Speech = ``...´´
Thoughts = [... ]
ºº
The tip of her blade cleaved the head and shoulders of the closest man clean off. Sending the mans upper half spiraling out of control into the air while the rest of his body stumbled forward, still clinging to the weapons he had bore to face her. Walking just past her for a moment before what was left of the mans body burst up in eldritch light as bluish flames fanned out from the edges where the blade had made contact with her foe.
Scarring the soul before melting the body that started to fall apart in seconds. His blood now nothing but a puff of red smoke that weakly trailed upwards into the air.
A horrifying scene to be honest, yet one she did not pay it any heed. Her face a stoic mask that did not betray whatever thoughts lay underneath her icy cold eyes as she kept on moving forward.
She swung her blade to the left, yet her feet dashed to the right. Making the arch of her flaming sword push to the side the closest bandits blade away from his chest, before the edge of her blade bit mercilessly into it. Punching through his flesh and bone like nothing before with a simple twist of her wrist redirected her entire swing, sending her blade in the opposite direction in less than a second.
Right through the double edged axe of another bandit.
She heard the weapons edge crack and shudder before even the first chinks formed all over it like a spiders web. Then it exploded, violently a moment after. Shards of steel flying in every direction by the sheer force of the colliding strikes as a result. And yet she dodged them all with contemptuous ease with nothing but a sidestep.
Tumbling in a way that looked sloppy, but could not have been more precise…! Something that could not be said for the man standing before her, time slowing down for a moment as she regarded the way his eyes morphed into a horrified, stupefied expression at the impossible prospect of having his weapon shatter like glass..
His face and throat way too exposed for his liking to the flying shards that now dug into his flesh like hungry termites. With one of them, much to his dismay punching through his left eye socket and reaching as far as to scratch his brain.
She ended his suffering with a single swing of her blade, decapitating the man in an instant in one swell swoop.
Before the head fell to the ground four more men had died. Her body nothing but a blur to their senses, the lightning of death they could not see, but could try trail the devastation she brought by the lingering blue/purplish glow of her blade as magic continued to sparkle through the entire length.
Tethering the air in the scent of burnt silver and out-world magic and turning her path more akin to a comet sailing through the dark, starry skies.
Only that this kind was not one they could witness for too long...
Her blood ran hot, like molten magma pulsing through her veins. Igniting her bones and muscles into action.., magic pulsating through each and every inch of her body like as if she had turned into a living, breathing, walking heart.
And yet she strangely found no discomfort...
Each time her blade sunk onto their bodies and robbed the light from their eyes, she felt….better? Stronger? It was hard to say…, but it was not like she had the time and skills to focus on such banal matter when her life was on the line. Or in this case, the lives of others...
She parried a blade to the side, pushing a man away from her once he stumbled on the dismembered torso of one of his friends. Stretching her free hand forward a moment later to grab the wrist of another that had tried to sneak on her, The pair of old, yet razor sharp knives held between his knuckle's hanging dangerously close from her face.
But utterly useless when the sound of ligaments and bones snapping reaching her ears. As her grip became tighter and tighter, turning flesh into mush in mere seconds. Something that a girl like her should not have been able to do…, but her new given strength seemed to grant her.
A gift he had granted her…
Another thing to be grateful for...
And so she did, freeing what remained of the fiends hand, blood spilling out through what was more akin to a cord of nerves, bones and flesh fused together than an actual wrist before she slammed the back side of her pommel into the side of his head.
But much to her surprise, it was not the mans mad stumbling and tearing squabbling between his pained moans that stop her from reaching her goal, but rather her size…..making what should have been a direct hit onto his head, only reach his jaw...
Ripping it off like the door-frame of an ancient door which hinges had not been able to support its weight. Leaving only his tongue to linger in the air now that it was exposed to the elements, like a bloodstained snake poking its head out from its nest.
A gruesome display of violence…., much more than she had actually intended, but it would have to do.
The bleeding would kill him before he found any sort of aid, to remain there would be just a waste of time and breath. With that thought she disengaged from him, kicking him for good measure with her slender, yet surprisingly strong leg before setting herself for the search for more active targets.
