Chapter 100 ‒ The Fractured Mask
Chapter 100 ‒ The Fractured Mask
The forest breathed around them like a wounded beast, the air heavy with damp moss and rotting leaves. Moonlight dripped through the branches in thin, uncertain streaks, casting shifting shadows that seemed to dance and flinch away from each footstep.
Tyler’s boots pressed silently into the mossy floor, each step deliberate, a hunter’s patience honed from countless hunts. He watched the figure ahead — Bongo Banana — whose yellow skin shone faintly in the moonlight. It looked almost like the peel of an overripe fruit, glossy and fragile.
Bongo’s movements grew more erratic. The ragged cloak he wore snagged on a jutting branch, tearing with a violent rip. A long strip of fabric fluttered down, revealing pale, unmistakably human skin underneath.
Tyler’s breath caught in his throat.
Impossible… a human? Here?
The revelation lanced through him like a sudden arrow. But before he could react, a sour stench rose from the underbrush. Thick and cloying — like rotting bark soaked in stagnant water.
Shadows twisted and split. Figures lurched out, their eyes two milky voids shining under the moon. Their skin split and cracked like old tree bark, with grotesque knots and splinters sticking from their joints. Vines slithered from their mouths and chests, twitching greedily in the cold air.
[Enemies Identified: Blightspawn, Level 11 x8]
Blightspawns.
Bongo stumbled backward, arms flailing. “No… no, not now— please!” he choked, his voice fraying into a sharp squeal.
A Blightspawn lunged, its bark-arm stretching unnaturally. Bongo fell back with a strangled cry.
Tyler moved.
The Ancient Scythe swung in a vicious arc, slicing the creature’s midsection with a hiss of sap and splinters. Another Blightspawn lunged from the side, and Tyler’s blade caught it in a sweeping diagonal cut that cleaved through bark and vine alike.
The scythe felt alive, each movement smooth and precise. Its surprising lightness belied its size — each stroke followed Tyler’s will as if guided by unseen hands.
A third Blightspawn lunged. Tyler pivoted, sweeping the scythe low and hacking off its arms in a single motion. The creature staggered — and instead of falling, it took a stumbling step forward.
Tyler paused.
The Blightspawn’s face — now clearly visible — was twisted not into a snarl of rage but a grotesque mask of anguish. The white eyes glistened, the mouth agape as if mid-scream, or perhaps mid-cry.
Why… why does it look like it’s crying?
His breath caught. His scythe hovered mid-air, his heartbeat booming so loudly he felt it in his throat.
At that moment, the halved Blightspawn he’d cut earlier — its torso crawling pitifully across the moss — reared up. Its broken hand snapped forward, a single vine-tendril coiling and then shooting out with blinding speed.
Before Tyler could react, it pierced his side, slipping between the plates of his armour.
Agony exploded through him.
It felt as if molten acid flooded his veins, burning every inch of flesh and nerve from the inside out. His lungs seized, his muscles locked. He could feel something worming into him, wriggling deeper, as if a seed had sprouted inside his very marrow. His knees buckled, vision splintering into a red haze.
[Status: Affected by [Corruption], target will feel intense pain, and slowly lose his sanity, gradually converting into a Blightspawn. Duration: 00:59:58]
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This… this is… like being eaten alive from the inside…
His system window screamed with crimson warnings. His vision blurred, dark shapes swimming across his eyes like shadows beneath an ocean. Every breath was a battle, each heartbeat an explosion of torment.
A surge of primal panic threatened to drag him into the abyss.
“I… can’t… collapse… not now…!”
With a desperate snarl, Tyler forced his mind to focus.
[Activated Skill: Undying Tenacity]
A surge of white-hot light erupted from deep inside his core, radiating outward in a vicious pulse. Black steam hissed out from the wound, the corrupted sap bubbling and tearing free from his flesh as if exorcised by divine fire.
His entire body spasmed. Then, the searing, acid-like pain began to vanish, replaced by a deep, hollow ache.
Tyler collapsed to one knee, panting, sweat pooling inside his helmet. His fingers dug into the earth as he forced himself upright.
A moment later, he rose, armour still smoking faintly where the tendril had struck.
