Wonderful Insane World

Until now, Élisa had never made the connection.

That demon who hunted them under the guise of a little girl... was the same one. The Lady of Midnight.

The name sounded almost poetic, soft, as if lifted from an old lullaby. But the terror it evoked had haunted entire generations, pinning her tribe’s members behind locked doors whenever the sun sank below the horizon.

They said she ventured out only at night, feeding on the reckless, the dreamers, those who still believed the darkness belonged to them. One of Élisa’s ancestors had seen her once. He returned home with his eyes hollowed of all light—and died before dawn. Since then, fear had passed down through their blood like a curse.

And now...

Now, she was here.

Before them.

Not as a shadow, not as a memory. But in flesh. Well... if you could call it flesh.

Élisa felt her breath catch in her throat. Her fingers tightened on the hilts of her daggers, yet her arms refused to obey. It was her. The creature of legend. The one parents whispered about to scare children. The one said to have emptied entire villages, leaving behind only still-warm beds and wide-open doors.

And she was staring at Dylan.

Not Maggie. Not the Guardian. Dylan.

As if she recognized him.

A chill skittered down Élisa’s spine. She had tried so desperately to avoid this moment—to keep those two apart.

But it had failed.

The Lady of Midnight remained motionless. Her many arms scraped the ground with deliberate slowness, as if she were savoring their terror. Her empty eyes burned with a sinister intelligence.

And then...

She smiled.

A grin far too broad, unnervingly human, yet utterly fake. As though something had learned to mimic the expression without ever understanding it.

"Little birds..."

The voice did not come from her lips. It echoed directly inside their skulls—sweet and corrosive, like poisoned honey.

"You have flown too far from your nest." freёweɓnovel.com

The Guardian slowly angled his blade in her direction, but even he looked... hesitant. For the first time since Élisa had met him, he seemed unsettled.

And that was when Dylan dropped to his knees.

His hands clawed at his chest, fingers shredding the torn fabric of his shirt as though trying to rip out an invisible agony. His face twisted in pure, unfiltered pain.

"No..." he gasped, eyes wide, staring at the Lady with a horror that had nothing to do with the flesh. "Not now... NOT NOW—"

The Lady of Midnight tilted her head, her smile widening still more.

"You felt the call, didn’t you?" she whispered inside their minds. "She is claiming you."

Élisa didn’t understand. But she didn’t need to. She knew one thing to be certain:

They were all dying.

And no one, no one, had ever survived an encounter with the Lady of Midnight.

The Guardian raised his left hand—and the fog obeyed.

With a single gesture, the mist split apart like a curtain yanked aside. The space around them widened, revealing a macabre field strewn with swords.

Some lay broken and rusted, planted in the earth like funerary markers. Others, intact, gleamed faintly beneath the moon, as if still awaiting their masters.

But the Guardian paid them no heed.

He walked... calmly.

With his jian drawn, his figure unwavering, he advanced on the Lady of Midnight as though nothing in the world could stop him. The crimson lights behind his helm flared, almost alive—as if something within him had awakened.

Then—

He vanished.

For a breathless instant, the world held its breath. Time stood still.

And when he reappeared, it was with the violence of a lightning strike.

His sword whipped through the air with a deadly hiss, slashing at the Lady of Midnight with a force that could have cleaved stone in two.

CLANGGG!

The impact reverberated like thunder.

The blade slid across the grotesque hide of the abomination, leaving only a black, oozing gash. The Lady of Midnight did not recoil. She merely smiled.

"Do you remember, then, Guardian?" she murmured inside their minds.

But the Guardian had no time to answer.

⸻

A few meters away, Dylan rose slowly—agonizingly slowly.

His hands clenched the handle of his machete, knuckles cracking under the strain. When he lifted his head, Élisa felt her blood freeze.

His eyes...

They were no longer the gray she loved.

Gone was the human spark that had made him who he was.

Only black remained. A deep, absolute black that swallowed his pupils and the whites of his eyes alike, as though some darkness had been lit from within.

He growled.

A bestial, hoarse sound that was not Dylan’s.

Then—

He leapt.

Not with the Guardian’s blinding speed, but still swift, Dylan’s machete swung in a deadly arc aimed to cleave Élisa in two.