She would not have to look far…
Her eyes squinting into two glowing stars as they caught sight of another small group of evil men…, rallying around another madman who appeared to be their makeshift leader once their true master had abandoned them to preserve his own life.
Her eyes blazed into different hues of red and blue, swirling vortex of her intolerance of their very existence. That however, only lasted for a moment before she returned back to her calm demeanor.
Alpha brandished her sword to her side, holding it tightly with her two hands this time.
She had imagined this moment would finally come one day…
A dozen times, a hundred times, a thousand times... day and night through these last few days this second chance had given her. She had dreamed of this day as much as she had dreaded it.
The day she would test her mettle..and shed out what little uncertainties may have lingered inside of her from her old, naive little self...and confront for the first time those who had trampled her life down their feet in their greed for power.
She dashed forward, dust left in her wake as she bolted right towards this new group of men approaching from her left.
The air brushing its cool touch against her skin, playing with her hair as it now floated behind her by the sheer speed in a golden cascade that glinted under the moonlight.
Her eyes narrowed to a half lid, calculating the distance between her and them. Counting the steps left…, the seconds still ringing and rapidly passing by as the bandits form grew larger in her sight.
It was not much…, just a handful of them. She bit her lip, but not of apprehension…, but rather a faint wave of excitement.
Five…
Four…
Three…
Two...
Before the last digit reached the depths of her mind she stomped her feet into the ground, bringing her her motion to an abrupt halt, from hundred to a zero in an instant.
Something that would have strained her body rather heavily in the best of cases, but she had come to realize that her physique had been upgraded from what she remembered.
And she would not waste it..
Using the very momentum of her body still trying to move forward to tilt her body in a three hundred and sixty degrees turn. Flaming sword bursting into a new cascade of light as she unleashed a sole barrage of energy at their direction.
Something that perhaps could have only harm one or two of the men, had her sudden stop not created an ample arc akin to a crescent moon. The excess of energy that had been building over the entire process she had infused her weapon of choice now spiraling out from the blade, acting more like a whip than an actual projectile.
One that did not only tore through flesh and bone.., but it annihilated in its entirety. Searing through the air faster than any arrow or spell had any right to be, the tempest of blue and purple struck like a hammer at the entire group.
All at once.
All gone in a heartbeat...
The very heat of the magic crackling through the air overheating the cloth and mail into molten slag over their skins before it tore through their guts and spines, blood splashing out all over the buildings and those that had been standing behind them, too far away from the slash, but not enough to escape the wild spray of blood.
Showing much to everyone's surprise and horror how even outside their corporeal vessels, the thick, scarlet liquid was boiling and burning anyone now drenched in it as if it was acid.
Or perhaps it was….as she watched tear and holes form as the scarlet liquid dug deeper and deeper all wherever the substance had landed. Scorching and rupturing steel while peeling of flesh with the same ease.
She didn't have much time to ponder about what effects her abilities had in her foes however as her ears twitched at the imminent source of danger which in less than a few seconds would prove prophetic.
That however did not mean that she would forget about it, this...would need a careful examination.
To understand what she had been given…
So that she could help him all the better..
That last thought and desire granted her a sense of relief and strength she did not know she needed.
She swung her blade to the side, then horizontally in a controlled upper arc, cutting a stray of arrows scourging the air for her. Something that she normally would not have been able to do, but she had come to learn that she only needed to swap away the darts that would collide with her no matter what while the rest would miss her entirety.
Her eyes sharpened, localizing the source of the attack…
Not that far away from her, just twenty, perhaps even thirty meters in-front of her they stood. A two story house that had most of the wall facing her broken down, allowing for a line of men to form up and shoot from the elevated position without the need to hit their own men in the process.
She would have applaud their creativity, they clearly had some skills after all...trying to play support while the rest took to the field.
But it would not save them from her wrath.
Not if she had anything to say about it..!
Dodging to the side in a clean and smooth motion the second attempt, allowing for the shafts to bury themselves in the dusty soil or in the darkness of the night. Loosing track of them, but never of the weak buzzing the feathers did once they were sprung from their strings.
