Chapter 130: My Lying Smile
Power proliferated through my veins like parasitic spiders bubbling outwards; the brood mother that was me squeezed to the brim with strength. A mixture of physical power and the amplification provided by my Curses.
It wasn't just additive, it was a multiplicative increase.
Still-
It's barely enough.
-it didn't feel overwhelming compared to the compressed humanoid Heathen of Curses beaming down at me from the sky.
A literal moment before the Heathen landed upon me for the battle, I flipped my Book of Heresy upside down and manoeuvred to the final page.
There, I wrote:
[Upon the start of Alora's fight against the three-eyed Heathen, her martial art capabilities amplified in an attempt to match the humanoid-esque Heathen's. Allowing her an opportunity to end the abomination in a close, yet clean, fight.]
My Tales turned fiction into reality.
And I felt it instantly.
The same instant, it thrust a spear of Curses directly at my golden head.
---
Beneath the cacophony of thunderous waves, a sole Heathen crushed the sound barrier as it shot towards the small Cursed being standing beneath it; the small being filled the atmosphere with Curses, drawing the Heathen's ire to no end.
Sparing nothing, it conjured a spear out of its right arm and thrust it downwards at the tiny anomaly.
At that moment, the Cursed being beneath it smoked with Curses, it smoked with abhorrent, erronous power that defied the order within the disorder that is Curses themselves.
Just as its spear was about to burst the being's head, the small, gold-haired creature slapped its palm out.
It deflected the spear to the side with perfect precision as it bounced on its heels and jumped upwards to close the gap between them even quicker.
With the combination of the Heathen's high rate of descent and the creature's abrupt rise-
A dome of white air bounced outwards, pushing air itself alongside the choir of Curses that were bursting from the two colliding Cursed existences.
Cursed blood painted the ground beneath them, staining it deeply. Holding tight onto the now-spiked spear, the brutal holes torn into the smaller creature's hand dripped with Cursed blood and joined the stain on the ground.
The smaller one's other hand sat behind the humanoid Heathen.
Not just behind it, but through it.
Directly through the location of the stomach of a true Human.
A sleek sleeve of Curses covered the creature's sleeveless arm; its shirt had been torn apart entirely. Though reinforced and well-built, its clothes couldn't handle the impact of Curses flooding onto it from within the Heathen's bleeding body.
The Heathen's three eyes blinked quietly.
They stared into the smaller one's pure white eyes.
Interlacing their gazes, the Cursed beings stood like that for a moment; both bleeding and lightly broken from the initial connection.
Then.
A moment later.
They moved.
Like birds smashing into each other mid-air, their limbs and torsos thrashed into one another like a kaleidoscope of the grimmest darkness.
Pulling down on the spiked spear in its palm, the smaller one pulled the Heathen into direct proximity. The Heathen retaliated with an outburst of smaller, no-less-lethal spikes from all across its body to destroy the one beneath it.
Squelch! Squelch! Squelch!
And destroy it did.
Each spike bore a different hole into the small one's body, tearing it and ruining it like a ragged towel of meat.
The smaller one, however, didn't blink.
Didn't react.
It merely punched outwards again.
Because as it threw a punch of its own, its body was already beginning to recover. To regenerate back into full form as though nothing had happened to it.
Thud.
Smacking deep into the humanoid creature's body, the abomination formed another layer of spikes to hold back the punch while the spear that the little one had been holding morphed into a thin-edged blade.
If the little one didn't back off, not only would it lose its left hand completely to the blade, its right arm would be mangled-
"Lardis?"
-alas, the Heathen could only grumble with confusion at the little one's decision.
The blade cleanly sliced the little one's hand in half, severing half the fingers and debilitating its left hand. On the other side, the right hand punched into a pit of spikes-
Crack!
-and crunched directly past the impromptu defence.
This turned the Heathen's attention away from the slice left hand. It focused on the damage being placed on its body, pulled the blade back, and swung down at the little one's remaining right hand...
But then came the sound of the air tearing.
Then came the sound of hissing and shrieking Curses.
The Heathen raised its eyes.
It focused on the source: an untouched left hand.
