Page 37

Time after time, Krahe lashed at Semzar, dumping atrocious sums in mescalt ammunition into his barrier all the while lashing at him and herding him around the ballroom. Finally, she spent the final bullet in the clip on a Six Trees Killer, timing it to precede a nearby burster’s detonation as the real attack. The moment she pulled the trigger, Krahe had already conjured a clip of dregshot alternated with mescalt and was moving to slam it into place. The grenade approached the space above Semzar’s head, the new clip pushed the old one out, and a rapid sequence of events took place. First, he dropped his barrier. Second, a bright-red flash issued from his hand. Third, a shockwave of swirling scarlet force burst out of his being, spreading out in a spherical shape. It cracked the floor tiles, swept up a violent gust of wind, and flung furniture across the room as if it were weightless—and much in the same way, Krahe’s bursters were flung aside as well.

Krahe hoped it was a one-time consumable, but knew it was unlikely. Were that the case, the form factor would have betrayed it. If she was unlucky, the ring could perform that feat on demand. She theorized that the ring either guzzled thauma to recharge, or at least had a cooldown between uses. That could not be confirmed, so she had to continue as before, keeping the ring in mind as yet another factor. Semzar had so graciously brought out one tool after the next, it was only right for her to do the same.

She shot the Pattner at her left arm, the empowered talisman plastering across her blackened muscle. In a mere moment, with a single mighty eruption of power from the Implosion Furnace, a mass of red-black pyroclast enveloped her left arm and solidified into the form of a monstrous appendage.

“Wandrei Faust!”

GRUDGE-FILLED GRASP

DEATH BORNE UPON CLAWS OF HATE

BLACK HAND OF DESOLATION: WANDREI FAUST

The monstrous claw ripped free, careening headlong towards its prey with the command to reach optimal standoff range outside his barrier’s effective angle before firing. As it flew, Krahe wasted no time and unleashed a prolonged burst of Cinder Gatling beams, taking the opportunity to tear away at the mafioso’s wards. It took him a second and a half of their angry strobing to get his barrier back up, and by then, his wards’ reactive flaring had grown feeble indeed. His wards now had a gaping hole in the right side of his chest, about 20cm across. The Wandrei Faust, having reached overhead, flared with theurgic fury and spewed forth a screech of yellow killing light. Despite all expectations, Semzar ate nearly the full brunt of it. The flesh scoured from his side so far one could see his organs. Clutching his side, Semzar leapt backwards with a howl of pain. An angry fist scattered the nearly spent Wandrei Faust into a puff of glassy ash.

That injury, despite its grisly nature, was not a disabling one. It presented an ideal weak point to aim for, but the baneworm shifted his tendrils and used them to restrain his meatsuit’s organs at the expense of his left arm, which lost much volume. That loss of volume and pure physical power didn’t impact the performance of his ranged attacks. If anything, it made them harder to deal with by altering their timing.

Once more, the battle settled into a back-and-forth. Krahe still questioned why he had used the ring so early instead of waiting until he could affect the Wandrei Faust, whose Standoff-mode range was shorter than the ring’s maximum effective range. Did it not work on attacks and constructs of Theurgic nature? Besides being rather generous, that explanation assumed that Semzar knew the nature of Wandrei Faust. The much more likely reason was that Semzar had been holding his mental trigger finger on the ring all along and ended up pulling it on instinct without deeper consideration.

Her second Wandrei Faust met its end swiftly, shot down by such an overkill barrage that Krahe was still happy with the outcome thanks to the opening Semzar had given her. Disappointingly, she had to use that opening to purge entropy instead of ripping into him, but she planted another bullet in his barrier to not let him off easy. Krahe allowed a few moments to pass without making any significant moves, half to test whether the ring had a cooldown, and half because she was struggling to keep up. As drugged as she was, the pain of her body breaking down didn’t impede her, but the increasing loss of mobility could not be denied. She increasingly had to rely more and more on diving and skimming to compensate, cutting into her ability to mount assaults of sufficient intensity to pressure Semzar.

