The Last Dainv

Chapter 269

Snacks covered the coffee table, almost covering the surface from being visible. Chips, cookies, chocolate bars, apple juice boxes, and a single can of Coke Zero Cherry that Gale requested. Grabbing another cookie and stuffing it into his mouth, he almost moaned at the sweetness, but not too sweet cookies baked by Witch Nyx. It wasn't as sweet as the Kinder Bueno, but it was basically just as good.

He completely forgot about the horrific chase he just survived through the Old Finch Avenue bridge forest. None of it mattered. Witch Nyx gave him snacks, especially homemade cookies. He thought of a universal truth that when someone gives you snacks and food, they shouldn't be bad people.

Definitely.

Mia, on the other hand, looked like she was still ruminating on something even though she was the one that told him to calm down while eating potato chips. Her gaze landed on the trash can by the corner beside the kitchen door. Chinese takeout containers, bottles of different 2L sodas, cup noodles that smelled like they were recent.

"Is this all you eat?" Mia asked, pointing at the trash can. "Just takeout and sodas? In fact, I don't see any glasses of water on your desk. It's just soda bottles or half-empty glasses of soda."

"It's too bothersome to cook..." Witch Nyx looked down and fiddled with her fingers. "I like baking though. That counts as cooking, right?"

"No, it doesn't."

"Yes, it does," Andrew said.

Mia looked at Andrew for a second, grumbled, and looked back at Nyx. "You can't just survive on cookies and takeout. Where's the veggies?"

"Potato chips are veggies..." Witch Nyx said.

"Ugh! No it's not!" Mia yelled, causing Witch Nyx to shrink back to the floor and avoid eye contact with her. She looked at Gale for help, but all he did was give her a thumbs up to say the cookies were good as he chewed on another.

"Relaaaax," Andrew said. "You're giving her a hard time. Let the literal witch live the way she wants."

"Yeah, Mia," Jacob said. "Neutral Grounds people said Awakened are built different. And she said she's a Late-Mystic, whatever that means, she can probably survive just fine."

"That's not the point!" Mia said. "Look at her. She probably doesn't go out much, so she's pale and watches anime too late at night, so she has dark circles. At least eat healthily, otherwise you'd worry your friends."

"Friends?" Witch Nyx said. "Are you my friends now too?"

"Of course we are," Mia said.

"Definitely friends. The cookies are really good. How'd you learn to bake?" Gale asked.

"I... watched YouTube," Witch Nyx said.

"That's awesome," Gale said.

Witch Nyx blushed, scratching her hair while looking away. "I'm not that good. There's a bakery down the street that's better than me."

"But that's a bakery. This is homemade. It's awesome."

"Hehehe, thanks."

"What's your favourite food anyway?" Gale asked.

"Chinese food."

"What Chinese food?"

"Lemon chicken."

Mia's eye twitched once. "That's not real Chinese food!"

Witch Nyx, Andrew, and Jacob all looked confused at the statement. However, Gale was more confused about what lemon chicken was. Chicken and lemon didn't sound very good. That's a totally weird combination.

"Why not?" Andrew asked. "It's from a Chinese restaurant."

"It's Americanized Chinese food!" Mia struggled for a comparison. "It's like asking someone what their favourite Mexican food is and they say Taco Bell."

"I want to try Taco Bell," Gale smiled at Mia. He's never really tried any restaurants other than McDs. Taco Bell sounded exotic compared to burgers and fries.

"Oh no, you're not." Mia pointed at him. "If you want real Mexican food, just come to my house. My mom's really happy to feed all of you. As long as you help bring the ingredients."

Witch Nyx raised her hand slightly, like a student. "Can I come too?"

"Especially you," Mia said. "Wait. You mentioned someone named Ember earlier. Who's that?"

"Witch Ember," Nyx looked down as her expression turned down a notch from what it already was. "She's... busy recently."

"So why'd you chase us just to talk?" Jacob asked.

Witch Nyx looked left and right, up and down. In other words, she looked like she forgot what she was about to say. Even Gale could tell that she was at a loss for words.

