The common folk had justified fears in regards to Priests of the Serpent. As soon as they see one passing by, what they dreaded the most aside from their morbid appearances and haunting entourages was that they could become the Necromagus' target, because no matter what you do, even if you run, even if you flee to another country, even if you hid in a place that no one has ever known except you, they will find you. And it always ends with a dead body and rarely ever will the Pale Ones spare your life without any lingering effects, physically, mentally or psychologically.
So they often ask: how does a Priest of the Serpent find their target, as if they had already known where they would go or which direction they would take? Speculation began from there, creating even more rumors about the Order of the Serpent. Maybe they could read minds. Maybe they could track you down by smell like a dog. Maybe they know their target very well. Maybe they took information from others about you.
There were too many.
In actuality, their methods were simple. To hunt down the scum who call themselves Necromagi and instantly sully the name of the Order of the Serpent the moment they use their magic for the wrong reasons, they would rely on the voice of Spirits who were witnesses to their atrocities. If the Priest fails to catch their target but manages to touch them, the Curse of Finding they planted would lead them to where they are. If the Priest wishes for a challenge, they would track them down purely by scent. Thanks to their experiments and numerous bodily operations, their senses were greater than the average human. Even without their operations and having only an ordinary human body, the Subterranean City reeks of nothing but decay, dampness and bones; the moment they step out into the world and discover scents they have never smelt before, they can easily separate the smallest detail of every source. Even a single blade of grass is unique.
In his case in regards to this task, he is relying on his nose to track down the missing children. Living flesh is very recognizable, the easiest target to track down. Using this method as well as following the directions of Spirits who have witnessed the little ones passing by, it won't be long before he finds them.
The sooner he entered the forest, it really showed that it was an untamed place. The vegetation and foliage of the plant life were so dense that they block the soil from being touched by the moonlight, making the entire environment very dim and dark, and more often than not he had the exposed skin on his face scratched to the point of bleeding by the numerous plant life despite hewing them down with Mother's sickles.
The environmental conditions hardly bothered him, however. His night-vision is the most developed, a familial genetic quirk he was glad to have at this moment, and the Order of the Serpent's curriculum included how to prevent bleeding without physically doing anything.
It would be ideal to have his lumbering Golem take the lead while dictating which direction it should take, potentially clearing the obstructive path of green with its girth, but that would only take long and endanger the little one's safety even further. Fortunately, the Spirits have said that they are still alive, but not for long. He must hurry.
Slowly but surely, the scent of living flesh was getting stronger, nearer. The Spirits' frantic beckoning were starting to turn glad for his nearing proximity to them. Not only that, he isn't smelling any blood. He could have smelt the copper-like stench from several meters away. That potentially means the little ones were uninjured, that's good.
With a scissoring motion of his two sickles, the dense shrubs is cleared out for him to easily pass through and the forest in front of him opened up to a high little hill, the moonlight finally shining down on him.
And just up ahead, he saw 6 small bodies sprawled out on the grass.
"There they are." He said in a glad whisper, Mother quickly bolting towards them with his Golem quickly following after him Gorilla-style.
Sliding to a stop and dropping to his knees before a young girl's sprawled-out form, he suddenly cringed his head back before he could assess their conditions. It was the smell of a curse. It seemed the Spirits were worried for another reason besides the witchbeasts living in these parts. The children were cursed.
Looking over each child, he confirmed that they were under the same condition: debilitated—weakened. Returning to the little one before him, he placed a metal hand on her forehead and had his mana course over the little body, performing a quick diagnosis.
He sneered at what he found. He knows this curse. It was the Curse of Sleeping Death. A spell that can diminish not just mana but also life force over time, eventually shutting down their essential organs and killing them in their sleep. A downgraded version of the one he used on himself at the loot house. A painless but unsympathetic death to anyone who still had a life to live. And it has been activated.
Oh dear…
Despite a Priest of the Serpent's specialties, they despise curses that kill. Priests of the Serpent do not exist solely to kill people, they appease the unresting dead, maintain the Balance of Life and Death and seek meaning in their lives just like any other mortal. And like any mortal, they have the right to defend themselves, and it often means taking a life. And when they use a curse, it's always to weaken, never to kill. To see such a curse used on a child of all people is something that infuriated him the most, and likely a heavy majority of the Order.
When he finds the one responsible for this…
For now, he must do something. This is something he never liked in regards to dispelling Killing Curses that has been activated but then again, he's had worse before he took his first step outside the Underground City. Taking his wand in hand, he waved it across the little body, trying to find the place the curse was put. Finding it in the little girl's hand, its source coming from a bite wound that looked like it belonged to a small animal, a puppy most likely, he took it with his free hand, holstered his wand back to his bone belt and took out his kris.
"…wh….who…." A small voice forced out, almost unheard but thanks to the silence of the night, he heard it very well. The girl was conscious and the fright in her eyes were apparent as he looked. "…g…..get away…."
"Shh-shh-shh…." He gently shushed the girl, putting down the knife and patting her head, softening his features to make sure he doesn't frighten her any further. "It's alright, Little One. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to help you."
The girl said nothing but she had stopped trying to crawl away. Good. He has her cooperation.
"You have been cursed. It's making you weak and draining your energy. But worry not, I am going to eat the curse and bring you back to health. Do you understand?"
He made sure that his voice is soft and reassuring, not fast-paced and using words that were easy to understand. The more the child trusts him, the easier it gets. And to his credit, he earned a nod.
"Very good." He patted her head once again before taking her knife back in hand, "Now, in order for me to remove the curse, I am going to need to open a small cut in your hand. Just a small cut. It will hurt, I understand, but I assure you, it will be quick and the pain will be over. Do you understand?"
To his amazement, she nodded again. This little one's brave. Most Above-World children don't like to feel pain, even if they were at their 12th turn like this one.
"That's a brave little one." He squeezed her hand in praise, "Now, I'm going to begin so please bear with me." He felt her hand tighten in its grasp on his metal gauntlets in apprehension. "Now hold still…"
Due to having a skeleton hand that lacks physical nerves, he cannot trust himself to do this perfectly like he used to so he entrusted the knife to Mother's front right arm, leaving it in the expertise of another skilled hand. With a gentle glide, the kris is slowly drawn over the bite wound that contained the curse. As the blood trickled out, so did the disgusting traces of the Killing Curse in the form of a black mist thanks to the mana enshrouding the blade pulling it out.
