Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 807: Inside the Ruins

At almost the same moment, the entire gray skin contracted and rolled, and from behind it a worm clambered out of the stone wall — runny mucus streaming from its body — and scrambled upward toward the cave ceiling.

Nightingale was faster.

She appeared from the Mist directly above, hanging upside down from the ceiling as casually as if it were level ground, and drove a gleaming dagger through the worm’s head before it could reach the top. The blade pinned it to the stone wall. The worm’s six legs kicked once, twice, then went slack. Dead.

Only now did Lightning understand: the “egg” had been the worm’s torso all along. With its head and legs buried in the rock and its enormous belly forming a sealed chamber, the back half had simply looked like a dome-shaped shell.

The creature’s proportions were grotesque. Its front half resembled an oversized ant — barely half a meter from head to shoulders. Its rear half could have fit three large barrels inside with room to spare. Even with most of the mucus drained, the deflated skin still covered a span that made Lightning reluctant to stand too close.

“Is the demon born from inside its stomach?” she asked.

“I have never encountered anything like this.” Agatha crouched over the demon’s body, studying it with her Stone of Lighting. “This Mad Demon is fully mature. Look at the arm — these scars are caused by magic stone inlays. And the girth is uneven, which means the demon had been throwing pikes with magic power over a long period.” She frowned. “The arm that was worked harder is thicker.”

“Where is the magic stone now?”

“Gone. Removed, or lost.”

“Taken by the worm?” Elena had no patience for slow reasoning. “Simple enough: the worm swallowed the demon, digested it while hanging from the wall, and ran into us before it finished. The magic stone was either dissolved or lost in a fight beforehand. Can we move on? Finding Fran is more urgent than understanding what killed this demon.”

Lightning did not say it aloud, but she had a question: the worm’s mouth was barely large enough for a human to squeeze through. A fully grown Mad Demon was nearly three meters tall and broad across the shoulders. How had the worm gotten it inside at all?

“Something else is strange.” Nightingale’s voice came from above the demon’s body. “It’s clearly dead — but its magic power hasn’t dissipated.”

Agatha stood up sharply. “You mean this thing is a demon?”

“Yes. Its magic is very faint — almost like vapor. I only noticed it when the body rolled free from the worm. But it’s dead. The decomposition of the skin suggests it died one or two days ago.” Nightingale hesitated. “I thought it was impossible for magic power to accumulate on a dead body.”

“If you’ve read it correctly, then it is strange.” Zooey nodded, and drove the tip of her sword into the cave wall. “We should bring both bodies back for examination. Let’s mark the spot and retrieve them after we’ve made camp.”

They moved on. And they found more.

The “egg-worms” appeared again and again — some buried to the head and legs in the stone walls, others crouched beside the riverbank, still others clustered together like mushrooms. The witches worked methodically now. They had learned where to strike: through the worm’s thin skull buried in the rock, or straight at the neck. They cut through the membranous skins one after another.

Inside, they found not only Mad Demons but Fearsome Demons as well — and human bodies.

That stopped them cold.

Beyond the Border Area, there were no human settlements. How had the worms found humans to hunt? Had they been ranging unseen into the domain of Neverwinter?

“Magic reaction ahead.” Nightingale’s voice sharpened. “Wait — no. Is that — is that Fran?”

“Where?” Elena did not move forward. She spread the God’s Punishment Witches in a fan, swords up, guarding every angle.

Lightning understood, without needing Nightingale to explain, how the misty world worked: everything rendered in black and white, solid objects visible as twisted silhouettes, only magic power showing in color. The dark underground environment would impose nothing on Nightingale. Distance meant less there than it did in the waking world.

“Front-left, two hundred meters — roughly four hundred paces. She appears to be held down.” Nightingale’s voice traveled ahead of her, blurring beneath the noise of falling water. “Can’t see clearly — I’ll go first — wait—!”

Two shots rang out.

The sound of the flintlocks rebounded off the cave walls, enormous in the enclosed space. The God’s Punishment Witches exchanged a look and moved forward in formation. Lightning was faster — she flew past them, revolver already in her hand.

What she found was not the ambush she had feared.

Nightingale stood with her Stone raised, casting light over two monsters sprawled on the ground. Sickle-shaped forepaws. Domed heads with ragged holes in them where the bullets had entered. Blue blood spread across the rock.

“These are the camouflage creatures you mentioned before?” Lightning floated down.

“Yes. But they cannot hide from me.” Nightingale holstered the revolver and turned to the enormous shape pinned behind the monsters. She patted its flank. “Am I right?”

Fran struggled and made muffled sounds — her mouth was sealed by white adhesive jelly stretched across her jaws and onto the ground. Both sides of her body were wrapped in the same substance, lashing her down. Her wounds were numerous; the fall had hurt her badly.

But beyond Fran, two more devouring worms lay motionless on the ground, their posture suggesting deep sleep.

Lightning landed quickly and pushed aside the moss between the worms. Beneath it: a mottled stone slab, clearly worked by hand.

“Oh?” Nightingale gave a low whistle. “It seems we’ve found—”

“The snow mountain ruin,” Lightning finished, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.

“What happened?” The others caught up, holding their formation.

Nightingale gave a brief account: Fran located, two sickle monsters eliminated, Fran alive but immobilized, the area already part of the underground ruin. “We should extract Fran and get the First Army to establish sentry posts. Enemies may be close.”

Elena nodded once. She drew the heavy sword from her back and cut through the hardened jelly in clean, efficient strokes. The moment Fran’s mouth was free, her voice came out low and urgent.

“Don’t look up.”

Lightning had already started to raise her head.

The cave extended upward here, opening into a vast dome of stone. The Stones of Lighting could only illuminate the ground directly below; overhead was nothing but darkness, absolute and total. Lightning’s eyes found nothing.

Then — one red light appeared in the blackness. Then two. Then three. She could not count them. Tens of them, hundreds, thousands — gathering into a single burning mass, like a constellation that had collapsed toward a single point.

Like a Bloody Moon, hanging in the dark above them.

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