themselves bleeding, cracking under the pressure of Discord, materializing as solid shadows that carried black lightning within them.

Devouring every trace of illumination second by second, inviting one to imagine a world without Light.

Three minutes.

They were never going to make it in time. Not even at the speed at which the nameless aracross was running, with all its might and as desperate as Tristessa. The Feydra Forest was vast, even with the Meridion Highway cutting through it for the shortest distance from one end to the other. Only the dozen flocks of birds flying chaotically in all directions above the forest could have hope of escape, heading for the nearest Evil-Warding Pillar.

Two minutes.

Like the other two times Tristessa had witnessed the effects of the Evil Dream's fall, in this new and terrifying circumstance, the dimensions that made up the physical reality of the world were being violated. Bastardized, reduced to fragments of space-time that were forced to shift to whatever the Dark Lady imagined in her depraved and vile mind. Speed was the only difference: the skies had already been tinged with that layer of dark, blood-red clouds, and the dimension-destroying miasma was falling at an alarming rate, like the arrival of a night without awakening.

One minute.

Tristessa didn't know what it felt like to be enveloped by the Evil Dream. In the first time she had lost consciousness prematurely. In the second time she had the defense of the Evil-Warding Pillar on her side. Now she had no salvation; no way to escape that parasitic influence wrought by divine-level dark thaumaturgy.

"We're in this together!" She yelled at the aracross, feeling a devastating terror in the center of her chest that grew with every meter the malignant miasma descended, heading toward solid ground. Bringing with it the darkness that covered everything. "Don't stop!"

"Raaa!"

Thirty seconds…

"STAY SAFE, ALL UNITED! FOR THE EMPIRE, ETERNAL SHIELD AGAINST NIGHT AND DARKNESS!"

Three seconds…

Tristessa felt the weight of her mistakes, of her sins, on her shoulders. She felt the fear of failure, of seeing all her progress squandered, and of dying in a painful and traumatic way…

She felt the presence of that noxious atmosphere before it made contact. Every hair on her neck bristled with the most terrifying shudder. Faced with the ruinous threat of that impending dark, Tristessa's mind began to play macabre games with her, leading her toward that hallway dimly lit by candles, a red carpet, and a black door at the end.

The entrance to the [Dark Room]. The real one, not her mind palace.

Two seconds…

Her heartbeat rang in her ears. Her treacherous mind led her to a deeper shadowy place of her mind, beyond the Dark Room. A place divided by metal bars, with her mother sitting in a chair on the other side. Her feet crossed, her hands clasped, her nails polished black, resting on her right thigh. Dressed formally, she was smiling with her trademark and unbearable vanity.

"…still here, Tristessa?" Selene Irandell asked from inside the cell. She separated her hands and pointed her index finger at the only inanimate object visible in the cell, apart from the chair she was sitting over: a clock on the wall, its glass broken and its hands stopped at a specific hour. "Do you hear it? Tick, tock...Tick, tock. [Time] is running out for you..."

That frozen hour. [7:25:45]

One second...

When the miasma enveloped Tristessa, there was no physical damage. It could be seen as a shadowy cloud that caressed every solid particle of her being, beyond the protection offered by her trench-coat or pants. Without affecting or provoking any visible reaction from her; only with the surroundings, deforming the consistency of reality itself.

Turning the Meridion Highway into a path made of countless human skulls pressed together, and the trees of the Feydra Forest twisting in on themselves, their bark petrified and bending with painful shocks as countless lines of blood flowed from the cracks. It was a massive amount of blood that all the trees in the forest released in agony, represented by the sound of cracking bark. So much that soon the black, dead earth could no longer absorb any more, leaving a thin layer of dark red liquid across the entire surface of the region.

"…"

No, there were no visible consequences for Tristessa herself; she remained hale and hearty, thanks to the care of the Fireclaw Company mercenaries. Still speaking of the physical and material aspects.

"…"

But when it came to speaking of her spiritual state… Tristessa's soul was in ruins. The miasma had enveloped her being like a suffocating layer that allowed nothing to pass through. It compressed, isolated, and squeezed, with an indescribable and inhuman pain. A torture felt down to the very foundations of oneself, the place that nothing and no one could violate, defenestrate, or corrupt… Except for the Shadow Queen herself.

Her evil knew no bounds. She sought to invade, possess, and dominate every aspect of everything, even living beings, intruding into the depths of their souls and giving them a loving caress that felt like falling into an abyss of gravity as oppressive as that of a dead star.

A caress of unfathomable darkness that made Tristessa wish she could scream, tear her throat out at the pain comparable to that of her soul being shattered and reassembled in her first Death, writhe in pain and beg for that lurking presence to disappear.

"…"

Screams that never left her mouth. The inertia of the aracross's movement carried her north, even over that path of skulls, without her reacting.

She only heard the beating of her own heart, pumping out the devastating terror that had settled inside her when the Evil Dream itself touched her.

"….Raaaaa!"

"…huh?"

"RAAAA!"

The roars of the aracross allowed Tristessa to escape that grip that evil presence had on her. She could move, though she didn't dare to loosen her grip on the beast's back. She hadn't even realized she'd dug her claws into it, but the beast never complained.

The noxious air against her face became evident. Breathing hurt and brought her back to her senses. She no longer felt that pain at the epicenter of her being…

But the fear was still there, permeating every particle of her body.

"Don't stop…" she managed to say aloud, to the nameless aracross. "Quickly, please… Quickly!"

Her voice, tainted with deep Terror. Flooded with it, just as the forest floor was awash with blood, and every step of her mount's tread splashed that putrid, necrotic liquid everywhere.

And those steps weren't the only thing causing small tidal waves. There were natural beings from the Evil Dream wandering in that cursed forest…

Their eyes focused on the girl and the beast trying to escape.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.