Mouth agape, he proceeded to devour the curse itself. And the little girl looked on, watching as the black cloud that was coming out of the cut slowly seeped into his mouth. He twitched, convulsed, grabbing at his abdomen as if he's eating something revolting, but he persevered and kept his mouth open, determinedly eating the affliction that had made her suffer so. The more he ate, the denser the black cloud was getting. And eventually, the pain in her body was slowly disappearing, congregating to the single point in her cut hand, allowing her to breathe normally and let out a relaxed sigh.
By the time he was done, he quickly looked away and retched out the contents of his belly to the side, the grass slowly melting from the acids. The thing about Killing Curses is that they taste like shit. But at least the curse itself is transferred to him, saving the child from eminent death. With his abundant mana and his robes that restore mana, he can last for as long as he wishes before it could start eating his life force, or 'Od' in this world's concept.
But if he devours other 5 children's curse, his mana will be drained 5 times faster and his robes won't be enough to cover it up. He'd die from the Killing Curse itself. The thought of it is tempting in of itself, as it would send him home to the Dragon but he forced the idea out. He finally has the will to live, therefore he shouldn't rush so soon. The longer the wait, the sweeter the reward.
A Priest of the Serpent worth their salt must know how to counteract curses, even when they're activated, and he is no different. As soon as he ate all the children's curses, he can simply—
"There's…" His attention snapped back to the girl, trying to tell him something. And at the moment were she should be resting instead of talking, it must be something crucial. He quickly leaned his ear to her mouth, "...another…still….the forest….." She fell silent, her consciousness falling away.
…..
…..He leaned back upright and thought up the conclusions from what he heard: there's another child in the same state as them somewhere in the forest, alone.
And he doesn't like the sound of it. Not because the likelihood of that child being dead, but because it was odd.
Why was one child away from the rest?
Did the child get too far away when the curse was activated? Did the child get dragged to a different location? Was it to lure someone into a trap? If that was the case, why wasn't this place with all the children together a trap itself? First of all, why were the children alive to begin with? Don't witchbeasts kill and devour all living things, embodiments of malice and all? From what he's hearing from the Spirits, witchbeasts were the cause of their curses. Why were they cursed instead of eaten?
Whichever case it is, he is not liking the sound of it. All of this sounds too wrong. Too inconsistent. There's so many questions arising as he kept thinking about it.
But he tried not to think too much of it, he must attend to these children first. Now to proceed to the next child—
His Golem twisted around with a squared stance, facing the direction they came from. He noticed its movements and looked into the same direction. The fiery glare of his green eyes and the floating of his hair were immediate.
Oh great, she's fucking here.
He thought the 6 skeletons he had stay behind back in the forest would be sufficient in delaying the maid long enough for him to be finished with curing the children. It seems he needed more firepower than 6 strong and fast skeletons occupied by genuine souls of powerful emotion.
But still, her being here doesn't change a damn thing. Things will still go as he had intended them to.
Taking a page out of a book from this world's magicians, he will supply some ammunition for his hulking bodyguard. With a small mutter, he chanted, "Dona." With the amount of magical energy needed only to create a single tooth, a stone wall sprouted out of the grass beside the Golem. Nodding at the guess of its size proven right, he told the construct in a breathless whisper, "Delay her."
With a soundless grunt and a smash of its rocky fists together, it shall do as instructed. Punching the rock wall beside it to pieces and creating large chunks of rock from the fragments, it grabbed the nearest one and lobbed it towards the small form that's sprinting towards to its master's location. Without seeing the results of its actions, it grabbed another boulder and sent it flying towards the assailant. Every effort was met with a nimble dash to the side, a jump over or a strike from a flail, and by the time the opponent's distance was now halved and the number of large rocks available were all used up, leaving only the small pebbles to spare, it was the moment for the Golem to be physical.
In the Order of the Serpent, the moment a Golem does something else besides punching things, throwing things and carrying things is the moment your Golem is considered an exceptional creation.
In Emurdol's case, his mud and rock Golems can reshape themselves into a round form and turn into a rolling ball of perpetual motion. A super weapon that killed an entire army by its lonesome, turning itself into a sort of 'Blood Golem' in the aftermath.
And that's what the rock-hurling Golem did, curling with its bulging arms and stubby legs tucked close to its massive chest, morphing its bodily proportions so it can become a fully symmetrical ball, and rolled down the hill; an unstoppable juggernaut out to crush her being.
The moment Rem had seen its actions, she only had a moment to gawk before she unleashed her flail towards the encroaching boulder. And to her shock, it jumped upwards to the air, an impossible phenomena performed by a moving clump of heavy soil as her strike missed its target and she would have been crushed had she not jumped out of the way. Feeling the ground quake from its landing and a bit of a shockwave hitting her form, she watched as the ball continued to roll and maneuvered back, going for another bowling assault.
She struck again, the flail careening towards its target with a promise of destruction: the boulder changed course to the right, the iron ball grazing its form as it was starting to come close. When the weapon suddenly flew back towards her, intending to collide with the golem, it jumped once again, repeating the same sequence as before; dodging the oncoming flail and about to crush her.
When it uncurled itself in midair with the intent of body slamming her, she nearly made a mistake of jumping to the side as she would have been crushed by its outstretched arm and instead cartwheeled backwards. Defying its size, the golem was quick to rise to its feet and barrel towards her with arms raised up to crush her dodging form. Crush. Crush. Crush. Crush. Its fists failed to eliminate its target, always evading its strikes with a nimble maneuver, leaving numerous craters in the grass.
The maid jumped high above the creation as it tried to catch her in the air in vain, and in the same motion with a sharp tug of her weapon hand, the flail was flying towards its back and solidly landed against its rocky frame, utterly destroying it.
Desiring not to relish in the victory, she quickly turned her eyes towards the man and found herself staring in shock once more. She was just in time to see him finish in siphoning some kind of black mist from one of the children into his mouth. When she turned her eyes to the child in question, she saw the young boy release a deep sigh, the entire body relaxing, almost as if he was taking his last breath.
The sight made her body react before she could consider the risk that she could hit one of the children with her flail, and sent it flying she did, aiming straight towards his sitting-up form. In otherworldly speeds, he dashed backwards in a distance away from the boy's form, evading the flail and simply stood there, watching her with his blazing green eyes.
Before she could dash into a charge, she suddenly fell to her knees without even meaning to, and when she looked at her legs, she found enlarged snake fangs stabbing into her thighs as well as both her wrists, making her lose grip on her weapon.
He took away her ability to move her legs and hands, and he had done so as soon as he evaded her strike, taking advantage of her single-minded focus on him to make sure she didn't see it coming. She watched as he dashed towards her in the same blurring speeds, a wavy knife in hand ready to claim her life, only to slide into a stop just 5 steps away from her.
