Moonlight Relic, Ch 20: Terror of the Night (Patreon)

When the governor followed him, Sam grimaced. He’d been hoping Garild would go away. Whether it was his new race influencing him or something else, the man annoyed him. Greed was clear in his eyes, which had hardly wavered once he caught sight of Sam. The only redeeming feature he seemed to have was a sense of duty to go along with it.

The governor had tried to offer him the peak and that made him snort in disbelief. He had no qualifications for that. The governor of Highfold was a glorified version of the kingdom’s tax man, with a title that the Kingdom of Aethra had been arrogant enough to assign when it created the position. Aethra operated with many loosely connected cities, each left to their own devices until it came time to send the king his due. That was the price of being connected to the trade routes.

In Highfold, the Ice Sylphs had the primary authority, but they had no interest in spending time in the city, much less the day-to-day operations of their guests, so it was the dwarven council who ran things. The governor had influence and money, and at Level 174, he was a figure to be reckoned with, but his role was limited. He seemed to be a noble using the position for his own benefit, and Sam didn’t have time to deal with that, not with the Terror ahead of him.

He was moving at a good speed, but the moth was still over twenty miles away. At the same time, it was too close to the path his father was taking up the slope. With the star’s help, he could see that it was already killing the adventurers closest to it. Fortunately, it seemed like it had just woken up, probably when the relic became active, or things would have been even worse. It was a moth flying to the moonlight, except that it hated it.

As he ran, his body was faster than ever and the moonlight was bending around him in a strange way. There was a new feeling of stability too, something that said he would be able to deal with whatever came his way. There was also one distinct absence, something that he didn’t notice until it was gone.

He was no longer feeling the desire to hide his actions from everyone.

Ever since he’d transformed the first time, he’d had a habit of concealing his movements and keeping his plans to himself. Now, he felt like telling his challengers to come all at once. They would find out what he was made of and break like waves on a cliff. Whatever an Astral Hunter was, it wasn’t a race that feared enemies.

Instead, there was a solid confidence that he would be able to deal with whatever came. There was also an urge to pick up his tools and spend his time crafting, but it was hard to say if that was part of the race or just his own nature.

If Astral Titans were the builders of the relic, however, there was one problem with that. His ability to harness essence and his Path of the Elements were unchanged by his Evolution. His eyesight was sharper than ever as he picked out the details of mana and aura flowing through the world. If anything, Astral Titans might be even better with essence than the Voidborn. The conclusion was troubling. If Astral Titans were able to use essence, he was either still an Outsider or they were something else, like a race that spanned both origins. Yet despite that, they were favored by the World Law.

He pushed the thought out of his mind as he leapt down from one layer to the next, running across the wind and ice. He needed to focus on the moth. The World Law had given him the basic information when he saw it, and it was troubling. He only had a dozen or so healing scrolls in his pouch.

What’s the plague dust it spreads? he asked the star.

It appears to be small scales that are shed from its wings. They corrode the body on contact for anyone under the First Evolution. Even for them, it is dangerous, but the effect is slower.

Sam nodded, even as he continued to analyze the problem. With his strengthened physique, he was fairly confident in facing the thing head on. The difficulty was in limiting the damage it could do to the surrounding area.

How many people are near it?

28 are currently within range. Once the dust begins to spread, it will cover half a mile or more. Unfortunately, while its Constitution may be weak, its speed is higher. It is even faster than you.

Then I’ll have to corner it. Sam grimaced as he considered the possibility. The moth was in the open, and if he didn’t want it flying all over the relic, he was going to have to get personal with it.

His hands began to flicker as runes appeared in front of him. Curving beams of moonlight joined them a moment later, along with a swirl of cold wind. Mile by mile, the enchantment continued to grow.

---

“What is that?!” A young woman’s voice echoed out in the open square as she looked into the sky where a towering, yellow-grey whirlwind was flickering. As she watched, it screamed with rage and darted toward one of the moonbeams that looked like a rune.

“Visela! Move back!” Another young woman shouted, running out toward her. Now that the two of them were side by side, their matching robes identified them as being from the same academy. “We can’t stay here. We shouldn’t have left the rest of the group!”

“But this only happens once every seven years!” Visela shouted back, turning toward her friend. “Nuria, do you think this thing is part of the ruins waking up?”

“Don’t be foolish!” Nuria shouted, her voice becoming more panicked as she saw what was inside the whirlwind. She tried to Analyze it and failed, but the result nonetheless left her in shock as a massive alarm sounded in her mind. The voice of the World Law descended like a thousand pounds of falling ice, until it felt like it was crushing her.

WARNING, DENIZEN OF ASTER FALL!

TERROR OF THE NIGHT DETECTED.

THE FORCES OF LAW HAVE BEEN ALERTED AND SUMMONED TO YOUR LOCATION.

YOUR LEVEL IS INSUFFICIENT TO FACE THIS THREAT.

FLEE AT ONCE.

The sheer power of the words dwarfed anything she had ever heard from the World Law before and the icy tone left her shaking, nearly frozen in place. Before she could move, however, the moth finished its attack on the rune and flared its wings as it dove back to the ground.

