Chapter 57
To Forget Part 2
[***]
—"Uff…" — Eilor exhaled with a slight tremor in his voice.
He had one hand still gripping the hilt embedded in the monster's eye socket.
The other… was dripping.
Dripping the thick, black blood that slid between his two extended fingers, trickling from his knuckles to his nails.
The monster's body was motionless, but still warm.
Still smoking.
Still… too recent.
Eilor braced a knee on the remains of the split torso, pushed himself up, and managed to stand.
The air that entered his lungs was sharp, raspy, as if he had been breathing boiling vapor for entire minutes.
And then, as he straightened up completely—
He watched as the vapor from the body stopped without closing the wounds.
The open wounds still bled.
But without that white vapor… it could only mean one thing.
Eilor let out a laugh.
A sour laugh.
Cut short.
That sounded partly like relief…
…and partly like a sound that escaped him unintentionally.
A chain of bitter coughs cut his laugh, vibrating in his chest and throat.
—"We did it, guys…" — he finally said, turning to his companions, with a half-smile, half-exhaustion.
His words fell heavily in the room.
They had won.
But the three soldiers accompanying him did not share that sensation.
The three looked at each other, then at the monster, then at Eilor…
With confusion.
With concern.
Something in his tone.
Something in his laugh.
Something in the way "we did it" came out of his mouth unsettled them.
None lowered their guard entirely.
None allowed themselves to breathe easy.
---
Footsteps.
First one.
Then another.
An irregular tac… tac…
Eilor blinked, barely coming to, and opened his mouth to ask:
—"Is some—"
Tuck.
A dry sound, behind them.
All four turned at the same time.
Tuck.
Another. Just as dry. Just as restrained.
As if something were striking the wood… with the soft part of its body.
Eilor closed his mouth.
The one in the blue coat furrowed his brow.
The other two tensed their shoulders without realizing.
TRUCK!
The whole room vibrated.
The room's only door jumped in its frame. A splinter flew out.
TRUCK!! TRUCK-TRUCK!!
Now it wasn't a single blow.
It was a frantic, disordered, violent sequence.
As if several things were smashing against the door at the same time, without synchronization, without rhythm.
Footsteps accompanied the blows.
Irregular footsteps.
Footsteps that seemed to crash into the walls.
Footsteps that stumbled, scraped, dragged.
Something—or several things—were running toward the door without knowing how to run.
The four soldiers stood completely still.
Attention fixed on the door as if they were prey staring into a predator's den.
The air thickened.
And then…
It was heard.
First low.
A wet sound.
Schrrk… schhk…
Flesh scraping flesh.
Then…
CRRSHK… CRNK…
Something breaking.
Tearing apart.
Crushing.
Choked screams from the other side. Not human.
Not animal.
Noises so grotesque they seemed impossible to produce by living throats.
Eilor felt a chill run down his spine.
The one in the blue coat tightened his sword's grip until his knuckles turned white.
The air soldier spread his fingers, preparing a wave without launching.
The fire mage lowered his center of gravity, aura igniting involuntarily.
And the sounds continued.
GRHSH… HKKK… SCHRRR-SCHHHK…
As if the creatures on the other side of the door were devouring each other…
…or reorganizing their bodies to break through.
The wood trembled.
A hinge squealed.
The entire room held its breath.
***
[In an unknown room]
The place seemed like a sealed chamber so no one else could witness the scene.
But the scene had already occurred.
The room was destroyed to the foundations:
splintered wood, walls marked with deep grooves, the floor covered in a viscous mixture of black blood, hardened clots, and remains that no longer had a recognizable shape.
Amid this chaos were two monsters.
Approximately the size of a short human—about 165 centimeters—with four limbs and bodies twisted as if anatomy had been designed by a predator with no sense of balance.
Their breathing was a wet, ragged pant, as if each inhalation lubricated their throats with blood.
Both were devouring.
Before them were the remains of two other identical monsters, opened like hunted animals on a table.
Entrails hung in long, shiny ribbons.
Ribs protruded like white bars.
Internal cavities were exposed.
The two monsters tore and shoved whole chunks into their mouths, chewing without order, without rhythm.
And around that grotesque scene, scattered like offal in a slaughterhouse, were five other bodies.