He was sniffing the air, his brow furrowed in confusion before his searching eyes fell on her. Drawing close with a single step, his head craning towards her as he smelled the air around her. His eyes widened at what he discovered, his eyes taking a grim light as he drew back.
"You've been cursed, Maid." He told, his tone more like he was stating a fact instead of delivering bad news. "The curse that fell on the children has also fell on you. Expend your mana and the worst of it will kill you quicker than it should. Just by looking at you, I can tell that its debilitating effects has been eating your mana for who knows when, weakening you."
Her eyes widened at his statement. He was right. She had been feeling her body getting wearier than she thought possible for a demon body like hers, even running a short distance was tiring her faster, and her body temperature was also dropping as well without her knowing why and how. She barely won the battle against the skeletons who ambushed her in the forest, leaving her uniform tattered and marred with dirt. In a top condition, she could have defeated them with slight effort. She thought he had brought this condition on her, but what he did and what he said denied any credibility her assumptions had.
"But what have you been doing to those children? What was that black mist you ate? J-just what are you been trying to do?" Her voice was slowly rising into a shout, the frustration finally rising out and breaking free, "Rem doesn't understand! Everything's so confusing! Are you trying to save the children or are you not!? Are you trying to kill Rem or not!? Just what!? Why did you leave!? Just what!? Just what are you trying to do!?"
His facial expressions didn't twitch the slightest at her outburst, patiently awaiting her to finish. And when he noticed that she was done, he answered her in the most matter-of-factly tone that implied that his current actions up to date since leaving were a natural outcome, "I am curing the children, and I am making sure you suffer for the things you've done to me. Why I left is none of your fucking business." He looked over his shoulder towards the children before turning to the forest ahead, opposite of where she come from. "You will remain here with the children. The men from the village will be arriving soon. Have them carry you along with the children back to the barrier. There is still a seventh child missing, I will find that little one myself."
What she heard made her throat dry up, her eyes wide in disbelief, "A seventh….child…?"
"By the time I come back to the village with the child, I will remove all the children's curses as well as yours. There's still time." Then she felt the mana in the air becoming tainted, the pale blue and murky green energy escaping out of his form like the plague. The hostility permeating out of him was thick enough that even blind men will easily realize that he will lash out at anyone close to him. It was enough to freeze her entire body even if the fangs on her thighs and wrists weren't there. "If I ever see you following me…if I do not see you in the village when I come back….I will never allow you your afterlife the moment your bloody head comes off!"
With the sound of a powerful snap that was as loud as a thunder that struck right next to her that forced her to wince and cover her ears, he was already gone as soon as she turned her eyes back to where he once was.
~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~
This time, Mother was as furious as he was. She couldn't stand that Maid anymore, after the amount of times she held herself back for his sake only for it to be wasted. Her movements were rigid, gritty and full of implied rage, her usual grace nonexistent. Her every step was a stomp, all her 4 fists were clenched tightly beside his own as she walked instead of cross-armed behind her. It perfectly reflected his current mood.
It was a moment where they both would gladly delight themselves in violence, an act that would be the most invigorating and stress-relieving. That's why they are both thankful to the smell of beasts and the foreboding atmosphere getting worse as they ventured deeper into the forest. They are nearing the danger zone, the place where the witchbeasts are the most abundant.
Where there are demons, there will be blood. Where there is blood, there will be death. Where there is death, there will be a Priest of the Serpent who will reap the remains.
He reached up to take folds of his cloak and took it off his person. Opening the rift to the Void, he stashed his cloak there as well as his bag of bone dust and drew out his wand. In turn, Mother drew out her weapons as well. The krises holstered on his back held by the back arms and the sickles held by the front arms.
And there it was: right behind a tree that had fallen due to wind and rot, a little white leg was poking into view. The Seventh Child.
He nearly laughed at the obvious giveaway. It was a trap. Right in the middle of the clearing, with the tree lines dark enough to hide anything in its shadows and also bearing the smell of beasts? He might as well plague this damn place for its mediocrity.
Nonetheless, Mother sliced a bush in the way before he set foot into the clearing and calmly approached the unconscious little body. Like the other children, this child was cursed as well; weak, unawake, having short breathing.
He would have immediately secured the child's condition but one concern held him back:
None of the Spirits recognized her. They don't know her name. They don't know her family. And they certainly have never seen her before until just recently. And considering the suspicions he had back on that hill with the other children, he saw nothing but warning signs everywhere as he looked down on the braided-hair girl.
Kneeling down beside her little body, he sat her up and propped her against Mother's kneeling right foot before he took the nearest arm in hand, his hand holding the wand moving her sleeve back. Steeling himself, he bit on his tongue hard enough to bleed. When the amount of blood that leaked out was enough, he sneered, his impossibly white teeth stained with blood revealing, mixing with his saliva, and he bit down on the girl's forearm. With enough pressure, blood quickly seeped out as the skin was easily pierced. Despite being asleep or unconscious, the pained expression couldn't be held down from the little one's face.
And with the help of blood magic rarely ever used by the Order, the blood in his mouth seeped into the little one's open wounds and into her system. The special ailment that all Priests of the Serpent kept in their arsenal is now coursing through her body.
Then the rustle of a bush caught his ear.
Taking his jaws from the girl's arm, strings of saliva hanging from his teeth, he looked over his shoulder and beheld a sight that he's been waiting for.
A dog, but twice the size of a large one. A lean body, clawed paws built to rend and tear instead of traction, a slobbering mouth lined with oversized teeth that couldn't be hidden in its snout, numerous spikes lining its spine and joints as well as its tail, and the glowing red eyes that rivaled his own whenever he's in a mood for violence. There is no doubt that this mutt is a Witchbeast.
"Hello…filth….!" He greeted with a wide grin, a sadistic light shining from his visage as he rose up to full height. "You're smart enough to leave this little one here as bait, that makes you above most animals in regards to intelligence….however…" He drew out his favorite bone knife from the Void with his free left hand, the most dangerous arsenal in his person above every other weapon in his person besides the wand, the numerous foes he killed with it still staining the blade with its blood, rendering it black. "…will it be enough to save you from me…!?"
The fiend lowered its body to the ground, as if preparing for a pounce or a charge, unmoving and growling maliciously.
"What's wrong? Scared of a human with—"
The witchbeast vanished, disappearing into the darkness as if it was born from there.
"Hmph." This situation suddenly felt nostalgic when a black blur arrived from the corner of his vision. This is almost like when amateur Witch Hunters tried to ambush him.