She sacrificed a third Wandrei Faust alongside a burster and a Six Trees Killer to keep the bastard occupied. He shot down this Faust too, whilst leaping out of the range of the two others before they could detonate. While that took place, he clenched his fist twice, accompanied by flashes of red from the Crimson Star Ring. They were much dimmer than before, bright enough to see, and Krahe observed no tangible shockwave emission. From this, she inferred that he was mentally smashing the button while the ring was still recharging, having both seen and done similar things in the past.

Krahe considered using the Calbian Molting Tonic, but the problem was she would need time to do so, and it would likely require more time after that to take effect. Storing it in the Kenoma Pocket had cost her a significant chunk of entropy, so retrieval would be the same, and she would have to line it up just right to get between the Liminal Coil’s abnormally shaped ribs, exactly into her heart. In short, the same opening needed to inject it would also be wide enough to finish Semzar off.

It wasn’t long before Krahe lined up another decisive strike, blasting herself through the air and using a fourth Wandrei Faust as a distraction. She rendered her landing abnormally smooth by astro diving, but as she slid away from him, she skimmed into the floor—just far enough to trigger the kinetic rebound. In the blink of an eye, she was suddenly sliding towards him, fusion-forming a Tar-tendril with a burster in its tip as she transitioned from sliding to a low sprint.

He shot down the Wandrei Faust as expected, but before her explosive tendril could reach him, there came another flash from that ring. From this close, she could clearly see its two shockwaves spreading out, tearing at the flooring and tossing aside furniture as they went. She immediately realized she had made a severe mistake—she couldn’t adjust her course quickly enough to avoid the shockwave altogether.

Thus, the answer was to skim through it. Spanning no more than thirty centimeters in thickness, surpassing the twin shockwave would be possible, so Krahe committed to that course of action. She released her hold on her burster-tendril, honing her focus to the absolute extreme of Razormind. When the world felt as if it would come to a halt, she dipped her feet into the astral gulf, set her target destination, and initiated the skim.

A moving wall of force halted her, throwing her aside like a ragdoll. She had just enough time to realize that, somehow, the Crimson Star Ring’s shockwave could negate Astro Skimming, and presumably Astro Diving. The sole reason she got the time to consider this was that despite her skim being halted halfway, she still experienced a moment of extreme time dilation when she resurfaced—thus leaving her suspended in mid-air for a stretched-out split-second, locking eyes with an unaware Semzar. Before she could hit the ground, a pair of flaming fists smashed into her ribcage and decisively sent her flying into the wall.

***

Victorious laughter erupted from Semzar’s throat, resembling the cackle of a rabid animal due to how hard he had pushed his meatsuit. He didn’t know how or why that demon had been thrown back; he had acted purely on reflex, and it had taken him a few moments to realize what he had just done. But now that he knew, Semzar’s immediate response was to bask in a victory he perceived to be rightly his, even as his body tensed in alarm, setting off cascades of bodily memory that the baneworm himself did not fully comprehend.

Another source of laughter rang out. It was the raven, cackling as it flew towards its master, its persistent presence a hint as to what was to come. A few seconds passed, and, for some reason, Semzar found himself unable to act or move. Those green pinpricks flared to life from the cloud of dust and smoke, and soon she emerged once more. Her skin was decimated, bare flesh showing through in countless places, and the shape of an unnatural rib cage was impressed upon her bodysuit from the inside, lit by a red-orange glow. Her trousers were reduced to rags, yet miraculously retained some vague notion of their original shape as they billowed about her legs. Above her left hand floated a hemispherical tangle of black tendrils, and within that nest, the laughing raven roosted.

“W-What are you?!”

The green-eyed demon gave no answer. Instead, the raven ceased its cackling to speak once more.

“AT THE END OF MY LIFE, CUT DOWN BY A BETRAYER, I, BLACKHAND, THE MONSTER, DIED. EONS HENCE, LIKE RAZGRIZ, I, BLACKHAND, THE HERO, HAVE BEEN BORN ANEW. MILLIONS HAVE BURNED BY MY HAND BEFORE YOU AND MILLIONS WILL BURN ERE I PERMIT THIS WORLD TO BE OVERRUN BY YOUR KIND. THIS IS THE CLEANSING OF YOUR SIN. PREPARE TO DIE.”

