BXBX NOVEL Chapter 372 371: Mansion On The Hill
Jahi PoV
Leading the way towards the mansion that sat above the city of Huran, I frowned at the silence that permeated the air.
No breeze, no sounds from insects or animals, nothing.
Which was odd.
Such an open city like Huran would have a perpetual breeze on these plains, while such widespread carnage and readily available corpses would have attracted swarms of flies and other scavengers, and yet... nothing.
The sun shone over head, expediting the rotting of the corpses, and yet not a single maggot writhed inside the flesh of the dead humans, nor did a single vulture fly overhead searching for an easy meal.
No mice or rats scurried through the long grasses around the city\'s edge, nor did any voles take this free opportunity to raid the various herb gardens left vacant.
The air was still and humid, the city silent, and apparently the very earth itself had been \'claimed\' by whatever - or whoever - did this.
It was like time was frozen inside Huran, and I would believe it if I wasn\'t currently walking through it with hundreds of other soldiers.
Not even the city where we had found ourselves trapped with Lord Pele had been this eerily quiet, and I have a nagging suspicion that the Draconis we barely managed to put down that day held nothing to what we were currently searching for.
We may have made large strides forwards in our mastery for our respective fields of battle, but we were blind in regards to our enemy\'s true potential.
So, as we climbed up the hill leading towards the ruined mansion, I grew wary of any kind of trick or trap we might found ourselves falling into.
The mansion itself was made from beautifully chiseled stone and dark woods, all of which was worn down and destroyed.
Large wooden doors engraved with the crest of whatever family once ruled here were knocked down and splintered, allowing us to stride into the mansion unimpeded, while the glass windows were shattered, broken glass littering the floor inside the mansion.
The smell of rotting corpses continued inside, and I curled my lip in disgust as I saw the piles of bodies strewn about, all in various states of dismemberment.
A woman was impaled to the wall, three spears holding her up, while her eyes had been ripped cleanly from their sockets, though her chest remained untouched - save for the spear lodged into her heart.
Two soldiers were crushed into a puddle together, the only tell that it was not just one being the three hands that managed to survive being stomped, as well as the legs.
Blood crusted the floor and walls, while some of the dead humans had even dirtied the ceiling, and upon looking up we saw one unlucky man splayed across the chandelier, his guts dangling from his ripped open chest.
Paintings and maps were torn to shreds, pottery and glasswork shattered, walls crumbling...
The entire mansion was in disarray, and we filtered into the large entryway before Adelina used her hands to order troops to begin searching the house.
A third of them went to the left, a third to the right, and another third accompanied us into the mansions central depths.
Wood creaked beneath our feet as we walked, while the occasional shriek of rusted metal door hinges as we opened new rooms only added to the creepy ambience.
All the glass and mirrors had been broken, while every corpse we had seen was eyeless, which made us frown.
Whatever killed these humans didn\'t want to be seen, even by the dead.
However, unlike outside, the corpses lacked the opened chest cavity, suggesting it either gorged itself outside, or there were at least two things that attacked Huran.
Mom and Leone seemed to have reached that conclusion as well, frowning hard as we continued to search each large hall and small servants quarters located on our path, the body count only growing larger the longer we looked.
While we were walking through the mansion, the mages and healers seemed to grow uneasier, and even now I too began to feel something odd about our surroundings - odder than the obvious corpses and blood.
Something just seemed... off as we walked; it was a feeling in the pit of my stomach the closer we got to the center, and there was a part of me that wanted to just turn around and leave, to not venture further in.
Leone trembled slightly beside me, her hands shaking as she took deep, even breaths, trying to remain calm, all while Iaso and Liga both fidgeted relentlessly, jumping at each of the few noises that echoed through the mansion.
Sounds of doors opening and the creaking of the buildings foundations sent shivers down all our spines, even though we knew that those sounds were being made by the other legionnaires.
However, with the dimly lit corridors and bloody halls, the small parts of our brains told us that those weren\'t our comrades opening doors and moving around the mansion.
It was something else.
Something that was aware of us, and something that wasn\'t going to assuage our fears.
Even though we KNEW that wasn\'t true, we couldn\'t help but feel uneasy feeling that permeated our gut as we walked, and the closer we got to the center, the worse it became.
The further into the mansion we got, the more bloody and brutal the mansion became.
Corpses were no longer left intact, instead torn into pieces and devoured, leaving large pools of dried blood and rotting flesh strewn about, with the worst cases of violent, creepy scenes being around the glass or mirrors.
Pieces of human flesh were shredded into fine strips in front of those glass windows or mirrors, and the raw amount of visceral clumps of meat left behind in those areas spoke volumes on the thing that did this.
The air itself was heavy with the scent of rot and iron, and the shadows seemed deeper in the corners, creeping ever closer as we moved forwards.
Even when the sun shone clearly through the broken windows, the mansion just felt dark, and as we reached the large set of doors leading into the main hall, the sense of dread that sprouted inside of us only grew.
Some of the mages fainted, while even the soldiers themselves trembled, their faces pale as they looked at the perfectly clean and intact doors in front of us.
Something...
Something waited for us behind that door, and none of us wanted to open it.
And yet, it was our duty to do so, and Mom grit her teeth as she strode forwards, her claymore still resting idly on her shoulders.