(Amaia)

Saiph is staring directly into the monster’s eyes. Unafraid and unnerved, that man must be made of steel to look directly at a Chittering.

Now I vaguely remember hearing about it from my mother and the whispered stories related to it in my old pack, as well as how it was born.

Chittering is not a creature born of nature. Still, it is a physical manifestation of a community’s collective phobia, self-loathing, and violent hatred, using the shattered bodies of insects as its raw, unholy clay. It is a walking plague of despair and nightmares.

Especially after the apocalypse, the hatred between species grew, giving birth to Chitterings all over the world. But they dwell in extremely cold areas, away from noise and can only be seen at night. They don’t dwell in Orion, so seeing one here and alive came as a surprise to all of us.

Conventional weapons are useless against it. Swords and arrows do not cut it; they merely displace parts of its form for a moment before the chitinous mass flows back together. Fire causes it to steam and hiss, but the hatred at its core simply uses the energy to regenerate faster.

Its mere presence induces crippling terror and paranoia. Its chittering cacophony can shatter sanity, causing others to freeze or be stuck in a nightmare on a loop. It amplifies fears to a murderous pitch.

That’s what it has done to Mintaka, who is whimpering nonstop in my arms, and I can literally give anything in this moment to bring him some solace.

"Keep your eyes closed, all of you," Saiph’s loud and clear warning comes.

He plants himself in front of a growling Zevran; who has lowered its head slightly so it won’t stare at the creature.

"Zevran, stay back. You can’t defeat him."

Saiph stands under the moon, holding the polished bone handle of his mighty scythe, the edges sharp and shiny.

The Chittering unfolded itself, opening up three stories of jagged, shifting chitin, a mosaic of nightmares. A hundred compound eyes swivel and lock onto Saiph.

In their glistening surfaces, Saiph must be seeing endless nightmares and yet he stands tall and mighty without shaking even a finger.

The creature’s core pulsates and throbs with darkness that drinks the moonlight.

Its ragged mouth opens, and something hits Saiph. It is the sound of a locust swarm descending, of cockroaches scuttling inside walls, of a wasp’s buzz an inch from the ear, all woven through with whispered lies and venomous curses.

Voices so loud that all of us let out screams of despair, except Saiph. Rahria and Kacir shut their ears with their hands, and even Faeln is on his knees with his eyes closed and his weapon on the ground.

Zevran, too, lets out a whimper while Mintaka trembles in my arms, and I press my lips into his soft tresses.

"It’s going to be fine," I whisper to my mate.

Saiph’s grip on the scythe tightens until his knuckles are white. A bluish energy hums along the blade humming a soft, pure counter-note against the psychic assault.

Saiph doesn’t even flinch. He swings the scythe in a wide, horizontal arc.

It doesn’t whoosh; it sighs like it is occupied by something dark.

The moment the charmed blade meets the monster’s form, there is no clang of metal, but a sudden, profound silence. The razor-sharp blade passes through like a knife cutting through butter.

Silent but deadly.

Creature’s malevolent energy severs, and patters to the ground like black, chitinous hail.

I watch in horror, unable to look away from Saiph’s precise blow and the creature’s shudder of outrage that runs through its form.

The wound recoils forming a massive limb, assembling from the crushing pincers of a dozen giant beetles and slamming down where Saiph has been standing.

He has already swiftly stepped aside, his footwork is like a dancer’s grace against the monster’s clumsy, hateful strength.

My breath gets stuck in my throat as I slowly rub Mintaka’s back. His cries are slowing down.

Saiph darts forward, his scythe a silver crescent in the night, and slices through the base of Chittering’s limb.

It is a clean cut. The chitin splits; it unravels. The pincers lose their cohesion, falling apart into a thousand individual, dead insects, their binding hatred extinguished. A low groan, like the hiss of a pain, emanates from the creature.

Enraged, Chittering sprouts new limbs—needle-tipped legs of a mosquito. It stabs them at Saiph in a frenzied state.

I stop breathing when Saiph becomes a whirlwind of defence, his scythe a blur. Each parry was not a block, but a revelation of how skilled a warrior he is. He doesn’t even flinch while his scythe tears through the creature, the stabbing limbs simply go inert, their venomous purpose nullifies, making them crumble to dust.

But the creature is so vast, and its hatred seems infinite. While Saiph is occupied with the frontal assault, a whip-like appendage of fused centipede segments snakes from the shadows behind him.

"Saiph!!!" I frantically call out. "Behind you."

He turns, but not fast enough, and the extension wraps around his ankle.

A controlled hiss escapes him. Agony must have laced up his leg as sharp claws dig into his flesh.

Creature’s horrid shrieks redouble, the whispers now are combined with Saiph’s voice, screaming at him to let go, to give up.

Saiph raises his head, stubbornness and defiance coat his face. He pivots, putting all his weight and will into a single, downward chop. The scythe’s blade passes through the centipede-whip, and the effect is instantaneous. The binding pressure vanishes. The appendage disintegrates, not just where he has cut, but along its entire length, the hatred that links its segments is gone like a smoke evaporating, liberating it.

Saiph meets its gaze, accepting the fear, acknowledging the hatred, but not yielding to it.

"This ends," he whispers, his voice steady, not shaking even once. "You are not welcome here."

He plants his feet, raises the Charmed Scythe high over his head, and brings it down in one final, perfect reaping arc.

The blade doesn’t pierce the core of the Chittering, it passes through it.

There is no explosion, only a wave of absolute silence that radiates outwards. The Chittering’s feral whispers cease. The seething, shifting form freezes. Then, starting from the core and spreading to the very tips of its twitching limbs, the creature begins to come apart.

The hatred that binds it has been severed.

The fear that animates it, released.

A mountain of mutilated insect parts, now just empty shells, collapses into a vast, silent mound in front of Saiph, and he stands victorious over it, like a divine hero under the moonlight.