Mbah Darma's warning continued to echo like a death knell inside my head. Ever since I stepped out of the old man's wooden stilt house, Niskala's cold that night had felt crushing—as if the air itself had transformed into countless invisible eyes watching my every move.
I walked quickly down the rounded, paved stone path slick with dew. The smell of wet earth and pine that usually dominated the city had been eroded by a faint, stinging scent of sulfur. I kept my gaze straight ahead and pulled my faded denim jacket tighter over my black shirt, while my right hand clenched the jacket pocket—the glowing symbol that continued to pulse with warmth in my palm hidden inside.
I heard the faintest footsteps brushing across the wet stones several yards behind me, muffled by coils of night fog. I quickened my pace.
Tap... tap... tap...
The footsteps behind me sped up too, perfectly matching my rhythm. "Damn it," I whispered hoarsely, tightening my jaw. My courage and stubborn pride battled fiercely against the panic swelling inside me. "That old man was right. Someone really is hunting me."
I suddenly made a sharp turn into a narrow alley between two tall, gloomy buildings with Dutch colonial architecture. But the alley ended at a dead-end stone wall thickly covered in lichen. "Great job, Nirwana. You just cornered yourself like a rat," I muttered sarcastically to myself, trying to inject a little humor to cover the pure fear tightening around my chest.
I spun around and raised my fists in front of my chest, taking a defensive stance. From the darkness at the mouth of the alley, the thick fog slowly split apart. Three strange humanoid figures stepped through, blocking my way out. They wore long black robes that hung down over their feet, and their faces were hidden behind plain white stone masks with no eyes or mouths—only a black circular carving on the forehead. Their presence carried no ordinary supernatural scent. Instead, it radiated the oppressive stench of darkness, exactly like the energy seeping from the cracked gate in the town square yesterday.
"Guardian's Heir..." A hoarse, echoing voice from behind the mask of the figure in front shattered the alley's silence. It didn't come from human vocal cords, but from a cold vibration that tore through my hearing.
"Hand over Evara's symbol and surrender your soul to the Elders."
I forced a sarcastic smile, trying to hide the stiff trembling in my knees. "Sorry, Mask Guys. This symbol is permanently attached to my skin. Besides, I'm not interested in trading souls in the middle of the night."
"Get her!" ordered the figure in the middle, his tone cold and absolute.
The two masked attackers beside him leaped forward at an impossibly unnatural speed. Sharp iron claws glowing blackish extended from beneath their robes, slicing through the night fog in a brutal swing.
I jumped sideways, dodging the first claw strike as it slammed into the stone wall, sending sparks flying and shattering the old cement.
Crash!
My survival instincts kicked in fast. I twisted around and drove a straight kick into the second attacker's chest. My foot hit him squarely, but his body felt as hard as brick. The masked attacker didn't even budge. He seized my ankle and slammed me onto the cold stone ground. "Argh!" I cried, grimacing in pain as my back struck the hard surface.
I rolled quickly to the right just as the first attacker's iron claws plunged into the ground where my head had been moments earlier. Cold sweat soaked my forehead and my wavy hair. I was breathing hard. "They're not ordinary humans!" I thought in a panic.
I struggled to my feet and pressed stiffly against the dead-end wall. All three masked attackers advanced at once, surrounding me at close range. "You're not the legendary Evara," sneered the masked leader in the middle as he stepped closer. "You're just an ordinary girl who happened to inherit her soul's vessel. You don't even know how to call upon her power."
His words struck my left chest like a stab of ice. He was right. I'd never been trained to use mystical power! The golden force that had emerged last night had been nothing more than an impulsive survival instinct. Against trained opponents intent on killing me, my ignorance of my own power had become a fatal weakness that left me helpless.
The masked attacker on the left lunged forward and gripped my neck hard, lifting me until my feet dangled a few inches above the ground. The air in my throat was cut off instantly. The masked attacker on the right seized my right wrist, forcibly twisting my fingers and exposing my palm, where the faint golden symbol glowed. "Take the symbol!" ordered the masked leader, raising a blackened stone dagger stained with dried blood toward my chest.
"Let... me... go..." I rasped. My bright brown eyes began to blur as my oxygen supply was cut off. The pain in my neck and arm intensified. Fear of death, rage at their vile treatment, and the stubborn will surging from the depths of my soul exploded all at once. "I don't want to die in a filthy alley! I won't let Mom cry alone at home! I'm Nirwana! And I will not surrender to you!" I screamed inwardly, filled with an absolute will to survive.
When the blackened stone dagger was only a few inches from my chest, the emotional tension triggered something in my bloodstream. The eight-branched circle symbol on my right palm suddenly burned hot.
Zzzzz-BBOOOM!
Pure golden light, blindingly bright, exploded violently from the center of my right palm. The burst of energy was no longer merely a delicate shield, but a devastating sacred shock wave.
"AAAAARGH!"
The two masked attackers gripping my neck and hand let out ear-splitting screams of pain as the golden light burned through their robes and masks. Their bodies were hurled into the alley wall with such force that they shattered into pieces, becoming blackish ash that vanished on the wind. The masked leader in front of me was driven back several yards, covering his face with a sleeve scorched by exposure to the golden light's radiation. His white stone mask cracked deeply from forehead to cheek, revealing a pair of blood-red eyes radiating pure shock through the opening in the stone.
My body dropped into a sitting position on the stone ground. I coughed violently, sucking as much night air as I could into my aching lungs. My right hand still gave off a thin, warm, golden glow of smoke. The remaining masked leader stared at me with deep hatred while clutching his injured arm.
"That power... the Guardian's power has fully awakened," he whispered, slowly stepping backward and merging with the thick night fog. "This isn't over, Nirwana. The Elders will bring down this entire city to get you!"
The figure vanished completely into the darkness, leaving me sitting weakly and alone in the silent dead-end alley, accompanied by the increasingly powerful warm throb of the symbol on my hand.