Five monsters of the same type.
But empty.
Deflated.
Bones torn out, muscles missing, sockets open.
Each one converted into a hollow receptacle, completely drained to feed the two survivors.
The air was saturated with vapor and a thick, nauseating stench that seemed to stick to the ceiling.
The two devouring monsters didn't seem to communicate.
But in an instant—a subtle, almost imperceptible one—they looked up at the same time.
Their heads moved with a spasmodic turn.
Their bulging eyes pointed at each other.
The two stood motionless, breathing heavily…
…with a different tremor in their collarbones, as if something internal had changed.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three.
An absolute silence, full of animal tension.
And then…
LEAP!
One of them lunged at the other with a violence that shook the walls.
Its arms extended like living blades.
Its claws sank into its own flesh, tearing, ripping.
The other's body arched like a bag of bursting viscera.
But it didn't retreat; it returned the attack with the same ferocity, driving its own arm into the first one's torso.
The two fell to the floor tangled, writhing, growling in dry, empty impulses.
Black blood shot out in thick arcs, soaking remains, walls, doors.
As if everything boiled down to a single inevitable end.
One of the two had to keep consuming.
The other had to be consumed.
---
As they rolled on the floor, the two smaller monsters kept tearing each other apart without pause.
Claws sinking.
Flesh ripping.
Bites that didn't cut, but tore off chunks like soft clay.
They slammed against the floor, the walls, the still-warm remains of their previous prey.
It was a tangle of trembling limbs, gasping, tearing each other's life away in strands.
And then—
PUM!!
The world beneath them exploded.
As if a gigantic battering ram had been thrust upward from nowhere.
The floor burst open in a brutal explosion of wood, beams, and metal.
Floor fragments shot out like thick projectiles; the walls trembled; the air filled with splinters.
And from that newly opened hole emerged a gigantic body.
A monster two meters thirty-five tall, deformed, imposing, with a torso so wide it barely fit through the hole it had made.
It rose violently, crossing the room from below like the launch of a living catapult.
The impact with the two smaller monsters was instantaneous.
It ran them over.
Crushed them.
Destroyed them.
They weren't even pushed; they were too fragile against the demon's mass.
The giant's inertia turned them into compressed flesh and pulverized bones without a single second of transition.
The larger monster emerged at an inclined angle, like a poorly aimed projectile.
The momentum launched it directly toward the ceiling.
Its head and shoulder slammed against the upper beams with a dull noise,
KRUMPH
deforming the wood.
But instead of becoming embedded, it bounced back with the same lack of grace with which it had entered.
It bounced.
Fell.
Bounced again.
Its massive body hit the floor with such force the wood split open like soft earth, creating an irregular, deformed hole with splintered edges and sunken segments.
Its entire trajectory was a broken line:
a twisted triangle between the entry point, the ceiling, and the final impact.
The monster remained there, inside the hole, its body trembling, exhaling white vapor from multiple unclosed wounds.
And around it, everything kept vibrating from the din.
It was a destroyed stage.
No more than three seconds passed before, from the same hole the monster had burst through… someone else entered.
Entered.
As if it had been his trajectory from the start.
Teo.
His silhouette descended wrapped in aura…
This time it was the real coating.
His feet, his hands, his sword… all covered in a vivid red.
And in his other hand…
Teo held…
A fleshy extremity.
A monstrous tongue.
A long, irregular muscular mass…
though now it was much shorter than it should have been.
As if Teo had cut it.
And trimmed it.
And cut it again.
The fifth limb of the monster, dangling like a dead piece.
Teo lifted it and gave it only a glance.
Then he extended it, along with a smile, toward its owner.
And without further ado—
He threw it backward, back down the hole he had come from.
The piece fell, hitting the edges, leaving crimson trails on the broken wood and then disappearing into the interior of the hole, from which followed the sound of…
a wet impact.
In that same instant…
something exploded in front of Teo.
A violent and savage eruption.
The aura that had been only on his feet, hands, and sword suddenly spread across his entire body…
His breathing became a tense exhalation.
Teo stepped forward, his sword with a smile that gulped air between clenched teeth, rotating on his own axis.
Facing directly the monster over two meters tall that was already lunging toward him.
