"Can you see it?"
"Sort of?" Yvonne rubbed her eyes, then realized it was not a problem with her vision—the thing itself was indistinct, like an absurd dream. While experiencing it, everything seemed coherent and natural, yet afterward, its details could not be recalled at all.
The Priest hovering in midair crashed to the ground, his fate unknown. Benny, who had been prepared to trade injury for injury, lunged at empty air, his sword tip piercing nothing but a gust of wind.
The unrelated nightmares seemed to be entering reality, collapsing into something more tangible.
It seemed to sense the change in its state. Its scales fluttered faster, like a fish stranded ashore spreading its gill filaments and beating its fins.
Even so, its sheer size and hard scale armor still made it a creature mortals could scarcely contend with. It clearly had no intention of giving up prey that was nearly in its grasp. After circling briefly to observe them, it locked onto the only target that had ever hurt it and attacked again.
Naturally, a normal creature would not choose the smallest person present as its target, nor would it notice her quietly picking up a handy chunk of rubble.
Its wings spread wide as it swooped low at Kup with savage speed—faster, yet also more intuitively believable. If there truly were some giant bird several times the size of a human, this was probably how it would hunt.
Heavy and light at once, its wing membranes blotted out half the night sky, filling his vision with blurred, unfocused images.
The violent airflow swept up sand, stones, and fallen leaves, forming a roiling muddy wave. It was impossible to stare directly at the twisting bands of mirrored reflections within.
Kup wisely abandoned all unnecessary thoughts. He curled himself