"Oh, I remember," she finally said. "Witch Ember told me something. She heard it from her friend's acquaintance's aunt's friend's sister's coworker's coworker." Nyx paused, making sure she got the chain right. "From a specific loud mouth."

"A loud mouth?" Andrew asked.

A hunch formed in Gale's mind on who that could be. There was only one loud mouth he knew that even Erin called 'the loud one.'

"Yes. He was very loud apparently. And he said..." Nyx's dark eyes locked onto Gale. "That you have a cool looking dark sword."

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"The Dark Hunter with a cool dark sword," Jacob said with a grin. "That's so badass."

“Stop trying to make Dark Hunter cool. It’s never going to happen!” Mia said exasperatedly.

"The brooding loner type with a tragic backstory?" Andrew said. "Welp, sorry, Gale. We're not going to let you die this one down."

Gale scrunched up at the mention of 'dark hunter' once again. Again, that was one time he did that for fun, and it sounded cool at the time. Everyone and their mom probably knew his nickname by now.

Guide, he mouthed. Scan for the nearest cave in the area.

[Query accepted.]

[According to Presence Between's scan, nearest cave is estimated to be 20km north. Currently, a bear is hibernating inside. Threat level: minimal]

He'd kick out that bear and tell it to find its own place. Then, he'd build a house in that cave, away from reality until everyone who knew about his dark hunter thing forgot about it. It was better that way anyway.

Glancing around the table, they all looked at him weirdly.

Yup. Definitely better that way. He'll get permission from Rachel first, and probably Ollie's too.

"Is that the sword you showed earlier?" Mia asked, tilting her head. "When you were pointing it at Nyx?"

Right. He did use Erebus when he first arrived to protect them. They probably didn't get to take a good look at it since they were busy eating snacks.

"You, uh... going to summon the dark sword of cool?" Jacob asked. The others looked at him in anticipation too.

"That's not its name..." Gale said, then sighed. "Its name is Erebus."

Lifting up his hand, he connected his will to the space storage. Before materializing it, he willed it to form into a short sword first and then summoned it. Dark particles converged into his hand, and the short sword, the length of a machete, appeared in his hand.

Andrew, Mia, and Jacob all reeled back away at the same time from it. All of them clutched at their heads, a clear sign a headache was forming.

Witch Nyx waved her hand, and a dark cloud veiled their eyes instantly. As their bodies calmed down, they all took deep breaths and watched the sword at the centre of the coffee table.

"Erebus reveals too much for recently Awakened Aurians," Nyx said softly. "The veil will filter what they need to see. Otherwise, their minds would break."

"What the fuck," Andrew said.

"Why does it feel like that?" Mia forced the words out of her mouth.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Jacob said as he heaved.

"Is it that dangerous?" Gale asked. The students at Sterling also had a similar reaction to them.

"Looking at it directly with young minds, yes. But to you and I, no."

"It feels like..." Mia said. "Like... something enormous is looking at me."

"Yeah," Andrew said. "For a moment, I thought I saw a giant bloodshot eye glaring at me."

"Isn't it just metal? So then how?" Jacob asked.

"In time, you three will peel the veil layer by layer on your own," Nyx whispered. She then stepped closer to Gale. Her tired eyes fixed on Erebus with an intense focus. The nervous timid behaviour she showed before could no longer be seen in her composure, replaced by an unending curiosity about Erebus in his hand.

She slowly held up her hand to it then asked him, "May I?"

Gale nodded and held the sword out to her.

The moment Nyx's fingers approached the handle, Erebus resisted, creating a force that stopped her from reaching it and an impulse within Gale to pull away.

Stay. Or else. Gale glared the thought at Erebus.

Erebus compliantly stopped its resisting immediately.

Witch Nyx wrapped her pale fingers around the handle and lifted the sword from Gale's grip. She held it up in front of her face, tilting it left and right, examining the blade from different angles. Her other hand reached out and touched the flat of the blade, her fingertips tracing the dense circuitry and geometric etched patterns that ran through the dark metal.

Even though she had just touched the flat, a thin red line appeared on her fingertip. The blade had cut her. Blood welled up for a brief second before the wound sealed itself, healing almost as fast as it appeared.

