Chapter 31: Wrath Of A Millennia
Ira stood over the cold body.
Blood spread silently beneath the young Matyr, soaking into Nythera’s soil.
The hole through the demon child’s chest was clean. Of course, he had aimed perfectly. His heart blasted to nothingness, nothing to pump human blood or give him breath.
"...Pathetic."
Ira looked down at him with quiet contempt.
His mandibles clicked softly.
"My Luituka..." He rested a hand over the ruptured wound in his own side. "...you died to this?"
Silence answered him.
Behind him, Lex struggled to rise. Her consciousness winking in and out. One arm hung uselessly by her side, bent in an absurd angle. Every breath felt like knives through her ribs.
"K..."
Her voice cracked. "No..."
Several meters away from her, Iniko crawled through the dirt.
One of her Ulu staffs had shattered completely. Drenched in blood amd holding onto a deep gash in her thigh, her clothes had come loose in several places showing more wounds.
"K!"
"That hole looks just right, doesn’t it? An eye for an eye, no?"
Ira reached down to tear off K’s head, his objective from the very beginning.
"I’ll serve your head to the Emperor and everyone will no longer view me as weak."
"How..."K twitched.
"How dare you..." came a small layered rasp.
His fingers wrapped around K’s hair and lifted him, a few strands coming loose from the force.
A finger twitched.
"...Hm?" Ira paused.
Another finger. Then another.
The boy’s hand resting limply against the earth slowly...closed. Soil crunched beneath his tightening fingers.
Crimson light bubbles from the wound. K’s pale fingers twitched again, this time they lunged forward. They tightened around Ira’s wrist with a strength that shouldn’t be there.
"W-what?"
His plating cracked and silver blood splattered over the ground. "Impossible!"
...
[[QUEST COMPLETED]]
»Retrieve the Sacrilege of the Oracle«
Status:
COMPLETE
Rewards have been awarded to host
...
...
[[NEW QUEST]]
»Eliminate hostile entity(0/1)«—47%
Reward(s) will be awarded immediately objective(s) is achieved.
...
The man Ira had been so sure he had killed stood, his wound slowly closing as cells found tissues, bones then flesh.
"You reek of my people...of their...pain and suff...ering." K coughed blood but continued to push himself up, "tell me...your name...so I...my bl-cough-bless you."
The U’Kan hacked silver blood and spat it onto his face before ripping his own arm off. The limb dangling from K’s hold.
"Be blessed by a human? Since when could you speak our song?"
"Since when did killing grant you standings?"
Blood poured from the hole in his chest. His neck hung loosely like it was broken.
Then, a sickening series of cracks echoed.
His neck straightened, spine aligned, bones snapped back into place and his head slowly lifted.
Long black lashes fluttered open.
An abyss.
Gone were the traces of his mismatched eyes and all that remained was an endless sea of black. Even his sclera.
"I asked for your name."
"What is this? How do you still stand? I have rid you of your human heart! So how?"
"You cannot kill what I have made...not again."
The air around him changed. His fingers curled. A sharp crack echoed as his nails blackened, lengthening into obsidian claws. Veins of crimson light spread beneath his pale skin like molten rivers, climbing his neck before disappearing beneath his jaw.
Another crack.
His teeth sharpened. Canines pushing past his lips into long fangs.
"...that’s not K." Iniko gasped.
The pressure rolling off him deepened. Almost like the crushing authority the Emperor had displayed.
Ira steadied himself, lowering into a fighting stance.
"What...what is this?"
The possessed K tilted his head. "That’s right, that’s the scent I want off you."
His smile widened, those terrible fangs dripping with blood and saliva.
He vanished. The ground bursting apart where he had stood.
Ira barely raised his remaining arm before claws collided with porcelain. The impact launched him through a wall of ancient trees. He recovered instantly, twisting in midair and landing in a crouch.
"Too fast..."
He looked around trying to locate where K would appear from.
"Isn’t this fun?"
Something struck his side. Then his back. Then his jaw. He couldn’t follow the movements.
He had lost an eye, arm, his face plating was completely destroyed and his rings severely cracked and beginning to disintegrate.
Why weren’t they helping?
Ira glanced at the ship.
No sign of any of his allies coming to help him.
"...the emperor." He must have given them the order to not interfere in his fight with the demon child.
So this was his fate.
K’s voice came from all directions.
"Do it...run."
And Ira did.
The forest swallowed him as he burst through thick bushes. Stray thorns caught his garment tripping him a few times but he kept running.