He paid back the demon's courtesy of reminding him his fond memories by taking one step forward in a single spin—
—and scratched the hide of the mutt that pounced at him from the side with the bone knife. When the fiend was about to meet the ground, it instead crashed its head on the soil, tumbling head over heels before it lied on its side, convulsing and whining as the toxins received from the knife wound solidified the blood, locked up the muscles, ravaged the nerves and slowly shut down its organs.
He watched with a firm gaze, green eyes wide and glowing, unblinking at the sight of suffering in front of him, relishing in every sound and movement that indicated the amount of pain and agony he was responsible for. And when the fiend was no longer moving, Mother's foot rose up and squashed its head into paste, a flower of red on the grass, bone and brain matter scattering everywhere.
"Exhilarating." He hissed, his being shaking from the sight. Kneeling down, he waved his wand over the corpse and his eyes glowed bright at its discovery, his killing smirk widening even further. "Mana….so much mana….!" The witchbeast had twice the amount of mana than an ordinary animal. If he was to reanimate its bones…..
"Yeeesss….!" He grabbed a large handful of its hide and dragged it with him as he went back to the child's form—
—and he was greeted with the sight of many glowing red eyes in the darkness of the forest.
There were too many to count, virtually endless. The scent of beasts in the air is even fouler than before. He could feel the numerous jaws slobbering. He could feel their hunger. Their lust for blood. Their desire to kill. The tension in their bodies for the incoming violence. He could feel every lick of their being.
It was too much….!
"HAaaaaaaaghhh!‼" Without warning, he opened his mouth wide and screamed a demonic howl, driven by the prospect of violence, of flesh about to be torn apart and bones about to be shattered. He gave them the prompt to attack and they responded with gusto, jaws and claws stretched out to tear him apart as they advanced on him.
For their efforts, a headless witchbeast was thrown to the head of their charge. As the shock of its death was amplified by necromantic magic, the body took no time to start bulging, boiling—
POP!
—with a thunderous pop, the corpse exploded with the force of a miniature volcano, bone fragments proving to be the most lethal shrapnel as it pierced through every hide in its range like pebbles to wet paper. The ones closest to the corpse died instantly, the ones further away either lost a limb or had a hole in its body, bleeding profusely. With a wild grin of malicious delight, he tugged at the bones of the fallen demons and forced them out of their shells of flesh in a burst of viscera and blood, canine bones reshaping into spears before they flew, skewering the surviving mutts into a pin-cushion.
It was so quick, in the span of 3 seconds, all life in front of him was snuffed out. A pop, a cacophony of pained howls, and then silence.
"Hehehehe….hehehehehe…"
His laughter couldn't be contained. The sight in front of him. The familiar sight before his eyes. It was Paradise itself. It was beautiful.
Blood. Guts. Organs. Violence. Death. Murder. Evisceration. Torture. Suffering. Agony! Death! Death! Death! DEATH! SWEET DEATH!
"Hehehehahahahahaha…..HAHAHAHAHAHA….!"
Yes! This is it! This is where the Necromagi thrived! This is where the Necromagi are at their strongest! This is where the Priests of the Serpent considers their playground!
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA‼!"
The night is ripe with violence, and a lot more is ready for the picking. With so many bodies, so many souls, so much mana…..and so little time.
His mad revelry is set to a stop, Emotion Suppression at play. The child must be taken to the village. Once there, devour the curses of the other little ones, including the maid's, then he can head back in, freely bask in all visceral pleasure in wild abandon and without consequence. Live or die? That's up to the fun of it. The more he kills, the better it gets.
"Mother, take her." She quickly complied, walking backwards to the girl's lying form behind him and placing her in a piggyback position, one pair of arms hugging her against his back while another holds on to her thighs. In this scenario, Mother's physical combat expertise will be disabled. With countless monsters on their way to him as reported by the Spirits, he won't be able to take them all on with explosive corpses and his knife alone.
Time for a call to arms.
Raising his wand above his head, with the skull ornament at the top glowing brightly green, he waved it in a halo, his will surging into every dead body present. The veil separating the Spectral Realm and the Living Realm spread open, he beckoned all the fighting Spirits and restless Souls willing to fight for his cause. Finding more than a bountiful number of them, he transferred their beings into the available frames nearby.
Now that he doesn't have to make the frames, this makes things so much easier.
The bodies swelled, sounds of snapping bones and churning flesh filling the night air. In a burst of blood and guts, the shells of flesh exploded outwards, revealing the horrific and blood-covered bones that swirled about, relocating, reshaping, and reforming in every way imaginable until, at last, they settled in place and were brought to unlife.
From the corpses of witchbeasts, he managed to conjure 5 skeletal warriors, complete with bone swords, axes and shields; 4 skeletal prowlers, bearing long serrated claws in place of hands, spikes for feet and dagger-like smiles; 2 skeletal magi of fire and ice, red and blue mana coating 2 pairs of hands, respectively; and 1 unarmed skeleton, bearing the strength of 20 men.
As an extra, he created 2 Mud Golems on either side of him.
With a small army of 14, equal to the might of 60 men, this is more than enough to cover an issue where Mother's hands are full.
With a circular formation around him, he snapped the fingers holding the wand and gave them a command in this task. "March…and kill." 2 pairs of earthen fists smashing together and 12 skeletal jaws making a sharp biting snap, they marched on with their master's pace, eagerly awaiting their chance for violence.
In a jogging pace, he and his entourage headed back to the village. Instead of the path he originally took, he'll take the quicker route back. A straight line through the forest until they reach the barrier. The danger on the way won't be a problem. He'll leave a trail of bodies with each monster that dares faces him.
"Starting with you." With a point of his finger, the skeleton with the axe and shield charged the lone witchbeast with a shield bash, the construct nearly losing its footing from the collision before righting itself and driving the axe straight to the exposed back. The howl of pain it made indicated that its spinal column had likely shattered, but the skeleton continued to hack at its body, blood and gore spurting in each strike. Even when the fiend was dead, the brutal punishment didn't stop. By the time the circular formation was close, the soldier returned to its place at the front, leaving behind a nearly-halved corpse of a devil dog.
As he walked over the two halves, the wand in his right hand glowed and a skeletal prowler was born from it. "Stand guard and kill on sight." The snap of its dagger-like teeth indicated its affirmative to obey. 2 seconds later, the sound of a canine body being shredded in half erupted behind him.
