Brute 279

Chapter 279 

Atasha’s POV 

I did not wait for it to attack first. 

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The moment the beast’s weight shifted forward, I moved, pushing off the ground and closing the distance before it could fully adjust to its new size. My sword cut upward in a tight arc aimed for the neck, but it twisted with unnatural speed, the blade scraping along thickening hide instead of biting deep. The impact jolted up my arm, and I barely had time to pivot before its claws tore through the space where my ribs had been a heartbeat earlier. 

It was fast. 

Faster than it had any right to be, considering it had only just finished changing. 

I gritted my teeth and pressed the attack, stepping inside its reach instead of backing away, because distance favored its bulk. The beast snapped at my shoulder, its jaws closing on empty air as I ducked and drove my blade into its side. The sword sank in this time, sliding between muscle with a wet resistance that told me I had hit something vital. 

The beast roared and slammed into me with its shoulder, the force sending me skidding backward across the stone. I rolled with it, came up on one knee, and slashed again before it could recover. My blade carved across its throat, not clean enough to end it immediately, but deep enough that blood poured freely dark and thick, splattering the ground between us. 

It staggered. 

I did not give it time to adapt again. 

I stepped forward and drove the sword through its chest, using my full weight to force it in until the hilt met flesh. The beast shuddered violently, claws scraping uselessly against stone, then collapsed in on itself with a final, broken sound that rattled through the chamber. 

It hit the ground hard. 

I pulled my blade free and took a step back, chest heaving, eyes locked on the body until I was certain it would not move again. 

Almost immediately, the smaller beasts rushed in. 

They did not hesitate. They swarmed the fallen creature, tearing into it with frenzied hunger, claws and teeth ripping into flesh as if the larger body had become nothing more than a meal Blood spread across the stone, and the sound of feeding filled the chamber in a way that made my stomach turn. 

I frowned and shifted my grip on my sword, preparing to move away from the spring and back toward the ridge, because I had what I came for and staying here longer than necessary was asking for trouble. 

Then my heart reacted again. 

The sudden acceleration was so sharp it stole my breath, my pulse slamming against my ribs with painful insistence. I froze mid–step, one hand lifting instinctively to my chest as if I could physically restrain it. 

This was stronger than before. 

I turned slowly, following the pull I could not explain, my feet angling toward the darker stretch of the chamber to my left. The sensation was not pain, not fear, but weight, a pressure that pressed inward and forward at the same time, as if something unseen was drawing me closer. 

Something heavy. 

Something waiting. 

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Chapter 279 

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My brows knitted as I took a cautious step in that direction, my word still raised, every sense on edge. The beasts behind me continued feeding, distracted enough that none of them noticed my movement. 

I took another step. 

Then I saw him. 

A figure stood at the edge of the cliff above the clearing, half–shadowed by the uneven glow of the insects clinging to the walls. He was upright, unmoving, his silhouette unmistakably human against the jagged stone. 

My breath caught painfully in my throat. 

I knew that posture. 

I knew that build. 

My eyes widened as recognition crashed into me so hard it made my head spin. 

“Nicho?” The name tore out of me before I could stop it. 

It did not make sense. It could not make sense. I had seen him torn apart. I had felt the cave shake when he used the fae stone. He was supposed to be gone. 

Yet there he was. 

He stood on the cliff as if nothing had happened, his form intact his gaze fixed directly on me. His expression was unreadable from this distance, too still, too calm for someone who should not exist anymore. 

My heart pounded harder, confusion tangling with dread as I stared up at him, my mind scrambling for an explanation that did not exist. 

“You’re… alive?” I whispered as I tightened my hand around the hilt of my sword. Something is very wrong here. 

Nicho did not answer. 

He simply watched me. 

Then, the pull in my chest intensified, dragging my attention back toward the darkness behind him, toward whatever lay deeper in the cave, as if his presence was not the point at all. 

As if he was only there to make sure I kept going. 

I turned my attention towards Nicho once again. I knew that it cannot be him but… what was it? 

Does this mean that something inside this cave can… imitate people? Was this some sort of hallucination? 

My grip tightened around my sword as I stared up at him, every instinct screaming that whatever stood on that cliff was not the man I remembered. 

Nicho had always carried himself with tension in his shoulders, kind of restrained alertness that never fully left him even when he was at rest. This figure stood too still. Too balanced. Like something holding a shape rather than inhabiting it. 

The thought barely finished forming when he moved. 

Nicho leapt from the cliff. 

The motion was wrong from the start. No human body should have been able to push off from that height with such force and land without breaking something important. He came down fast, sword already in hand, blade angled straight toward my chest as if he had measured the distance long before I ever noticed him. 

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Chapter 279 

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I threw myself sideways just as his sword struck stone where I had been standing a heartbeat earlier. 

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The impact rang through the chamber, sparks skittering across the ground. I rolled, came up hard on one knee, and barely managed to raise my blade before he was on me again. 

Up close, the illusion shattered. 

His body was wrong. 

He did not just look wounded or scarred. 

He looked… stitched. 

His neck bore thick, uneven seams where skin had been pulled together crudely, the flesh slightly mismatched in tone, as if it had not all belonged to the same body originally. The line of his jaw was jagged where thread–like marks bit into skin, disappearing beneath his collar. One arm moved a fraction slower than the other, the shoulder hitching unnaturally before correcting itself, like something inside him needed an extra moment to remember how joints worked. 

When he swung at me again, the sleeve of his coat rode up. 

I saw it clearly then. 

His forearm was pieced together from different sections of flesh, the stitching running in crooked lines around muscle that flexed too stiffly beneath it. The skin stretched tight in places and loose in others, puckered where it had been pulled too far, too fast, Dark fluid seeped from some of the seams with every movement, not blood exactly, thicker and duller, carrying a faint metallic stench that made my stomach lurch. 

I blocked his strike, steel crashing against steel, the force of it driving me back a step despite my stance. 

His eyes met mine. Then he smiled. 

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