Bloody Odyssey

Chapter 50: Dullahan

"Brothers of the underworld, aid me in my conquest!"

Grey fog poured from Anastas's body like smoke rising from a fresh grave—thick, cloying, carrying the unmistakable stench of damp earth, old blood, and something far colder. The mist rolled outward in slow, deliberate waves, coiling around his feet before spreading across the cracked crimson ground of the artificial battlefield. In a matter of seconds the fog thickened and birthed horrors.

Zombies clawed their way upward—rotting flesh peeling from bone, jaws hanging slack, eyes glowing a sickly green. Skeletons followed in rattling waves—joints locking into place with dry clicks, ribcages exposed like cruel armor, long blades fashioned from their own femurs glinting with necrotic light.

"Heh." Anastas smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "Oh wretched souls of darkness, the ones who hover above the waters of the underworld—heed my call."

His body trembled—once, violently—as though the summoning tore something vital from deep inside him. One by one, ghostly figures slipped free from his chest—ten wraiths in total. Half their forms were still recognizably human: pale, beautiful faces frozen in expressions of eternal sorrow, long hair drifting as though underwater. The other half had decayed into dried husks—sunken eyes, stretched parchment skin, mouths open in perpetual wail. Their breath drifted outward in ghastly plumes that withered the sparse alien grass on contact.

From high above, Dax watched with folded arms, eyes sharp and unreadable.

"Oho… he's making an army."

The ten wraiths glided forward like smoke on water, straight toward the corpse legion Anastas had summoned.

"Give them hell," Anastas commanded, voice cold as the grave.

In a blink, three long-eared goblins exploded into motion—splitting in three directions with terrifying coordination. Their dark-green skin gleamed under the violet storm light; venom beaded on their pores like dew.

Boom!

The first goblin punched straight through a knot of zombies. Rotten guts sprayed outward in a wet arc; shattered bone fragments flew like shrapnel. Half the summoned force was obliterated in that single strike—limbs torn free, skulls caved inward, bodies flung like broken dolls across the crimson rock.

"Aha!" Anastas's voice rang out—cold now, stripped of all humor. "I see… these can do nothing to them. They're not even fast enough to land meaningful damage."

He raised one hand, fingers curling like claws.

"Go, my wraiths."

The spectral figures surged. They passed straight through the goblins' bodies—halting them mid-stride as though invisible chains had snapped tight around their limbs. Frost bloomed across green skin; muscles seized. The remaining skeletons and zombies pivoted instantly, focusing every attack on a single goblin.

Bone knights lunged, stabbing with rib-blades that pierced deep into tough flesh. Zombies clamped down with jagged teeth, ripping and tearing. The goblin's skin was thick—almost armored—but under collective effort the skeletons drove blades into one leg while the zombies pulled. Tendons snapped with wet pops. Muscle tore in long strips.

Soon it was gone.

The goblin wailed—ears trembling violently, a sound that carried across the battlefield like a dying animal's cry. From afar the other two goblins roared in fury, deep guttural voices shaking the air, but they did not approach recklessly. A low chant rose from their throats—guttural, ancient goblin tongue, rhythmic and ominous.

The two held by the wraiths trembled harder, muscles straining against the spectral grip. Veins bulged beneath their skin; poison dripped faster from their pores. The moment the chant ended, the wraiths' hold shattered.

The two goblins burst forward at full speed—blasting through the corpse ranks like green meteors. Bones crunched underfoot; rotting limbs flew aside.

They arrived just in time to see their companion mutilated—half-eaten torso still twitching, limbs yanked free and dangling by strands of tendon, skull cracked open like a rotten fruit, green blood pooling in the cracks of the stone.

But they did not linger. Grief or rage did not slow them.

They moved toward Anastas with single-minded purpose—claws outstretched, eyes burning with feral hate.

Just as they came within a hair's breadth of him—

A sword chopped downward.

The blade sliced clean through an outreached hand—severing it at the wrist. Green blood sprayed in a high arc, splattering across Anastas's coat.

The second goblin leaped backward—only to freeze at the sight of a dullahan.

The headless rider sat atop a magnificent black steed whose eyes burned with the same cold flame that flickered in the skeletons' sockets. The dullahan's armor was blackened bone; its own severed head hung from the saddle by long, matted hair, grinning with empty sockets. Flames licked from the neck stump, blue-white and cold.

The goblin hissed—low, venomous.

"My mana reserves are almost used up," Anastas muttered under his breath, sweat beading on his brow despite the chill his summons brought. His hands shook faintly; the fog around him thinned.

He had bought time, but the clock was ticking.

—

On the other side of the battlefield, Hanna had not been idle.

She knelt in a wide stance, tracing a strange circle in the cracked earth with one finger—complex sigils spiraling inward in layered patterns, runes of earth, water, fire, wind, and something older, something she had pieced together from forbidden texts. She poured mana of different affinities into the diagram—each color bleeding into the next until the entire circle glowed with prismatic light that hurt to look at directly.

The ground beneath her crackled—splinters of crimson rock lifting and falling like breathing lungs.

"You all left the helpless lady all alone," she said, tone playful, lips curved in a teasing smile that didn't reach her eyes.

But deep down she thought differently.

Is this test just to measure our strength? The question looped in her mind, persistent and sharp. Or is he looking for something else—resolve, creativity, desperation?

As she pondered, hand resting thoughtfully on her chin, a massive stone hand slammed upward from the earth—as though the ground itself were waking from a long sleep.

The form of a golem rose—ten feet tall at first, then stretching to twelve as it straightened. Broad-shouldered, carved from living crimson rock veined with glowing green crystal that pulsed like a heartbeat. Dust and loose stone cascaded from its joints; its face was blank, featureless save for two hollow eye sockets that flared briefly with reflected mana.

She hadn't chanted.

Dax took careful mental notes from above.

Hanna climbed onto its shoulders with casual grace, one hand resting on the wide, flat crown of its head. In that moment of contact she poured a minuscule thread of mana into the construct—barely a whisper.

Slowly, from the crown downward, the stone began to soften—to water. The earth golem grew moist, clay-like, its surface rippling like wet mud under pressure. The green crystal veins brightened, glowing brighter as the material shifted from rigid rock to something far more malleable, far more dangerous.

"Let's go, bad boy," she murmured, voice low and intimate.

Opposite her, three goblins advanced—two wielding rusted blades that looked comically small in their massive hands, the third standing behind, chanting in low goblin tongue.

As the chant rose, their bodies grew faint—shrouded in an ominous, shifting aura. Venom dripped faster from their pores; their eyes narrowed to slits. The air around them thickened with malice—poisonous intent made almost tangible.

The two bladed goblins moved first—blades raised, steps silent despite their size.

The chanter remained behind, voice rising higher, words twisting into something darker.

Hanna smiled down from her golem's shoulder.

The battlefield had split into three distinct wars:

Anastas's necromantic legion against the coordinated fury of the goblins.

Hanna's awakened golem against the venom-shrouded trio.

And somewhere beyond, Zain and Nadia clashing with 01 in a storm of steel and killing intent.

Dax floated higher still, arms folded, eyes sweeping every detail.