A Dual Crest Summoner In Infinite Summoning World

Auren had learned his lesson—now whenever he left his house with anyone, he always took the bundle of white cloth with him that had a little above a kilogram of his black particles—usually, it was buried in his backyard. If nothing else, Auren could shape it into a sharp object and use it as a weapon. Preparing for the worst, he had not used any Chi since the afternoon at all—his body was full of this untamed, swirling energy inside him.

"There is nothing outside.." Kenzo's mother said after removing the wooden plank blocking a small finger-sized hole that showed the view of their backyard fence-gate.

"Can you see the gate?" Sable asked.

"Yes, the torches are bright enough."

"Is there any sign of movement in the forest?"

"Can't see far, but everything is dark after the gate. No Thralls either."

Granny added from behind the two, "Thralls hate fire. They remain in darkness most of the time—if one comes here, it won't be without any noticeable movement from us."

"Yes," Sable confirmed. "Once on a journey, I saw one come near us when a man above our wagon moved a little."

Auren stayed in the bed, listening to them from the other room. They kept looking outside one after another—when an hour and a half had passed, they decided to lay down just there while one of them looked out at all times. After two hours or so, Auren heard Sable tell the other two she had spotted a Thrall—they each took a look and then closed the plank for a while, waiting for it to pass.

Auren really wanted to take a look, but he knew it was not a good time.

The two hours after 8 o'clock turned to three and then four—still no sign of anyone returning. Now it was around one o'clock, and it was Granny's turn to keep a lookout. Suddenly, she spoke up, more loudly than she intended,

"Someone is here!"

Auren heard the two women quickly get up from their bedding and take a look one by one.

"It's them!" Kenzo's mother confirmed.

"Something is wrong. One of them is not moving.." Sable said.

"It's Hanzo—he is unconscious and covered in blood," Grandma said.

"Dante is also injured—neither has their weapons," Sable added, her tone worried sick.

Kenzo's mother got up and was about to open the door when his Grandma and Sable stopped her.

"What?" Kenzo's mother said, irritated.

"The Thralls are nearby—we just saw them a few minutes ago, remember? Any movement from us can lead them to this house," Grandma said.

"We can't just do nothing.." Kenzo's mother said, her voice breaking with every word. Grandma hugged her and let her cry on her shoulder.

Sable kept a lookout—they were slowly coming closer. Auren felt a relief listening to her voice, updating them for every few meters they came closer to the house. He had no idea what to do in such a situation; him staying away from them was the best thing he could do right now to not burden Sable and Grandma to act differently because of him. But suddenly, Sable stopped updating anymore.

Grandma and Kenzo's mother kept asking what was going on, but Sable didn't answer. The two women pulled Sable back and took a peek out themselves. They too went annoyingly silent. That could not be good. Not knowing was killing him.

"What if we make a sound from the other side?" Kenzo's mother suggested.

"It's dangerous—our kids are right there!" Grandma refused them.

"How about this window?" Sable suggested.

What the hell were they doing? Was there a Thrall outside?

No one said anything after that, but Auren heard the wooden window opening slowly, making a little noise. He finally had a chance. The hole they were looking through was right beside the window at a little distance in the same room, but the inside of the house was dark—Auren slowly got out of the bed and moved towards the wall without making much sound as the three women slowly started making noise with the iron bars on the window. They were indeed attracting a Thrall.

Auren finally reached the wall. Quickly, he took a look outside. What he saw was a nightmarish creature unlike anything he had seen before.

It had once been a boar—a feral force of muscle and fury. But the thing that now lumbered through the clearing was no longer part of the living wild.

It was a Thrall, twisted beyond recognition. Flesh drooped in wet, half-rotted folds from its massive frame, and where coarse hair once bristled, patches of hide now shimmered with an otherworldly, smoky glow, like embers flickering within fog. Its tusks were cracked and blackened, jutting from a jaw that no longer obeyed nature.

Bones pierced through its skin at odd angles, and thick veins pulsed with a shadowy mist, as if ink and fog had merged and taken root beneath its skin. Its eyes—clouded, yet glowing faintly—held no thought, only a deep, ancient malice.

The way it moved was wrong. It staggered at first, dragging one leg like a corpse fresh from the grave, then without warning, it would jerk forward in spasmodic lunges—unnaturally fast and unthinking.

It was like watching something dead pretend to be alive. When it snorted or squealed, the sound came doubled: a guttural, beast-like grunt layered with a high, ghostly keen—thin and mournful, as if the spirit still trapped inside the beast was crying out through the snout of its rotting shell.

Auren backed away for a second, overwhelmed by the sight. The Thrall was not the only thing he had seen, though—there was a dark figure just forty-something meters from the fence gate. Dante, holding unmoving Hanzo on his shoulder. It was hard to say in the darkness, but both men were bleeding—Dante was frozen still under the moonless night. Auren had only seen the nearest Thrall clearly—there were a total of three of them, and they were moving around Dante and Hanzo as if they could pick up the scent of blood but were not precise enough to target them.

The pig Thrall was moving towards the window as if gliding inches above the land, but the other two were far and completely ignoring the noise the three women made.