"Inside this sword," Nyx whispered softly, "is a darkness so vast I cannot pierce through it. Like an ocean with no bottom. Or a starless sky."

She tilted the blade again, staring into it.

"From what I can see in the sword and its clouds... its great intent is one of revenge. But to what? Against whom?" She shook her head slightly. "I do not know. The darkness obscures it."

Her fingers traced more patterns on the blade.

"Beyond the darkness itself lies a being of infinitesimal..."

She trailed off. Her eyes suddenly dilated.

Presence Between tugged at all directions at once.

The corners of the room darkened. Shadows seemed to spread from the corners that crept up to fight the dim ceiling light they had been under the whole time.

Mia, Jacob, and Andrew all noticed it too. Their heads turned, looking at the corners of the room, at the spaces under the bookshelves, at the gaps behind the posters on the walls.

In those corners of darkness lay hundreds of eyes that fit in the tiny crevices. Mouths opened and closed, drooling liquid and smoke. In Gale's own shadow lay three entities that were distinctly different and a separate entity that was a rather large winged eyeball with dilated vertically slit eyes.

"A conflict arose from forgotten times. Before what the being calls The Collapse." She turned the blade slightly; her eyes turned back to Gale. "Child. Erebus says it's glad you were able to find those important to you. How interesting."

Then, she dropped the sword as if she were burnt by it. Erebus fell from her grip towards her lap. The veil in their eyes suddenly disappeared. In other words, everyone was in danger.

In one quick motion, Gale's hand shot out, catching the blade by the handle before it could land on her thigh, and dematerialized it back into space storage.

Taking a few deep breaths, Mia asked, "What was that about?"

Witch Nyx smiled at them. The same horrifying smile they had seen from the bridge.

Everyone at the table leaned back away from her instinctively.

"The sword carries immense strength in its mist and darkness," Nyx said ominously. "It's... really really cool." She squealed and squirmed. "A brooding hero of the dark carrying the sword of darkness."

Her face started to blush. Breathing quickened. The smile on her face changed from something that looked more creepy rather than scary. This one was a sincere smile born from the depths of her very soul.

"Seriously? We're really going there?" Andrew asked.

"The lone wolf protagonist wielding a weapon of ancient revenge," she continued while still hyperventilating. "Fighting against forces unknown of a forgotten conflict. The darkness inside the blade responds to him and the shadows obey. A dark hunter in every sense of the word."

Gale stood up suddenly. He needed to run to wherever that cave was now. Permissions could be asked after he got to the cave first. But then, Mia gripped his jeans, preventing him from escaping.

Fine. He had options. Sitting back down, he put on his hood and covered his face with it.

However, that was worse.

Witch Nyx squealed even more at his attempt to hide from the peak embarrassment he was feeling right now.

Jacob looked at Nyx. Then at Gale.

"That does it," he said. "Gale really is the dark Jedi. That. Is. So. Cool!"

"Stupid!" Mia said. "He's not! He's Gale. An idiot who eats peanut butter and bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

"Peanut butter and bread is the best food. It has everything you need to live," Gale said in a trembling voice.

"You're basically as bad as Nyx with her eating habits."

"Hey, so, uh, can we still do the ghost hunt? We still need to prove whether Old Finch Avenue Bridge is really haunted," Andrew said.

"Isn't it obvious Nyx was the one scaring them?" Mia said.

"You can't assume that," Jacob said, then asked Nyx, "Well, did you?"

Nyx shook her head. "I do remember there was an actual spectral entity there around 2012... but I cleaned her up already."

"Shouldn't you say exorcise?" Andrew asked.

"In Aur, we don't say that," Witch Nyx said. "Everything is either subjugated or cleaned up."

"So you guys just treat everything the same?" Andrew asked.

"I mean, it makes sense. This is just daily life in Aur. Like, think about it. You won't exorcise a spider in your living room, right? You'd kill it or clean it up," Jacob said.

"Stop making sense," Mia grumbled.

Dani materialized into Gale's embrace again. Hugging her trembling body tightly almost made him feel better from the amount of inner damage he had taken today. Then, he noticed Nyx staring at Dani.

"Cute..." Witch Nyx said as she held out her hand to Dani. But all that did was make her shiver even more.