The golem on his right took the next initiative, slamming its shoulder against a tree and felling it on top of 2 incoming dogs. Crushed and pinned but still alive, the hulking humanoid raised its rocky arms high and smashed the fallen tree even further on their bodies. The mess of exposed fractures and blood is all that's left of them. Happened to be lagging behind, it morphed into a ball and caught up to the formation, only to veer to another direction as a pack is on its way towards its master.
The violence between leather and stone occurring from the right, he pointed to the left and 2 prowlers pounced off into the direction. The unarmed skeleton who was at the back quickly whirled around and punched a witchbeast right in its snout, instantly rendering it without a lower jaw and dead. The other fiend gnawing on its forearm received a reciprocal courtesy: head, eyes and ears cleanly bitten off. The 2 assaulting prowlers returned to their formation with pieces of witchbeast bodies lodged in their bloody claws while their sharp teeth still had demon hide stuck in them.
The pair of skeletal magi did what they did best, shooting a spell of fire or ice at the right targets, specifically crafty ones who had the gall to take advantage of the distraction to attack their Master. Any attempts of the like ends with a head scorched into a skull or a frozen body part shattering to pieces. A demon manages to dodge a bolt of fire, its head is instead grabbed, skin and hide melted or roasted before its neck is snapped. Another had its heart pierced with an accurate shot from an icicle, a third having its head incased in ice before dying of suffocation.
The warriors fought with a ferocity that disregarded safety and tactics that befitted a living soldier. Impaling, hacking, stabbing, biting, kicking, scratching, bashing, smashing, chopping, eviscerating, pulverizing, thrashing; every attack possible is used in wild abandon. A loss of a limb or a head is not even a detriment. If a weapon is lost, they'll use their ribs as makeshift daggers. If left unarmed, they'll sink their hands into the innards of one of the demons, ripping out the organs in a vicious extraction. When one fiend remained, they mobbed on the unfortunate devil dog and tore its limbs apart from its body.
A single prowler took ahead, executing a high-jump and utilizing its staked feet as spears, impaling a devil dog through its eye and mouth, exiting through its rear. Another leapt over its occupied comrade, tackling the second witchbeast to the ground and taking a vicious bite out of the neck, windpipe and large amounts of meat gone. A third prowler met two, stabbing its claws deep into their chests and piercing both hearts. Losing both its arms in its efforts and its unlife from the head-butt of a fifth demon, its time of service has met its last.
The creator himself had no trouble even if one manages to come close. His bone knife left every assailant into a convulsing mess. Every dead body he passed by became ammunition for the numerable short spears of bone revolving around him. And every spare amount of bones is another soldier set into the battlefield from the endless roster of restless spirits. Every new creation is left with the same orders, "Stand guard and kill", "Hunt down the witchbeasts", "Kill on sight", "Kill cleanly" and "Survive and kill".
A trail of skeletons he left behind with every dog killed. He never expects them to last on their own but if one thing is consistent about his creations, they always take their enemies down with them. A pile of bones in the center of a mass grave. They're made from the hands of a Necromagus who played often with bones instead of bodies, after all.
After many minutes of jogging, the barrier is seen just up ahead. Looking around him and his constructs, his band of skeletons reduced to 7, consisting of 2 magi, 3 warriors, 1 prowler and the bruiser, and his golems being resilient survivors. Each one is as bloody as the other, some carrying the viscera of their kills, their hands completely red, including the magi, but compared to everything else, the hulks of soil are the only ones who do not seem like they have sustained any damage. He's the only one lacking any blood and guts on his person, ignoring the blood on Mother's sabatons and greaves.
Quickening his steps into a run, his entourage suddenly sliding to a stop as he went past their shortened circle, he was in the village in no time. The people there were indeed shocked by his appearance, with the bones showing on his chest as well as his legs and having more than 2 hands.
It feels nostalgic.
"Eyes down!" They flinched at his sudden bark, but he ignored them and focused his eyes on the children lying on the ground, attended by either guardian or parent. "The children are still suffering! Pay attention to them instead of me! Also, there is another child with me. Step aside." Roughly shoving aside whoever failed to comply, Mother set down the child on the ground, then drew the kris out. "The children are cursed. I'm going to get rid of it. I want all of you to stand back." Not waiting for their compliance, Mother drew a cut on the back of the hand and devoured the mist that came out.
By the time he was done, he felt the nausea instantaneously, throwing his head back and facing away from the child's form. Fortunately, he held on to his stomach contents.
"H-hey, are you alright?"
A villager showing concern? That's new. They likely didn't know how to react to a man wearing someone's bones, given that the Order of the Serpent didn't exist in this world.
"The curse. Did you get rid of the curse?" Someone asked hopefully.
"Yes." He answered, Mother quickly rising up to her feet and went to the next child. "I'll be getting rid of the next one."
"Please hurry! Please help my son!" A woman hurried, urging him to the plump boy. "No matter what I do, he won't wake up!"
"Move aside." As the woman moved out of the way, he didn't bother looking for the source of the bite and quickly ate the mist as soon as Mother opened a slit wound on the hand. In the aftermath, he nearly lost his innards once again. His mouth was salivating more than usual.
Hacking them in his mouth and spitting it out, he moved to the next one—
There was no curse. One of the little one's he didn't attend on the hill is suddenly healthy, the breathing and facial expression even. The curse that should've been there was gone. How?
"Hrr." He shook his head. If the curse is gone, then good. He'll proceed to the next one. This makes things easy. Using his nose to pick out the ones with the curse, he found the shirtless boy to be the only one with a curse. Deciding not to question how the rest of the children are cured except him, he ate the curse afflicting the child. This time, he couldn't hold down his vomit. Surprisingly, there was blood in the retches even as they melted into the soil.
Great.
"That should be all of them." He informed as he spat out the blood remaining in his mouth, his feet straight while his upper body slouched, still trying to calm his aching innards. "The children are now cured."
"B-but there's still more you didn't attend."
"They have no curse." He replied, turning his eyes to the children. Each one looked better than their recent condition. But they still need care. The curse still took away most of their health. "Their curses were already gone." Rising to his feet and wiping his mouth, he finished, "Take them somewhere to comfortably sleep in and call for a healer. Their conditions need tending to." Then he turned to leave, intending to return to the violence.
"Good sir." He stopped upon being called, turning his eyes to the mother of the plump child, who was bowing her head gratefully. "Thank you so much."
"I am grateful too." A burly man placed a hand on his shoulder, smiling at him. "You saved my son."
"Me too." "Thank you." "Thank you, stranger." "My wife and I are very thankful."
