Chapter: 26
A Quiet Madness
Riptide, just like Percy, resembled the sea in some sort of beautiful way. The way it flowed through enemies like a gentle stream only to turn into a tidal wave with a well aimed lunge. With a flick of his wrist he could turn the sword into a furious storm of strikes that flushed enemies away.
Each and every one of his strikes sliced through enemies without effort. Every slice and cut caused the countless enemies to spray coloured blood in all directions. Creating a macabre rain of life and death, which in the most twisted of ways, was sort of beautiful.
As the son of Poseidon danced amidst the flower petals, the waterfalls and the ever shifting tree line, his sword danced with him in tandem, following his guidance and following the beats of slaughter. Every move they made together was beautiful in its carefulness and consideration. No moment or breath was wasted as every turn was channeled into extending the dance.
Each stab and slash of his blade cut through flesh. Penetrating eyes and severing limbs while Percy twirled and leaped between the spirits. Using the ichor that poured from the wounds to fuel his own performance while the chorus of screams and cries acted like an applause from a captivated audience.
His sword tore through the naiad's upper body. She exploded into a shower of water that splattered across his face and all over his body. But it only served to move him along further.
With a twirl Percy cut through a duo of dryads. They turned into petrified trees right before his sword would cleave them. However, the birch trees they turned into offered little resistance to the cursed blade. With more ease than an axe would it, Riptide went through the bark and separated their essence from their vessels.
Percy didn't even stay to look for there was no time for that.
Four other nymphs had already taken their fallen friends' place and prepared to lash out.
Between strikes, Percy tried to formulate any kind of semblance of cohesive thoughts.
How long had this battle been going on for?
He looked up at the sky.
The sun, just as everything around him, was constantly changing. As if it was a lightbulb being played with by a child, the light flickered between intensity and angle. He wasn't sure what was causing it, but keeping track of time was getting hard.
Around him the entire forest had turned into some kind of lucid dream where reality no longer held any meaning. Rivers flowed through the sky. Flower petals warped into spears and snowflakes shot through trees. Blades of grass reached to the sky only to be mowed down my massive scimitars.
Utter chaos. Nature and reality had lost all meaning in this forest.
Next to him a skeleton broke through the surface of the ground. Pale white bones and empty eye holes prepared to fight the nature spirits, only to be accidentally crushed by the swipe of a dragon's tail.
A nymph made a run for the pondering demigod.
The elf-like creature dashed past the spears of ice that erupted from the soil. She was bare feet and practically naked. The rags she wore showed signs of battle, or rather being at the receiving end of it. The once beautiful green eyes had a red gleam to it. The smell of insanity and rage clouded the air around her, making it almost shimmer.
Around her grass exploded with each step she took. The wood nymph retracted her arm and let out a feral scream.
From her palm erupted a green vine with thorns that shot towards Percy.
She seemed familiar to Percy. With her amber coloured hair, she could have been a family member of Juniper.
Snap.
With a loud crash Kampê landed in front of Percy. Crushing a couple of nymphs with her weight. The animal heads at the jailer's waist lunged and howled at the snarling nature spirits.
From above a strong wind picked up as ghost-like apparition appeared flying in the air. Electricity crackled around their forms. Lashing out violently with short bursts of exploding lightning.
The smell of ozone filled the air and the electric arcs that traveled between the wind spirits grew in ferocity. Kampê swung the scimitar overhead but it passed straight through them, as if they weren't there.
Before they could unload their blast a cold wind blew past Percy's body all of a sudden. For one moment all Percy could process was the sheer cold that made up his world.
A split second later the cold had vanished.
The ground they stood on, the animals, trees and water. It had all turned to ice. A crowd of frozen ice sculptures all frozen with manic expressions on their faces.
The wind spirits dropped from the sky and shattered like glass when they touched the ground.
Nico limped towards Percy and Kampê. He was injured. Claws and thorns had scraped against his arm and leg. His hair was disheveled and he was covered by the lifeblood of an unknown number of nymphs. Percy could see grass, ichor, flowers and tree bark blending with his own blood caked on his body.
Nico heaved a few heavy sighs. "Shit."
Percy nodded in agreement, not bothering to open his mouth but instead using this brief Intermezzo to spare his breath.
As he did he tried to let his gaze wander but all he was met with were the faces of countless dryads and nymphs. All stuck with what would be their final expression. Looks of fear. Terror and hopelessness.
Percy rubbed the dirt off his face and took a closer look while Kampê and Nico were discussing something.
