God of Nothing

Rayse was wrapped in the flurry of battle. At his recommendation, his team searched

throughout the plains, looking not only for emissaries, but Oblivion's own brood. They were fairly successful, with Luna's tracking abilities almost as critical as their team's ability to hunt them.

Squelch!

The centipede's head exploded in a spray of green blood, smashed underneath Sonia's boot. She kept on going long after it was dead, having seen just as he did that fell magic it used to revive itself. Rayse dug out its heart soon after, instantly smashing it onto the ground so the three of them could replenish their strength.

"*Huff, huff*This is endless." She panted. 

She absorbed her fill of the mana smoke, but Rayse could see it was starting to lose effectiveness. It was the same for him and Luna; They must have battled more than a couple dozen emissaries of all kinds at this point, and the team's strength had begun to fizzle out. Rayse watched more than half of the smoke disperse in the

night sky, deeply regretting being unable to absorb all of it.

We can't keep this up, he thought. His skin was starting to tingle after keeping up Dark Haste this long, and black spots were starting to gather on the edges of his vision. He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it before gazing once again at where Aleph was fighting.

The flashes of blue had almost completely vanished since the previous attack, while the enemies' sickly green grew more frequent. Rayse itched to go join his master even in his current state, but he remembered the transmission he received before they hunted the insects in

earnest.

I'll scatter the insects, his master said. Carve out their hearts while I deal with Oblivion.

And so they have. They weren't troublesome on their own, but they would occasionally–

"Watch out!" Luna warned. Rayse snapped out of it, immediately jumping to the side. A stream of green acid flowed towards where he was last standing, coming from one of the centipedes whose heart he hasn't harvested yet. Its head was intact despite being beheaded just a few

seconds ago, a telltale sign of its mysterious revival.

"Tsk!" Rayse clicked his tongue before charging the enemy, seeing his mistake. The demon thrashed, its legs stuck out as it came at him like a spiked whip. He deflected the blow with his shield, but the body bent around him to strike his side. The legs punched through his armor like

it was nothing. Harbinger leather, while tough and pliable, was no match for this creature's carapace.

The wound only served to make Rayse angrier, stabbing his spear directly through where the beast's heart lay. A loud crack confirmed his kill, followed by the emissary's body growing limp. He winced as he took out the legs that had punctured his side, quickly muttering a heal spell before he lost too much blood. At the same time, he started absorbing the smoke emerging from the demon's body, hoping to use it to heal himself before it was wasted.

"This is too much! They're reviving every couple minutes now." Luna sighed. Rayse expected her to be angry at his momentary lapse, but it seemed that fatigue had set in even for the veteran soldier. "We need to regroup."

"Yeah." Sonia agreed, giving the dead centipede another couple kicks for good measure. "Any idea where Brig's team is?"

Luna closed his eyes in response, breathing deeply while she concentrated on the spell she had been maintaining all this time.

"They're close. Follow me."

So the group moved once again, this time to find their companions, rather than to hunt. Well, as much as they could, anyway. They still cleared out the harbingers in their path, which was a

deceptively difficult task with how tired they were. The horde was finally beginning to thin out, but each bout still had them outnumbered three to one. It was another ten minutes before they reached their companions, who had also created a large circle of dead harbingers around them.

Polo cheerily waved at them as they approached.

"Hey! Over here!" He beckoned, his scuffed and winded appearance not putting a damper in his spirits at all. Rayse noted his wounds as he approached, several nicks and scars that looked

hastily healed. 

He jogged towards him to heal him up properly, wondering how on earth the group kept fighting in this condition.

"We ran out of potions a while ago. I suck at healing, but that's the best I could do." Brandon said apologetically. He over Rayse's shoulder as he healed Polo, watching the scars close up in

real time. He was about to move on to healing him, but he simply shook his head.

"Don't mind me, just save your strength."

So the two sat with Polo on the side while Luna and Brig began planning out their next move.

