The Dawn of the New World

He slowly reached back and unhooked the longbow from his shoulder.

Wern's right hand rested against the main frame while the left gently moved up and down the bowstring, an old habit that he still wasn't able to give up despite many lectures from his teachers.

He couldn't help but click his tongue in annoyance looking at the ceiling above. Most of the techniques at his disposal were long-range and as a bow user fighting in confined spaces restricted almost 70% of his overall abilities.

Suffice to say, he would not have an upper hand in the upcoming altercation.

He followed the distant whimpering screams and navigated through the many rooms that opened up in front of him. The building was deceptively bigger from the inside.

There were bloodstains on the walls and drag marks on the floor. It looked like bodies were all dragged off but they all led in the same direction.

Some of the blood was still fresh but their source was not anywhere in sight. Not a single body could be seen so far.

As Wern ventured went deeper into the building the architecture began to change.

The relatively modern designs were replaced by short and broken old walls made of rock and mud and when he reached a stairway that led to, what was probably the basement, it became even eerier as all the natural light stopped.

He took one quick whiff and gagged. The stench was too strong here.

The sulfur by itself was bad enough but now the unmistakable stench of decaying rotting flesh was almost mixed in by equal amounts.

This would be where he should normally be turning around to leave but he couldn't just leave Arnett to fend for himself.

'I hate kids,' he said to himself before covering his eyes with the left hand and mumbling, "Keep the Darkness at Bay: Sight of the White Wolf!"

When he opened his eyes again they shone with a new light. Three veins protruded from his temples and his pupils slightly changed shape to a more beastly one.

Much of the darkness was pushed away although all the blood became grey in his eyes. He could see much clearer though, perhaps a bit too much.

There were scratch marks edged into the old stone stairs along with bits of fingernails. How much force must a person have had to exert to even rip off their own fingernails in the process? Just how terrified they must have been?

With gritted teeth Wern slowly descended into the darkness. His shoes stuck to the clotting blood on the stairs and every step made an audible sound no matter how careful he tried to be.

When he reached the end of the staircase and was about to step onto the muddy ground his ears perked up making him freeze mid-motion. Pulling back his foot Wern slowly raised his head to look up, towards the source of the faint bubbling sound.

At first his brow furrowed trying to make out what that thing was but the moment he did all the confusion was replaced by abject horror. There was a person, or rather the remains of one stuck to the ceiling.

They were surrounded by a jello-like substance that was semi-transparent, just enough for him to see the man being slowly disintegrated alive inside. He knew the man was alive because he was staring right at him.

His eyeballs were still intact and they were locked with his, begging for help. At least a quick death if nothing else.

Wern's gaze wandered to the side where he saw the outline of another figure but that one was already dead. All the flesh was stripped of his bones already and only a skeleton remained with a few internal organs still moving inside.

And in between these were the faint markings of a humanoid face. The jelly had eyes and lips, although both were closed at the moment.

"I am sorry," Wern mouthed the words towards the man before looking away.

He couldn't attack that creature and risk alerting the others.

The Spirit bone dust that he had sprinkled on himself earlier would lose its concealment effects the moment he used any Qi intensive attacks.

'Damn it kid, where did you go?!'

The moment he asked the question Arnett's voice came from somewhere nearby.

"LET HIM GO!"

'Fuck!'

Wern cursed and ran towards the source. On the right was the only corridor leading to a room and it was littered with bodies. Or rather their remains.

Some of them looked like mummies completely dried up while others had chunks bitten out of them. A lot of them were encased in the same jelly-like substance but it was much darker and from the looks of it the people inside were already dead.

Trying his best not to vomit Wern stepped over the internal organs and other bodily fluids that had leaked onto the floor and reached the final room.

He smiled upon seeing Arnett but it froze the moment his eyes fell on the creatures Arnett was talking to.