Tenebrous Wolf
Chapter 108: Growing Concerns

Chapter 108: Growing Concerns

Together, the group watched in silence as the sky dimmed, casting the Labyrinth in a shroud of darkness. This was Nightfall — swift, silent, and absolute. Far below, nightmare carapaces scurried in panic, retreating into crevices or burrowing into the ground. A few began scaling the cliffs, drawn toward the island as a potential refuge for the night.

Klaus narrowed his eyes, watching their movements before speaking.

"Looks like a pack of night crawlers are heading this way."

Adrian let out a tired sigh.

"How many are we talking?"

Klaus shifted his gaze back below, scanning the monsters.

"Not too many. Four, maybe five. Still, a pain to deal with, especially since you and Morgan can’t see well in the dark."

The blonde Strider let out another sigh.

"So, what’s the move? We don’t necessarily have to kill them."

Klaus shrugged.

"Perhaps, but it would be troublesome later on so they need to die. There’s no need for us to head down there at night. It’s too risky. We’ll just wait for them to climb up, then take them out quickly. We’ve got the high ground advantage, which gives us the edge for a clean takedown."

Adrian nodded.

"Solid plan. Any objections from you two?"

Morgan shook her head in silence, while Seraphim mirrored the gesture, but added her voice.

"Why don’t Klaus and I handle them? We can both see clearly in the dark, and moving as a group will only draw attention. Besides, our party’s main powerhouse is gone."

At those words, the disguised succubus’s expression darkened for a moment, while Adrian stroked his chin in thought.

After a brief pause, he gave a nod.

"Alright. You two, be careful. If anything goes wrong, fall back and return immediately."

Klaus and Seraphim exchanged a glance and nodded in silent agreement. Unnoticed by the others, an unspoken conversation passed between them.

† †

Some time later, the wandering nightmare carapaces settled on a small, secluded island. The area was deserted, with no other horrors lurking along the cliffs, making it the perfect place to rest until morning.

Before long, the nightmare carapaces took their positions, some of them clashing in brief, skittering skirmishes as they fought over territory. Chitin scraped against chitin, and the air filled with sharp, metallic screeches before the weaker ones, the losers of the bunch, moved away and found their own spot.

The grotesque creatures sprawled across the ground, their limbs slack as they settled into uneasy rest. Within minutes, their eye slits closed, and they drifted into a deep, oblivious sleep, unaware of the danger creeping toward them.

Hidden completely from sight, within the unmoving shadows, two silhouettes emerged. They moved with calculated steps, slowly approaching the slumbering beasts.

Beneath the veil of the deep night, the two assassins moved with growing confidence, finally revealing themselves.

This was their domain. The terrain was carved for shadows and silent death. The plan was simple and straightforward: crawl through the darkness, strike without warning, and end each target with a single, precise blow.

Rinse and repeat.

They already knew the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. All that remained was execution. And if something went wrong along the way, there were fallback options, such as direct combat, or retreating to regroup with the others for a coordinated assault.

One way or another, these creatures would die here.

Klaus glanced at Seraphim, silently waiting for her signal.

Moments later, the armored white-haired girl gave a subtle nod, her eyes gleaming with cold focus.

Receiving the signal, Klaus gave a brief nod before flanking to the left, while Seraphim slipped to the right. His every step was calculated including the sound of his own breathing. He assessed the situation in an instant, determining the best sequence of attacks to ensure they remained undetected. With practiced precision, he made his way toward the first target; a hulking carapace, isolated at the farthest edge of the pack.

As the massive silhouette of the monstrosity loomed ahead, Klaus slowed his pace, carefully circling his target. The creature remained motionless, completely unaware of its unfortunate end drawing closer and closer.

Once within striking range, he steadied his breath and readied himself.

In the next instant, his eyes gleamed with murderous intent.

Then, without a sound, he leapt.

With a single step, Klaus landed squarely on the nightmare carapace’s back. His hands, encased in animalistic nightmarish-gauntlets, moved like lightning. An instant later, his armored fist came crashing down, shattering the chithin, pulverizing bone, and driving through the skull until it crushed the brain.

At the same time, Seraphim mirrored his actions. She leapt onto the back of a slumbering carapace, her Silver Blade already in hand. With one swift, silent thrust, she plunged it into the creature’s back, piercing the chitin and destroying the brain in a single, lethal strike.

Truly, just like assassins, the two Striders moved on to the remaining targets, dispatching each in the same silent, methodical manner.

Rinse and repeat.

Within minutes, all five nightmare carapaces lay dead, slain without a sound, never given the chance to awaken.

It was done.

A wave of quiet triumph washed over Klaus as he stood among the slain beasts. Seraphim had been at his side, of course, but he was grateful that the operation had gone smoothly without a single complication.

All that remained now was to extract the cores and return to their makeshift camp.

He pulled his blood-slicked, gauntlet-covered fist free and jumped down from the carcass of a fallen monster.

