Free Web NovelChapter 9: A Crack in the Team
Since that moment, Silas had been sidelined.
Vaelous backed his words with actions. Moving to the front line, he fought alongside the two hunters while weaving lightning into every attack.
His right arm had a yellow-and-black crest covering his forearm and hand, and his middle finger was a curved claw that gleamed whenever he struck. Each time he attacked, he raised his arm high before driving it down as though thrusting a spear. Chains of lightning followed, tearing through the battlefield. Every bolt carried the shape of a hooked claw that dug deep into the bodies of the Fiery Hounds.
He was quite powerful.
His attacks left deep wounds and shrieking monsters in their wake, while the hunters and mages swiftly finished off whatever remained. Watching from the rear, Silas was forced to acknowledge the vast gap between a D-Rank and a C-Rank Enhancer. To the youngsters in the team, it seemed as though Vaelous could have faced the entire pack alone and emerged victorious.
Yet despite his strength, he changed nothing about the team’s formation. He did not alter the lineup Silas had arranged or offer any tactical improvements. He simply occupied the front line and increased their killing speed.
What truly turned the battle in their favour was the monsters themselves. After killing Lyra, they returned their attention to the shielded rune structure and never targeted the humans again. Even as the final Fiery Hound fell with a pained roar, not one of them broke away from the assault.
"This is how things are done in Eldrune."
Once the battle ended, Vaelous turned toward Silas with a mocking smile. Without another word, he stepped back and watched from the sidelines, as though waiting for another opportunity to strike.
Silas paid him no attention. Lyra’s death continued to replay in his mind, accompanied by a growing sense that something about the entire situation was deeply wrong. The battle had been won, yet the atmosphere was bleak.
No one felt any pride in their achievement. They had survived another wave and defeated a new breed of monsters, but there was no excitement, no sense of triumph. Lyra’s death weighed heavily on everyone, even though most of them had barely known her.
"We should give her a proper burial," Darius said quietly as they gathered around the wide stain of blood she had left behind.
Everyone agreed. And yet, the problem was that there was nothing left to bury.
"In my hometown, monster attacks happened often," Cassian suddenly said. "When someone died like this, we burned the remains and treated the place itself as their grave." ƒrēewebnovel.com
Several eyes glanced at him.
"My town is close to a crystal mine. Swarms of monsters aren’t uncommon."
"That explains why you know so much about monsters," Leon said with a weak shake of his head. "Here I thought you were just a bookworm."
The joke fell flat. No one even smiled, as no one was in the mood to even consider smiling. Silence lingered heavily and suffocatingly, with Lyra’s loss taking over everyone’s mind.
"I’ll gather wood," Brant said before heading toward the nearby trees.
"I’ll find something for a marker," Selene added.
There was something unusually dark in her voice. Lyra had been the only other girl in the group, and for reasons Silas couldn’t fully understand, Selene seemed far more affected by her death than anyone else.
Cassian and Leon remained beside Darius and Silas. None of them spoke, though Silas occasionally caught the two glancing his way.
Uncomfortable, he shifted his attention elsewhere. Busying himself with something aside from the daggers at his back, he followed what Brant and Selene were doing.
Selene searched around the rune structure until she found a broad piece of wood suitable for a grave marker.
When Silas looked toward Brant, however, his eyes narrowed. The hunter was walking alongside Vaelous.
’Those two...’
A bad feeling settled in his chest. When Brant returned, the expression on his face all but confirmed Silas’s suspicions. Nevertheless, he scattered the gathered branches around the bloodstain according to Cassian’s instructions.
Selene then ignited the pile with her ability, creating a large fire that burned with an eerie mixture of black and yellow flames.
"Lyra, we didn’t get the chance to know each other well before you died," Brant began as the flames crackled, "but I swear on your grave that I won’t let the person responsible live peacefully."
As he finished speaking, he turned away from the fire and fixed Silas with a hard stare. The dancing flames cast savage shadows across his face, revealing exactly where his accusations were aimed.
Like sparks falling onto dry grass, the others followed.
"I won’t let your death be meaningless. What happened to you was strange, and I need to understand it before the same thing happens to one of us," Leon said.
"I’ll find your killer one day," Selene pledged coldly. "And when I do, I’ll burn him alive." fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
Silas ignored the veiled accusations and hostile stares as though they meant nothing. Vaelous had already poisoned their minds. Anything Silas said now would only make matters worse. So he remained silent until the fire finally died.
When it did, Selene stepped forward and planted the wooden marker beside the blackened stain left on the ground.
"Now that we’ve sent our friend off," Brant said, turning fully toward Silas, "it’s time to talk about what happened. What happened to Lyra?"
"No one can answer that," Darius said, sensing that something was wrong without fully understanding it. "What happened was bizarre, but..."
"But one person can explain it, though."
Vaelous approached, cutting him off.
"The person closest to her was Silas. He was in the best spot to see what happened to her. Her posture before death wasn’t normal. She should have run, not stayed behind like a frozen statue. So tell us, what happened?"
Every gaze turned toward Silas. Even Darius looked at him expectantly. And Silas merely shrugged.
"She was behind me," he said. "I didn’t see what happened. As far as I know, she was completely fine beforehand."
The response felt as though it had been thrown against a wall, as no one believed him. Silas silently realised something... Vaelous wasn’t trying to convince them; he was giving them a chance to believe what they already wanted to believe.
