When the tentacles came for her, Samantia thought it was the end. But when they stopped several inches from her face, she remembered that she had surrounded herself with a salt circle earlier, which was further strengthened with the power of her blood.

The tentacles tried to reach for her, but an invisible barrier that surrounded Samantia blocked their path. She was starting to feel confident with her defenses when the tentacles suddenly wrapped around the barrier of her salt circle and started squeezing. Her eyes widened in horror when she heard a faint cracking sound as her barrier started weakening.

“Get away from her!” Kazimir shouted as he swung his sword, a scythe of air shooting out that flew straight for the tentacles. But all it managed was to make a shallow cut on the tentacles before dissipating. “Shit!”

Samantia felt cold sweat drip down her back as the tentacles continued squeezing, her barrier making more cracking sounds. It was only a matter of time before her barrier broke and the tentacles started crushing her body. Kazimir was trying his best to free her by sending scythe after scythe of air at the tentacles, but it wasn't going to save her in time.

She cursed herself internally for choosing the salt circle as her barrier. When her Premonition warned her of the threat that was coming for them, she panicked and without thinking clearly, immediately chose to use her most powerful barrier. Unfortunately, the salt circle was a barrier that worked both ways: it kept things out, but it also kept things in, which meant she couldn't use any of her magic to strike back against the monstrosity.

She looked past the tentacles, towards the monstrosity's body, and noticed that although its body was black as well, it was of a lighter shade than the tentacles. Samantia felt a surge of hope in her heart and wished dearly she was right. “Kazimir! Aim for its body!”

Kazimir quickly switched targets and started shooting scythes of air at the monstrosity's body. When it started moving around to dodge the scythes of air Kazimir was shooting, Samantia realized she was right. “The body is more vulnerable than its tentacles!”

As if the monster heard her words, it quickly withdrew its tentacles from her barrier and retreated, scuttling along the cliff wall with its spider-like legs before dropping down to the ground. It had no eyes, but Samantia could tell it was staring at them.

“Samantia! Are you alright?!” Kazimir asked as he rushed towards her side.

“I'm alright,” Samantia replied with a shaky voice. “My barrier's taken a lot of damage, but it's still intact. Are we really going to do this?”

Kazimir looked towards the watching monstrosity and nodded his head grimly. “We can't run now. That thing is too dangerous to let loose. There's a small village near here, and the people there wouldn't stand a chance if this monster attacked them.”

Samantia sighed and clenched her fists to hide her trembling fingers. Her Premonition never lied. What she felt earlier was on par with what she felt whenever she faced a path that meant certain death. But as much as she wanted to call Kazimir an idiot for thinking they had a chance against this monster, she agreed with his words. She couldn't let monsters like this loose on the world. That was the reason why she became a Night Warden in the first place.

“Alright, let's do this,” Samantia replied as she bent her knees and raised her arms in a weird position. She didn't know why the monster simply watched them as they talked, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Samantia took off her cloak and placed it under her feet, revealing the dozens of charms, amulets, bracelets, and all other sorts of talismans she wore on her body. Then she started dancing.

In the small space inside her salt circle, Samantia moved erratically with quick and sudden motions, bouncing her feet and rhythmically bobbing her head. Her talismans and charms made clinking sounds that went along with her movements and followed the same rhythm. Then her body started emitting a blood-red light.

At the same time, the blood that Samantia sprinkled on Kazimir earlier glowed as well. Kazimir took a deep breath and when he opened his eyes, his pupils emitted a red light as he felt his partner's strength flow into him.

●●●

Who are these people? I thought to myself as I watched the two intruders do their thing. They had taken their hoods off, and I realized it was a man and a woman. The girl was dancing like an escapee from an asylum while the man was taking deep breaths that were starting to sound like the bellows of a blacksmith. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with them.

When I saw what they did to Tedd and Mom's grave earlier, I was ready to kill them right there and then, but exchanging blows with them gave me time to cool my head. First off, I was dealing with an augmenter and a mage. My experience in fighting an augmenter solely consisted of my encounter with the bandit leader long ago, and judging by how the man had been shooting air razors left and right like a madman, this dude in front of me was far stronger. I had no idea if I could take him on directly as I am right now.

To make things worse, he even has a mage as a partner, and I had no experience when it comes to fighting mages. Just because I was a mage didn't mean I knew how to fight against one. In fact, being a mage even lowered my confidence, because I knew magic was so unpredictable that the lady dancing like a deranged lunatic right now might as well be charging a spell that's about to blast me into oblivion.