The villagers crowded him and overwhelmed him with their thanks, patting his shoulders, back and shaking his other hands. Fighting himself from feeling the discomfort of all these gratitude that he never gets to experience often, he raised a different concern. "The Maid?" They looked at him in confusion. "The blue-haired maid. Rem. Where's Rem?"
"Lady Rem?" A youth wielding a staff parroted, "She still hasn't come back."
His eyes held their grimace, but the outrage inside boiled at what he heard, "What do you mean she hasn't come back?"
A man with a sword on his waist spoke up next, "We tried to bring her back with us but she refused. She said she was going to look for you. I don't know what she was thinking. Even though she healed her own wounds, I don't think she should go running around like that."
He was already running back towards the forest before the man even finished, and the villagers took too long to realize that his form was no longer in front of them, only a spot of ground being surrounded by them.
~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~
That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid! That fucking maid!
He should've known! He should've fucking known! That maid's head is full of nothing but shit! She's actually the dumbest living existence in this world! A waste of space, air and life itself!
Ugh! He should've killed her sooner! He should've killed her right then and there! He should've beheaded her when he had the chance!
A witchbeast is running towards him.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" With a sidestep and a swing of the sickle Mother held, its head was flying off while its body landed with a thick thud on the soil.
His body's already exhuming toxins, killing every living thing it touches from plants to animals. The ones pursuing him have already choked on their own blood. In his running speed that could nearly outrun a horse, this allowed him to outpace the chasing witchbeasts and killed them in the process, breathing the fumes he left behind. The ones in front of him are to be handled with a blade.
When he saw the top of the wand glowing without his will, he heard them.
{Leave her.}
{She's a lost cause, boy.}
{She tried to kill you. Why are you trying to get her back?}
{After all the things she tried to do to you, you're still risking your life to get her back?}
{Let her die. If you do this, you'll only regret it!}
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Of all times, why did they have to start speaking now!? They were tightlipped when he was forced into this world and now they're running their thoughts off!? "WE'RE FINDING HER AND THAT'S FINAL!"
{Is that really what you want?}
{You're not even doing this according to your emotions. You're still mad at her.}
{You want to kill her. Yet your thoughts are telling me you plan to save her. Why?}
{Tell us, boy. Are you trying to be a hero again?}
{Is that what's happening?}
"I SAID SHUT UP!" In his rage, when an entire pack of demons were running towards him, numerous pillars of bones rose up from the soil and impaled them from below. As fast as a single second, there were 10 fiends slowly sliding down on the stakes from above like a pig on a spit. Reveling in their deaths and their twitching forms, his growls were barely a whisper like he intended. "When I find that maid….! If she's dead, I will claim her soul. If she's alive, I will give her a hell worse than dying…! Do not even assume such things yourself! You're not the ones suffering the hell I went through!"
{You're wrong.}
{Yes. Since the day you imprisoned us, your thoughts have become our thoughts.}
{Your emotions are our emotions.}
{And in turn, your sufferings are our sufferings.}
{All of us have lived inside your wand long enough to know how you think.}
"Shut up and go back to sleep!" He shoved the wand back to his bone belt, shutting off the noxious air from blowing out of him anymore and quickly dashed through a large number of fiends, leaving them convulsing on the ground due to the tiny scratches on their hide thanks to his poisonous dagger of bone. "That maid's going to suffer when I find her!"
{Fair enough.}
{If you say so then I won't ask any more questions.}
{I'll believe that. Make her know suffering to its limits.}
{But do hold restraint. Your Mother wants a turn too.}
{Yes. It'd be boring if you killed her so quickly without arriving to the main course of your corporal punishment.}
Mother's every movement almost turning into a blur in the speeds she was maintaining, from the swing of her legs that covered 7 meters in every step to the swings of her 4 arms that felled every demon at arm's reach, she left dust, blood and countless bodies behind her. When she retraced her steps according to the trail of corpses from before, the sound of chains as well as the sound of bones being pulverized was slowly getting nearer.
And he witnessed the Maid herself being surrounded on all sides, not by the witchbeasts but by the skeletons he told to stay behind and kill everything they see. All the instructions they took was purely on the idea of seeing every living thing as an enemy, and that includes any living thing. The maid was one of them, therefore she became their target.
That's why he told her to go back. She'll be killed by his constructs if she followed.
But she did anyway.
And now look at her: scratched, scorched, bruised, bleeding and exhausted, not to mention that she was still cursed. Because of her stupidity, she's going to die from it.
If there's one thing he preferred in regards to people's stupidity: it's that people don't die from it, he kills them for it.
"STOP!"
As sudden as the command came out of his mouth, the constructs stopped moving, standing perfectly still like statues. The maid's weapon felled 2 skeletons before her mind realized that her supposed 'enemies' wasn't wailing on her anymore. While she looked around her in confusion, he noticed other parts of her current state: weakened, her eyes drooping, her breathing running short and her body shivering as if cold.
The curse is acting up on her. Oh, he warned her. He fucking warned her. Just what the fuck is wrong with this stupid bitch!?
"I told you….." His voice may have stopped growling but the stone cold layer on his tone indicated his utmost displeasure for her presence. "….I warned you, Maid…"
Her eyes quickly snapped to him as soon as he started talking, and the shock in her eyes couldn't be anymore infuriating. Was it really surprising for him to be here?
"….I warned you from following me…." Mother passed the sickle to his right hand. At the same time, his eyes burned bright as he stomped towards her, the mana starting to become tainted in his presence, "…You honestly don't know HOW TO LISTEN!"
Before a flail could fly and his form could be propelled towards her, a churning sound interrupted the confrontation. The sound of earth moving, mixing, grinding—it was coming closer. Turning their attention to the source of the sound, they saw it: a small puppy with a bald spot on its head, its miniature frame glowing yellow while surrounded by witchbeasts bigger than it. Its out-of-place existence is an immediate indication that this creature is not what it seems and it's not like any fiend he's killed.
Before any sort of action was taken, trees, soil, mud, rock, and innumerable plantlife were swept along in a torrent of earth, descending on both their positions, decimating the idle skeletons in the way.
He jumped out of the way, well away from the assault. But the maid didn't, the curse hampering her reaction time, and she was launched into the dark sky.
Her landing back to the ground was solid, her blood splattered the forest floors upon impact and the way her body flailed in the air indicated that she was beyond saving.
{Too late.}
{Too late.}
{Too late.}
{Too late.}
{Too late.}
The Sinful Spirits in his wand were instantly proven wrong.
He felt the atmosphere become even chillier, colder than what mortals would feel when he touches them barehanded. Even the surviving skeletons and the gathering witchbeasts felt it, looking around them apprehensively at who could herald such an ominous air.