She started to sprint towards her foes…, the ground cracked, leaving shallow dents in the wake of her path. The air became cold, aching stabs in her lungs, the buildings around her turned into mismanaged and poorly drawn blurs at the corners of her eyes.
She could feel her lips growing stiff.
She could hear the bowstrings growing tenser as they were reading them to fire.
She could her the trepidation of their hearts beating like drums of war against the cold, chilling winds surging through the empty streets. How ironic..that the faster she went, the more time seemed to slow around her. A strange melody reaching out to her as she did...
It was cold and hot, painful...yet soothing. It was chaotic, yet there was a sense of order between the glitching sounds humming and brushing against.
She did not repudiated the dissonance, she accepted it…
She made it hers…even though she did not know what made her do that. It just felt right.
And just as she started to see red lines materialize around her she hopped into the air, pushing herself off the ground. Breaking out from all that scenery and slow moving world she had just throw herself at and returning back to her own.
Just an instant before they set loose the third.
Those that had been trying to get a good look at her to properly shoot had been busy trying to make heads of what was that blur of light speeding at them before it seemingly catapulted itself into the air like a massive, mutant frog.
Their eyes widening in surprise as she became airborne for a brief moment, her body a glowing dart flying right at them. Ready to bring righteous retribution.
Their fear was well funded as she landed like a meteorite on the pack of archers that had tried to find shelter through the buildings top floors. Her legs shuddered for a moment as they took on the impact once they collided with the ground, but it was soon enough ignored by more pressing matters.
She had a job to do.
``What the hell men..!? Kill her! Kill heeeerr-ARRRGHHT!´´
The mans lying throat was skewered before he could even finish the sentence, blood pouring out down the blade between spit and bile before the blade was yanked violently from his throat in a ragged angle.
A man tried to grab her from behind, but she merely kicked him in the leg, the thing bending in the opposite direction with a sick crack. She did not need to look to realize that his bones had shattered and clawed their way out his leg.
Instead, her hand stretched towards him, graving him by the collar then and pushing in-front of her. Turning the man into an improvise meat-shield that protected her of the few men that had managed to lock another shaft from their quivers.
The thumping, wet sound of the myriad of projectiles tearing through flesh and bone and the pained moaning and hitched breaths slipping through the mans dying lips were not something she enjoyed, but that did not stop her.
Kicking the corpse, sending its body stumbling forward, downing two men at once as if they were bowling pins, but not before graving at the last second the cold, roughed form of the handle of a knife hanging from one of the many sheaths attached to her victims hips. Using the moment of distraction the body made when it hit the ground to turn around on her heels, tossing the dagger from her hands into the closest target she could find.
The exposed, hairy chest of a bald man..., the thing spiraling through the air before lodging itself to the hilt into the mans chest once it reached its target with a soft thud. Just right onto his heart.
Not one to waste her chance nor her time, she snapped her arms up. Feeling the energy flowing into the blade swell back into her for a moment before exploding back into its killing edge, her eyes glinting even brighter for a moment, making those who had started to turn their attention back to her flinch and take a step back as they tried to pull out the dark spots forming in their corneas.
Then she lunged…
Twisting in the air as if she was avoiding invisible bolts of steel and magic towards the panicked group of men. Her sword finding the comfort of the touch of flesh once more as it lanced through one, two, three of them, twisting the blade left and right afterwards, turning them into nice sliced giblets…
Pulling away from the dried cloud of overheated blood and scorched flesh with a smooth and yet crude yank, she tilted her head backwards, dodging a decapitating strike that would have left her a head smaller than she already was.
A dribble of sweat sliding down her forehead, her heartbeat beating faster as she saw the edge missing her by a breath, but it only lasted a moment as she contorted and twirled, slamming her elbow into the mans chest, spit and what air had remained in his lungs now pouring out from his mouth like vomit.
Close…
He was too close to slice him, so she smacked his skull with the back end of the pommel of her sword. Bones cracking and splintering as a result, making the mans eyes water and then dim as he fell to the ground like a puppet.
