Book 5: Chapter 40
Kay lunged forward, the spearing tip of his halberd lashing out in a line at the woman whose face was reforming from a melted looking black good into false skin. Her face had lost any semblance of expression after Kay had spotted her, even Eleniah’s completely still expression while Alahna had counter-monologued at Karmondur had more life to it than this. The spray of blood Kay had launched at her coated the wall and floor as the unknown eldritch enemy leapt to the side. Kay’s weapon traced a pattern in the air as the false woman dodged around it.
Lauren let loose an arrow into the chaotic crowd. It pierced through the shoulder of one of the fleeing guests who froze in place. They didn’t react like a normal person who’d just been shot, instead they froze. Their clothing and flesh around where the arrow had hit them flickered like dying pixels and sluggishly trickled away from the wound. Their expression froze into an identical blank mask as the woman Kay was fighting. Before they could react, Lauren threw her arm out, clenched her fist, and pulled back toward her. The shoulder with the arrow in it was yanked forward and the not-person was dragged out of the crowd of innocents trying to escape into a clear section of the room.
The attackers after Alahna were being overwhelmed, but the tides of battle began to shift as the infiltrators were revealed. The goo covered metal skeletons weren’t among either the attackers or Alahna’s people, but mixed among everyone else. Guards, merchants, spouses, and entertainers all stopped as their faces went slack. Even those that hadn’t been injured began to show themselves through their behavior. People fleeing out of the ballroom began bouncing off of still forms standing in their way. One large man panicking and running from danger almost bowled over a thin woman in a luxurious dress. The accidental tackle fueled by fear must have crossed some threshold to determine what was an attack or not, because the woman’s arm stretched out into a black blade that gouged out a chunk of the man’s flesh.
The screaming and distraught running jumped up several levels as a new threat became known. The still figures began lashing out at anything near them, striking evacuating noncombatants and people still fighting. The third faction joining in caused several fronts to devolve as Alahna’s guards suddenly had to defend against a new set of enemies and the traitors had to deal with people they were ignoring or what they believed were reinforcements suddenly stab them in the back. The already chaotic scrum intensified as confusion and violence ran rampant.
A wave of flickering black sludge rolled across the arms of the woman Kay was dealing with and metal bones stood out where her skin pulled away. The roiling substance solidified into a pair of serrated hooks that swung around like a demented weed whacker. Kay was forced on the defensive by an unending series of attacks that completely ignored any potential threats other than Kay.
His greatest ally dashed in to help him. Eleniah punched once, turning the whirling blades trying to decapitate him into black mist. The creature pretending to be a woman paused for a second, staring down at the jagged and broken remains of one of its metallic bones. The shining silver bone began to melt into the same dark colored goop before the sludge erupted upward into a massive needle-like spear. The arm that the remaining edged scythe blade was on lost all of its human shape and became an elongated whip.
Alahna must have decided to ramp things up in response to the new considerations and the hovering storm above started dropping continuous lightning on everyone she saw as an enemy. The fighters prepared for her powerful attacks had barriers, shields, or other ways to withstand the lightning, but many didn’t and were killed or knocked out of the fight in single hits. The fake people that were all melting and growing massive weapons from their bodies were hit by the attacks aimed at them and got tossed about like rag dolls. There was a brief pause as they twitched on the ground, but as one they stilled and pulled themselves to their feet.
The enemy Kay and Eleniah were fighting was out of range of the electrical blasts and kept attacking without pause. It swung the hooked blade around and forced Kay to jump over it. The sharp edge got stuck in the wall behind it but the cable abruptly sprouted pointed tendrils that were sent at Kay in a dizzying array. The web strands failed to pierce Kay’s armor in the first hit and tried to dig in, burrowing against the hardened layers of blood Kay used to protect himself. Using the opportunity, Kay started a counter attack on the same level, extruding thin strands of blood from his armor that he activated Purify Blood with. He dug his wire-thin creations into the enemies and the black viscous liquid that the enemy seemed to be made of started losing its shape and sloshing to the floor wherever the blood touched it.
The effect cascaded up the thing’s limb as Kay sent droplets ricocheting through it. To Kay’s magical sense it felt like whatever the enemy was had no real internal structure, it’s entire body seemed to be the same semi-liquid goop throughout. Reacting immediately to the danger the figure slammed their spear arm into the one Kay was ruining through retaliatory infection and tore it off. The removed limb lost all sense of structure and became a thick puddle on the ground.