Chapter 11: Slaughter
The forest exploded into chaos.
Snow was falling sideways now from all the tremors, the white sky churning.
The Awakened man stood alone in front of the remaining mercenaries, his hand raised toward the giant worm. The thing was twice his height even with half its body still underground.
The strange force surrounding his arm continued to grow, spreading up to his shoulder.
It looked more like a dark mist twisting around his skin, but inside the mist, Danny could swear he saw faces — faint, whispering, disappearing as soon as he looked.
Danny watched from inside the tilted cage, his forehead pressed against the cold bars.
He had heard stories about Awakened humans from the elders, stories that sounded like fairy tales.
But seeing one use an Echo with his own eyes was completely different. It felt wrong. Like the air itself was scared of it.
The Awakened man suddenly stepped forward, his bare foot sinking deep into the snow and not coming out.
"Echo: Grave Press."
The dark mist gathered, compressed, and hardened around his fist into something like black stone, dripping whispers.
He punched the ground. Not the worm. The ground.
BOOM!
It wasn’t a punch. It was like a mountain falling.
The snow erupted in a perfect circle around his fist. A wave of invisible force, heavy as gravity, shot toward the worm, crushing the snow flat as it went.
The creature’s enormous body was pushed backward, its scales grinding, its head slamming into a pine tree that snapped in half.
It screamed — not like an animal, like wind through a cave.
The grey-haired man, who had been knocked down before, immediately shouted, seizing the chance.
"NOW! ALL TOGETHER! ITS HEAD!"
The remaining traders charged, screaming to hide their fear. One carried a boar spear, another held a large wood-axe, his hands bloody from holding it too tight. The grey-haired mercenary followed behind them, his sword up, blood running into his eye from a cut on his forehead.
They attacked together, aiming for the wound on its face.
CLANG! SLASH! THUD!
Spear, axe, sword — all struck the worm from different directions, hitting the same cracked scale.
Black blood, thick like tar, spilled from the wound. The monster screamed again, the sound shaking snow off every tree.
For a second, Danny thought they had done it.
But the creature barely reacted. Its thick hide absorbed most of the pain. It had been hurt, but not killed.
Then its body twisted, coiling.
Its massive tail, covered in frozen slime, swept across the ground at leg height, faster than anyone could see.
BOOM!
The spear-wielding trader was struck first, full in the chest. His ribs cracked audibly. His body flew through the air like a ragdoll and crashed against a tree trunk. He slid down and didn’t move again. The spear snapped in half.
The axe-man tried to retreat, his eyes wide, slipping in the snow.
The worm’s huge circular mouth opened right in front of him. Rows of teeth spinning inward.
He froze, legs giving out.
"No... no no..."
The creature didn’t even lunge. It just dropped its head.
CRUNCH!
He vanished, only his boots left sticking out for a second before being pulled in.
The grey-haired man gritted his teeth so hard Danny could see it from the cage. He was bleeding now, his sword notched.
"Damn it! Its core isn’t in the head! Aim for the middle!"
He rushed forward again, braver or more desperate than the others. His sword sliced across the worm’s face again, deeper this time, trying to blind it.
More black blood spilled. The monster thrashed, enraged.
But instead of retreating, it became more violent. More wild.
It charged forward, not with speed, but with mass, like an avalanche.
The grey-haired man jumped aside just before the worm smashed into where he had been standing. The place where he stood became a crater.
BOOM!
Snow exploded ten feet into the air, whiteout.
Danny covered his face with his bound hands, chains rattling. He could barely see anything. He could only hear screaming.
The remaining traders broke. Their courage snapped.
"IT’S A DEVIL! WE CAN’T KILL IT!"
Some tried to escape into the forest, abandoning everything.
They didn’t get far.
The worm heard their frantic steps. It listened through the ground.
It burrowed, its huge body disappearing beneath the snow with terrifying speed, leaving a tunnel that collapsed behind it.
For several seconds, everything became quiet. Unnaturally quiet. Only the whistling wind and the prisoners’ crying.
Then —
BOOM!
The ground beneath one of the fleeing men exploded upward. The worm emerged directly underneath him, mouth already open.
"GAAAAAH!"
He was swallowed from below, his scream cut in half.
Another man ran in the opposite direction, sobbing.
The worm disappeared beneath the ground again, hunting by vibration.
Danny watched in horror, his back against the cage wall. This was worse than his village. At least the monsters there killed quickly.
_They’re all dying. All of them. And we’re next._
The prisoners inside the cage began panicking, shaking the bars that wouldn’t break.