Three more rushed her before the man drew his last, roaring war-cries through the room either in a pathetic show of bravery or perhaps they were the actual terrified answers of men scared at the prospect of death. Of her…
Willing to do anything to postpone and end such threat at all cost even as their own bodies sneered at their own idiocy.
Whatever it was, she did not care. Her focus sharpened like the edge of her blade as she dashed forward, right into the center of their formation.
She could see the weakness in their formation, the sluggishness of their movements...and their non existent plan of battle that did not include swinging their blades wildly in any hopes to strike her down.
They could have been a dozen or a hundred, but they would not even be able to lay a finger on her with such poor execution of their aproach.
She slammed into the first man like a bullet, her fist punching through the old breastplate he bore and tearing a large chunk of it in the process, the wet, crouching sound of something else popping underneath speaking of what her eyes could not see before he was sent railing down the stairs like a man sized bullet.
Leaping in the air a second later, vaulting over the swings of the remaining men, that clawed at the air in vain before she drove herself into the center mass of the second. His body falling into four neat pieces as a bloody X was carved through him..
The third man tried to slam a maze into her hand, but she merely punched the thing aside into the mans open mouth, his teeth breaking down, jaws dislocating out from their hinges, flesh tearing as it was pushed it to their limits.
The act made her flinch for the first time in pain as her skin became sore by smacking a spiked head of steel so brazenly. Soon enough bruises would start to form around the aching limb.
Slowly...she turned around to regard who was left of the group of archers she had come to dispatch.
Finding that there were more than she had presumed at first, but not enough for it to make a difference.
Their entire expressions afterwards were of terror as she brandished her blade up once more, her eyes closed for a moment, only to reveal the coldness dripping from them.
Dead men…
They were dead men and they knew it before they were turned into them…
``Goddess forgive us...´´
Was the last thing she could hear from one of them before things became a blur..as something else clouded her judgment.
Limbs flew over her head, screams echoed inside her skull as men desperately tried to keep their guts from pouring out from their bellies. Steel cracked and echoed with each swing, sparks of light and blazing fumes of blue and purple lighting the room with each savage strike.
Blood gushed and poured and slipped down and turned the very floor they stood in a slippery bloody mess that was impossible to stand, let alone move without tripping.
But she did not stop her hacking and slicing, not even as her clothes became drenched into the arterial fluid, not as she felt their moans of pain and begs of mercy repeat on and on as she lanced through them.
Not even blinking or flinching when she felt the warm, sticky fluid splash on her face and slid down her chin, coloring her pale skin with the bright hue of their life source. Her lips turning into the ghost of a wicked grin which threatened to reveal the row of razor sharp teeth that she hid below them..
No matter how much she tried to quell those feelings and return to her mask of placid calm and control.
But above all things, no..., she would never stop.
Because deep down she knew that they never would. Not after they had come this far to find them, not after she crushed them for all the lives they had taken. Not before she made all their sins laid bare for the world to see and then shove her blade into their black hearts.
…
…
The room was silent at last, as she was left the last remaining soul in the entire structure once it had been vacated of any other life form…
She took a deep breath, then another. Her face creased, her nostrils flared as she took in the stench of fresh blood spilled. Hands clenching the handle of her sword... while the length glowed in a dangerous, almost predatory desire.
Waiting….to be put to further use.
Her eyes hardened at the thought, her hand clenching her blade more tightly. Only stopping once that desire was stomped and crushed like a boot would do to a worm...
But that did not stop for a questions to form through the emptiness she had procured.
She brushed the specks of blood from her face with her hand, smearing the red menace in the process, some of it reaching her mouth, making her grimace at the taste of iron that came afterwards.
She grit her teeth...more annoyed than angered by it. Or at least...that was what she believed.
Even as she had killed all these men, she knew that they were people who had thoughts, wishes and desires of their own. Who had either made friends or had families in some place…, waiting for them.
And yet she felt nothing. Nothing at all as she claimed their lives...
Not shame..
Not horror…
Not even disgusts...
It was as if she was stomping on ants..and not living, thinking sentient beings.
It was…..confusing.