The only reason I wasn't making the first move was that I was at a massive disadvantage. The two intruders had caught me in a time when I had no supply of fabric. The only fabric I had right now was Spider, and to make things worse, I had overloaded his tentacles. I only have a few minutes left before they disintegrated into fibers and we'd be left defenseless.

That was why I was content with delaying the intruders because when I realized what I was dealing with earlier, I contacted Mr. Marion and Taloress to come back. Or rather, I tried to contact them, but I wasn't even sure I was successful.

When we split up earlier, Mr. Marion and Taloress ended up leaving the vicinity of my fabric sense, but even though I couldn't control them directly with how far they were, I realized I could still feel their presence in my mind, another perk of my Authority that I was just finding out right now.

I had no other way of communicating with them without having direct control over their bodies, so I tried going sentimental and sending them a mental message through my Authority since I was their “father” and all that. Even I thought it was ridiculous, but I just hoped it worked, because I didn't want to find out how long I could last against an augmenter and a mage.

All of a sudden, the dancing lunatic glowed red like a lamp and the man roared as he started emitting red light from his body as well. “Graaaaaah!”

I guess they finally finished whatever it was they were doing.

“Alright, I'll handle your tentacles, Spider. You handle your legs. Just move wherever I tell you to.”

Spider bobbed his body once to confirm that he understood me, so I immediately took control of his tentacles. Just in time too, because after the man finished his bestial roar, he charged towards us with blurring speed. Oh shit!

I brought up Spider's tentacles just in time to block the man's sword, but it seemed his real blade was sharper than his air razors earlier because he cut through Spider's tentacles like a hot knife through butter. Overloading them should have made the tentacles stronger and more durable, but it didn't seem to make a difference in front of the man's sword.

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit! Focus on evasive manuevers!” I hurriedly instructed Spider as I did my best to parry the man's sword instead of directly blocking it. We had some measure of success since the man hadn't been able to chop a tentacle since then, but I felt the blood draining from my face when I tried reattaching the chopped-off tentacles.

When the overloaded tentacles fell to the ground, they immediately started disintegrating into fine little fibers. I was sure that I still had time left before they should disintegrate, but they were breaking down right in front of me. Are you kidding me?!

And to make matters really bad, I'm just finding out right now that I cannot repair overloaded fabric. As much as I tried to fix the small nicks and cuts the man made with his air razors earlier on my tentacles, the threads just wouldn't reattach. Why am I only learning this now?!

The man stepped towards our right, so Spider instinctively dodged to the left, but it turned out it was a feint. The man quickly changed directions and lunged towards us, his sword about to stab right where I was.

At the last second, I managed to hit the sword with a tentacle, changing its direction but at the cost of the limb. Instead of stabbing me directly, the sword stabbed just a few inches to the left of my face, and that's when I realized that the blade was surrounded by a layer of violently-moving air that was acting like a chainsaw. So that's why it managed to cut through Spider's tentacles so easily!

Spider quickly retreated in panic and must have thought I got stabbed because I immediately felt little tendrils of thread inspecting and caressing my body to see if I was injured.

“I'm fine, Spider, so stop molesting me and focus on dodging the bastard's sword!” I screamed in panic when I saw the man moving to stab us again.

The next few minutes felt like an eternity as we dodged and parried every single one of the man's attacks. The adrenaline was slowing my perception of time, making it seem as if everything was moving in slow motion. But despite everything moving slowly, the crazy man with a sword still moved fast to me, probably aided by the layer of wind that I now noticed was wrapped around his entire body. It was just like Belka's aura of fire yesterday when she killed the troll. Good thing I set Clip and Clop free before I fought them, or else they would have been chopped to pieces by the bastard's air blades already…

When Spider's overloaded tentacles were starting to disintegrate, I knew I was about to run out of time. But I didn't have to worry, because Mr. Marion and Taloress were finally here. I could already see them bursting through the far side of the clearing. The man must have sensed them too, because his actions suddenly became frantic. Hehe, you're done for, you crazy bastard.

I moved to parry the last attack the man would be able to deliver before my puppets arrived to help, but I underestimated the rate of disintegration of Spider's tentacles. When the tentacle hit the sword's broadside to change its direction, the tentacle burst into a cloud of fibers that went flying everywhere after hitting the swiftly-spinning layer of air that coated the man's sword.

With nothing to change its direction, the sword continued on its trajectory and stabbed into me.