In concert with her familiar, Blackhand spat at him, “YOU ARE A TAPEWORM. THAT BODY IS NOT YOURS. RETURN IT TO ZAVESH.”

***

Krahe’s side of that exchange was significantly uglier and more painful. That double-fisted punch had not only scorched her lungs, bursting one of them, it had also bruised her heart. Her impact with the wall didn’t do her any favors, either. As she slumped to the ground and slipped out of consciousness, Barzai’s shrieking call inside her own skull dragged her back into the world of pain. Groaning on the inside for lack of strength to do so vocally, Krahe mobilized a monumental force of will, ripping open a wound-like grin within the palm of her left hand. She used a tendril of tar as thin as one finger to reach inside, and by the power of Thaumic Fusion, she brought out the silver-cased injector—but she couldn’t raise it up to drive it into her own heart. Her left arm gripped the implement, but she could barely raise her wrist. Once more, Krahe summoned a monumental force of will, gritting her teeth such that she felt a molar crack under the pressure. A strained groan rose from her throat. Blood began leaking from her nostrils, steaming as it ran down her face, and her vision was dyed crimson a moment later.

Feeling as if its weight were comparable to a mountain, Krahe raised her arm and pushed the injector’s monolithic needle into her chest. It scraped against one of her ribs, and with a sensation of icy heat, it pierced her heart. That same sensation soon flooded her, and pain returned as an ocean of clarion clarity. At once, the serum refused to let her ignore her state, yet also clarified her thoughts. While she had been burning herself alive from within, now she very much also felt that way.

What had felt like a protracted struggle had, in fact, taken a few seconds. So short, in fact, that the cloud of dust her impact with the wall had created was still yet to dissipate.

She nonetheless got back up, feeling her own insides writhe as they rearranged and pulled back together. Layers of skin, ravaged and baked to coal, sloughed off, revealing bare flesh underneath, threads of new dermal tissue already growing to cover the gap. It was then that Barzai returned to her, perching sideways on her left forearm.

And so, she raised her hand and once more ignited a flame, collapsing it into the light of anathema.

Tendrils of blackest black, suffused with glass and dark jade, twisted together from her wrist to form a nest. Within it Barzai perched, cackling, and as Krahe emerged from the cloud of dust, the raven began screaming the final stanza to its tirade. Though the sound reached her ears, her mind was so focused on moving forward and not collapsing that she didn’t process what he was saying. She only noticed that at some point he stopped.

At the sight of Semzar, still staring at her in disbelief from behind his barrier, a deep, guttural disgust cut through it all, through the pain and exhaustion. It perfectly matched just how sick she felt. From the boundless well of vitriol she had refined and distilled throughout her life, a rebuke bubbled, and Barzai spoke it alongside her in perfect synchronicity.

“YOU ARE A TAPEWORM. THAT BODY IS NOT YOURS. RETURN IT TO ZAVESH.”

Around the framework of black tendrils, solid panels began forming an icosahedron. Semzar snapped out of his daze and once more began sloppily losing flaming fists Krahe’s way, but even as wrecked as she was, it took minimal movement to dodge them. He wasn’t even putting the bare-minimum thought into them as he had done before—by now, Semzar was lashing out in pure panic, his ring flashing a dim light that spoke clearly of just how doomed its fool of a wielder was. There was not a chance in hell it would be ready before the Daemon Core was.

But… just in case.

Krahe opened three more mouths along her arm.

And spoke the Words. She knew not whether there was any point or benefit, but she did it regardless.

With the first Word, three flaming fists closest to her were cast aside, tinged in red and black, and sent flying back at Semzar, changing shape mid-air into the clawed talons of Wandrei Faust.

With the second Word, several chairs and tables were sent flying.

With the third Word, the windows blew out.

With each Word, the Daemon Core’s formation sped up.

