Demi-god Twin Chapter 25: The Wraiths.

Chapter 25: The Wraiths.

(IPhicles P.O.V)

The spirits or Wraiths according to Ori, glide forward as solid—shadows wearing the shapes of women.

I realize why the mist acts unnatural and eerie. It's but an extension of them, twisting and coiling around them like serpents.

Quickly, I'm surrounded and the focus of their interest.

The eldest wraith, given the gray hair and wrinkles, tilts her head, hollow black eyes gleaming with a cold, unnerving intelligence.

“The guest is struck speechless by our beauty sisters, or perhaps he is simply dumb.” she chortles in a voice like the tolling of a distant bell—low, slow, and final.

I hear Ori snort behind me, probably at the Wraith's ironic description. Her face is by no means beautiful. In fact, the crooked dirty teeth, hunched back and warts make it so she's the ugliest croon I've ever seen.

The middle sister is a younger and prettier version of the eldest, with red hair, a motherly presence and a smile that is too warm to be anything but fake.

She chuckles, a laugh so dry and brittle it sounds like dead leaves crushed underfoot. “How unfortunate, it's been oh so long since we had a proper visitor.”

The youngest has ratty blonde hair and also resembles her sisters.

She giggles cheerfully but somewhat sharp, similar to the glint of a knife hidden under silk. Her form sways, dancing to music only she can hear. “At least, he’s handsome enough to keep.”

I roll the feather blade between my fingers, keeping my stance loose but ready, every muscle coiled with tension.

“I don’t want to kill you, ladies.” I say evenly, though the cold knot of unease in my gut tightens. Not with fear, mind you, my conviction to save Chiron trumps any. There's just something-

Their laughter rises, sharp and echoing, coming from everywhere at once.

That's why it bothers me.

It’s not human or monster—it’s the sound of something that belongs to dark places where the light never reaches.

“You won’t,” the eldest purrs, her lips curling into a cruel smile.

“How can you?” the middle hisses from my left.

“When you are already ours.” the youngest whispers, her voice like a cold breath against the back of my neck.

I instantly deploy my wings.

The ground trembles beneath my feet, groaning as if the earth itself is waking from a nightmare.

Something pierces out of the soil. A skeletal hand with dried bits of flesh, clutching a rusted broken blade. Before the skeleton can fully emerge, I cleave the torso with a wing and shatter the skull with a foot stomp.

"Not very nice."

"We just want to play."

"Resistance is futile."

Green mist pours off the wraiths and into the ground.

Cracks emerge and more corpses rise around me, revealing bodies—half-rotted with bones twisted by creeping vines, their armor and weapons covered in rust and dirt.

Adventurers. Warriors. People who had come before us…and failed.

They attack.

I react instantly, wings snapping out with a sharp, metallic sound, feathers gleaming like blades.

The first corpse lunges at me with a rusted sword. I sidestep and slice through it, cutting it clean in half.

But they don't move slow like zombies and another is already there, attacking from my blind spot.

I twist, driving a wingtip through its chest and ripping upward, severing its head in a single, fluid motion.

A skeletal warrior swings a battered axe at my shoulder. I pivot, narrowly dodging the strike, and flick a feather straight into its skull.

The impact snaps its spine, and the body crumbles into a heap of bones.

Two more corpses stagger toward me, their movements jerky and unnatural. One holds a broken sword, the other a splintered spear.

The sword comes first. I block the blow with my wing, the impact rattling up my arm.

The spear thrusts toward my ribs—I twist, feeling the cold metal scrape against my side but not pierce.

I slash low with my wing, cutting the spear-wielder’s legs out from under it. It collapses and I crush its skull beneath my heel before it can rise again.

I frown as the mist calls forth new zombies that attack en masse.

I debate taking to the air and easily clearing the entire battlefield with a barrage of feathers, but Atalanta is yet to get the flower.

Slow and methodical it is.