He got closer to a statue.
It was a naiad. A river spirit. Now, frozen forever.
Percy felt something inside him sympathize with the naiad. As a river spirit, being restrained like frozen water would be equal to endless torment.
He got closer to the spirit's face. She had the appearance of a young girl. Maybe 13 years old.
Her eyes were wide open. Her mouth froze in a scream.
What had seemed like the face of mania seconds earlier, now looked like despair.
The statues around him stared back with guilt ridden faces
"I'm sorry," Percy whispered quietly.
He looked at the sword in his hand. Red blood stained it from the tip to the handle where it traveled up the length of his arm until it spread across his body like a nefarious infection.
"You okay?," Kampê asked.
Before she could receive an answer the snow goddess arrived.
"The others will be coming soon," Khione strode into view. As always, her appearance was impeccable, god like. But beyond the layer of shallow beauty Percy could find cracks within her appearance. She was breathing a bit too rapidly and her eyes flickered too much for her not to be worried.
"More?" Percy asked. "How many?"
"Not too many," Nico answered. "We killed about half of them."
With a monotone voice Kampê answered, "Half of all the nature spirits in this area." She swung her blade to clean it. "Exciting."
"Can't we just set this forest on fire?" Nico suggested. "I'm not sure how much longer I can go."
"We keep going until all of them are dead," Khione said. "That's the only way. The Maenads keep following us until either of us perishes. A fire might attract the attention of the gods." The snow goddess shot Percy an odd look.
Percy sighed and shook his sword clean.
He felt dizzy. The smell of ichor and the ease with which he cut through the spirits was making his head spin.
The silence he briefly enjoyed was, as all things, cut off abruptly as the voices came back.
From the distance he could hear a melody start to swell. Flowing past the statues and frozen trees was the sound of a hundred voices singing a song. The language they sang was older than Greek but he could understand the lyrics just fine.
It was the song of madness.
Percy had heard about it from Khione and Nico. But he didn't quite understood how terrifying a song could be, that was until he heard a thousand worn out voices humming the same sickly sweet melody.
Percy knew he was safe from the sound but the song caused a primal part of his brain to stir.
Everything not human that heard the song would sing along with the melody, becoming part of the contagious play. This had eventually led to swarms of nymphs that would grow in size and devour anything that wasn't part of their chorus.
Dionysus' gift to humanity, Percy supposed.
It was nothing but bad luck that caused them to cross paths on their way to Elysium.
He raised his sword as the song of ancient derangement turned into a collection of tormented screams and cries.
Kampê raised her scimitars and looked at the storm of dryads. She briefly turned to look at Percy. "Stay close to me."
Nico raised his Stygian sword. The blade glowed a little, as if it was about to be fed.
Khione chuckled. "Let's make this a game,"
"Huh?"
"Whoever kills the most wins," She said with a grin. When she saw Percy's incredulous look she shrugged.
"Might be something to take your mind off this mindless butchering of nature." Dramatically she cracked her knuckles. A long and majestic sword made out of ice appeared between her hands.
"We're going to kill them all the same. Might as well make it fun."
Percy looked at Kampê and Nico. Neither seemed to object to the idea or the absurdity of it. Kampê gave Percy an apologetic shrug before turning her gaze back to the wind spirits that rampaged towards them.
"One,." Khione suddenly said as a spike of ice broke through the ground and spliced through a wind spirit. "Two and three" The spike branched out like a tree, penetrating through two other spirits near it.
There was no time to respond. A frantic wood nymph was already charging towards Percy.
He sighed and cleaved straight through her middle.
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Percy didn't win that day.
A/N There wasn't much lore in this chapter. Felt like slowing things down a little bit before we go back to hard hitting moments and pain. So yeah, expect one more slice of life chapter before we go back to the plot.
Also, I just wanted to say, I really appreciate it that you read this story. It started out as just a challenge and a concept, but apparently people really dig it. I kind of put a lot of my own effort into it as well and I hope it shows.
Anyway, that was it for today.
See you.
-CaptainMoonShine-
GuestCC3:
How long until they get the answers from Zeus about why Olympus started doomsday against all of civilization?
A: We are probably at 60% of the story before we reach the final chapter.
The Gentleman with a Mustache:
Fucking hell! I did not expect this! You really do an amazing job in showing just how hopeless everything is. It's scary.
A: Thank you so much for your praise. I am just trying to write a 'horror' is fic in this fandom. Glad people like it.