Then, he froze with a frown creeping across his face.

Why had it all been so easy?

Naturally, their success was due to stealth and the fact that the creatures had been exhausted. But still, shouldn’t at least one of them have stirred at the sound of chitin cracking? At the wet, meaty noise of untimely death?

They couldn’t have been so deep in sleep that not a single one reacted... right?

More importantly, why hadn’t Chaos announced his kill?

Klaus glanced at Seraphim. A faint frown had crept onto her face. She was still, alert, clearly asking herself the same questions he was.

Then, out of nowhere, he felt a strong sense of premonition churning his stomach. His body trembled.

Trusting his instincts, he approached the nearest fallen Nightmare Carapace and crouched beside it. For a moment, a grim thought crossed his mind, had they failed to kill it properly? Was it still alive? But no. It was dead. Undeniably so.

Still, something felt off.

He examined the body more closely and then he saw it.

His face went pale.

’What... this is...’

The creature was indeed dead but not by his hand.

A cold chill crept through Klaus’s veins as he moved to the next corpse. Then the next. One by one, he inspected each fallen beast, and by the time he’d circled the fifth, the realization hit him like a bucket of ice water.

They had all been dead.

Long before he or Seraphim had laid a hand on them.

But that didn’t make any sense.

These were the same creatures they had seen scurrying up the cliffs not long ago. The ones they watched fighting, resting, sleeping. Had all of that been an illusion? Or worse... had something else been pulling the strings?

Could they have died from a mental attack the moment they fell asleep?

No. That didn’t track—not even remotely.

The reason was painfully clear now: the bodies were already showing signs of decay. Dull carapaces, cracked limbs, stiff joints. These monsters weren’t freshly slain.

They had been dead for hours.

So now, the questions were multiplying.

How did they die? When exactly did they die? And what killed them?

The air around him seemed colder now. He swallowed hard, the unease climbing up his spine like frostbite. This wasn’t right. None of it was.

At that moment, Seraphim approached, her expression unreadable but tense.

"I don’t get it. These things were already dead? But they were moving not too long ago, weren’t they?"

Klaus frowned, his brows knitted.

"Yeah. That’s what’s throwing me off. I know I saw them climbing the cliffs."

She knelt beside one of the corpses, her gloved fingers brushing the cracked shell. The chitin was dull and brittle, streaked with dried ichor. A gaping wound split down its spine, a devastating one neither of them had made.

She murmured:

"This decay... This thing’s been dead for hours. Maybe longer."

Klaus nodded grimly.

"So what are we saying? That corpses were scaling the cliffs on their own?" He shook his head. "Maybe some kind of puppeteering... but that doesn’t add up either."

Could a dead Night Terror be mind-controlled?

The answer was supposed to be a definitive no. Mind control, by its very nature, required something living with synaptic activity. A working brain that could respond to commands.

However, in this case, these thing were long past that. Dead creatures had no brain activity, therefore, they couldn’t be mind controlled. It was the same reason why humans or rather psychics, weren’t able to control corpses.

The question now was how these creatures had managed to move at all, despite their brains having long ceased activity.

Unless...

Something else had been moving them.

Something that didn’t need a functioning nervous system. Something that didn’t care whether its puppets were alive or dead.

"That..."

Klaus’s eyes widened, stunned by the chilling realization. Without wasting a second, he crouched beside one of the fallen nightmare carapaces and drove the clawed tips of his gauntlets — savage and fang-like — into the thick armor. Then, he tore through the chitinous plating, peeling it open to reveal what lay beneath like opening a tin can.

Finally tearing through the outer layer of its skull and exposing the brain, Klaus leaned in for a closer look, then recoiled in sheer horror.

Within the hollowed remains of the creature’s skull, nestled deep inside the rotting cavity where its brain should have been, something moved.

It was a writhing mass — thin, black tendrils coiled like roots, slick with ichor and twitching erratically, as though reacting to the open air. At the center of the nest was a single bulbous organ, translucent and sickly pink, throbbing with a faint, internal light. Veins snaked out from it like spiderwebs, fusing into what was left of the creature’s brainstem.

His voice came out barely louder than a whisper.

"...What the hell is that?"

Seraphim stepped closer and narrowed her eyes. When she saw it, her eyes soon opened wide.

"A parasite."

The thing twitched, as if aware it was being watched. A split-second later, the parasitic bulb contracted and with an abrupt skreech, a needle-thin filament shot upward, narrowly missing Klaus’s cheek as he jerked back.

"Son of a—!"

The parasite began to thrash violently, tearing through the deteriorated brain matter as if in a panic. Its tendrils writhed, reaching toward the fresh air as though attempting an escape.

Klaus didn’t give it the chance.

With a growl, he raised his foot and brought it down hard, crushing the thing beneath his boot, ending its pitiful existence. A wet squelch echoed through the clearing as black ichor sprayed out from the ruined corpse.

[You have slain the dormant creature, Horned Beast’s Larva.]