Chapter One-Hundred-and-Sixty-Nine
The last humans working for the Matriarch didn’t even get to put up a fight as Adam and Kat hunted them down in the night, harvesting them for all they were worth.
Using his new magic, Adam turned their bones into a sled to carry the flesh and blood, and then they went through the island, trapping the houses and thoroughfares, focusing on places that appeared to be lived in.
Adam had come up with a mix of Snare and Push patterns that would activate sequentially, causing the target to first be locked in place, and then get pelted with hardened blood, flesh, and bone shrapnel from the Push explosion. It was possible that the design wouldn’t outright kill most of the bloodfiends, but it would disable them for long enough that Adam and Kat could run them down and eliminate them without much of a fight. And given how outnumbered they were about to be, it was the safest bet to turn the tide in their favour.
Kat had consumed fourteen human hearts by the time they were done with their hunt, and except for the first one, she hadn’t really said much. From what he could sense of her melody, there was clearly an uncomfortable side-effect that followed the consumption, but Kat had a will of steel and was able to shrug off whatever it was she saw when she ate a heart.
Based on the way her melody changed, Adam was fairly confident that she relived some of her victim’s memories, but whether it was their final moments or some cherished piece of their past, he couldn’t say for sure. Kat had only described it as an unpleasant surprise, but refused to elaborate. Adam avoided pushing the issue for now, but he wanted to have a clear sense of the Fiend Tongue’s weaknesses before they left the Stage.
[15 minutes until sunrise.]
Kat and Adam had returned to the castle and were watching the skies as pale shapes came towards Matriarch Island. In the distance, down by the docks, lesser bloodfiends leapt out of the water, returning to the various houses around the area where they would escape the sun.
Just as the fliers came in, the first explosion echoed across the island, the sound bouncing off the tall fortress walls. It was immediately followed by many more.
[Lesser Bloodfiend defeated.]