"Aisha, can you hear ?"
"Are you okay?"
Nero gently rubbed her hands and fingers.
On rainy nights, when his fingers turned cold, his mother used to do the sa, gently rubbing his smaller fingers until heat returned to them.
He watched as the light slowly returned to Aisha’s eyes and the shaking stopped.
He breathed a sigh of relief and quickly called out to her,
"Can you hear ? Are you okay?"
Her eyes beca misty and the corners of her eyes beca wet with tears.
But she nodded.
Nero grinned, "Then that’s good."
He turned to Garrick and Geor who had looks of plastered into their faces.
"She’s fine now."
Geor broke out of his daze and quickly spoke,
"We need so light, Aisha. The brighter the better."
Sniffling and drying her eyes, she nodded.
Then, Nero watched as she began chanting sothing in a low voice and in a strange language he couldn’t understand.
However, as she chanted, he watched several things unfold,
Aisha stretched her hand out.
Them, a small ball of light began to take form. From absolutely nothing.
He stood with his mouth slightly open as the light began to grow brighter and brighter.
Then she lifted her arm and it floated until it was a few ters above their heads before stopping.
Aisha turned to Garrick, "Is that enough?"
Garrick huffed then turned around.
Although the fire had been put out, now, there was more than enough light to drown out the darkness.
With this much light, Nero didn’t have any difficulty seeing very far into the distance.
And what has saw, caused him to turn stiff with fear.
The sa was true for all the others.
I’m the distance, not too far, but not too close as well, was... sothing.
Its body was strangely formless and black like the surrounding night, but its head, or rather, its heads, were like that of a human.
The eyes on all the heads were closed. However, the central head was turned in their direction.
For a mont, no one made a sound.
Then, Garrick’s voice cut through the silence,
"T-that is a Defiled Cherub!"
"You know what that thing is?!" Nero couldn’t help but ask.
This ti, it was Obed that spoke, his face pale and his expression dark,
"It’s one of the fairly more common apparitions that have been spotted several tis in Malady’s Garden. However, it doesn’t appear frequently. The last ti it was spotted was two years ago."
Nero’s eyes narrowed, "This... How dangerous is it?"
Obed grimaced, "This is the worst case scenario for us."
"The Defiled Cherub is a being that is neither physical or spirit. Instead, it is a being that is said to exist between planes. It has a physical body, but has mystical abilities that can affect the soul."
Aisha sucked in a deep breath. Then she spoke,
"According to the stories, these things were originally angelic beings that accompanied the Fallen Ones from the heavens. When the Gryghori beca corrupted, these things were corrupted as well."
’Well, that doesn’t sound good at all. That ans this is an ancient existence!’
This level of danger was much greater than encountering random Abominations.
He could sense it already...
This thing as bad news.
Garrick cursed again then turned to the others,
"Our only chance of escape is running. From what I know, not all of them are extrely powerful. From what I can tell, this one doesn’t seem too interested or powerful either."
Obed grimaced,
"It’s a good thing it hasn’t fully noticed us yet. I heard they are blind and deaf, so they only rely on so strange sense to locate their prey."
Hearing this, Nero curiously activate Heretic Eyes.
The mont he did, blood burst out of both his eyes and nose.
’Eh?’
The world seed to phase out of existence.
Everything, even sound, beca blurry.
With a groan, he fell to the ground.
"Nero!"
He heard so voices, but didn’t know where they were coming from.
His throat tightened.
His chest beca heavy.
’I-I’m dying.’
It felt terrible.
It was a horrible experience.
Suddenly, the image of the Defile Cherub filled his vision.
This ti, its closed eyes were open and it was staring right at him.
All six eyes of the three heads were staring at him.
Then their mouths stretched open and they began to speak.
Things he could understand. Things, he couldn’t make complete sense of, and complete and utter nonsense.
The curiosity within him sprouted and blossod,
’What is it saying?’
He tried to listen.
Then he froze, stopping himself before it was too late.
With a groan, he placed both hands over his ears.
If he listened to the words of this horror, his soul would be corrupted and he would die terribly or turn fully into an Abomination himself.
He couldn’t let that happen.
However, it was hard.
The more he fought against it, the harder it was to fight.
The whispers were like the sweet promise of ho and warmth, urging him to let go.
They reminded him of the caring voice of his mother and the carefree, joyful voice of his father urging him on to take one more step.
Bloody tears fell down Nero’s face as he endured, the bitterness in him rising to the surface like gall.
"Damn this crap!" He roared furiously.
However, yelling into the empty void wasn’t going to do much in this case.
He roared again, this ti, more helplessly.
But he was rapidly slipping. He needed sothing to grasp onto.
And so, he cling onto his true na.
If the words of corruption were like a turbulent sea of madness, his true na was the anchor keeping him tethered.
He called it again and again and again.
The image of the Defiled Cherub before him began to turn faint, as the words of madness began to fade away.
In a mont, all that was left was darkness.
Nero felt himself floating within this darkness for a long ti.
And then, his eyes snapped open.
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