Chapter 104: Taken By Knights.

"Take them all," the lead knight commanded, his voice muffled and metallic through his helmet. "The Soul maidens are the priority, as for the rest, kill the stubborn ones."

Take us? Take us where? Ava thought, panic and fear surged allover her body. She wondered if this was the reason why Soul maidens had been going missing beyond the veil. They were not dead; they had been taken! What did they want with them?

She struggled, screaming for her mother, arms flailing in the hopes of a small gap that would allow her to escape. But she was completely pinned, the heavy paws of the night reaper digging into the flesh of her shoulders. She tried to command her half-life beasts, but it seemed like the connection had been cut.

Her eyes widened in sheer horror as the knights closed in, their movement in sync like they were robots Their steps echoed like a war drum. Hydraulic joints hissed, and every motion seemed rehearsed. Each knight wore a skull like helmet, with glowing slits of crimson light where eyes should be.

They were frightening beings to come across in the dark.

Ritah stood her ground, her rebellious eyes locked onto the lead knight. She had fought these knights before and taken down many but she was not alone when she did that. They needed a team of at least fifty to one hundred humans to take down one knight.

The armored machines were titans. For years, humans had been trying to take back one for studying, but when one was defeated, it was teleported away immediately.

Ritah’s mind was traveling at the speed of sound with many ideas. Maybe, if she took down one and took it back, she could get redemption for her daughter. Her hands burned with the bright, fierce light of a soul maiden who refused to bow.

"Mom, no!" Ava choked out, thrashing beneath the beast. "Don’t fight them! Please, run." She knew it would be hard to escape--near impossible. As far as she figured, she had ruined her mom’s life enough.

But Ritah was never a woman who surrendered. She wasn’t going to watch her daughter get taken. With a fierce battle cry, she whipped a heavy axe straight into the chest of a lunging night reaper and charged forward. Her two companions drew their guns and began to shoot at the enemies.

It wasn’t a fight; it was an execution. The humans were fast and their beasts were strong, but against the brutal efficiency of alien technology, it wasn’t enough. Within seconds, a knight’s laser blade flashed, and the two men’s heads were violently ripped from their necks, bouncing into the black soil.

Ava screamed, but the true nightmare came a second later.

The lead knight stepped on the bodies and caught Ritah by the throat. With a sickening, wet crunch, drove his metal fist straight through her chest.

"This one will be trouble." A voice said.

Time seemed to stop. Ava watched, paralyzed, as the knight ripped her mother’s heart clean out. The light in Ritah’s eyes flickered. She looked at Ava one last time. Before her body hit the dirt, one final, faint whisper echoed inside Ava’s mind, full of sorrow and unending love.

"I am sorry, baby."

Then, the connection went completely dead. Silence filled Ava’s head.

Ava stopped struggling. The world lost all its color.

"MOTHER!!" She let out a raw, broken scream that tore at her throat as her mother’s body crumpled into the black dust.

The heart was hurled into the pack of Night Reapers. They lunged at it in a frenzy, snarling and snapping as they devoured her soul like a delicious snack.

Rough hands grabbed Ava by her arms, lifting her off the ground. She didn’t fight back. She didn’t even feel the boots dragging through the dirt. As the knights hauled her away into the dark depths of the land, amidst the distant wails of the destroyed world, her eyes remained glued to the lifeless, unmoving form of her mother fading into the blue grey fog.

*****

Ocean was sitting on a chair, his hands unbound now, rubbing his wrists where the coarse ropes had left angry red rings. He didn’t look like a prisoner; he looked impatient like a guy waiting for a late breakfast.

Around him, the atmosphere in the room was thick enough to choke a low-level beast.

The guild leaders were pacing; their faces twisted with the kind of humiliation only high-ranking masters feel when a teenager slips through their fingers.

"A girl! A single weak girl in the Wild Lands!" Sheila snapped, her voice like grinding stones. She turned her glare toward Garon. "And you said your stone salamander could sniff her out through an ocean, Garon. That overgrown lizard is about as reliable as a broken compass."

Garon growled, a low, rumbling sound from his chest that vibrated the floorboards. He was holding a half-smoked cigarette, the tobacco mixed with medicinal herbs to calm his nerves. With a curse, he flicked the glowing butt onto the floor.

"Watch it," Sheila hissed. Before the spark could catch, she brought the heavy heel of her leather boot down, mushing it into the fabric with a vicious twist. "You’ll burn the fluffy carpet. Do you know how many energy stones it takes to import sheep beast-wool from the Iron vale Confederacy?"

Garon spat on the floor next to her boot. "We missed her. That’s the problem. Not the carpet."

Sheila ignored him, her sharp eyes pivoting toward the chair. She jutted her red-painted lips at Ocean, a cold calculation entering her expression. "What are we supposed to do with this one now anyway? He’s just dead weight."

"He’s useless," Garon snorted, cracking his thick knuckles. "We already squeezed every drop of information out of him. We know she will go sniffing out dungeons, we know she will go back to that flat. We have everything we need to hunt the girl down ourselves."

From the chair, a soft, dry sound broke the tension.

Ocean smirked. It wasn’t a brave smile; it was the look of a man who held the only key to a treasure vault and knew his captors were illiterate.

The smirk instantly drew their attention like a flare in the dark. The bickering stopped. Garon’s heavy brow furrowed as he stormed over, his big shadow completely blocking out the bright light. He leaned down, his breath smelling of stale smoke and sour wine.

"What’s so funny, idiot? You think we are kidding?"

Ocean winced, "The Mayor will not be too happy if you kill me. Do you want to be on his bad side?"