Or rather, it should have, if not for Spider's quick thinking. The moment the sword pierced through the center of Spider's body, he quickly shifted me to the side, saving me from getting skewered by the sword that was currently ripping apart Spider's insides. With the layer of violently-spinning air around it, the sword was acting like a blender inside my puppet. Fortunately, the damages to Spider's body were practically harmless since I could easily repair it. Hah! Nice try, you fuc—

With one hand holding his sword, the man drew a short sword from the small sheath hidden behind the small of his back and stabbed into Spider's side. Right where I was.

I screamed as pain exploded in my abdomen, hot blood spilling from my wound. I did my best to hold on to my consciousness, but when I heard all my puppets scream in pain in my mind, my mind shut down.

●●●

Mr. Marion fell to the ground clutching his head as a soul-rendering pain pierced through his very being. He couldn't speak, but Mr. Marion shouted all the same as the pain threatened to tear his mind into pieces. His body was still whole, but he felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside. In his periphery, he saw Taloress fall as well as she suffered through the same pain he was experiencing.

Deep inside Mr. Marion, a strong urge emerged to the forefront, a primal instinct of a puppet that screamed at him relentlessly.

PROTECT THE MASTER.

Mr. Marion's rational thought was overwhelmed by his instinct as he jumped to his feet and charged towards the first thing he saw that threatened the Master: a dancing woman that glowed as red as blood.

The elegance, grace, and haughty pride that constituted Mr. Marion's character were nowhere to be seen as he ran like a rabid animal towards the dancing woman, only to meet an invisible barrier that stopped him dead in his tracks. The woman did not pay him any heed as she continued dancing.

Mr. Marion's body squirmed in anger as the thread that made his body wriggled like thousands of tiny worms. With a furious roar that only he could hear in his mind, Mr. Marion punched the invisible barrier.

A loud boom echoed across the clearing as the barrier made an audible cracking noise. The woman stopped dancing to look at Mr. Marion in horror, who was pulling his arm back to make another strike. When the second punch landed, a louder crack traveled through the air as the salt circle blackened.

“Kazimir! Help!” the woman screamed in fear, but Mr. Marion did not take note of it, because his companion was already taking care of the other threat.

●●●

On the other side of the clearing, Taloress was battling the man with the sword, who was now surrounded by a swirling vortex of air. Her childish self was nowhere to be seen as she relentlessly attacked the man with nothing but the broken blade of her enchanted sword, moving like a feral animal.

The man easily blocked and parried Taloress' attacks with well-trained technique, but no matter how many times he struck her with his blade, only shallow cuts and tears were left on her body. The man began to feel nervous when Taloress got up for the eighth time after receiving a direct slash to her neck, but then he heard his partner's cry as the red glow on his body dissipated.

“Kazimir! Help!”

Kazimir involuntarily looked at his partner in concern, a fatal mistake that Taloress took advantage of. He realized his mistake, but it was already too late. Before he could fully turn his head back on his opponent, Taloress was already plunging the blade in her hand into his stomach. The wall of swirling air that surrounded him weakened the attack, but Taloress' strength was great enough to make the blade pierce through his augmented body.

“Agh!” Kazimir cried out as he slapped Taloress away, the strike powerful enough to send her flying away. His wound bled profusely, but he didn't pay it any mind as he prepared to throw his sword. “Get away from Samantia!”

The sword whistled through the air as Kazimir threw it straight towards Mr. Marion, who was punching the invisible barrier around the woman again and again. The sword hit Mr. Marion directly, the force not powerful enough to pierce through his upgraded body, but it still sent him flying away.

“Samantia! Are you alright?!” Kazimir asked frantically as he rushed to his partner's location.

“I-It was close, but I'm alright,” Samantia stuttered with fear-filled eyes. “Are you— Kazimir, behind you!”

Kazimir quickly turned around, right as Taloress pounced on top of him. The two tumbled to the ground as Kazimir tried to pry the rabid Taloress off of him, but his eyes widened in shock when Taloress' body began deforming. Her limbs that had been trying to claw at him split into countless threads that started binding his body. “Get the fuck off of me!”

Kazimir strengthened his wind aura around his body, but it proved useless as Taloress' entire body except for her masked head turned into countless tendrils of thread that bound his movements.

“Kazimir!” Samantia cried out as she moved to break the salt circle around her.

“Don't!” Kazimir shouted as he struggled against Taloress. “Don't break your barrier!”

“But I can help you! I can—”

Samantia's eyes widened in horror as Mr. Marion came back from wherever he got flung to earlier. He had Kazimir's sword in his hand, and he was slowly walking towards her partner, who was completely bound by Taloress.

