Chapter 179: Damien’s Turf.
Hannah placed her hand against a collapsed wall, activating her Dormant ability. The enormous slab of stone slowly grew lighter beneath her touch until the surrounding men were finally able to lift it together and throw it aside. Dust spilled into the air as the wall was moved, revealing the space that had been buried beneath it.
Underneath the rubble was a woman clutching her child tightly against her chest. Her eyes were squeezed shut as she waited for death to reach them, completely unaware that the weight above them had already been removed. When she finally realized that she was still alive, Hannah was already reaching down to help her.
"Come on, we don’t have much time."
Hannah quickly helped the woman to her feet and guided her away from the collapsed building, making sure the child remained safely in his mother’s arms. There were still countless survivors trapped beneath the ruins, and every second they spent in one place meant another person could be left behind.
But before they could get very far, Hannah suddenly stopped and turned around.
She immediately regretted it.
Beyond the Ruins of Humanity, a powerful storm was racing toward them. Thick snow churned within the darkness, spreading across the land in an enormous wave that buried everything caught in its path. Buildings disappeared beneath the white storm, the streets vanished under layers of ice and snow, and the ruined city was rapidly being swallowed by the freezing disaster.
Hannah stared at it in horror, there was nowhere for them to run.
Her fear wouldn’t keep the storm away. It continued forward with terrifying speed, eventually swallowing Damien and the others who had remained behind to fight. Even the one responsible for summoning it, the Storm Blizzard God, was consumed by the storm as it spread across the ruins, and when it finally reached them, none of them could do anything to stop it.
The world disappeared.
Hannah lost her vision completely as the storm engulfed her. The cold struck her body with such force that she was thrown several meters into the air before crashing back onto the street. Pain spread through her body, but the confusion around her was even worse.
The organized group they had fought so hard to keep together had once again fallen into complete disorder. Men and women were running in different directions, stumbling through the snow and ice as they desperately searched for somewhere to escape. Their voices mixed together into a chaotic mass of screams and desperate cries, making it impossible to understand what anyone was saying.
Then Hannah heard children crying somewhere on the street, she couldn’t see them.
She could only hear the terrified voices growing weaker as the panicked crowd rushed through the streets, with some of the children being knocked down and trampled beneath the feet of people trying to escape.
Hannah’s chest tightened.
She tried to move, but the storm had robbed her of any sense of direction. She couldn’t see where the survivors were, where the enemy was, or even where the people she had been trying to protect had gone.
"Dammit aaaaalllllllllll!"
She screamed until her lungs burned, but her voice was swallowed by the storm. None of them could hear her desperation.
...
Damien couldn’t really see what he was up against. Dark clouds suddenly gathered overhead, spreading across the sky until the light of the moon was completely blocked from reaching the ruins below.
Then the freezing cold blizzard began to swallow the world as far as the eye could see.
Damien soon found himself trapped within the storm and separated from the others. The snow and violent winds made it impossible to see more than a short distance ahead, and he wasn’t even sure if they had heard his earlier scream when he asked where Vincent was. Whatever response they might have given him had been completely drowned out by the howling storm.
"Steady."
Damien spoke to the uneasy undead Therizon beneath him, keeping himself balanced as its wings flapped as hard as possible against the freezing wind. The creature struggled to remain airborne, but its body was gradually losing altitude despite its efforts. Damien watched the ground approaching beneath them and couldn’t help feeling miffed that the Therizon couldn’t properly fly.
It was a damn bird, after all. What the hell was the point of having wings if they couldn’t keep it in the air?
"Whooooooosh."
Damien hurriedly raised his head when the sound of something tearing through the wind reached him. He could barely make out the massive shape moving through the storm, but he recognized it immediately.
It was the Storm Blizzard God, only this time, it wasn’t its claw coming toward him.
It was its tail.
At least Damien assumed it was the creature’s tail, because he couldn’t understand why there was a head attached to it.
The enormous appendage was shaped like a furred snake, its body twisting through the storm before whipping downward toward him. The attack wasn’t even directed at Damien specifically; it seemed to be nothing more than an unintended movement from the massive creature, but the sheer size and force behind it made that distinction completely irrelevant.
Damien immediately forced Therizon to evade.
The undead bird twisted away, narrowly avoiding the descending appendage, but the wind produced by its movement still struck them with tremendous force. Therizon was thrown off balance, and Damien’s grip finally gave way. He fell from its back and crashed onto the solid ground below.
Now on his feet, Damien immediately found it difficult to move through the storm. The snow and freezing wind obscured everything around him, leaving him with little idea of where the Storm Blizzard God was positioned. One wrong step could send him directly beneath one of its enormous feet, and if that happened, he doubted even his immortality would make being crushed particularly pleasant.
"Fuck this."
Damien cursed before beginning to recall his undead.
The scattered undead across the battlefield immediately transformed into thick black miasma, their bodies dissolving into darkness that began spreading outward in every direction. The miasma quickly surrounded Damien, mixing with the storm and creating a dark field that stretched through the freezing environment.
The miasma was part of Damien’s ability, and he had always felt that something about it affected his perception. Whenever he was within it, his awareness seemed strangely heightened, allowing him to sense things that would normally be difficult for him to perceive.
Elsewhere, Andrea and the others suddenly paused as they noticed something strange.
The storm appeared to be getting swallowed by Damien’s miasma.
They couldn’t really see what was happening within the darkness, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If they couldn’t see inside it, then there was a good chance the Storm Blizzard God couldn’t either.
"Let’s play in my turf".