Chapter 83 - 79: Overtaken
"Alright, my turn," Morden said, taking a deep breath before resuming his narration.
Since he was the last one to speak, his teammates were already extremely attentive, their ears and eyes fully active.
"It started with me waking up in a tunnel, though I have no idea how I even got there," he said, looking at both his teammates to see if they were following.
Both of them nodded in approval, so he continued.
"The first thing I noticed about the place was that the walls were too smooth to be natural, and it took me a while to realize there was an exit on both sides. One side had this bright open sky, and the other had storm clouds and something that felt more like trouble than any other thing."
While he said that Morden’s eyes should have a strange reminiscing look, though it wasn’t that long since it had happened.
Darlus opened his mouth to say something, but Morden kept going before he could.
"I went to the bright side first, though I didn’t stay there long before something forced me to move again."
Morden suddenly felt something cold brush against the back of his neck, but he didn’t do too much of it; he just raised a hand to swat it away without even pausing his story.
"I ended up sliding down the mountain, and that’s when things really started getting strange."
The cold feeling came back, and it was stronger this time, wrapping around the base of his neck like a rope pulled tight.
"There were beasts on both sides of that mountain, and they weren’t anything like what I fought before; they were—" His words cut off on their own.
Morden’s hand shot up to his throat while. fingers clawed at something that surely wasn’t his skin. It was dark tendrils that had already wrapped halfway around his neck, though they were thin as smoke; they were still solid enough that his fingers couldn’t get under them.
"Morden?" Lisa’s voice came out sharp, already stepping toward him.
He tried to answer or at least tried to warn them, but nothing came out except a strained, wet sound. The shadow kept climbing, spreading across his collarbone and then his shoulders, moving so fast, like it had been waiting for exactly this moment.
Morden staggered back, one hand still clawing at his throat while the other reached for his sword. Though he had only managed to summon it halfway before his fingers went stiff and the weapon clattered uselessly against the ground.
****Elsewhere****
The man leaned against the same tree, watching through the shadow’s eyes with a faint smile on his face.
"Let’s see how your teammates handle you," he said quietly to no one but himself.
He didn’t move from his spot; he didn’t have to, all he had to do was stand here and watch as the shadow did all the work. And that was exactly what made Bearers like this extremely scary.
****Back with Morden****
The shadow had wrapped fully around his upper body now, its dark tendrils crawling up his jaw and across his cheeks, and he could even feel them pressing into places he believes shouldn’t have been reachable at all.
His vision blurred at the edges.
’Fight it,’ he told himself, though he wasn’t even sure what he was fighting against anymore.
He threw his weight forward, trying to break whatever grip the thing had on him, but his legs weren’t acting like his own anymore either. Each step landed heavier than he intended it to, more controlled than he wanted it to be.
It felt similar to the time with the red ghost but also very different, that time the feeling of control came from the inside, but now it feels completely external, like someone or something was directly controlling every single muscle.
Darlus had already summoned an icicle, but he hesitated, his eyes darting between Morden and whatever was consuming him.
"What the hell is that thing?" he shouted.
Lisa didn’t wait for an answer. She moved fast, knives already in hand, but the moment she got close, Morden’s arm shot out on its own, faster than he could stop it, and nearly caught her across the face.
She barely dodged in time.
’No, no, no,’ Morden thought, watching his own hand move like it belonged to someone else.
The shadow finished its climb, wrapping over the last bit of exposed skin on his face, and for one horrible second, everything went completely dark. Then his eyes opened again, except they weren’t quite his eyes anymore. A faint red glow sat where his irises used to be.
He straightened up slowly, but some strange movements were too smooth and too controlled, nothing like how he usually carried himself.
"Morden, snap out of it," Darlus said, taking a step back despite the icicle still in his hand, hoping he could talk him out of it.
There was no response. Morden’s head tilted slightly, studying them both like they were nothing more than obstacles standing between him and whatever the shadow wanted him to do.
Then he moved.
He closed the distance faster than either of them expected, his fist already swinging at Darlus’s head with far more force than Morden had ever shown before.
"When did he get so strong?" Lisa muttered.
They had fought a few battles together, so he thought she had a good grasp of Morden’s capabilities, but right now he had exceeded everything she believed by a whole lot.
Darlus barely got his arm up in time to block it, and the impact sent him sliding back several feet, his boots carving lines into the dirt.
"Lisa, we need to find a way to snap him out of this without actually hurting him," Darlus shouted, shaking out his numb
arm.
He was never a short-range fighter, so this was much different than what he usually had to deal with.
Lisa didn’t respond right away. She was too busy watching Morden’s next move, the way his body shifted weight before he even started to attack, calculating, reading him the same way she read everything else.
"I don’t think there’s a gentle way to do this," she finally said.
Morden lunged again, and this time both of them had to move together just to keep from getting hit.
The fight had only just begun.