Behind him the forest moved. No, a shadow did.
The figure no longer fought like a soldier.
It hunted.
And Ira had become its prey.
Each appearance lasted only an instant before disappearing again, leaving behind another devastating blow.
Ira swung blindly.
"You hunted my children." A whisper brushed past his ear.
A claw raked across his battered armor, carving glowing lines through the porcelain. He retaliated with a kick powerful enough to split stone. But he only hit air.
"...!"
Ira’s eyes widened.
What was the meaning of this? Why was he running?
...if you cannot, you must dig out your own guts.
"Yes...I will not die by the hands of an accursed one!"
He raised his hand to strike himself but the hit never came.
Squelch.
Black eyes met his.
"You broke their bodies..."
Ira’s arm flopped onto the ground, twitching violently as silver blood oozed from it."...their spirits...their purity."
"A-A....Aaah...AAAAAAARGHHH!"
"...their songs. My songs!"
Distance.
He needed distance...but...why couldn’t he move?
"...w-what are you?"
"I am..."
The crimson veins beneath K’s skin pulsed.
"...the undoing of all your oracles."
Not sparing him another word, he lunged at him. Blood wet the tree backs and leaves as K bit into his neck, biting through the playing left there and tearing at whatever his teeth could.
....
...
[[QUEST COMPLETED]]
»Eliminate Hostile Entity«
Status:
COMPLETE
Reward(s) has been awarded to host.
...
—•__•—•__•—•__•—
Thira pushed the Petri dish away, the sixth Petri dish today, his data pad marked another error as he discarded the other 5.
"You all...Out!"
His attendants scrambled out of the lab whispering among themselves of how cranky he had gotten these days.
He wanted to call them back and apologize for his behavior but it was far too late.
"What do I do?"
Lately, he had been suffering from nightmares. Terrifying ones. Since the day K had left for that expedition and that mystery Miwa visit, horrible dreams plagued him.
"If Kagu were here, she’d help me reduce this...pain."
He stared at the disposed dishes.
They were his coping mechanism. He was working on a healing patch upgrade but had dumped it a while back when the U’Kan tigeress was brought into his lab. Now, he picked it back up to distract himself but each testing came out with a different error result.
"What am I doing wrong?"
The doors to his lab slid open with a few soldiers trooping in.
Thira’s head swiveled from one soldier to the other, "Bak send you?"
They didn’t respond.
One moved closer to where he stood and held out a card,
"The Admiral requests you meet him...in your original body."
"Why original?"
"We will escort you to your private lab area, please lead the way."
Thira tilted his head, his ring dimming and brightening in uneven pulses.
Why was Bak suddenly asking to meet him in his original body?
Wait...
Was he finally agreeing to give in to his request?
Thira nodded and stepped out. The soldiers marched closely around him, shielding him from passersby.
"You." He pointed to one of them, "gun shoot me." Then pointed to his own head.
"???"
"Kill clone. Me go to original not clone."
"He’s telling us to shoot him in the head."
The largest one amongst them stepped forward and lodged a plasma shot through Thira’s head.
The Miwa trembled a bit before collapsing onto the ground in a pool of fading silver blood.
A few minutes passed and a cryotube hissed somewhere in the lab.
"Come help."
Thira wobbled out.
"I’ve spent so much time in the bodies of my flash clones that I’ve forgotten what my real body feels like."
He chuckled and held onto the soldier who offered him support.
"The Miwa has moved to his original body, we’re on our way."
"By the way," one of them held up a round object. "We need you to put this on."
It was a black out helmet.
I could always shape shift if Bak wants why the helmet?"
"Just put it on."
"..."
They led him away from the private lab to where he assumed was Bak’s quarters or his office. He was never really allowed outside his lab so it was hard to tell.
The cold breeze lifted the edges of Thira’s lab coat as the doors ahead parted with a heavy metallic hiss.
"...Bak?" he called.
No answer.
The soldiers surrounding him remained silent as well.
Usually the Admiral would bark something before Thira even entered the room. Perhaps the man was in a particularly foul mood today.
When wasn’t he?
"...We’re outside?"
"We are."
"I thought Admiral Bak wished to see me."
"He does."
"...Oh."
His curiosity lingered, but the helmet concealed everything beyond a narrow slit of darkness. He couldn’t even tell where they were walking.
A gust of colder air washed over him.
Wait...did they just speak his language?
A large hand clasped around his and familiar humming of rings reached his ears.
"Long time no see, my kept one."