“I can’t… hesitate again. I can’t afford another mistake.”
The Blightspawn advanced, their heavy steps shaking the ground softly, vines reaching out, bark faces twisted into silent pleas. Their eyes gleamed wetly, like tears caught in moonlight.
Tyler’s jaw tightened. His fingers clenched around the scythe.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
He shifted forward. The blade flickered in arcs of shimmering death, severing limbs and slicing through twisted torsos. Even as he struck, he could see them pushing forward, arms gone but faces still frozen in mute, tragic pain.
A few of them collapsed instantly, sap pouring from gaping wounds. Others staggered onward for a few steps before finally crumbling.
Tyler pivoted in the centre of the clearing, breath coming in ragged gasps. Sap splattered across the blade and hissed against the metal, leaving smudges of black murk but no rot. The scythe glowed faintly under the moon, its edge pristine despite the gore.
He spun and struck again, each motion precise — each cut clean but haunted by the echo of every silent scream he saw.
At last, the grove fell quiet, save for the soft hiss of seeping sap and the distant chirp of a lone night insect.
Bongo Banana stood trembling behind a mossy log. His yellow skin — more like a fragile peel now — peeled further down his arm, exposing raw, pale flesh beneath.
He rose shakily, stepping into the clearing, his gaze moving from the pile of slain Blightspawn to Tyler’s silhouette.
“How… how could you…?” Bongo’s voice broke, barely a whisper. “They were still my people… even like this… and you… you just…!”
Tyler turned, the scythe lowering to his side. His breathing rasped inside the helmet. Words clawed at his throat, but none would come.
Bongo’s shoulders slumped. After a moment, he looked away, his jaw quivering.
“But… you saved me,” he muttered, voice raw. “Thank you… for that, at least.”
Tyler’s vision flickered, catching the faint glimmer of tears in Bongo’s eyes.
A long silence settled between them, heavy and suffocating.
Finally, Tyler spoke, voice low. “What… are you doing out here? Who… what are you, really?”
Bongo flinched, fingers curling into trembling fists. Then, with a resigned exhale, he tore away the last shreds of his disguise, letting the tattered cloth fall into the dirt.
“I’m a human,” he rasped, the words seeming to drain the last of his strength. “From Ashborough… a hidden human settlement. We’ve been there… for hundreds of years. We hid from the hybrids, the beasts, everyone.”
Tyler’s head tilted, visor catching the weak moonlight.
“Around one year ago,” Bongo continued, “these… Blightspawns… they started appearing. Our people… twisted, infected, turned into… those things. We don’t even know exactly why or how… just that it spreads like a curse. Once the sap enters, there’s no going back.”
He glanced at the dark tendrils lying limply around Tyler’s feet. His face tightened.
“I disguised myself to gather supplies… only I could leave. I thought I could protect them… at least for a little longer…” His voice crumbled to a broken whisper.
Tyler stood frozen, each word drilling into his mind. The echoes of the silent screams, the crying faces — all of it churned behind his eyes like a storm.
Before he could reply, a sudden crashing erupted from the shadows beyond the clearing.
Both turned sharply.
A small figure scrambled frantically into the moonlit glade — a crab-like creature no larger than a large dog, with stubby claws flailing and eyes wide in trembling panic. Its entire upper shell was covered in glossy pink cream that shimmered like frosting under moonlight, dripping in slow, sticky rivulets down its sides.
On its back, the cream quivered with each jerky step, flecks scattering like droplets of syrup. In one claw, it clutched a burning torch — a thick branch wrapped in smoky, oily cloth — the flame sputtering wildly as if it might vanish at any moment.
Cupcake Crab.
His bulbous eyes darted around the clearing, glimmering with a fragile, desperate sheen.
But before either Tyler or Bongo could move, another surge of Blightspawns burst from the darkness behind him. Their white, mournful eyes glimmered, tendrils writhing as they lunged toward the terrified crab.
Tyler’s fingers closed around the scythe handle, the blade humming with restrained fury.
Beside him, Bongo Banana swallowed, trembling as he turned toward the horde.
Tyler’s visor dimmed as he stepped forward, jaw set.
No more hesitation. No more mistakes.