Chapter 45: Fighting the Daugrs
Kristian quickly assessed the situation. Given that he was on the first level of the Catacombs, these Daugrs were former Chi Users of the first Sense. In other words, they were slow, their movements were jerky, and their residual chi was too weak to constitute a real threat to a trained warrior. He would not even need to use his own Chi to deal with them.
’A simple hand-to-hand technique would be more than enough.’
The first Daugr rushed toward him with a limp. Its jaw hung crooked, and its arms flailed uncoordinatedly.
Kristian waited until it was at a good distance, then performed a quick lateral dodge. At the same moment, he delivered a first blow with his right sword, a clean horizontal attack that sliced off the monster’s left arm at the elbow. The limb fell to the ground but the Daugr did not even slow down. It continued advancing, mouth wide open, ready to bite.
"These creatures do not feel pain?" Kristian murmured to himself.
He then followed up with his left sword. The blade penetrated the Daugr’s torso just below the sternum, then Kristian turned the blade a quarter turn to widen the wound. He felt the resistance of the chi core, a small hard sphere lodged in the center of the chest. With a sharp movement, he levered and threw the Daugr against the left wall.
The creature collapsed with the sound of broken bones, and its core shattered emitting a faint red glow. The body immediately stopped moving, and the putrefaction accelerated before his eyes, reducing the corpse to a blackish mush in a few seconds.
The two other Daugrs arrived at the same time. The one on the right still held a rusty blade in its right hand. The one on the left was crawling on all fours, faster than its counterparts, its emaciated vertebrae protruding under its stretched skin.
Kristian took a step back to avoid being surrounded. He pivoted on himself and struck the crawling Daugr with a downward blow. His right sword sank into the creature’s nape, but the blade got stuck for a moment in the vertebrae. During this brief moment of immobilization, the second Daugr rushed at him.
Kristian immediately released his right sword, grabbed the second blade with both hands, and planted the tip into the monster’s belly before it could reach him. He pulled the blade upward with a swift movement, opening the rib cage from bottom to top. The chi core appeared, gray and cracked. Kristian crushed it with a heel strike after freeing his sword.
Two more Daugrs then appeared at the end of the corridor. They came out of a side passage that Kristian had not noticed. These two were taller, almost two meters, and their claws seemed sharper. They let out a howl, then charged, knocking aside the remains of their predecessors as they passed.
"Two more," breathed Kristian while wiping his blades with the back of his sleeve.
He waited until they were almost upon him, then suddenly crouched down. The two Daugrs, too committed, could not brake and collided with each other. Kristian took advantage of this moment of confusion to move to the side. He sliced off both legs of the first Daugr at the knees. The creature toppled forward and fell head first against the stone. Before it could get up, Kristian planted his left blade in its back, piercing the rotten flesh until he found the core. He crushed the sphere with a wrist movement.
The last Daugr turned toward him. Its right arm had been torn off by the fall, but it continued advancing, indifferent to the pain.
Kristian took the time to reposition his two swords. He attacked by crossing the blades in front of him, then spread his arms in a wide gesture.
The first blade sliced off the monster’s remaining arm, while the second opened its belly, spilling its putrid entrails onto the floor. The Daugr still tried to advance, but its legs trembled beneath it. Kristian finished the work with a double thrust: both swords penetrated simultaneously into the torso on either side of the sternum, shattering their cores.
Silence returned to the corridor. Only the stench persisted, even stronger after the fight.
Kristian caught his breath, then shook his blades to dislodge the scraps of black flesh.
"This smell leaves me breathless..." he said out loud, simply to hear a human sound in this gloomy place. He sheathed his swords again, but kept his hands on the hilts.
***
On the other side of the labyrinth, Katelyn had taken the right corridor. The gallery was wider than Kristian’s, but almost all the torches there were extinguished. She had to advance half in darkness, guided only by the faint glow that filtered in places between the stone joints.
The humidity clung to her skin and made her clothes uncomfortably heavy, no doubt because of the corrupted Chi... She advanced cautiously, her rapier drawn.
She walked like this for nearly a quarter of an hour without encountering any resistance. The silence was heavy, and she was starting to wonder if this corridor did not lead to a dead end. It was at that precise moment that she perceived the sound of multiple shuffling footsteps coming from ahead.
She froze and counted at least six distinct sound sources.
"There are so many more..."
Ten Daugrs emerged from both sides of the corridor. Some were crawling, others staggering on their shaky legs, and all emitted that unsettling growl. Their eyes glowed with a dull yellow, and their open mouths let hang scraps of blackened gums.
Katelyn did not retreat a single step. She knew that fleeing in a narrow corridor against ten hungry creatures was the worst mistake. The Daugrs were slow but tenacious, and they would pursue her until exhaustion. Better to confront them right away, where she could control the space.
She fully drew her rapier, then closed her eyes for a fraction of a second. Immediately, she activated:
< premier Sens de l’épée : Blade Perception>. This technique allowed her to read the trajectory of enemy attacks even before they were launched. She perceived intentions in the movement of the putrefied muscles, the tiny tensions that preceded each assault. The world around her seemed to slow down, and each movement of the Daugrs became predictable, almost crude in its animal simplicity.
The first Daugr reached her in three jerky strides. It raised an arm ending in claws and brought its limb down toward Katelyn’s head. The young woman lowered herself slightly, pivoted on the tip of her right foot, and planted her rapier into the creature’s neck. The blade passed through the rotten flesh without resistance, then came out the other side. Katelyn withdrew her weapon with a quick wrist rotation, and the Daugr collapsed onto its knees before falling face down on the ground.