All around it, there was a shimmering, yellow-grey cloud of dust that caught the moonlight and reflected it, like a sandstorm at midnight. In a strange way, it was pretty, even if it made the sky look dingy.

“Visela! Nuria!” Two shouts echoed from behind her as a third young woman sprinted into the area, her eyes widening as she took in the scene above. She looked to be a year or two older than the others, closer to twenty than eighteen. The dust was beginning to spread around the moth’s wings, sprinkling outward above the area like a shadowy cloak, but it hadn’t yet fallen from the sky.

“I know you want to earn an Explorer trait!” she continued fiercely. “But this isn’t the time or place! Come with me! The ruins are too dangerous to explore at night when the moons are active like this. The academy elders warned us not to leave the group.”

She was only Level 28 and her two younger classmates had just passed Level 20, which was why they had been allowed on the expedition to see the moonrise, but they were breaking the rules by going so far into the ruins on their own. They were supposed to stay in the academy’s campsite, which had been carefully prepared with wards to deal with roaming monsters. Normally, the instructors would have easily caught them and sent them back into the wards, since they expected this type of thing, but unfortunately they were overwhelmed at the moment. Even the weakest instructor was over Level 50, which was the expected level for most graduates. The monsters here weren’t that strong, but they just kept coming. None of them had expected the ruins to turn so dangerous over the last day.

Then she caught sight of the moth and froze, shuddering as the weight of the World Law’s voice hit her. Unlike the other two girls, who were too terrified to move, she shook the words off as her eyes widened until they were nearly half white. Her face went as pale as a ghost.

“It’s a Terror!” she shouted, her voice half strangled. But despite that, she threw herself forward as she ran toward the two younger girls. “Shake it off! Move! Move! We have to get back to the camp!”

She grabbed Nuria by the wrist, and a moment later she had Visela as well. She pulled them behind her as she turned to flee. Before they could cross a dozen steps, however, the dust began to fall from the sky.

Its presence polluted the moonlight, tinting it the color of dirty sand. It drifted down slowly, in gentle eddies like something weightless, tossed in slow, changing waves as the moth beat its wings and soared skyward again. Another scream of shrill rage resounded as it flew toward the light.

The dust was only a few dozen feet above their heads down, drifting downward like fog, but at that same moment, a massive drumbeat rippled through the world, nearly knocking the girls aside. The dust was swept upward, pushed back by the force of it. The echo of the drum resounded, crashing against the stones of the ruins as it faded away.

Across the square, a group of four adventurers suddenly came into view as some illusion that had covered them shattered under the force of the drum. They were armed like pincushions, decorated in metal and leather in overlapping layers. At the front of the party, there was a middle-aged man in a robe, his arms raised as a dazed look passed across his face. Crystalline dust sprinkled down from his hands as some artifact he’d been holding crumbled away.

Behind him, there were two brutal-looking men dressed in matching brigandine who were holding wall shields. They had a quiver of short spears or javelins jutting above their shoulders and twin short swords at their waists. The last member of the party was a fierce-looking woman with short hair and a bow across her shoulder. She had a bandolier of daggers around her chest and another, smaller one on her right thigh.

Their party was not so lucky. As the drumbeat passed, the dust that had been swept away by it happened to swirl into a dense cloud directly above the party. It twisted on the wind and then it floated down. It was so light that it only gradually fell, like a fog seeping in. It landed on the hair and the shoulders of the four, clinging in dull, yellow flecks until it looked as if they had been painted with tiny scales. For a moment, nothing happened. The four of them just frowned and waved their hands, blowing the dust away in swirling eddies.

The older man at the front brushed the powder from the crystal off his hands and turned to give an order as if nothing had happened. His movements were sharp and demanding. Then his face began to turn grey, first lightly at the edges and then in wavy bands. His eyes clouded, taking on a yellow tint, and streaks of mottled, ashy white ran down his neck and beneath his clothes.

His hands began to tremble and paused his speech, frowning as he looked at his palms.

“Tehasin, your face...” the woman murmured, her eyes widening. The whites of her pupils were already turning yellow as well. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What?” The man looked up again, staring at the three with him as their appearances caught his attention. “You all...what is on your face? You look ill.” Then between one moment and the next, he staggered, vomiting out a torrent of grey-tinged blood as he fell to one knee.

The girls who were watching went wide-eyed in growing horror, their hands rising to cover their mouths as they looked upward at the Terror and at the four adventurers.

Then they began to scream.

The adventurers staggered, losing their balance as they turned toward the girls that they hadn’t noticed. They fell to their sides as they reached for their weapons, their hands going weak. Then they started to convulse. Streaks of vivid black and yellow ran down their limbs as boils formed on their skin.

They shuddered, their bodies going limp as their skin began to slough off in sections, like flakes peeling away. They collapsed, thrashing on the ground as black vomit and corruption exploded from them, fountaining outward in arcs. There was a final arc of their backs as their spines bent, letting out cracks with separate and distinct sounds. Then their ruptured hearts gave a final, staggered beat as the four forms that no longer resembled anything human mercifully stopped moving.

