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Bloodsworn Ch. 36
🕑 Added 2024-11-26 04:38:42 +0000 UTC36.
The creature rose to its feet slowly, limbs trembling as it slipped forward. Blood sluiced off of slick green carapace. Bug-like black eyes glistened wetly as a thick, pointed black tongue lashed out of its wide mouth, whipping back and forth wildly. It lurched awkwardly and trilled loudly, piercing and sharp as it looked about the hangar.
“Yes…much different. A good first specimen for my Lord’s army. I shall be rewarded…richly,” the demon’s halting speech drove nails down Erak’s spine as he struggled to move. Behind him he heard a grunt and then Sammus’s rich voice was barking out, each word a strain.
“We are people of the Empire. Warriors of the Empire. Our hearts are incorruptible. Our will unstoppable. We SHALL NOT YIELD!” Erak watched as Essence flowed about, floating on the air, propelled by the Prince’s words.
“Ohhh…a royal class? A spell then…Inspire?” The demon stopped and waited. Erak could feel the depths the black paint had dragged him down begin to weaken. Erak gripped his spear harder, feeling the tension in his knuckles as they popped. The cords of power that held him down began to fray and Erak strained, forcing himself to try to move, even just one inch.
“A pity you are not more…developed. A truly magnificent beast you would have become.”
Erak moved. His spear rose up by half an inch. The deadly point turned to aim at the grotesque creature that was lurching about. His vision was filled once more with information as he looked at the monster.
Alchemical Abomination lvl. 12
Erak turned his eyes and looked at the demon that had caught them. It was still peering at Sammus with undisguised interest, leaning over and peering at the prince with a leer on its face.
Dark Alchemist lvl. 19
Erak stepped forward, a single step. The ring of his foot on the metal hangar rang out and the alchemist turned to look at him. Its eyes widened in shock and it whirled to run away, its steps slow and awkward.
“Kill the soldier…spare the rest,” the alchemist rasped, pointing at Erak. The creature stopped its wagging and turned to look at him. It dropped its asymmetrical shoulders and lunged forward in a blitz of speed. Talons lashed against him, scratching his armor in a spray of steel, the creature’s weight staggering them both until Erak’s still unwieldy knees buckled and they fell to the ground.
Every passing heartbeat more of his strength returned to him, the lethargy that had clung to him dissipating. Erak wedged his knee up and into the creature’s stomach, the chitinous carapace failing to yield as Erak pushed up. The abomination soared over his head and he surged to his feet, his aura beginning to spread out as his heart beat with rage.
Erak dashed in, not letting the creature escape him, stabbing it through its leg as it rose wobbly to its feet. Its knee shattered in a spray of yellow goop and the creature raised its bulbous head to scream. Erak backed up and stabbed it through its fat head, popping it like a rotten fruit.
He whirled to find the alchemist hadn’t gotten far, its limping gait not fast enough to escape him. Erak threw the spear and watched as the blade flashed across the hangar to pierce the alchemist’s stomach. The demon cried out, screaming shrilly, as it fell and slid across the hangar.
The rest of the team broke free at the alchemist’s scream, gasping and turning their weapons to the demon as it slowly tried to escape even with Erak’s spear in its stomach. Erak walked over to his team and they clustered about him, all of them getting ready to go and finish off the demon. There was a rage in their eyes, their will having been stripped away from them.
Nevia’s hand was trembling and a tendon was taunt against her neck as she glared down at the demon. Sammus was pale and sweaty, eyes wild and large in his skull as he stalked forward, drawing his own long curved blade.
The sound of ripping cocoons filled the air. Erak turned and saw the scores of fleshy cocoons broke apart in a deluge of blood and abominations. They scuttled about like insects, rising up to their feet with dark eyes. All of them were low level, barely past ten, but there were dozens of them.
Nevia’s soldiers didn’t hesitate to fire. Caster bolts searing and breaking the abominations in a flash of heat and fire. It took two to three bolts to pierce the reflective carapace’s, none of the creature’s reacting as they were burned down.
“Kill…them…all,” the alchemist rasped. The abominations launched themselves without hesitation and Erak stepped forward. He pointed toward the dying alchemist and Sammus bounded toward the alchemist, sword raised up and over his head.
Erak killed the first of the bug-like abominations, its shell burned black from caster fire. Yellow blood splashed the ground as Erak spun, sword screaming through the air as he kept cutting and slashing. They were wheat before the thresher and Erak didn’t stop as he cut.
His aura spread out, filling the hangar as they fought the abominations. Erak spun his sword in a tight circle, cleaving one of their legs off at the knee and another’s arm at the elbow. More and more of the cocoons ripped apart the hangar filling with the abominations.
“Now, Prince Sammus. Kill it now!” Nevia screamed as her sword lengthened and sliced apart an abomination in half in a flash of Essence. Erak crushed an abomination with his shield, it crunching and splattering across him in a spray of putrid yellow.
“Die monster!” Sammus screamed and then the hangar went silent. The abominations stopped moving, frozen in their steps. Erak risked looking over his shoulder and seeing Sammus standing above the headless alchemist.
“Is that it? Are they just not going to keep moving?” one of the soldiers asked.
Erak stabbed one of the motionless monsters. It collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Essence filled him, but there was a bitter taste in his mouth. Killing defenseless monsters brought no joy to him. He turned and walked away from them as the soldiers fell upon them with knives and boots, finishing them off quickly. Erak watched as Essence gathered around one of the soldiers, who whooped excitedly. He had never seen the exact moment when someone leveled, but the burst of Essence was unique.
Erak walked through the forest of cocoons, looking for anything that had been unobserved. Each of the fleshy pods were wilting, growing soft and drooping towards the ground. In the center of the hangar there was a pile of goods. Clothes, boots, tools, mementos, rings, and the other sundry artifacts of daily life. Erak looked at the abandoned goods and at the abominations.
A horror sank through him. This went beyond death. Beyond dishonor. This was an unmaking. A twisting and perversion of what once was.
Erak marched back and through the rotting cocoons, stomping up to the alchemist and raising his foot above the head and pulping it across the hangar with a powerful stomp. He whirled on the corpse and grabbed it by its hands and paused.
The hands were long and delicate and clean. Erak dropped the creature and began to search. The hangar was a large cube and didn’t take long, but no matter how he looked and what he moved, he couldn’t find any black paint.
