Chapter 45: The Dream Devourers
"Took a while."
Samael exhaled slowly, her breath curling through the dying air.
She held out her cinquedea, the once-clean silver now coated in thick, burnt ichor.
Without pause or gesture, the blood lifted from the blade in tendrils of defiance, peeled away by the subtle manipulation of her Soul Entanglement skill.
The debris rejected from the edge dissolved into ash as the blade shone clean once more.
Before her stood a twisted figure, unmoving and monstrous.
Its body was a grotesque fusion of spiked obsidian wheels and jointed spider limbs, supporting a central carriage whose front bore the snarling visage of an oni—horned, wide-mouthed, its fangs gleaming through cracks of half-melted iron.
From within its carriage-like structure, faint whispers and echoing wails spilled out like steam from an opened tomb. Its red-lacquered panels twitched faintly with each breath it took.
The street around them was scorched and fractured. Thirty of its kin lay broken in mangled heaps, limbs bent backward, eyes gouged out, carapaces torn open like fruit.
Samael chuckled as she tilted her head slightly. "So the infamous Dream Devourers of the East really are migrating through Vaingall." Her voice brimmed with self-satisfaction. "I should thank you. I’ve needed a few tough Nightmares to round out my current attributes, and maybe a couple of levels up."
The lone Dream Devourer made no sound of fear. Instead, it raised its main carriage forward slightly and stared through its sculpted oni-eyes.