She turned around, gazing now at the now limp bodies who had yet to lose their warmth, hearing the slow, ghastly humming of blood sliding through the cracks of the wooden floor.
None here would be able to answer…
How troublesome.
She had first questioned what enemies could have come here to threaten Rose, Thinking at first the answer to be monsters that could have sneaked onto the town…, but the closer she got the sooner those ideas were dispelled from her mind.
Her face was creased with lines, anger licking at the edges of her stoic mask. Even if she tried to quell down her feelings and concentrate...the mere mentioning of those monsters wearing human skin was enough to rattle her up. Her memories and past experiences still fresh in her mind, having scarred her soul far further than she would have liked.
But what could they have been doing here? Why of all times they had come here?
They were looking for something she deduced.., but what? What could have drawn the attention of this band of mischief's and brigands in this place abandoned by the gods themselves?
There was not money to steal here nor people to terrorize, this location was also too far away to attack other settlements...so why come here of all places? The thought that their paths had crossed by mere happenstance never crossed her mind.
It took her a few seconds to realize that she had approached the matter from the wrong angle. That it was not a matter of what they sought…, but rather who they were looking for. And that was definitely Rose...
But why?
Were they the same group that had kidnapped her in the past? It made sense that they would look after their treasured victim once they realized she had escaped…, but that could not be true if what the blond girl had told her about her rescue.
And then it came the fact that Reaper had chosen to aid her…, that he had made all this effort to help her...and she did felt something similar each time they held hands.
A similarity..
And whatever that was...she was sure that the cult had a hand or the entire arm on it. To think that she had almost fallen by their disguises as they tried to appear as mere bandits...
The cult really was cunning….she really had much to learn before they were truly defeated.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt a new wave of sensations wash over her, or in this case...boom in between her ears. Fear, dread and raw anger...
The emotions were mixed terribly, not making sense from which one started and the other ended, growing in intensity as they came closer and closer…
But above all things...she knew they were not her own.
It was then the doors leading to the now ruined room opened violently with a kick as the men that remained tried to come to the rescue of their fellows, only to find their greasy remains flow down the stairs.., but the heavy stench of iron still remained in the air.
She could feel the fear slid inside their hearts like water through cracks, poisoning, festering inside..clawing at them, gnawing at them like hungering beast. And then-
``Y-you...you fucking monster! What have you done..!?´´
``What the fuck are you..!?´´
``Oh god, is that...are those their brains dude?´´
``Oh, I am gonna be sick…´´
``Way ahead of you mate...´´
She took a deep breath, not deigning them a single answer as she slowly crouched into position.
There was no need to waste her breath anyway…, this would be over soon.
One, two, three strikes from her blade quickly followed through, the steel searing the air by the sheer speed it sailed through it.
The first one to meet their cold touch lost a hand at the wrist, then half of his cranium, helmet included. Gray matter oozed out from the skull seeping blood.
The second had their throat cut so deeply his head hinged away from his chest like an open casket.
The third, having placed a small oak shield between them to cover himself from her wrath shouldered so hard, that he was taking from his feet by the sheer force of her arms motion and sent crashing through the wall.
Four men remained…
They stared at her in frantic panic, breathing hard at the hectic, chaotic nature of their battle. Shivering as their eyes met hers. She frowned in contemplation, aiming her blade forward, at them..before she took a step forward.
But just as she did the thunderous, cavernous sound of a dying beast shrieking through the air. Catching her by surprise as it echoed endlessly, not from one direction, but from all around her. Cracks tearing and spreading through what little walls remained standing and even the floor she was standing.
The building was breaking down.., her little debut here having push the structure far more than it could afford.
With that last thought ringing in her head she bolted out through the large cavity in the barely standing rooftop from where had first come inside the building. Just in time as what frail pillars had managed to hold onto the buildings already damaged structure crumbled, and with them...whatever and whoever was left inside.
She rose her arms, shielding herself from the dust sent towards her once the entire thing slumped down in a small mountain of debris, but it did not stop her from coughing once she sensed some of it finding its way into her lungs.
Grimacing as she did, but it did not last long though.