An inevitable collision.
The monster roared.
Teo tightened his grip on the sword.
The air crackled as if something were about to split.
And then—
BOOM!
***
[2 levels down]
The door kept thumping.
Wet, heavy blows, accompanied by those horrendous, grotesque sounds of flesh tearing, chewing.
A grotesque, irregular chorus.
The four slowly rose from on top and around the monster's corpse.
They didn't say a word.
They didn't breathe heavily.
They didn't even swallow.
They just looked at each other.
Eyes open.
Tense.
Trying to read each other's faces, and all found the same answer without anyone saying it.
Eilor was the first to move.
He shook splinters off himself and began walking toward the hole in the ceiling, between them and the door, the same one they had used to enter this room.
The one in the blue coat followed, serious, his sword still dripping black blood.
The two advanced directly toward the hole, not caring that the biggest source of noise—the fight that made the ceiling shake— was directly above them.
When the two remaining soldiers—the fire mage and the air bullet soldier— stepped over the corpse, both paused for just an instant over what remained of the monster.
Their bodies tense.
The fire soldier took a breath.
Clenched his teeth.
And without thinking, he raised a hand to touch the blue-coat soldier's shoulder.
A firm touch.
Direct.
A touch that meant only one thing.
The one in the blue coat turned slightly, without breaking stride.
He looked him in the eyes, understood immediately in little more than a second.
He extended his hand with the weapon that wasn't his.
And he returned it.
A silent exchange amid the chaos.
The fire soldier retrieved his sword.
He inspected it with a quick motion, and upon noticing it still worked, coated his arm with aura in a brief pulse.
The air bullet soldier was already tensing his fingers.
Once both had their weapons, they didn't waste a second.
The fire soldier drove his sword into the dead monster's head.
Once.
Twice.
Twisted his wrist on the third.
The air bullet soldier imitated the gesture with cold precision.
He drove his blade into the opposite temple.
Then sank the tip between the cranial plates until he felt the bony stop.
One last time diagonally.
Then both moved to the monster's sides.
Without speaking.
Without coordinating.
As if their bodies had already learned what to do after a fight like this.
They stabbed the torso.
A deep blow on the left side of the chest.
Another on the other side.
One more, in case the creature had two hearts, three lungs, or something that could keep it alive.
The flesh gave way with a pasty sound.
While this was happening…
Eilor and the one in the blue coat were already moving away from the corpse, heading toward the hole in the ceiling.
Measured steps.
Slow.
Placing their foot weight always on the balls before lowering, reducing sound.
No one spoke.
No one breathed excessively.
Then—
BOOM!!
A roar above.
Brutal.
As if something gigantic had broken through a floor… and almost two.
It jolted their chests with a startle.
And right after the echo…
Silence.
The fighting noise that had shaken the ceiling seconds before…
dead.
Cut off into an abrupt silence.
The one in the blue coat looked up with a tense blink.
Eilor halted a step without realizing.
Both froze for an instant, listening.
Listening to the silence above.
Just barely…
Through the room's door that still sounded.
But this time, louder.
Closer to breaking.
Tskh—ghrrh—shkk—glkrk—
Grotesque sounds.
Flesh grinding.
Bones clashing together.
Mouths chewing.
Blows.
Scratches.
A sickly mixture of dragging footsteps and blows of something heavy charging against the door, as if launching from several meters to crash into it again and again.
The silence from above…
and the festival of horrors on the other side of the door…
overlapped in a repulsive way.
Eilor breathed in through his nose.
The one in the blue coat tightened his sword's grip.
Behind them, their two companions approached just as stealthily, also looking at the ceiling and then the door.
The four were just a few steps from the hole they had come down through…
Just four, five strides more, and they would have been right beneath the opening.
But before they reached it.
something pierced the door.
A dry burst—TRAK! —shook the room.
It cracked, split, and shattered the door, sending splinters and small pieces flying.
A claw emerged from the broken wood.
An entire arm—scaly—pierced the door from outside inward.
Three enormous black claws, attached to scaly skin.
Three claws, long as knives or daggers.
The tips scraped the air as if wanting to hook something or someone.
The four tensed immediately.
The one in the blue coat raised his sword.