“No!” Samantia cried as she slammed her fist at her barrier.

“Don't you dare break your barrier, Samantia,” Kazimir said grimly as he looked into her eyes. He must have thought his gaze looked determined, but all Samantia saw was fear.

When Mr. Marion arrived, a part of Taloress' body receded and exposed Kazimir's abdomen. Mr. Marion raised the sword and started hacking away.

“AAAGGGHHH!”

Kazimir's determined expression disappeared as a shrill scream escaped from his mouth. His aura of wind became erratic as his fear won out. Whatever kind of bravery he showed earlier was gone as he looked at Samantia with tears running down his eyes.

“HELP ME! SAMANTIA, HELP ME!”

Blood splattered everywhere as Mr. Marion continued his work, his mind filled with nothing but a single instinct: Protect the Master.

Samantia threw up as she saw bits of her partner's intestines fly and scatter as Mr. Marion hacked away, but she immediately rushed to break the salt circle to help him.

The moment the barrier broke, Mr. Marion immediately spun around to face Samantia. That's when she realized that it was all a ploy to draw her out. When Mr. Marion lunged, Samantia knew she was going to die.

Countless thoughts passed through her mind as the bloody sword swung for her neck. She should have prepared her talisman before she broke the barrier, she shouldn't have used a salt circle, she shouldn't have volunteered for this mission, and she shouldn't have listened to Kazimir.

Regrets flooded her mind as Samantia watched the sword coming for her neck in slow motion. She felt tears flowing down her cheeks as she realized that her entire life had been meaningless. She had trained for years to become a Night Warden, yet she was going to die on her first mission.

Samantia closed her eyes. I'm sorry, Mother, Father. I won't be able to avenge you. She stood frozen in place as she waited for her death. She thanked her stars that she wasn't as unlucky as Kazimir. Her death would be quick.

But when several seconds passed without anything happening, Samantia hesitantly opened her eyes. She gasped when she realized that the sword's blade was a mere millimeter from her throat. She looked at the masked man holding the sword against her throat. He was still, same as the other woman… thing… that wrapped its body around the still-breathing Kazimir.

The sound of footsteps on her right caught Samantia's attention. When she looked, her body froze when she realized it was the spider monstrosity. How is it still alive?!

The front half of its body sported a huge gaping hole where Kazimir pierced his sword earlier, but instead of blood and viscera, Samantia only saw tangled messes of thread. When it arrived before her, its body morphed as a doll— no, a boy —emerged from deep within.

“That's enough,” he spoke with a pained face as he clutched his bleeding side. “Mr. Marion, put down the sword. Taloress, go back to your normal form.”

Samantia stared speechlessly as the masked man in front of her withdrew the sword and the rabid woman from earlier transform her body back into a human's. The last thing Samantia saw before she passed out was the boy's face as he stared at her with a quiet fury.

●●●

“Dammit, what am I supposed to do with this dude?” I asked in stupefaction as I stared at the dying man before me. His abdomen was a mess of blood, guts, and exposed intestines. I would have thought that the man was a corpse if he wasn't currently glaring at me. How the heck is he even still conscious?! Even I passed out after being stabbed!

“Mr. Marion, come here. I'll need to borrow your hands for a moment.”

I instructed Mr. Marion to pick up the bits and pieces of the man's intestines lying around and to put them back in the man's cavity. After that, I told Mr. Marion to rearrange the intestines until they were positioned where they should be, although I wasn't too sure about it since I was relying on my old knowledge about the human anatomy. Oh shit, I forgot to disinfect everything.

I leaned down and quickly cast Preservation on the man's wounds to prevent any possibility of infection. Since Preservation functions by killing bacteria that cause food to spoil, the spell was also useful when it comes to disinfecting things.

The man suddenly reached for me, his hand inches from my neck before Mr. Marion took hold of it and broke it by crushing his fingers. The man whimpered in pain as I stood up frantically and backed away. “What the fuck is wrong with you?! I'm trying to keep you alive here and you try to kill me?!”

The man glared darkly at me as he spoke in a weak and raspy voice. “Necromancer…”

“I'm not a necromancer, you idiot. My puppets are made of cloth, as you can see.”

At my words, Mr. Marion's head morphed into tendrils of wriggling thread that all pointed at the man's terrified face like little snakes eyeing their prey. After a second, Mr. Marion's face turned back to normal.

“Since you already saw what I'm capable of anyway, I guess it's harmless to tell you the truth. I'm an Ascendant.”