Above, looming so close that they seemed to kiss the peaks, the moons burned bright in the heavens, silently bearing witness as the moth screamed again. This time, it sounded as if it were mocking them. It fanned its wings, looping around as it headed for a different rune. The whirlwind of dust around it blasted outward, drifting down across the ruins in a silent wave.

The girls vomited as they watched it, and then they staggered backward, losing their balance as they tried to get away. They fell on their hands and knocked into each other as they scrambled, grabbing at the snow and stones as they turned to run. Their faces were stark with a fear that none of the three had ever felt in their lives.

Then, between one moment and the next, a storm wind and a crack of thunder blasted through the area. It carried an edge of ice and fire to it with the freezing cold of mountain peaks and distant stars. A massive roar tore across the area as a wall of swirling, crystalline flames two hundred feet across pressed down, spinning in a massive whirlwind. There were streaks of moonlight wrapping through it as if the moons had descended from the world above.

The whirlwind tore through the area, pulling the dust into itself as it roared, heading straight for the moth. The Terror let out another scream, spinning in place as it fixed its attention on the light and flames. Then it fluttered its wings and dove straight for it. An explosion tore through the night as the moth’s cloud of dust and the flame winds met, sending out a shockwave that was powerful enough to sweep all three girls off their feet, flinging them away.

The last sight they saw before they were knocked unconscious was a towering, golden figure with horns floating in the air as if he were walking through the flames. A sphere of burning moonlight was held in each hand. His muscles were so broad that he looked like a divinity descending to earth, and his eyes were flaring stars. Behind him, something that looked like a spark of electricity was slowly trying to catch up.

---

The moth’s scream shook the air in a strange double echo that was fluttering and pervasive at the same time. It tore at his ears like the shriek of rusted steel being torn apart, and it came with a mental pressure that threatened to turn into a headache at any moment. Fortunately, the Terror was heading directly into the firestorm he’d created as if it wanted to swallow it.

Even if it was a Terror, it was still a moth.

At the same time, the dust it had scattered across the ruins was being drawn upward, swirling into the storm. He’d needed something to consume the dust the Terror was giving off, so he’d pulled on his elemental manipulation with the wind to start a cyclone and gave it purpose with a core of runes. Then he’d infused it with two Expert auras and set it all alight with crystal flame and moonlight. The moons were so close to Aster Fall that their energy filled the ruins like liquid essence, pouring into the spell with barely any prompting.

Something in his new constitution was closely tied to the moons, and drawing on their energy felt as natural as calling to the elements. Perhaps he should call it a Moonlight Firestorm.

He had to revise that thought a moment later as the moth defied all expectations and continued to fly directly into the flames. Its shriek of rage blasted through the storm like a shockwave as it looped within the center, flying upward and back, but at the same time, its wings began to crisp. Arcs of crystal flame and more natural fire burned across its body, tearing into it as the dust on it ignited. He could feel its aura warping the air, a mix of shadow and decay, and even as he turned his attention to it, he mentally assigned the spell a new name.

Requiem for a Moth.

Apparently, nature would take its course. All the same, he didn’t have time to waste. He had to push forward while it was distracted. He could feel his father running closer now, and if the timing was right, Jeric would be just in time to join in on the battle. Before that, he was going to make sure this thing couldn’t kill anyone else.

He glanced toward the party of adventurers that he’d been too late to save, as well as the trio of girls who had been luckier. They were not the only victims of the moth tonight. The Guardian Star confirmed the number a moment later, letting him know that 116 adventurers had perished in the moth’s path. The dust had spread out over more than half a mile wide from its wings and it had flown for miles through the ruins, scattering it everywhere.

He grimaced as his hands shot forward, seizing onto the aura of corruption and rot that was present. It struggled against him, lashing out with cascading pulses of energy that hammered at his grip. It also writhed with dark wings, pushing forward in fluttering surges as it tried to invade his body. He growled at it as a layer of flames formed across his palms, and then he began to hammer back. Concentrated spikes of crystal flame drove into it and stabbed deeper.

All around him, he could feel the pulse of battle as Garild, Lenei, and Lesat joined in, sending their attacks at the moth. Bolts of lightning surged from the governor, blades of light from Lenei, and golden spears of stamina from Lesat. Their attacks were mostly absorbed by its fluttering wings, but they helped to keep it angry as it continued to fly around inside the firestorm.

A few moments later, a set of twin hammers whistled through the air, driving into the firestorm as they slammed into the moth’s side, sending the wings buckling inward before they bounced back. The hammers spun, flying back toward Jeric’s hands before they flew out again.

That was all Sam had been waiting for.

As soon as his father was present, he began to condense the firestorm around the moth and drove all of the energy he’d been building up into its aura. Another scream of rage washed over his mind, and he shoved it aside as he looked up at the moons. They were so close it felt like they were brushing his horns.

“Within this relic,” he growled as he began to tear the aura apart, “the only terror will be yours.”