Eilor retreated half a step, electricity stirring on his shoulders.
The fire soldier spread the fingers of one hand and tightened his grip on his sword with the other.
The air mage lowered his center of gravity, breathing through his nose.
The scaly arm trembled, as if something enormous pushed it from behind.
And then—
It fell.
CLAM.
The limb simply collapsed to the floor.
Rolled once, hit a piece of wood, and lay still.
The four were stunned.
A monstrous arm lay there, thrown as if someone had torn it off and discarded it without further ado.
Eilor narrowed his eyes.
The one in the blue coat unclenched his jaw.
The fire soldier swallowed.
The air mage retreated a step.
The door kept trembling…
But now the trembling no longer seemed like an attempt to enter.
It seemed…
a fight on the other side.
Without wasting more time, the four reacted in unison.
Instinct was faster than fear.
All four accelerated sharply, almost simultaneously, and ran toward the hole they had come down through. Boots struck the floor with contained urgency, air whizzing around as the four crossed the devastated room.
Only a few steps remained.
Three.
Two.
One.
At any moment they would jump to the floor above.
But then…
Something pierced the door again.
KRSHHHHT— BROOOOOOM!
The door exploded into splinters and irregular pieces of wood that shot in all directions, a storm of fragments that forced the soldiers to cover their faces.
A monster burst into the room.
The monster crashed through the door, thrown, as if something of brutal force had taken its body and hurled it against the door with enough power to break it from the inside out.
The scaly, deformed body, still moving from the inertia, rolled across the floor leaving a trail of fresh blood. It bounced once, hit the corner of a broken table, spun halfway, and ended up face down, convulsing with a dry spasm.
Before stopping dead, after its body split diagonally into two halves.
Three of the four jumped to the floor above almost at the same time, without explicit coordination but moving as if sharing the same pulse.
THUM—THUM—THUM
They landed among splinters, dried blood stains, and remains of split tables.
The hall was… the same.
Not worse.
Not better.
Exactly as they had left it when they went down.
The absence of new destruction was, in itself, unsettling.
Eli was the first to react.
From the back, between two overturned tables, she lifted her head abruptly.
—"Hey!"— she let out, relieved, running toward them with arms half-open.
Behind her, the other two soldiers who had remained above also approached, hurried, full of questions:
—"What happened?"
—"Did you kill it?"
—"Where is—?"
But none of the newcomers answered.
Eilor barely lifted his gaze toward them… and lowered it immediately.
The fire soldier inhaled deeply, somewhat tense.
The air soldier had his hands in a guard, as if expecting something to leap from a shadow.
Because what they were seeing…
didn't fit.
The hall showed exactly the same holes, the same broken furniture, the same sunken walls, and the same marks.
Nothing had been moved.
Nothing else had been destroyed.
Nothing indicated that Teo had fought a monster over two meters tall there in the last few seconds.
So the three looked at each other; the question formed on all three faces at the same time.
And though no one said it aloud…
they all heard it just the same.
"Teo… isn't here?"
***
But one of the four didn't jump.
The one in the blue coat.
He had stopped right beneath the hole in the ceiling, with half his body already leaning to jump… until something below the doorless frame, on the other side of the hallway, completely captured his attention.
His breath caught.
His pupils contracted.
Because there, amid the remains of the broken door and the gloom of the hallway…
someone was fighting.
It was a figure advancing among the smaller fish monsters as if walking upstream in a river full of blades.
A man dressed in a loose white shirt, torn in several places, with black pants stained in a dried mixture of black blood and burns.
The aura emanating from his body wasn't red.
It was green.
with a staff composed of translucent rectangles of green light, overlapped, geometric, and with a black claw-like blade.
And with that fabricated spear, that man was destroying the small monsters.
One leaped.
The weapon spun.
CRAK — the creature was split in two.
Another dropped from the ceiling.
The green bar extended forward, doubling its thickness, like a fan.
SLKSH — a single cut, severed arm, torso, and leg.
The dozens of large monsters were killing each other, and only a few attacked the man, only to die by his hands.
The one in the blue coat felt a chill.
That style.
That aura.
That way of fighting…
His throat went dry.
His voice came out broken, incredulous, almost childish.
—"O… officer… Bairon…?"