With each Word, the ember at its core burned ever brighter, with ever more wretched hatred for its victim.

THREE KEYS TO SWING WIDE THE GATES OF BLACKEST BLACKNESS

THREE WORDS SO MIGHTY NO MORTAL MIND CAN HOLD THEM

THREE brEATHLESS MOUTHS WITH WHICH TO SPEAK THEM

At the moment of completion, as Krahe gestured forth to sic the Daemon Core upon Semzar, the baneworm had the good judgment to strike, rightly thinking that she was not in an ideal state to evade. Krahe, without even thinking, raised an unassisted barrier, a swirling, undulating mass of smoke and sparks, almost alive in appearance. It didn’t matter how much entropy it cost her, and it would not have mattered even if that impact had sent her into meltdown. Without hesitation, Semzar feverishly looked around, and when his gaze fell upon the couch where he had sat, or rather upon the unconscious body of Casus Aristedes, he thought he might still have a chance. But by the time he began moving in that direction, the Daemon Core had, with unsettling swiftness, caught up to him, floating ominously overhead. One of the shell’s panels cracked.

In the next moment, screaming death poured forth and obliterated everything below his meatsuit’s head, burning a farcical silhouette into the floor tiles. Crimson light filled the ballroom and poured out of all available openings. In every way that mattered, Semzar was already dead. Only an anathema-poisoned, mutilated, dying baneworm remained, writhing impotently within its skull in a vain effort to escape. His ring and dagger clattered to the ground. It was the only possession of his to survive the blast.

AN EYE OF CRIMSON IMPRISONED IN BLACKNESS

ITS GAZE ERUPTS FORTH TO SCOUR AWAY THE UNWORTHY

BLACK HAND OF DESOLATION: DAEMON CORE

Krahe, with every ounce of will left to her, stumbled over to Semzar’s head, leaning on furniture along the way. Slowly, with great effort, she stomped and stomped until the skull cracked open and Semzar flopped out. He was severely discolored, veins bulging beneath his slimy skin, and blackened anathema burns covered a third of what remained of his body. He didn’t even try to escape, twitching in her grasp. She brought out a souldreg extractor and jabbed it into the dying worm. A multicolored mass of souldregs filled the vial halfway, the natural pearlescence marred by black and purple threads and specks. After stowing it away, Krahe struggled back to her feet and ambled over to the couch, sitting down next to Casus.

Every screaming muscle in her body insisted it would be fine to fall asleep, that the Inquisitor would arrive any time now. Krahe didn’t trust that instinct and forced herself back up. Lacking the strength to do anything so glamorous as carrying her unconscious comrade out of the mansion, she dragged him along instead.

***

Having already entered the mansion, Yazata was in no position to witness the light show. However, out of anyone, she was particularly well-suited to hearing the Words, to feeling the reverberations of a high theurgy being carried out to the utmost extent. Sensing the abrupt dimming of Blackhand’s magical signature that followed the theurgy, the Inquisitor continued making her way into the mansion with renewed urgency.

With her pack of Red Hoods in tow, she came across the two of them at the foot of the staircase leading to the ballroom’s main door. To say they were in a sorry state would have been an enormous understatement. Casus bore numerous wounds; his right arm was wrecked, as was the Silberblut Coupler. He was unconscious, but besides the filth, he would be fine. Blackhand, who was dragging him along, resembled the burnt-out husk of a dead anathemist more than any living thing. The left side of her face was completely overtaken by anathema burns, as was a significant portion of the rest of her body. Trails of blood crusted her face, yet somehow, her bodysuit was pristine. Then, a chunk of burned skin sloughed off, and fresh skin made itself known underneath. Calbian Molting Tonic. Unmistakable. That she still lived was no longer a surprise—the question became how she was able to walk in her state given the tonic’s clarifying, painkiller-neutralizing side effects.

Yazata didn’t get to ask any of the many questions swirling in her mind. Blackhand locked eyes with her, smirked, and uttered with a death-like whisper, “Ah. Good. You must be the Inquisitor.”

With those words, she collapsed.