Blessed by Night

Just as she was relaying the situation to her faction leader back in Alabama, Melanie felt her whole world darken as the air was knocked out of her lungs and she was sent catapaulting off her feet.

Her back struck a ruined wall over thirty feet away with enough force to crack it, and she felt so many things go wrong in her body at once that she couldn't even maintain the presence of mind to cry out.

"Christ… I thought you were a blessed with that weird energy thing you did earlier but when I hit you it was like punching tissue paper. Are you actually human?"

Thudding footsteps drew closer to Melanie's crumpled body but she could not make her body look up at the source of the voice.

Hell, her vision was blurry and unfocused anyway.

Casually walking through a ruined highway street was a large creature that was clearly not of this world.

Standing at roughly ten feet tall, he was a beast huge in not just stature, but musculature as well.

His hairy arms, chest, and stomach were jam packed with misshapen muscles as staunch as iron, yet were still relatively unappealing to look at.

It had leathery tanned skin and roguish bony horns and teeth that neither fit completely on it's forehead or in it's mouths.

Their 'clothes' if you could really even call them that was really just fluffy loincloths.

Even though the gates had long since closed, there was no more mistaking that this was a troll.

"Sucks to be you man. Seems like you broke yours."

From behind the troll, seven more human men emerged from various places on the ruined highway, each of them dragging an unconscious member of nightfall by the ankle or even their hair.

"Don't get me started… let me borrow yours." The troll demanded.

"You must be crazy. You know that these are practically single use only if we leave them as is. Should have been more careful with those meat mallets."

"Damn it.

The troll looked down at the crumpled young girl who was already beginning to bleed from her mouth.

It was clear that she was going to die at any minute no matter how badly he didn't want to admit it.

"Hm?"

The troll watched his kill lie there for a few moments longer and he felt like his eyes were suddenly tricked by the light.

He could have sworn that he saw the young woman's shadow… twitching.

Just as he thought that he might have been too sleep deprived, a giant beast just as powerful as him leapt out of the ground and tackled him with great force.

The creature that seemed to be a mangled mix of a crocodile and a bear, took a rather large bite out of his exposed jugular.

"Shit!"

"What is that thing?!"

"Get it off of him!!"

Despite the cry for help that came from one of the surrounding human men, none of them really bothered to rush forward since it was clear to them that their companion was already dead.

It was a well known fact that trolls had a scarily powerful healing factor, but none of it seemed to matter much when the beast bit their companion.

They were all more than a little scared to rush in and join him in the domain of a death god.

Suddenly, three more figures crawled out of the girl's shadow.

Two were normal albeit scarily attractive women in sleek black leather bodysuits with matching symbols on them.

The other one was a man, or maybe some kind of monster.

He had deep black skin, literal snakes coming out of his back and weird webbed hands.

No one could tell what he was, but he knew they didn't belong among these girls.

"Hey, it's that girl from immortal moon!"

"Holy shit it is!"

Aisha ignored this group of simians who seemed to know her and instead focused all attention on Malachi.

He had been the one who'd gotten to Melanie first, and he was currently kneeling beside her as he grabbed one of her hands.

Even though her vision was growing dimmer by the second and he looked a lot different than how she'd last seen him, Melanie was still able to recognize her ex.

"Malachi…? That's you right..?"

"You're worried about the wrong things right now, Mel. Don't talk so much, just try to stay awake and breathe for me, alright?"

"There are rumors flying around that you look different… guess those were true… you still look like a slut though.."

"I'll take that any day since I was worried you all would think I was a freak before… think your mom'll like it?"

"I can't believe I ever slept with you..."

"You told me you were saving yourself for marriage."

"Thank god…"

Malachi laughed dryly as he pushed her hair out of her face and tried to feel her pulse.

His heart nearly tore itself into two when he felt how weak she was and tasted the terrible fear that was flowing off of her.

"Malachi… everything is getting dark.. I-I can't feel my legs… I'm scared." Her voice was so quiet that it was barely a whisper, but Malachi heard it all.

Tears started to fall from her face and Malachi felt his whole world breaking apart.

This was just like before where he couldn't save her from Derrick.

Except this time, it was monumentally first.

For all of his speed and power, he was always too late to do the things that mattered, wasn't he?

He was tired… so very tired of trying and failing despite all of his best efforts.

And because of his determination to not suffer the same loss over again, he attempted something crazy that he had never even practiced before.

Holding out his palm, a dark, viscous liquid was produced in small amounts.

Aisha : "Mal.."

Serana : "That's.."

"I love you both, but please don't ever question me on this… I won't ever let anybody else around us die." His determination unshakable, Malachi poured the dark liquid into Melanie's open mouth.

{A / N : I know this scene might upset some people but I just wanted to clarify Melanie is NOT going in the harem! I repeat, the cheating ex is not getting cracked, the cheating ex is not getting cracked!!}

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?! You're supposed to be one of us, right?"

Lifelessly, Malachi looked over his shoulder at one of the humans standing around in a loincloth.

He felt a bit more of his treasured humanity slip away when he realized he was holding his friend Opal by the hair.

"Lolo."

Once she heard her name called, the crocodile hybrid came waddling over to Malachi with a full stomach.

Miraculously she had reduced that troll down to a pile of bones within the short time she'd been here.

Malachi placed Melanie onto Lolo's back carefully before he placed Serana up there to watch her.

"Put. Her. Down."

The group of humans shivered uncontrollably as if some primal fear within their tainted blood had just been exploited.

"Don't know what the fuck is wrong with you… but this faction doesn't give up prizes once they're caught..!"

The man holding Opal let out a powerful roar before his body seemed to literally start fighting against itself.

His muscles ballooned, his height exploded, and he grew large tusks and horns that were sharper than even magical blades.

Around him, the other 'humans' started to do the same and suddenly a group of trolls each as tall as twelve feet surrounded Malachi's group on the bridge.

Aisha unsheathed the precious iklwa that Mal had given her and stepped up to aid her friend.

"Both of you… close your eyes and don't open them until I tell you to."

"What?! Why would you ask me to-"

"Because I don't want you to see me as a monster after the shit I do next."

Malachi flexed his wrists ever so slightly and the bracelets on his arms started to glow with a golden light.

Two cleaver-like short swords appeared in his hands with silver chains that ran up the length of his arms.

"I mean what I said. Do not open your eyes until I tell you to, no matter how much screaming you hear..!"

Though they didn't like it, it was rare for Malachi to sound quite as fearsome as he did now.

They closed their eyes with great difficulty, and the first thing that they heard was the rattling of chains and the horrifying sound of flesh and tendon being ripped from bone.

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