novelraw Chapter 633: The Return of Heroes
Chapter 633: The Return of Heroes
Slap!
A sharp clap echoed over the sand quarry.
O'Brien lowered his hand, his rugged features, as if carved with an axe, hardening as he surveyed the assembled group. "Roll call. Demon hunter, O'Brien."
Like a switch being flipped, his voice shattered the silence—the quarry filled with a medley of coughs, the scrape of flasks being unscrewed, and labored breaths.
"Knell Burn, spirit exterminator."
"Night's Watch of True Vision, Norbert Harrington."
"Spirit exterminator, Erix Brand."
The men in the quarry identified themselves one by one. The last to speak, a man who spat a mouthful of sand onto the ground, announced in a raspy voice, "Koplend, senior investigator."
The sound of hurried footsteps came from above, and a man slid down into the quarry, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"No need to rush, we have another three minutes," O'Brien said to the newcomer. "Lookout, what did you see?""The oasis is close," the exhausted man replied, head bowed and breathing heavily. "Less than a kilometer."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely." The lookout lifted his face, revealing a terrifyingly black left eye.
"And did you see it?" O'Brien asked again.
The lookout shook his head. "But I feel its presence. In the oasis."
"Here, investigator," O'Brien said, pulling a worn notebook from an inner pocket and tossing it to Koplend. "We're almost there. The ritual is constant now—silence is our only salvation."
"Find and destroy it—that's our objective." O'Brien's gaze shifted to Koplend, who had fumbled to catch the notebook. "Koplend, you have a special task: record everything. If we fall, the information must survive."
Koplend opened the brown-covered notebook.
[Its ritual grows wider every day. In a town three hundred kilometers from the oasis, not a soul was left alive. I'll venture a guess: it will soon become the third Calamity.]
[There is some good news: animal sounds don't attract it, only human ones. But... if we're mounted, does the sound of a horse count as ours? Because we are the ones controlling it?]
The handwriting below was different.
[The previous author was Caelan Curran. I am Richards the Nameless, the new keeper of this journal. Its owners change faster than its pages. Advice to posterity: sign your name. If we succeed, we become legends; if we fall, we're just the first to die.]
[The closer we get, the longer the ritual lasts and the shorter the breaks become... It's possible that at the oasis itself, it's perpetual.]
Koplend silently read the entries of his predecessors.
Beyond their observations, a grim pattern emerged: the farther they progressed, the more frequently the handwriting changed, and the shorter the entries became.
[Michael Reid. Richards the Nameless was right. Ten kilometers from the oasis—it's perpetual night, like a winter in Nordland. Just a few pathetic minutes of respite in an ocean of ritual.]
[I am Henry the Younger. The previous keeper died before he had a chance to write. I feel I should mention Quinlan Price. Mystically speaking, the keepers of this journal don't live long. Is the damn thing cursed?]
[Troy Mack. Seven kilometers from the oasis. To the next keeper, if you're reading this—tell my family in Ellen, the royal city, 33 Bening Street...]
The entry cut off. The next was in a new hand:
[Ubli Karam. Five kilometers. The two before me left no trace; their names are lost. Nothing to report. I'm writing this just so I'll be remembered.]
The pages were running out. Koplend turned to the last sheet.
He glanced up at O'Brien, who was giving orders, and took out a pen.
[I am Koplend... Possibly the last keeper.]
[We are a kilometer from the oasis. The breaks last seven to eight minutes. Inside, I suspect the ritual will be uninterrupted...]
He wanted to write more, but O'Brien raised a hand. "Quiet. It's time. We move according to the plan."
Koplend put the notebook away. The exorcists climbed out of the quarry, took up their lanterns and the single horse, and started toward the silhouette of the oasis in the deepening twilight.
Koplend's palm pressed against the notebook beneath his clothing.
They were dying, unknown and for nothing.
These were the best, meant to fight anomalies across the world, not to be spent like ammunition on the path to this damned oasis.
But... if not them, who else was there? Ordinary people?
Snap!
The sound cut sharply through the silence.
The exorcists whirled around. O'Brien stood still, his boot sunk into a void beneath a sand-covered, dried-up riverbed.
A low muttering filled the air, and in the next moment, he was gone.
There was no time to mourn. The survivors moved forward—O'Brien had planned for everything, even his own demise.
One hundred yards from the oasis, Norbert Harrington stepped on a dry twig buried in the sand.
At the edge of the oasis, Knell Burn brushed against a shrub.
By the village, Erix Brand kicked a stone, and it clattered against a dead tree.
On the outskirts, the lookout stumbled but caught himself without a sound. But the lantern in his hand swung, letting out a faint creak. He had just enough time to nod a farewell to Koplend, his anomalous eye weeping tears of blood.
It was as if the land itself belonged to an evil god of silence, one who punished the slightest sound as heresy.
At sunset, Koplend entered the village and saw the source of the third Calamity, the evil spirit... a slender silhouette hanging from a withered tree.
Koplend silently sketched what he saw in the notebook, placed it in the horse's saddlebag, and watched the animal ride off. Against all reason, its thundering hooves didn't disturb the silence.
He turned back toward the tree. The contours of the silhouette sharpened.
And then, he heard the beating of his own heart.
...
Two hundred kilometers from the oasis, the town's residents awaited the return of the expedition's heroes.
Late one night, a bay horse galloped out of the darkness. The people recognized it and crowded around. Someone opened the saddlebag.
Inside, there was only a worn, brown notebook.