A reattached left hand.
The Heathen was given no opportunity to react, no chance to retaliate.
---
With Curses coating my left arm, I cracked its head apart. I crushed the being out of existence with a satisfying smile.
I counter Heathens.
My Curses are stronger than their Curses.
My existence is purer than theirs.
I am the better version of the Heathens.
The Perfect Cursed Doll.
Was it all worth it?
That thought lingered as I retreated away from the corpse and clicked my fingers, setting the corpse ablaze till nothing remained of it.
"Heathen dealt with."
"Good job, Jill, Elden, Hilda, how about Esme's?"
"Fine."
"We dealt with it pretty quickly."
"It was odd. But dear sister and Nemora are right, it's not the eye, but sound. Hilda, next time, give us all the information. You aren't fit for analysis, you stupid maid."
"...Fine. Hmph."
Chuckling, I pushed their voices into the background and walked up the steps back to the quarterdeck. I took my place by Nemora's side, and the chestnut-haired lady nodded at me with an approving smile.
Not bad from me~
I could never put into words how good that felt. Just knowing that I'm not weak, that I'm useful, that I can help...
A smile lifted my lips back at Nemora.
"You should wrap yourself up by the way, Alora."
Nemora abruptly gave me a suggestion-
Oh.
-then I looked down at my body, at my left arm.
Shredded.
Bits of my body were exposed all over, nothing truly embarrassing, but enough to warrant a wardrobe change. While a part of me now wanted to think before acting in a fight in case of accidentally exposing something inappropriate, the rational, cold-thinking part of my brain understood the necessity of ruthlessness.
I couldn't worry about something so useless when my life was on the line. And not just my life, but also Esme's.
My death would be Esme's death.
...But my body is also Esme's-
Then I looked down at my body.
At my fragile, tiny little self.
Then I remembered Esme's body, the budding, fleshy body that held much more allure than my small one.
Nevermind.
My body is nothing like Esme's, only my face is.
Relaxing my mind, I shoved my hand in my pocket and pulled out a metal card. The main side of the card held the engraving of a lady sleeping yet smiling simultaneously.
And.
Carved beneath the face, in cursive, was the word:
[Liar]
This was my ornament, my item to keep me grounded for the foreseeable future. A card depicting a lady who had lost it all, who cried out at the liar who ruined her life, yet, in the end, she couldn't help but smile.
An ugly smile.
A peaceful smile.
My smile.
---
Flames incinerated the final corpse, cleansing the lamp-lit corridor and returning momentary peace to the cohort inhabiting the belly of The Canary.
Holding a scrunchy between her fingers, Esme promptly retied her scattered snow-white hair. An annoyance of having long hair showed itself through this first proper fight, but Esme disregarded it in place of receiving her dear sister's warm eyes.
Right then, Esme stopped herself for a moment.
She listened to her heart rate frantically increase as she imagined her sister's face. And, as she observed this odd behaviour of hers, this erroneous behaviour...
'Stop.'
...Esme had to stop herself.
The spiralling thoughts were snuffed out at the core.
The rapid beat of her speeding heart came to a stop.
She didn't want to think about the implications of these feelings, of these weird new thoughts arising in her brain, nor the fact that each time she saw her sister, felt her sister, or imagined her sister-
'Stop!'
Biting her lips, Esme turned her eyes towards Jill and Elden, "You need to get back to the surface. Hilda and I will continue surveying the corridors. We can handle it from here now that we've experienced the baseline of the Sunless Skies."
The boys gave her a thumbs-up each, then planted their thumbs into their ears. They condensed a layer of solid Blessings and Curses that contained no real use other than to block off sound; they could still communicate without their hearing anyway.
"Stay safe."
"What he said." Jill mumbled as he patted Elden on the back, nudging him onwards, almost in revenge for what his friend did the day they entered The Canary the first time.
Elden grumbled and stumbled onwards with sparks of Blessings flashing back to pester his friend.
On the other end of the spectrum, the relatively quieter pair of girls focused back and regained their momentum as they marched further through the corridors.
Occasionally, flickers of oil-lit lamps were whisked aflame as they passed by.