Northern’s expression crumpled as it was immediately overwhelmed by dread, fear crawled across his skins with cold tips, his body shook uncontrollably.
‘W–w–w—what?…’
Thinking straight at this moment was impossible. His nemesis was here again.
Why? Why now? Why again?
Just when he thought he had finally grasped victory by its helm and was going to lead his way out of this hellish realm. It came again.
What in the world is this nonsense?
Who wanted him dead so badly that would go to any extent to see their dreams come to fruition.
Was it the gods? Was it Rughsbourgh? Damnit who should he haunt after he dies?!!
‘Huh…’
At once Northern’s face became grim, void of any fears or emotion for a second.
‘…you just thought about death didn’t you?’ He internally said to himself.
He tilted his head with a dangerous glimmer in his blue eyes.
‘Don’t do that… we are not going to die here. We… are… survivalist.’
Thud!
A heavy pressure, almost palpable crumbled on Northern’s vicinity, making the shadows surrounding the lower level of trees shrink back as fast as they could.
The Night Terror took a pause, it’s tetrad eyes narrowing at once.
Northern like a living dead bent over to pick the decrepit scimitar and aimed it forward, lackadaisical to the chains bounding his hands and legs.
‘I don’t care… I’m just going to burst through you whatever way.’
His eyes were fueled with a maddening rage and determination, that made his expression starkly dark… like a seed of absolute darkness that would stop at nothing to exert its vengeance upon its foes.
The Terror was about to take another step but immediately jumped back two steps away from Northern. For a moment, a walker who had only succeeded in killing a hellion rank monster thanks to his clone, achieved something that only masters should be able to.
The terror’s expression became furious, snarling with a primal instinct to kill whatever poised an unreasonable amount of threat to it.
It didn’t even look this serious while facing the Friggian Walker.
However, that was all there was to it—it was just that one moment. Before Northern’s eyes could pick anything, the terror lunged forward with a blinding speed, it’s clawed hand grasped the survivalist face and slammed it to the ground before he could react.
‘Fast!’
That was the only thing Northern’s mind could do a fraction of second before the hand touched his face and sent a slight crack through the ground.
A jolt of headache viciously shot through his head, blood splattering out from his mouth as he wailed. It was a miracle he was even conscious.
He tried to stand up but the Night Terror held him down for a few seconds and looked around.
The lifeless body of the general it pursued was sprawled across the ground not far from Northern.
With an inquisitive gaze, it looked at the dead monster and looked at Northern who was still struggling to stand up. The monster tilted its head in conundrum.
It lingered a few seconds before releasing its hand from Northern’s head. The latter shot up as fast as he could and scuttled back staggering.
The terror however did not seem to be in for the chase this time around.
Northern frowned slightly.
‘What is this?’
Night Terror was standing in front of him with a blank expression on its monstrous face. It was doing nothing, no… if Northern wanted to guess what it’s expression was.
‘…it looks confused?’
That was right, the Night Terror looked like it was very conflicted about something.
Northern’s frown deepened.
‘Should I try running away…’
He lingered for a few seconds, observing the unresponsive monster.
‘No, that would be suicidal. Maybe something is really wrong.’
Northern decided to not be reckless this time and trust his intuition. And that sharp edged mind of his was telling him to silently stay and do nothing.
Slowly, trying not to alert the Terror unnecessarily, Northern lowered his legs and dropped the decrepit blade, although he tried to do it softly but couldn’t totally kill the metallic ring of the rundown blade.
The Night Terror stared a little bit more intense than before for a few seconds before it looked back at the corpse of the monster, it seemed to shrug as it started to walk forward.
At this point, Northern was desperately hoping he had made the right call—he’d never forgive himself if his head flew off before he got the chance to defend himself.
Not that it was going to mean much anyway.
If the Night Terror was dead bent on killing him, he doubted if anything would be able to stop it.
The monster got to his front—Northern’s legs were shaking—
the monster bent and picked up his blade then walked away.
For a moment, a wave of relief washed over Northern’s heart, it was like he drank a cold water after being in the sun for an entire day.
He watched the monster as it took prideful stride to the corpse of the Friggian Walker, then in a flash, swung the sword and separated the head of the monster from its body.
Then it walked back to Northern.
This time, Northern was not shaking like before, he could tell at this point that this abhorrent creature was not going to kill him.
The monster stood in front of him, arrogantly grabbed the links of his chain right in the middle and hurled him after him as it began to move.
Northern steps floundered, but he managed to keep up, staring at the monster’s back with a vehement passion for vengeance.
‘I swear… even if it will be the last thing I do… my soul will see no rest until I end you with my own two hands.”
Northern vowed as the Night Terror hauled him away to the Kingdom of Red Mine… for the second time.
This time however, his circumstances were different. He was conscious.
Maybe it was a good thing or a bad thing… Northern couldn’t tell, but he was sure something was about to change.