The traces were found north to the clan and east to the old home of the Gavir clan. They were found close to a large hill. There werent that many clues. The air did however have a slight scent of decay. Not the abomination kind, but the normal kind. Beowul and Radolf sniffed and looked over the place, searching for anything. Balto on the other hand looked at the first clue that was found.

A small batch of fur was slightly bloodied on the ground near the hill. The fur was a slight brown in color. There was a couple of marks around the fur, but they didnt lead to anywhere.

"Hey. Beowul, Balto! I found something weird. Come look!" Radolf shouted from the top of the hill. Both walked up to where Radolf was with his head pointed to the ground. Right on the top of the hill is a small hole going down into the earth. Radolf raised his head and looked at the two.

"The hole smells weird. Like. Weird weird." Beowul looked down the hole together with Balto. Despite the sun being in the middle of the sky, the hole was pitch black. The faint smell of rancid meat is coming out, but there is also the smell of blood coming out from the hole aswell.

They tried to get different angles to get a better look down the hole, but nothing worked. The hole is still dark. Radolf quickly ran down the hill and came back up with a stick. Beowul looked at him with a tired look, while Balto didnt know what he is thinking.

Radolf inserted long stick into the hole, penetrating its hidden secrets. As the shaft went deeper into the hole, a moist noise of meat being squished.

Suddenly, as soon as the squish noise was made, the entire hill started to shake!

Beowul ran down the hill together with Radolf, leaving Balto on the top. As the shaking got stronger, Balto rolled down the hill, landing on the distracted Radolf.

From the top of the hill, something moved out from the hole.

Its body is dark in color, its back as dark as the night. It got two horns jutting out from its small face, with eyes in a deep blue color. It looks like a goliath beetle, hercules beetle and a dung beetle had a child, but they decided to remove the wings with odd sponge-like growths. And that it grew up in near a nuclear power plant.

"What are those!?" Balto looked at the odd beetles pouring out from the top of the hill. Atleast a dozen appaered before it stopped. Neither Radolf or Beowul could answer, a deep whistling could be heard from the hill. The beetles ran towards where they stood. While the beetles werent that big, only the size of a normal housecat, their numbers are a bigger problem. Beowul and Radolf move away from the hill. Balto on the other hand, decides to run straight towards them.

Radolf and Beowul stares with wide eyes as Balto tackles into the beetles. Beetles are flung into the air, some of them are missing limbs. They try to get a grip on on Balto, but they dont manage to get a proper grip on him. With each bite that Balto takes, one of the beetles dies. Seeing this, Beowul and Radolf decides to join the fight. They arent as strong as Balto, but they are much quicker.

Carapases are crushed under Baltos teeth and guts are thrown all over the place. The only kind of damage he suffered was scratches on his skin and some of his fur being torn off.

The one sided massacre continued until the hill started to shake again. The beetles started to crawl towards the hill, but instead of going in from the top they dig around it. The hill started to move side to side, dirt and beetles falling off. Revealing a massive beetle! Its apparence is the same as the smaller ones, but much bigger and with a bloody tint to it. As al the dirt has finally fallen off, it looks at the trio and the beetle corpses around them. Shaking with what seems to be anger, dust started to float out from the spongy back. Beowul saw this and immediately backed away, but Radolf and Balto breathed it in. It had no taste, but Radolf started to panic.

He tried to run to where Beowul was but before he could take more than two steps, he collapsed to the ground. Balto on the other hand didnt show any reaction to the dust other than sneezing loudly.

Suddenly Beowul shouted out.

"Its a Nightmare Bug! Balto, try to distract it while I get Radolf away from here!" Beowul stayed low to the ground as he moved to where Radolf is. Hearing what Beowul said, Balto looked back to the huge beetle. It was easily bigger than Half-Face. Strangely enough, Balto didnt feel any fear.

Balto started to run towards the beetle and attempted to jump on its back. But before he managed to get on it, a sudden wall of darkness appaered out of nowhere and hit him right in the center. Balto flew throught the sky and landed hard on the ground. A thick web-like mass was stuck to his fur, an audible hissing noise could be heard.

Beowuls eyes widened even more as he saw what happened. 'It can use mana!'.

Inside of Balto, Vita was pushing the dust out through Baltos nose when he saw what just happened. The shadowy wall was not biological. It didnt come out from any spesific opening. It did however do something to Baltos body that didnt make sense either. The active cells that got hit by the odd stuff was bursting in the thousands! Just by getting touched by the stuff the cells burst open violently, spreading the shadowy stuff even further. 'Usually in videogames or in books, you need magic to defeat magic. But fuck that! I aint no pushover, get the fuck out of here!'.

The beetle huffed before walking towards Balto. Right when it got close enough, the shadows were pushed out and landed right on its head. With both its eyes and antenna covered, it spun around in an attempt to shake it off. Feeling its compound eyes starting to melt, it started to make a horrible screeching noise before running away in a random direction, smashing down trees with eyes.

Beowul was amazed by what he saw, but quickly calmed down and started to drag Radolf. Balto ran over and sniffed Radolf all over.

"Oh no, what happened to him!" Balto poked Radolf with his nose but he didnt respond.

"Nightmare bugs are even more annoying than the two of you, but they arent that harmful. But if they manage to use mana, well, thats a completly different story." Beowul continued to drag Radolf, but stopped to look at Balto.

"You carry him. You are bigger after all." Dropping Radolf carefully on Baltos back, Beowul followed from behind to make sure that none of the smaller nightmare bugs followed. Luckily it ran further north.