“Why fight, little warrior?” the eldest wraith purrs in mockery.

“Stay,” the middle one adds, her tone soft and hypnotic. “Join us.”

“You’re already cursed,” the youngest whispers sweetly, though her grin is anything but kind. “No one will miss you.”

They hover above me, enjoying the show.

I cut down the last of the corpses, breathing hard, but smirking.

“Like I said ladies, I don’t want to kill you.” I repeat.

“You don’t have to,” the eldest hisses, her face twisting into something dark and hungry. “You just have to die like the rest of the dirty little thieves!”

The mist thickens, swirling faster, colder. The temperature plummets, the chill sinking into my bones—not the simple cold of winter, but something worse, something that tries to freeze your soul.

The dozens of corpses I’ve already defeated begin to move.

I watch, jaw clenched, as their bones snap back together. Glowing roots slither like tendons, stitching their bodies whole again and stronger than before.

Their hollow eyes flicker with sickly green light.

They rise.

Again.

And again.

No matter how many times I cut them down, they get back up.

The sisters laugh, circling me like vultures.

“You cannot win.”

“You cannot stop us.”

“We have eternity.”

I dodge, parry, slash—two, three, four fall. But even as I cut them down, I can see their remains shifting, knitting back together.

The whole groove is under their control, and acts as support, feeding tree barks to replace zombie flesh, and stone to reconstitute bones.

I block a hammer from one and it rattles my wing before I pierce out with the tip of my other wing.

There's a dull thunk but my metal wingtip only goes an inch into the Zombie's torso, when before it would have cleaved it apart.

My attacks are no longer powerful enough to put them down. I pull away before the rest overwhelm me.

Damn it. No matter what I do, I can't defeat these things that now look like an unholy fusion of tree, rock and man.

Change of plans.

I take to the air suddenly and unleash a flurry of feathers, razor-sharp and glowing under the moonlight, aiming straight for the Wraiths.

But the blades pass right through them, like cutting through smoke. Their forms ripple, then reform, untouched.

They laugh again.

“Poor thing,” the eldest coos. “Did you think we were so easily touched?”

“Such pretty wings,” the middle one says, her hollow eyes gleaming. “Maybe we should pluck them.”

“Let’s,” the youngest giggles.

Green tendrils of mist shoot toward me, faster than I can react. One wraps around my ankle like a serpent and slams me onto the ground.

It’s cold. So cold.

It’s not just holding me—it’s draining me. My strength, my warmth, my will.

I snarl, slashing the tendril with my wing, but another lashes out, wrapping around my wrist, then another coils around my chest. The ground opens up and I'm being pulled down, dragged me into the darkness.

The corpses swarm me, slamming, slashing and clawing at my wings, my skin, my clothes.

“Enough,” the eldest commands, her voice sharp as broken glass.

“Sleep,” the middle one whispers, soft and suffocating.

“Be ours,” the youngest breathes, her words a cold wind in my ear.

The darkness pulls at my mind. My limbs feel heavy, numb. The only reason I am not dead is regeneration but even that relies on my Stamina.

No. Chiron needs me. I can't die here. Something brims in the middle of my back, where the two wings meet.

I grab onto it, grit my teeth and force my wings outward in a sudden unexpected blast of raw power that blows the Zombies away, ripped apart into pieces.

"What the-"

I get up, staring down at my body, awash in a gentle silver light that is leaking from my feathers.

My wings are aglow with this strange light which reminds of Moonlight.

3 floating windows pop up in front of my eyes and everything starts to make sense.

[Mythical A-grade Prey ‘Elder Male Ent’ Processed. New Attribute Gained: Photo-Absorption.]

[Mythical A-grade Prey 'Elder Female Ent' Processed. New Attribute Gained: Photo-Excretion.]

[Resonance effect detected. Combine 2 A-grade [Elder Ent] Attributes into the S-grade Attribute: Celestial Photosynthesis?]