She didn’t even have time to raise her daggers.

But someone else did.

CLASH!

A flash of steel intersected Dylan’s strike.

Standing firm, muscles taut, Maggie held her axe with both hands, intercepting the blow in a metallic screech that rang out through the night.

Her eyes—still closed—were now veined with red. The anima gem nestled between her fingers pulsed violently, as though desperately siphoning energy.

"Dylan..." she murmured, voice rough, as if she spoke through a dream.

But Dylan, no, not Dylan—didn’t answer.

He tore free with a savage jerk and struck again.

This time, Élisa was ready.

Her daggers shot up, blocking the machete in a shower of sparks.

Around them, the fog writhed, and the swords planted in the earth vibrated as though summoned by an ancient force.

And somewhere in the shifting shadows, the Lady of Midnight laughed.

"It’s always so beautiful," she whispered.

"To watch such fine comrades slaughter each other in a desperate struggle to survive."

Maggie’s axe trembled under the pressure, her muscles coiled like drawn springs. The clash of steel had frozen time itself, each heartbeat echoing like a thunderclap in their souls.

Then, suddenly, a breath shattered the silence.

Maggie’s eyelids flickered open, revealing amber-brown eyes ablaze, more than lit, incandescent, embers ready to ignite the night. A fierce determination blazed in that gaze, the kind of fire you only see in those who know war is inevitable, but are willing to see it through to the end, blade in teeth.

She locked eyes with Dylan, no, with the beast inhabiting him.

"Oh, my dearest lieutenant," she breathed, voice soft yet weighted, almost tender in the chaos. "I never wanted it to come to this..."

A rare, fragile glimmer of humanity threaded through her words.

"I hope, somewhere inside you, you’ll understand if I have to kill you today."

Dylan snarled, a savage growl in a human shell, veins thrumming beneath his skin like war drums. His machete arced again, a blade saturated with hatred and madness.

Maggie twisted away, fluid, catlike. Every movement was steel and survival, and that killer tenderness that drove her to raise arms against the last living companion she had left or whatever remained of him.

The ground shook under their feet, tremors born of their brutal duel.

Dylan attacked relentlessly, a whirlwind of flesh and steel. His machete fell with the inevitability of a verdict, no finesse, no strategy, just raw, destructive will. Each strike scythed through the air, seeking to shatter, to rend, to obliterate.

But Maggie would not yield.

She stood her ground, teeth clenched, feet rooted, her axe dancing as though an extension of her very soul. She did not parry: she countered. The metal screamed at every impact, their weapons colliding in a wild symphony of sparks and fury.

A blow cut across Dylan’s shoulder.

The wound was clean, bloody... and then grotesquely, insolently, the flesh knit back together before Maggie’s horrified eyes. The blood vanished as if it had never been.

She staggered back, struggling for breath, arms trembling from the impact—but her gaze remained steady.

He did not bleed. He did not tire.

Once, each regeneration would have drained him, she had seen him at his limit, bloodied, on his knees in the mud, sweat and crimson coursing from every stitch as he stitched himself back together.

But not now.

Dylan was perpetual agony, a wound that refused to die.

He sprang again, faster, heavier, an angled strike meant to split an oak trunk. Maggie pivoted, the machete’s gale of wind grazing her as she countered with a backhanded swing of her axe that cracked against Dylan’s jaw with a dry snap.

His head jerked, dislodged... then settled back with a casual indifference, as though his neck were but an accessory to his madness.

"Shit..." she whispered, fingers clenched around the axe’s haft.

But something burned within her. Not fear. No.

A fire. Dense. Deep. Ancient.

She felt... multiple.

As if a thousand arms guided hers. A thousand forgotten battle memories coursed through her muscles.

The axe vibrated in her palm – alive, sentient. A war spirit demanding its due.

And she gave it.

A guttural cry tore from her throat as she unleashed a flurry of strikes – swift, precise, furious. Blows so fluid they seemed choreographed by an unseen legion. Dylan blocked the first and second, but the third found its mark in his flank, carving open a geyser of dark red.

The flesh closed, of course, yet Maggie’s assault did not waver.