"Open the cage! Please!"
"Somebody help us! We’re chained!"
"We’re going to die in here!"
One of the prisoners, a young woman, grabbed the wooden bars and shook them until her hands bled.
"Open this! OPEN THIS!"
Nobody answered. The mercenaries were too busy trying not to die.
Outside, the battle continued, but it wasn’t a battle anymore. It was survival.
The grey-haired man was on one knee, struggling to breathe. His sword had been damaged, the edge chipped. Blood ran down his forehead into his eyes.
Beside him, the Awakened man stood breathing heavily, steam coming from his mouth. His Echo was fading, the dark mist flickering like a candle in wind.
He looked toward the worm, which was circling them under the snow, making the ground bulge.
"That’s enough," he said quietly.
The grey-haired man glanced at him, his face twisting in disbelief.
"What?"
The Awakened man stepped backward, one step, then another. His feet finally making prints.
"We can’t kill it. This one is at least twenty years old. Its hide is like iron down there. My Echo can’t reach its heart."
The grey-haired man’s face changed from pain to pure rage.
"What are you saying? We were hired to protect—"
"It’s too strong," the Awakened cut him off, coldly. "We retreat. Let it eat the rest and leave."
The worm chose that moment to attack again, sensing weakness.
It burst from the snow sideways, aiming for the grey-haired man.
The Awakened man raised his arm on reflex to block.
BOOM!
The impact wasn’t even direct, just the side of its head, but it sent the Awakened man sliding five meters across the snow, his boots carving lines. The grey-haired man was thrown backward, his sword flying from his hand, spinning.
It landed near the caravan. In the snow. Less than a meter from Danny’s cage.
Danny stared at it. The steel was chipped, but still sharp. Then he looked at the key lying several feet away, still there in the blood-stained snow, glinting.
His mind began racing faster than ever in his life. The key. The sword. The cage. The worm is busy.
_If I can get the key... if I can get that sword..._
But then he heard frantic footsteps crunching snow, coming toward the cage. Not mercenaries saving them.
The remaining traders were running _toward_ the prisoners. Not to save them, but to use them. One of them grabbed the key from the snow, his hand shaking.
"Move! Move!"
He fumbled and unlocked the big chain connecting the prisoners together, not their hand chains. The adults immediately pushed, shoved, trampled each other to get free.
"Let me go! Let me go first!"
"I don’t want to die! Get off me!"
They scrambled out of the broken cage door and ran toward the forest, not together — in all different directions, like panicked rabbits.
The worm noticed. Its head turned, feeling fifty footsteps at once. It shivered with hunger.
One man whispered, "Run," and they scattered.
The worm moved. It didn’t chase one. It went down, then up, then down again.
One after another, in seconds, the prisoners disappeared beneath its enormous body with short, terrible screams that were muffled by snow and teeth.
Danny remained.
His chains were still tangled with the broken cage, his leg caught under a wooden beam that fell during the tail-slam. He couldn’t move, couldn’t run with them.
He pulled, his wrist bleeding.
Then one of the prisoners returned. Not to help. The same thin man who had refused to share his blanket with Danny two nights ago, who called him a monster.
His eyes were wide, insane with fear, his face covered in snow.
"Give me the key! The hand key!"
Danny looked at him, confused. He didn’t have it.
The man grabbed Danny’s chain and yanked.
"Give it to me! You had it!"
Danny shook his head, tears of frustration freezing on his face. "I don’t—"
The man slapped him hard across the face. The sound cracked in the cold.
"GIVE ME THE KEY! I NEED IT!"
Danny looked toward where the trader had dropped the small handcuff key after unlocking the group. It was still lying in the snow, near his feet.
But before he could reach it — before his numb fingers could close —
BOOM!
The worm erupted beside them, so close Danny could see every tooth, every slime-covered scale, smell its rotting breath.
The thin prisoner screamed, a high sound, and did the most human, most evil thing Danny had ever seen.
He grabbed Danny’s small shoulders and shoved him forward with all his strength, toward the mouth.
"Take him! Take the cursed one! Take him not me!"
He shoved Danny as an offering.
Danny’s eyes widened, chains pulling him back but the man pushing harder.
"No!"
The worm lunged. It didn’t think. It just ate what was pushed toward it.
Everything became white. Snow. Blood. Teeth spinning.
And darkness.
Cold, wet, terrible darkness.
Danny disappeared beneath the monster’s jaws, and the prisoner who pushed him ran, vomiting as he ran.