He knew where it was coming from, and his eyes widened in shock.
The maid was rising to her feet, every movement indicating neither injury nor pain despite her battered state—no, her wounds have closed. The damages she took from his skeletons and the earthen assault, gone.
And as he watched the entire spectacle proceed, when the maid was turning her head towards the witchbeasts, he saw a very familiar sight from the side of her blood-splattered face.
A smile of sadistic ecstasy.
He didn't only saw himself from it, he saw the hellspawn he felled back in his world, particularly when they were slaughtering a village he was too late to save. The sick disgusting desire to revel in violence, whether in the midst of combat or not.
"Ha-ha...hahahahaha…." A glowing horn sprouted from her forehead.
The Spirits had warned him of what kind of existence the Maid alongside her sister was. Now he's seeing it for himself.
"She's a demon…." He whispered in dumbstruck awe.
Then hell itself broke loose.
Faster than he thought possible, she charged the petrified witchbeasts and rendered one body into a bloody mush under her foot. When its comrades realized the sudden danger in front of them, they charged the maid with claws and fangs bare, only to collide with the stomped dog's body and fall to the attack of a fast oncoming flail, killing them.
Her every movement, her fury, her bloodlust, her every sway, her screams and cackles—it was all too familiar. Refined, yet wild. Graceful, yet uncontrolled. Blood. Bodies. Entrails. Limbs. Heads. They were flying everywhere in her dance of death. The more the witchbeasts charged her, the ring of bodies around her became even more apparent.
It took him a moment to realize that he had been smiling.
Was he enjoying her enact slaughter? Was he ecstatic at the vigorous reaping of lives in front of him?
He couldn't bring himself to answer them as a witchbeast passed right by him, ignoring him as he stood in front of a tree and focused on the far more dangerous threat. Even his skeletons were given the same treatment, ignored. Then he realized that the number of fiends entering the fray were nigh-unlimited. There was no end to them. Glowing red eyes beyond count in the darkness.
Gritting his teeth, morphing his manic smile into a growl, he ordered the frozen skeletons, "Attack! Kill the witchbeasts! Them alone!"
A bruiser grabbed a passing hellhound's tail and swung its whole body to a tree trunk, breaking its spine. A trio of prowlers pounced at an equal number of witchbeasts in front of them, claw for claw and tooth for tooth. Every magi placed their hands together and emitted a spell that struck on all sides, burning, freezing, poisoning, and electrocuting any who were caught in their range. All warriors threw themselves into the group with matching ferocity, dead-set on murdering every hellhound they see.
For his part, he drew knife and wand before Mother hooked a running-by witchbeast beside him with a sickle and buried a kris into its eye. Another about to pounce on him is impaled from a bone stake rising from the ground. A whirling motion of his body rendered 5 attacking beasts into chopped pieces, their blood and guts staining his body but unseen from the light-eating robes. Krises spinning in Mother's back hands with unnatural speeds, a lower jaw was removed before a left swing dismembered another's tail. A maw bit into the right ankle but a sickle quickly beheaded the offending beast and a kris blocked a pair of jaws from sinking into his exposed neck before a second sickle bisected the entire body. Skirting around the towering stake with a body lodged at its tip, 6 more sprouted out of the ground to impale an entire pack, leaving their writhing bodies in the air as ornaments.
Despite the violence around him and the numerable amount of bodies around him, he kept his revelry from making him enjoy the moment while he calculated every movement of every enemy coming for him. The potential wildcard that was the maid right nearby posed a threat several times greater than the hellhounds around them, so he kept a very wary eye on her.
Then he felt the shift of mana, drawing to a single point. And this time, it wasn't the maid's horn doing it, as he realized upon its appearance. Following the direction of their movement, it was heading towards the small dog instead. It was casting another spell.
The maid seemed to have sensed it as well, throwing the iron ball high—and it left her open.
The consequence struck her as fast as she did it, the witchbeasts pouncing on her unguarded form and pinning her on the ground, jaws clamping down on her—
"WUUAAAAAARRGGHHH!‼!" Without even thinking, he and Mother went full ballistic towards the pack mauling her, black blades and shining steel rendering every hellhound in reach to bloody pieces. His magic went wild as well, taking every piece of bone in the area flying out of their shells of flesh and turning into lethal projectiles that pierced through every hide as they flew in all directions.
The numbers weren't dropping. Everything was falling into chaos. He was in a balanced state of mind since he started joining in the fight, but the sight of her being helplessly savaged destroyed his composure. It triggered something within him. Something painful and wrong, something he's went through or seen before and didn't want to experience again. It didn't push him to ecstasy, it brought him to the edge of hysterical rage, bordering to the point of insanity.
He disregarded finesse. Form and control was gone. His mouth was roaring like a beast, rivaling the bestial adversaries. He was mindlessly utilizing every killing tool in hand into everything in sight, his bone knife and glowing right hand felling one witchbeast after another—it was making him out of sync with Mother's movements.
To be fully unified, he and Mother must be of one mind, body and soul. Paraphrased in the teachings of the Order of the Serpent and enforced by them with good reason, 'Control your Emotions'. Maintaining his composure in every battle. That's how he always maintain his victory over his enemies, how his spells always ended up working for him instead of against him. The times where a dreaded disorganization fell upon them both because of losing his tranquility, it nearly killed him, every time.
And this time's no different:
His body's movements clashing against Mother's own, numerable bite wounds have landed on him thanks to the numerous openings on his impenetrable defense due to their lack of unity. His shoulder, through the gaps of his bone armor, his upper arms, they received a shred or a bite….
…and eventually, a single witchbeast exploited the one in a million opening: his neck.
The half-a-second it took for Mother to swing her sickle towards the beast's neck as the momentum of the beast threw him to his back, his throat had already lost most of its flesh, revealing the windpipe and shredded esophagus amongst the mutilated flesh spilling blood.
The hook points of the 2 sickles pried the dismembered head's mouth open, the fangs removed from his neck without any unnecessary aggravations and the blood immediately poured out.
In the midst of his panic and shock, he subconsciously summoned a bone wall around him, impaling any unfortunate witchbeast nearby with its numerous protrusions of sharp bone and caging him protectively from any assailant, but not for long. Mother quickly opened her chest and let him fall on the floor before she pressed her palms against his opened throat, which did little to stop the overflow of his lifeblood. But he was fortunately trained in the necessary arts of the Order in case something like this happens: he manipulated the flow of his blood from forcing themselves out of the opening, effectively stopping the bleeding and extracting the liquid clogging his oxygen and filling his lungs.
