Chapter 684 The Shadows In The Night

Liam turned toward her.

"Huh?"

He didn’t immediately understand what she was thinking.

Why did they need to be somewhere high?

If the creature was capable of attacking people in their dreams, wouldn’t they be better off staying near the houses and protecting the villagers directly?

Still, Liam didn’t argue. He trusted Irina enough to know that she wasn’t suggesting it without a reason. Instead, he reached down and took her hand, and before she could say anything else, he leapt upward with her.

The world dropped away beneath them.

The rooflines of the houses quickly became smaller as Liam carried them higher, his movement effortless despite the distance they covered. He searched for the tallest tree in the area and landed on one of its thick branches with Irina beside him. The branch swayed slightly beneath their combined weight before settling, and from their new position, most of Elaris was visible beneath them.

Irina looked at him.

"Do you know I can jump myself?"

Liam didn’t answer.

Instead, he turned toward her and leaned forward, pressing a quick kiss against her lips.

Irina’s eyebrows rose.

She stared at him for a moment, clearly caught off guard by the unexpected response.

Liam simply smiled.

She shook her head quietly before turning her attention back toward the village. Of course. Liam would always be Liam. Even when they were supposed to be investigating a supernatural creature that had been terrorizing an entire village, he still found time to annoy her.

Irina settled herself against the branch and began scanning the houses below.

Liam followed her gaze for a moment before finally asking, "So why exactly are we looking from up here?"

Irina didn’t take her eyes off the village.

"Yesterday morning, when we were at Leo’s house, I noticed something on the ceiling."

Liam’s expression became attentive.

"What?"

"The ceiling was black."

He frowned.

"Black?"

"It looked like something extremely hot had forced its way through it. Almost as though something had burned through the ceiling from above."

Liam’s eyes narrowed.

"Hmm."

Irina continued, "I remember seeing it clearly because it didn’t look normal. But the night before, his mother said it wasn’t there."

Liam turned toward her.

"You’re sure?"

"I’m sure."

Irina finally looked at him. "And it was already there before you started the ritual, which means whatever caused it happened sometime during the night."

Liam became thoughtful.

He looked down at the village again.

That changed things.

If something had actually passed through the ceiling of Leo’s house during the night, then there should have been some indication of it from outside. Something hot enough to leave a blackened mark would produce light, smoke, heat, or at least some kind of visible disturbance.

And if it had happened somewhere in the village, they might be able to see it from their current position.

"You’re thinking we might be able to see it happen."

Irina nodded.

"Exactly."

Liam slowly looked across the rooftops.

Something that hot couldn’t simply appear without leaving a trace.

At least, that was what he hoped.

So they waited.

Neither spoke.

The village remained silent beneath them.

Every house looked almost identical from this height, their rooftops barely illuminated by the faint light of the moon. Occasionally, a curtain moved behind a window. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once before falling silent again. The wind moved through the branches around them, causing the leaves to rustle softly, but otherwise there was almost no sound.

Irina never looked away.

Her eyes moved constantly from one house to another.

The moment she finished observing one rooftop, she moved to the next.

Then another.

She checked the streets.

The alleys.

The windows.

The rooftops.

Every possible point of entry.

Liam, meanwhile, had considerably less patience.

He stayed beside her for a while, his eyes scanning the village, but the longer nothing happened, the heavier his eyelids became.

He yawned.

Then another.

He tried to remain awake.

A few minutes later, his head dipped.

He caught himself.

He blinked.

Looked around.

Then continued watching.

Several minutes passed.

His head dipped again.

This time he actually dozed off for a few seconds before waking with a small jerk.

Irina glanced at him.

Liam looked back.

"What?"

"Nothing."

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

She turned back toward the village.

Liam sighed and rested his back against the tree trunk.

He tried to stay awake.

He really did.

But after everything he had gone through recently, sitting quietly in a tree in the middle of the night was almost an invitation to sleep.

Irina suddenly reached over and tapped Liam on the shoulder, pulling him out of the shallow sleep he had fallen into. Liam’s eyes opened immediately, though for a moment his entire world appeared blurry, the village below him nothing more than a collection of dark shapes and faint lights. He blinked several times, rubbing one eye with the back of his hand as his vision rapidly returned to normal, and before he could ask what was wrong, Irina pointed toward one of the distant houses. Liam followed the direction of her finger but initially saw nothing unusual. The village looked exactly as it had moments ago, silent and still beneath the moonlight. Yet Irina was clearly pointing at something, so Liam narrowed his eyes and studied the area more carefully.

Then he noticed it.

The wind was moving differently.

It wasn’t much. Most people would never have noticed the difference, but Liam’s enhanced senses picked up the subtle disturbance immediately. The air around one particular location seemed to twist unnaturally, moving in a pattern that didn’t match the wind passing through the rest of the village. Even more strangely, thin strands of smoke were rising from the darkness, so faint that they almost blended into the night.

Liam’s expression changed.

He activated his eyes.

The darkness seemed to peel away before his vision, revealing layers of information that ordinary sight could never detect. The source of the disturbance slowly became visible, and Liam’s eyes widened slightly when he finally understood what he was looking at.

