Cameraman Never Dies

Satan caught his breath behind a rather large tree that still hadn't been cut by Seraphis' craziness of slicing down a whole part of the forest.

He was just recording; he still was. But those two monsters seem to have sensed him somehow.

Were the lord's powers diminishing?

No, he can't have such blasphemous thoughts. It might be that the lord was punishing him for not doing his duty properly.

But he never was discovered, Eleyn and Seraphis were sensing something else. And what they sensed came as a surprise to even them.

The forest seemed to shudder as the dust settled. Broken limbs, shattered masks, and scorched earth lay silent beneath a blue sky filled unnaturally with clouds, yet the sun was completely visible.

Eleyn's chest heaved with ragged breaths; every muscle in her body trembled. Seraphis stood close by, silent, crimson ether still crackling around her gauntleted fist. For a moment, it felt as though the battle had ended, until the first of them stirred.

A single hand, blackened and split by Eleyn's last blast, twitched. The fox-mask's cracked eyes snapped open, pupils a dull, corpse-white. With a rattling gasp, they hauled themselves up, ether seeping from every fractured vein like smoke from a dying fire. Seraphis's eyes narrowed, a genuine surprise etched on her face.

One by one, the others followed. The rabbit-mask lay twisted on the ground, ribs crushed. Their body convulsed, bones popped back into place with sickening cracks. A jagged fissure of scarlet ether traced across their mask as they rose, gasping for air.

The pig-mask, still clutching a smoking wound in their side, spat grime and blood onto the ground. Their breath rattled like dry leaves in a coffin.

Then the cat and deer masks both staggered up, faces expressionless behind sewn leathers. None of them seemed alive in the ordinary sense, they moved like marionettes forced by a cruel puppeteer.

Eleyn's hand twitched around her wand. The golden pendant against her throat glowed brighter as she sensed the shift, these were not mortals rising, they had now turned into something worse.

A low, inhuman growl rolled through the group. Their masks, fractured by her previous spells, glowed now with a sickly light, veins of black ether pulsing beneath the surface as if their very cores had been replaced with some foul energy.

The fox-mask stepped forward first, limbs twisting unnaturally. Flesh knit itself back together around splintered bone. Their furrowed brow gave way to a silent snarl, and they lunged for Eleyn with a speed no living human could muster. Every step they took churned the forest floor to mud, leaving behind a trail of ichor and snapped twigs.

Eleyn raised her wand, but before she could speak a single word, the fox was upon her. One clawed swipe tore through the air inches from her face; the force of it whipped her hair back.

She barely managed to parry, feeling her fingers burn where ether crackled against her skin, her golden barrier too thin to hold. The fox raked forward again, Eleyn twisted her wrist and brought the full arc of her arm across, sending a pulse of superheated air that caught the fox below the ribs. Flesh sizzled, but still he advanced.

Beside her, Seraphis shifted into motion. Without drawing her sword, she lowered to a fighting stance, body coiled like a cat ready to spring. Dark ether gathered around her knuckles, forming jagged cracks of crimson that illuminated the air. Her eyes glowed with the same red light.

She lunged, delivering a thunderous punch that sent the fox-mask crashing into a shattered stump. But even as his head slammed through wood and stone, he rose again, utterly unbroken.

From the other side, the rabbit-mask launched themselves at Seraphis, claws flared. Their movements were swift, but Seraphis did not hesitate.

She let their momentum carry them forward. With a sudden twist of her hips, she locked her elbow behind the rabbit's ear, snapping their neck with a wet crack. Yet even as their head dangled by a thread of sinew, the body remained standing, eyes rolling back, bones knitting themselves a moment later.

Each masked figure erupted with a guttural roar. Their voices lacked humanity, more a corrugated hiss of malice. The pig-mask, crimson-stained and ragged, lurched at Eleyn.

Muscles bulged grotesquely as if new sinew had been grafted onto old wounds. They swung a fist, and the ground quaked where it struck. Eleyn stumbled, but she did not falter.

Her lips parted, and she whispered an invocation so low that even the wind in the treetops stilled to listen.

"Aeternum Vitium."

Golden light flared at her feet and swept outward like an impossible sunrise snaking through the undergrowth.

The forest floor ruptured, roots shrieking as they cracked, and columns of molten-gold ether erupted, stabbing at each of the undead assassins.

The fox whirled, his mask finally showing a man's face, but a pillar of light speared through his shoulder, pinning him to a broken log. Smoke hissed as flesh melted, but still he did not die. Blackened hands scrabbled at the wood, searching for purchase, and he dragged himself free.

The rabbit, coughing ether-dusted blood, tried to leap away. But another torrent of golden flame lanced upward, melting the clay soil beneath their feet, sending them tumbling into a molten pit that grew instantly cold, only to flicker again as if breathing.

Their limbs re-formed, yet they emerged with half their hair singed off, eyes seared. They screeched, a sound like metal grinding, and charged Seraphis once more.

Seraphis did not back down. Overhead, the sky darkened to an ashen gray.

She reached out with her left hand, and the earth itself responded. Spindly roots snaked beneath the rabbit-mask's feet, wrapping around ankles, pulling them down.

Each strand glowed with red ether, burning into wood and flesh alike.

The rabbit flailed, but Seraphis gripped their collar, cold determination in her gaze. With a twist of her wrist, she sent them spinning into the air, only to catch them again as they hung convulsing.

A second later, her fist connected with their jaw; the crack echoed like a rifle shot. The body collapsed, twitching once, but even in death, it jerked upward, limbs contorting.

Seraphis exhaled, her entire arm glowing as bone echoed beneath her skin. She struck again, lantern-jaw-deafening, and the rabbit's head finally hung limp.