The man's eyes widened like saucers at the mention of the word and his hands began trembling. It's kind of insulting how his reaction is far worse compared to when he thought I was a necromancer…

“A-Are you going to kill me?” the man asked nervously.

“Depends. You don't look like you're going to survive this wound if I left it alone, so since you're going to die anyway, I might as well try out a new spell of mine,” I said as I started forming a third-circle Life spell. “The only healing spell I know of is Mend, which is useless when it comes to life-threatening wounds. This is why I intend to test my new healing spell on you.”

The man began struggling as he whimpered in pain, but I had Mr. Marion and Taloress hold him down.

“Stop struggling. You're going to die if I don't do this anyway, so I might as well try out my spell on the small chance that it does save your life,” I said as a magic circle that glowed yellow appeared above the man's abdomen.

At my words, the man seemed to calm down as he looked me in the eyes with what I assumed was hope. Now that I was looking at him this closely, I realized he was a young man, maybe in his late teens. “Y-you're going to save me?”

“Of course I will, or else I'd never find out why you attacked me in the first place. But as to whether or not I kill you afterward is up for debate,” I said nonchalantly as the spell finished forming. “I don't know who you people are yet, so I have no idea if you deserve to die or not. The last thing I want for my conscience is to kill a bunch of people who turned out to be innocent, although seeing as how both of you went out of your way to attack my home, I'm betting you're the evil type.”

The man's expression turned panicked. “No, we're Night—”

The man didn't get to finish his sentence as I activated the spell. The man immediately struggled and screamed in pain as the Life magic sank into his body. I was glad I had Mr. Marion and Taloress hold him down or else I'd already be smacked by his flailing limbs. Injured or not, the man was an augmenter, and one swat from his arm was probably enough to kill me.

I initially thought the spell was a failure when the man started screaming, but when I saw the wound on his abdomen slowly healing, I realized it was working, albeit painfully. Oh shit! I forgot to include the numbing rune to my spell!

My face blushed in embarrassment as I watched the poor man pass out from the pain, his organs and muscles making squelching sounds as they regenerated. Mr. Marion and Taloress looked at me in approval as if what I just did was a good thing. Er, I guess that's payback for stabbing me earlier…

Even now, the bandaged wound on my side burned painfully, although thanks to Spider patching me up when I passed out, I didn't bleed to death.

The man's wound stopped healing after a few seconds, and I realized the spell wasn't powerful enough to treat disembowelment in one go. I guess it made sense since the spell was only third-circle.

I cast the third-circle Life spell on the man again, this time making sure that I didn't forget to include the numbing rune. His wound started healing again, although it stopped again after a few seconds. Looks like it requires multiple heals.

Five more heals later and the man's abdomen looked well again, although I couldn't say the same for his constitution. Since healing spells used up the body's nutrient reserves to speed up the healing process, the formerly buff man now looked like a stickman. Well, at least he's alive.

I wanted to perform more tests on my new spell to find out whether it had harmful side effects, but the pain from my stab wound was killing me. The spell worked on the man anyway, so might as well use it on myself.

I cast the spell once again, this time on my stab wound, and I sighed in relief when the constant pain disappeared. The wound healed in one cast too. Thanks to Spider's body blocking the attack, only the tip of the man's shortsword managed to stab into me earlier, so my wound was pretty shallow, although it still hurt like a bitch. I wonder what I should call this new spell of mine.

After a short deliberation, I decided to just call it Heal, since that was what it basically did.

With my wounds treated and the intruders taken care of, I made my way to Mom's grave. The small shrine I made was wrecked, but I didn't really mind it since I just made it from random stones I found lying around.

What I found infuriating though was Mom's burial place itself. The bastard had been digging before I arrived, and the grave was practically half-dug. I could even see a piece of the white cloth that covered Mom's body sticking out from the dirt. I'm starting to wish that my new Heal spell failed…

In my fabric sense, I felt the woman stirring lightly. Her eyebrows shot up, which meant she had awoken, but she was as still as a corpse. She's probably pretending to be unconscious.

“Mr. Marion, the woman's awake. Go and bind her, please.”

Before I could even finish my sentence, the woman shot up and started sprinting towards the forest. Mr. Marion gave chase and a few seconds later, he returned while dragging a hysterically screaming woman.

“HELP US! IF SOMEBODY'S OUT THERE, PLEASE GET HELP! HELP! HE—MMPH!”

Mr. Marion covered the woman's mouth and brought her before me, her wrists and ankles bound with thread. When the woman looked up at me, her eyes were filled with pure terror.

I sighed. Why does it look like I'm the bad guy?