The dust dissipated after a few seconds, revealing that no one else had managed to get out from there in time like she had. Probably having been crushed into mush under all of that…
Slowly, she tilted her to the side. Her eyes looking around for any sign of life that was hostile. She found none, rather she was met with more silence.
Not the eerie kind…, but the solemn one. Like standing over a graveyard….the emptiness giving her way to have time for her own thoughts.
She closed her eyes, the lines in her face softening as she tried to bring her heartbeat to a steady pace...
If no one else was coming to face her, and she could not hear anyone trying to run away..then did this mean she was….the last one standing?
That it was over…?
…
She fought back the urge to chuckle, bringing a hand to her lips.
As if the realization of her surroundings had echoed in her mind, the sparkling of magic finally died out. Those bluish flames snuffing out from existence, leaving nothing but a marred, burnt out shard of steel she had used to brutalize into oblivion anyone who dared stand in her way...which now started to disintegrate into dust between her own fingers.
The weapon unable to keep its integrity anymore after all the energy had pass through it…
In a sense, it was surprising that it had not broke before now. It would have surprised her a great deal indeed...had she not felt a wave of fatigue wash over her, dulling such emotions.
As if one by one the muscles start to deflate. The magic starting to wane back into her body. To recharge..though she did not know that. Not yet..
What she knew was that she felt tired…a terrible weight now hovering on her small shoulders, sipping out her strength the same way a child would drink through straws their favorite orange juice.
Where had all that strength she had felt through the battle go now? She shook her head a few seconds later, rationalism the situation. Attributing those strange sensations to merely the result of having her body exposed to an ever growing tide of adrenaline..
Which appeared that by now had ran out…
And yet…, she tilted her head backwards. Her eyes slowly peering into the starry night…meeting the crimson orbs of Reaper who was floating a dozen meters above her. Her lips widening into a timid smile.
Not taking into consideration the way his hand was clutching the neck of a man, or how he dropped him into the ground after crushing his throat.
She sighed in relief, not knowing when she had been holding her breath...nor what had her so worry about just a moment ago. His dark clad form bringing form calid feelings to brew in her chest.
If he was here then it meant that everything was fine.
Rose was fine…..
Her friend...was safe and sound…..and that was all that mattered.
ºº
Reaper had watched the whole thing develop below him. His unblinking eyes gazing at each and every twist and step she took like a raptor would when stalking their prey, yet there was a hint of amusement in their burning depths as he watched the display of one sided brutality as if was some sort of sport..with him as its only spectator.
A dark reminder of his nature….though one that went by ignored this time as ideas that had been pushed aside..were once again put at front his line of thought at the results laying still in poodles of still fresh blood.
``Impressive...´´
He commented to no one in particular. The wheezing sound of the toxins pouring through the jangling tubes almost masking the sound be lost to him, had Aurora not looked at him with a sense of pride and satisfaction for a brief moment.
The purple haired witch grinning a wicked, yet satisfactory smile to herself while she patted his left pauldron in a playful manner.
Was she happy? Did she felt a sense of entitlement because Alpha had her blood...? Or was something else at play..? Whatever it was, it felt as if she was having a great time if that "I told you so" expression that was warped on her face was anything to go by.
Thinking about it, he choose not to delve onto such matters. There was no need to waste time in focusing on the ghosts antics. Instead he choose to focus on the star of the show...
This was her first taste of blood. The first act of violence of her new life…..and she had not disappointed his expectations,
Not in the slightest..
There had not been a second of hesitation, brief cloud of doubt or even any sense of sluggishness in her composure from a wayward sense of morality that voiced her acts as wrong to ran through her body. No, there had been no such thing…
There had been conflict however in a different direction, but her need to control such things had not derailed her end results.
Like a machine, she had pushed through any obstacle set before her...
Fast, quick and decisive...if there were doubts of her determination then they were finally gone. No matter how much that galled him...or how a small voice nagged at him to stop her and send her off and be done with this charade...
...
…
There was room for improvement though.
ºº
A/N
Here comes another chapter, I hope you like it. Feel free to comment to give some feedback. Any commentary will be appreciated.