He is left with a gruesome wound on his neck that should be bleeding but the flow of blood to his brain was consequently cut off. He can still breathe but he won't last long enough before his consciousness gives away, inevitably cutting off the activated blood magic and making him bleed again. The protective barrier of bones cannot stop the witchbeasts from climbing over. And while Mother could effectively fight without him, her power is halved unless he merges with her. She won't survive once she's overpowered by numbers, even with her immense strength and constitution built of stone troll bones.
Then a howl of pain erupted from the top of the bone wall, the high-pitched shrill piercing through the ringing in his head as he tried to hold back the blood from going out of him. The growls that were coming from behind the barriers were being silenced, preceded by a blunt blow towards a body of flesh.
"No. No! Nonononono! Not like this! Not like this!" The voice came from right above him.
However the hell did the Maid managed to stand back up, have her numerous injuries healed and be inside the walls of bone with him, looking over him distressfully, he did not waste the opportunity as soon as he opened his eyes and saw her bloodied face in front of him.
He suddenly sat back up and threw his arms around her, tightly securing herself to him. Mother, knowing what she needs to do, quickly slipped in and secured him to her chest in turn before she holstered her krises, flicking the blood off beforehand and throwing the sickles to the void he opened, and leapt over the walls of ivory.
All 6 metal limbs moved in blurs of great speeds as she carried her son and the maid over to the safety of the village. Crashing through plant life left their forms grazed, injuries of the littlest scale adding to the pile, but it was a necessary sacrifice. Mother made sure her limbs were fully extended as she rushed to reach the other side of the protective barrier, never letting her son's hanging head hit the ground.
And when the village was just a meter away, she literally jumped, arcing at a height of 6 feet before 3 entities rolled on the dirt, surprising the present villagers who happened to be nearby and watched a 4-armed suit of armor made out of bones carry 2 bodies, 1 being legless and wearing robes that seemed to eat light.
The maid was quick to rise to her feet and hurry to the pale man's form lying sideways. Frantically pushing him to lie face up, she placed her glowing hands on his open throat. "Please be alright, please be alright, please be alright!" She kept repeating it, a mantra she hoped could save him.
The process was slow, the skin and tissue slowly closing as if time was being rewound. A whole minute it took for his wounds to become a scar. And when it was done, his eyes, full of nothing but unadulterated malice that burned green so brightly it could have passed for a lamp, lost to emotion and devoid of reasoning, shot open and suddenly had her pinned down on the ground, bone-crushing grips on both her shoulders and growling just like a beast.
His mouth gaped wide open, all of his teeth suddenly sharp, his mouth red and bloody, stained from the blood he coughed due to his neck wound, dripping on her face. The battle left her battered, her strength diminished, and thanks to the relief from the struggle of battle, she is ultimately exhausted. And without her horn counteracting the curse, its effects are immediately attacking her with freezing temperatures and debilitation. She can't do anything to fight back anymore. Her mana was being drained, from the curse and from the bottomless pool of green in his burning eyes devouring her, drinking her, absorbing what was left of her strength and life force...
….and the curse on her person was being eaten alongside it, flowing into his open mouth in the form of a black mist that was seeping out of the bite wound she received on her calf from the small dog when she went shopping hours ago, the same one who struck her with that river of earth and soil. She still felt weak and cold, but she could feel its influence going away, the spectral disease enshrouding her whole body congregating to a single point, her once bitten calf. When the last of it was gone, the pale man promptly collapsed on top of her, her crushed shoulders relieved from his grip.
Using what's left of her strength, she pushed the body of her and to the side, but not without gentleness. His condition was somewhat stable, breathing and having a heartbeat, both in steady rhythms. But his already-pale skin had gotten whiter, made apparent under the light of the glaring moon. As she was about to carry him to the Mansion, or at least a nearby house so he could lie down comfortably, despite her current state, something made her freeze.
It was a wavy knife held by a clawed, metallic hand, placed against her throat. A second blade's point was aimed at the side of her neck, held by a second hand. A third and fourth arm held her in place, one on the top of her head and one at the space between her shoulder and neck. They weren't constricting or crushing, but she felt imprisoned by the pressure exhuming out of the entity behind her.
"Warned you."
And to her surprise, an eldritch voice spoke out. It was a monstrous sound, as if multiple noises were strung together, mixed in incomprehensible ways that it managed to become a coherent sentence. It came from nowhere and yet everywhere at the same time.
She turned to the lying form in front of her.
And she saw a distinct but unfamiliar shade of green in the eyes that distinctly did not belong to the man named Emurdol Viandegroc as he was suddenly awake, staring back at her widened blue orbs.
His mouth wasn't moving, but she couldn't think of any other person who could manage something like this after witnessing his actions for the past several days.
"Not a threat he is, and you have ignored. No choice he left abode. Killed you if he did not. You discord Manor. You shatter unity inside. Leaves he to save unity. Leaves he to save you. And you wasted his leave."
She felt the enmity from the one holding her despite not being made of flesh. Because they weren't made of flesh, the hands didn't shake from holding down the urge to lash out, but Rem felt the frame's burning want to do so. "Sacrifice-ed he. Desires for togetherness he, but threw away. Happiness he threw away. All for your sake. Did not ask he for trust, but he yet wanted trust, especially Dear Maid. And now you force-ed him. Force-ed to risk life by going back into beast forest. Save you, endanger he.Obeyed had you, trusted had you only this once, he wouldn't have sacrifice-ed."
His face was blank, even the unearthly diction was very flat and even, but there was something behind it all that Rem could see and would never mistake for anything else: Maternal rage. An indignance a parent has for their child, an ire born from a wrong done to their beloved offspring. And every word of cold admonishment were like a million knives stabbing into her gut and heart. She remembered that fiery night. She remembered the organ that should have stayed firmly planted to her only family's forehead tumbling in the air as it was severed from a vicious cut. And she remembered what she thought that night, what she felt upon seeing it.
"…Mother should not have trusted you, Demon." The last word carried the only color of emotion. It was nothing but pure venom. A sentiment of pure spite and hatred. "My son shouldn't have trusted you."
She never changed.
Not. One. Bit.
It was at this moment that she realized that her eyes were already tearing, flowing down to her cheeks.
"For my son." The distinct eyes of green then closed and his head turned away, as if to spare him from the sight of the inevitable retribution.
The hand on her shoulder relocated to hold her lower jaw in a crushing grip, as if preparing to twist her neck.
The knives began to dig into her neck, drawing blood.
And then—