"So, how many did you kill?" Brandon asked.

"How many hearts we destroyed, you mean? Like fifteen, maybe? We killed them far more times than that."

Polo swore upon hearing it. "You guys too? We got about twelve or so them before they got too troublesome. Got about another five after that, but we needed to take em on three on one or the other one will revive while we take care of one of them!" He vented in a different way than Sonia, but Rayse knew where he was coming from so he nodded along. The group grew silent after that, waiting on the deputy captain's decision. It did not take long though, as soon, Brig and Luna

addressed them, deciding to go back to town for now.

"We'll need the vantage point to check the monster density, but I think we did a pretty good job."

He said encouragingly.

And so the group marched back into town together, waiting for the flames at the entrance to die down before jumping in. As they've noticed on the field, there were less and less harbingers attacking the town, giving them a window to enter.

Luke met them as soon as they returned, giving them an update of their situation.

"We've downed around 800 harbingers since we've deployed the flamespitters. That comes out to close to a thousand if we include the casualties from my attack."

Brig nodded, working out the numbers in his head. "So we've beaten about, what, 3 thousand of these things? Along with around fifty emissaries, they're finally showing signs of letting up." He sat down on the ground exhausted, as if he just fought that many enemies in his head.

"Just barely, but I'm afraid that this isn't all they have for us…"

"You better hope that it is. We're literally burning through our supplies right now, and judging by the look of you, it looks like you're a couple paces away from my condition right now." Rayse

noticed a tremor in his stance, a sign of weakness he tried so hard to hide. Luke was putting up a brave front for their recruits, but he doubted it fooled anybody. Any mage would be incredulous at this man that's able to run around with a terrible case of mana exhaustion.

"Still, that's a good amount of demons away from the front, so that's good right?" Polo chimed in optimistically.

"Yeah, I guess…" Brig conceded. He wasn't as upbeat as usual, but his earnestness stayed intact. 

"Any of Deceit's children still hanging around? We killed some of them during our hunt but…"

Luke actually chuckled at that. "Hahaha. Yeah, well, let's just say our little fireball up on the wall aren't letting them close." He jabbed a finger behind him. 

Rayse looked at what he was pointing at, revealing several burnt shapes on the ground just beyond the camp. He belatedly noticed that the entire town had been lit, with several street lights lit up like a festival.

"Eric and Lacey's handiwork. Those two make a pretty good team. Once we've accounted for everyone in camp, it was a simple matter to deduce that anyone coming from that direction would be a shapeshifter. They gave up after sending one or two."

"Good thinking." Rayse said out loud. It was a good plan. Burning up more oil for their defense hurt a bit, but it was better than getting massacred by those dolls…

As soon as he thought that, he noticed a shape coming forward from one of the buildings. It looked like a person from this far out, but even a child could have seen something was off. The being walked awkwardly like a puppet whose strings were being handled by an amateur. Deceit's child walked with a lopsided gait, its eye catching form the opposite of its mother's gifts.

"Hey, guys, isn't that–!" He tried to say, but the group had already noticed. Not just them, it seems, because before he even finished, a flash of lightning struck the pitiful creature. He tried shielding his eyes, but it was over before he could.

Blinking profusely, all he saw was the still standing form of the emissary.

"Motherrrrrrr–!" It shrieked as it expired, but more thunderbolts struck him soon after. Among the flashes, Rayse thought he saw more movement come from the building it came out of, and tried focusing on that.

Rayse's eyes were in tears, blinking through the spots in his vision to try to find whatever it was he saw inside the house. What stepped forward was a familiar, but chilling sight.

It was a delicate looking woman, clearly visible to him despite their distance. Her red dress trailed on the black ground, offering a pleasant contrast between it and the soft lantern lights.

Oh, no…

"Shit! Everyone, get ready!" He tried to warn them, but the darkness had already spread.

No longer satisfied with sending her children, Deceit arrived with the shadows.