There was something standing there.

It was humanoid in shape, with two arms, two legs, and a body that vaguely resembled that of a person, but there was nothing human about it. Its entire body appeared to be engulfed in flames. Fire crawled across its form without consuming it, burning around its limbs and shoulders while thin trails of smoke escaped into the air. The flames weren’t bright enough to illuminate the entire village, almost as though the creature itself was deliberately suppressing its presence.

Liam stared for several seconds before quietly saying, "There’s something over there."

Irina immediately turned toward him. "What?"

"Something humanoid. It’s on fire."

Her expression sharpened.

"Then let’s attack it."

She moved as though she intended to jump from the branch immediately, but Liam caught her hand before she could move. Irina looked back at him with a questioning expression, and Liam’s eyes remained fixed on the darkness below.

"Wait."

"Why?"

"I felt another presence."

Irina’s expression changed.

"Another one?"

Liam nodded slowly.

"There is another one."

Irina couldn’t see anything. Her senses were powerful, but whatever Liam was detecting remained outside the limits of her perception. That left her with no choice but to trust his eyes and wait for him to tell her what was happening.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then the temperature dropped.

Liam felt it before he even saw the source.

A wave of cold swept across the village, so intense that the moisture in the air seemed to crystallize. Frost began spreading across nearby rooftops, and the faint breeze that had been moving through the trees suddenly became unnaturally cold. Liam’s gaze snapped toward the opposite side of the village, and there, slowly emerging from the darkness, was another humanoid figure.

Unlike the first creature, this one carried no fire.

It radiated cold.

Everywhere it moved, the surrounding air seemed to freeze. The ground beneath it became coated in frost, while thin crystals formed along the roofs and walls of the nearby houses. Its body was difficult to distinguish clearly, almost as though it were made from condensed darkness and frozen air, but Liam could tell immediately that this was the same presence he had sensed when they had first arrived in Elaris.

His eyes narrowed.

"It’s the one."

Irina looked at him.

"The one we saw before?"

"Yes."

Liam’s mind began connecting the pieces.

Two entities.

One associated with heat.

One associated with cold.

Both appearing in the village at night.

Both powerful enough to move through Elaris without being detected by the villagers.

For the first time, Liam began wondering whether their previous assumptions had been completely wrong. They had spent so much time believing that one creature was responsible for the attacks, but perhaps that wasn’t the case at all.

His thoughts were interrupted when the cold figure suddenly moved.

It didn’t approach the village.

It rushed toward the burning humanoid.

Liam’s eyes widened.

The two entities collided.

Their energies erupted against each other, and although the clash was almost impossible for ordinary eyes to perceive, Liam could see it clearly. Fire and freezing energy slammed together, producing a violent distortion in the air. The trees around them bent from the force, leaves and dust being thrown outward as the two figures pushed against one another.

To Irina, however, the confrontation was almost invisible.

She could feel a powerful gust of wind sweep across the village, but she couldn’t actually see what was causing it.

"What is going on?" she asked.

Liam didn’t answer immediately.

He was too busy watching.

The two beings separated for only an instant before rushing toward one another again. The burning creature struck first, its flaming arm crashing toward the cold entity, but the other creature raised its own arm and blocked the attack. Ice spread outward from the point of impact, immediately colliding with the flames.

Irina looked at Liam.

"Liam?"

"They’re fighting."

Her eyebrows rose.

"What?"

"They’re fighting each other."

For a moment, Irina simply stared at him.

She had expected an answer involving the attacker. Perhaps Liam had discovered the creature responsible for the village’s suffering. Perhaps they were about to intervene.

Instead, he was telling her that the two mysterious beings were attacking each other.

And Liam wasn’t finished.

He narrowed his eyes as he observed the battle more carefully, following every movement with his enhanced vision. The truth became stranger with every passing second.

"One of them is protecting the village."

Irina’s expression immediately changed.

"What?"

"The cold one."

Liam pointed toward the distant battle.

"It’s stopping the other one from reaching the houses."

Irina stared at the darkness.

She still couldn’t see them.

She could only feel the strange disturbances spreading through the night.

"So you’re saying..." she began slowly, almost as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to finish the sentence, "the thing we thought was attacking the village isn’t the only one here?"

"No."

Liam’s eyes remained locked onto the two figures.

"The hot one is trying to attack."

He paused, watching as the burning creature forced the cold entity backward.

"And the cold one is trying to stop it."

Irina’s face became serious.

"But if that’s true..."

Liam didn’t answer.

He had already noticed something else.

The burning creature was stronger.

Every exchange pushed the cold entity farther away from the village. The defender was desperately trying to hold its position, repeatedly intercepting the burning figure whenever it attempted to move toward the houses, but the difference in strength was becoming increasingly obvious.

Liam’s gaze sharpened as the battle continued.

The creature protecting Elaris was losing.

And for the first time since arriving in the village, Liam realized that the mystery surrounding the attacks might be far more complicated than they had ever imagined.