Horrific wails echoed out, as if the creatures were celebrating their unstoppable birth, as the first unholy being finally dragged itself fully out of the abyss of the crimson pond. Hooves thumped against the ground as the creature removed its claws from the ground and straightened up.

The creature in question was a twisted fusion of man and horse, but this thing was no centaur, don't be mistaken. The main difference between this unholy demon and the majestic centaur of folk lore, was the position of its human body.

While a centaur had the human half replacing the horse's head, this creature had the horse's head fully intact. Not only was it intact, but it was clearly alive and not some dead appendage to be puppeteered by the human half.

The horse head had piercing yellow eyes that burned and crackled, as they were little more than two orbs of pure flame contained within its eye sockets. A mane of deep black hair flowed down the back of its neck, seemingly dancing and waving in an invisible wind, but only upon further inspection would one notice it wasn't actually hair but in fact a mane of pure, black fire.

Thick, noxious black clouds of god knows what curled from its mouth with every panting breath, a mouth that was filled to the brim with sharpened, serrated teeth. Teeth that belonged to a meat ripping wolf more than a grass munching horse, especially when it came to its unnaturally large canine teeth.

This maw of teeth was fully exposed, with no lips to cover it, creating the image of an almost eery, bloodthirsty smile that was peeled back to its ears.

As for the human half, that was positioned in the middle of the horse's back, as if it was just a normal rider sitting in the saddle, but one would never make such a mistake to assume that. While the horse was whole, the human was split in half, its the bottom of its torso seamlessly fused to the horse's back.

This human half had no face to speak of, it was simply flat and featureless, save for the pair of flaming orbs where its eyes should have been. It's arms were stick thin, barely a hint of fat on them as its muscles clung tight to the bone, as well as were elongated to so long that, even with its mounted position, it could drag its knuckles along the ground.

At the end of those impossible long arms, were large hands with fingers formed into deadly claws. Not that it had claws on top of its fingers, but that the bones of the fingers themselves had warped, elongated and sharped themselves into 12 inch long, bendable claws.

But the most glaring feature of all when it came to this wretched demon, was its skin. More specifically, its utter lack of skin. No where on its body, neither horse nor human, had even a single shred of skin. The entirety of its body, apart from the teeth and hooves, was simply composed of an exposed network of powerful, interweaving muscles that visibly contracted with every movement.

The ground beneath its feet sizzled audibly, as if it had acid beneath its hooves, as it stepped forward and observed the pair with two sets of flaming eyes. It stood silently, looking as if it was curious and about to ask them something, but in the blink of an eye it lunged.

It's elongated arms lashing towards the pair so fast that they were little more than a blur, as it attempted to grab them.

If they were normal people, they would have certainly died. But normalcy fell alongside the world, and they had begun to stride further beyond the limits of basic humanity.

Corvus leapt backwards, while Fox flicked his wrist towards the oncoming hand, intending to sever the fingers before they could even lay themselves upon him.

CLAANG!

It was as if he had tried to hit a tank, a sound of metal slamming against metal echoing out as his sword batted the arm aside and he was forced to leap back alongside Corvus.

Completely against his expectations, his blade didn't carve through the beasts muscles and remove its troublesome, grasping fingers. It didn't even give it as much as a paper cut.

While Fox had no idea what he was facing, Seth knew from the moment he had laid eyes on it. It was why he died even try to block or deflect, if he had had a chance to warn Fox of the same, he would have, but it seemed the point got across to him regardless.

Seth was just glad the older gentlemen's instincts and reflexes hadn't dulled, or perhaps had been brought back to their prime and beyond by the evolution they were going through.

Indeed, Seth knew this creature well. His time studying at the library hadn't just been spent on runes, he had also done some research on beasts of folklore, although it wasn't nearly as in depth as his rune studies.

Ever since his encounter with the armoured bear, and Angel informing him of the influence of the cultural subconscious on evolutionary lines, Seth had been painfully aware of the fact that he could stumble across more monsters that had leapt straight from the pages of a story book.

Greek, Norse, Celtic, Biblical, etc. He perused some of the most popular mythologies, and a few lesser known ones, to get a general overview of what type of monsters he might encounter at some point in the future.

This beast was one such creature. A Nuckelavee.

A wretched demon from his own country's mythology, one of the most feared. Clearly for a reason, if Fox's blade couldn't even dream of tickling it never mind slicing it. But what could be expected from a mortal blade made of simple steel.

No matter how many times it is folded, it has its limits in the new world.

"Don't let its breath touch you!"

As Seth yelled out a warning, Fox stopped trying to find a weak point through a hail of fruitless slashes, all while dodging the relentless claws, and quickly leapt backwards. He didn't need to be told twice, there had to be a reason for a warning like that after all.

As if to prove Seth's point, the Nuckelavee took in a deep lungful of air and spewed it out in the form of a thick, wretched black cloud of miasma that rolled across the ground like fog. The very moment the miasmic fog came into contact with the corpses of the mages, the point of contact immediately started to wither and wrinkle, as if they were being aged thousands of years in the span of a few seconds.

By the time the fog dispersed, all that was left of the corpses were shrivelled up grey husks, completely devoid of any and all moisture, before they collapsed into nothing more than piles of dust.

When the demonic equestrian began to inhale once more, seeing that its targets escaped its ire, Corvus burst forward and slammed a mana empowered punch into its face.

Although it wasn't full strength, since he was desperately trying to conserve energy and could already feel the toll accumulating on his body, That was enough to cut off its attack and send it stumbling.

However Seth couldn't linger and had to immediately leap back, weaving Corvus' body past the swiping claws of the upper half. Of course... the damn thing had two heads, even if he rattled the brain sitting inside of one head, the other was free to attack him.

Wracking his mind for the details of this demon's legend, Seth glanced over at the blood pond to see how close the rest were to crawling out. One was hard enough, if they had more monsters and demons attacking them, it wouldn't take long to be overwhelmed.

However, despite the sight of two more hellish beasts having dragged themselves half way out of the blood pond, that was not what caught Seth's attention. Instead, it was the reflection of the evening sun glittering in the pond that his eyes, or Corvus' eyes, locked onto.

Whipping his head up, he looked at the sky, and more importantly at the clouds. Thick, heavy and grey clouds hung over the entire city, except over this castle. In the sky above them, was a perfect circle of utterly clear skies.

'Of course!'

While it could have easily be just for the Hemogoblins comfort, since they seemed to seriously disagree with water, it was that sight that finally clicked the details of the Nuckelavee into Seth's head.

"Take it to Golden Boy, It hates rain!"

Fox nodded at the order, a mischievous smirk spreading across the sly old foxes face as he understood an important detail. Sure, he could drag this thing through the reflections with him and teleport it straight to the Golden Knight Erik.

But why do that, when he could have a little fun? After all, who knows how many Hemogoblins and beasts were between himself and Erik, perhaps he could give them a hand thinning the herd.

As Fox slashed at the Nuckelavee again, catching its attention, and began to kite it towards the tail end of the enemy army, Seth sprinted over the still active blood born ritual. He couldn't let any more of these things come through, so disarming this ritual with his limited knowledge of runes was yet another task on his seriously crowded plate.

In fact, speaking of tasks, we should probably discuss the fourth task that Seth was performing as part of his marvellous juggling act.

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