Book 4 - Chapter 146 (Patreon)

A challenge. Two opponents who were on his level, each a creature who had broken all expectations and carved names and myths for themselves.

Duri the Shifting Stone roared as a dozen pillars broke through the earth, aimed straight for him. Kalina, the Hunger of Yore, known as the Widow, swerved through the air like a possessed banshee, two fiery eyes under the mask glued to him as if waiting to see his next move.

Bloodlust from his own madness and that bestowed by Blood-Starved Edge, along with abominable strength, roared at him to throw everything he had at the closest target. Rip and tear until nothing remained of the two. But they were strong, and despite his looks, he was far more than a mindless beast.

First, learn their Blessings.

His Wolf-Spider shot up the wall as rats poured into the tunnel, far too few to be more than a nuisance, but still worth something.

He himself dashed towards Duri, sheathing one weapon. A stomp from the man’s feet, and the ground shattered. A rat jumped into Wretch's open palm, and he threw it towards the man. At the last second, it exploded in a hail of bones, scratching the man’s skin and revealing what lay beneath. Stone. The man was made of rock.

Something whizzed through the air. A hail of needles dripping with green. Wretch weaved between the Widow's poison darts as his own Wolf-Spider shot a web toward the hovering figure. A flash of fire and a twist of her cloak made the viscous fluid turn dry and diminish to dust. A set of gritted teeth showed beneath her mask. Fangs, tipped with the same toxin. The Wolf-Spider leaped towards its prey, forced to fight with no chance of winning. Because he demanded it.

The Widow floated to the side, pricking the creature with a dozen needles that poisoned it from within. The ribbons of a previous kill turned to dust in its mouth, but the spider itself was left alive, a detail he did not miss.

“Duri! He’s a shapeshifter. I can see his true form. It’s just a jumble of creatures and men,” she shouted, peering through the monocle. “We can’t let it win.”

Wretch let out a roar from his throat and changed skin. There was no need to preserve this one. Fur sprouted from his spine, his skin growing pale into one that could not be pierced by the mundane, and his head squirmed into the shape of a grizzly maw from a hound at the rank of Blaze killed long ago.

“What bottomless pit did this one crawl from?” Duri shouted and slammed his pick into the ground, sending a crack in the earth towards him. The head of the weapon itself was made of a material reminiscent of glass.

Second, their equipment. A war-pick that could shatter anything and a monocle that saw the truth. And perhaps some hidden aces in their sleeves.

Wretch crouched and shot forward towards Duri, the man raising his weapon to meet his two swords pointed at his heart, each gripped in such twisted and gruesome claws they were nothing more than daggers.

“Come then!” Duri roared. An inch before the blades met the pick, he pivoted.

Third, a plan to get through their defenses.

With a kick off the ground, he launched himself toward the Widow with brutal strength. Duri’s pick rumbled against the earth, but he did not have time to look. A whip of the Widow’s fingers, and another set of needles fell from a fold into a waiting palm. The Wolf-Spider—already struggling from her poison—was dying by the side of the tunnel. Its throat whimpering. A silent command demanded movement, smothering the natural emotions of fear and pain. He had created this creature, he was the thing in the dark. It would adhere to his will, for such was the fate of vermin. The creature jumped.

Execute, and rip their hearts from within.

The Widow whipped a dozen needles from her slender fingers, blasting a barrage towards him. Wretch grinned, his two hearts fluttering. There was no place where he belonged, no crackling hearth that could soothe nor welcoming smiles at his return. This place, where a split second was life or death—that’s where he belonged. And these two, Blazes or otherwise, did not.

The swarm of needles laced with poison shot towards him, suspended in the air. A desperate lunge to try and reach the Widow had put him in a position of weakness. But only to the uninspired.

“Get him!” Duri roared, struggling to pull his weapon from the ground. Something else catapulted into view. His dying Wolf-Spider. A shield of meat and dying whimpers.

“Thank you, my kin. You were deadly,” Wretch whispered and placed his feet on the creature mid-air. Another kick, this one, strong enough to shake the air.

The dying Wolf-Spider launched towards the Widow even as her needles dug deep. Meanwhile, he shot back toward the unsuspecting Duri—having changed target in an instant.

A thud and a dying wail sounded as he finally set the spider free to release all its deadly angst on the masked woman. Duri’s eyes widened as Wretch catapulted back towards him, the skin of his left arm roiling as if infested with a thousand worms under the white skin. The bearded man had no time to raise his weapon.

"You're on your own Witch!" A gesture from his opponent, and a shield grew from the ground, forming a half-dome of granite. But Wretch was a predator with a hundred forms.

His arms twitched and churned, plates growing from his forearms and the fingers twisting together as he shot from above. A claw of a massive crab formed from his arm. He might not have the Blessing to move the earth, but just like Duri, he could make it shudder.

A roar escaped his throat as he poured strength into the blow. The claw cracked against the dome of stone with blurring velocity and mass. A noise so deafening it threatened to pop his eardrums.

A net of cracks spread through the hastily made defenses, splitting the stone like a broken egg. Wretch’s remaining hand shot forward, the grip tight around the jagged blade.

The light of the discarded lanterns shone on Duri. The man was halfway sunken into the earth. A crafty escape, had he had a second longer. Duri the Shifting Stone looked up. And a blade met his eye.

Above, the Widow pushed the dead spider from her form. Her dress was ripped and torn. “You dare!” she shouted. “Duri, get up and let us destroy this thing. I’ll even let you keep the coal when—”

Her mask had fallen off in the scuffle, revealing her face. Up to her nose, she was fair and youthful, with rounded lips and a sharp chin. Above, however, folds of dry skin clustered around hollow eyes like those of a cremated corpse. The empty sockets stared down at Wretch.

He hoisted Duri’s body up, his crab-claw morphing back into a bestial arm. With a tear, he ripped the man to shreds, taking the freshly formed coal from within and absorbing its power in a flash of sparks and flame.

Coals of Worthy Prey: 5

Wretch thrust the bloodied blade into the ground and picked up the pickaxe of the dead Blaze. “You, I only looked away for a second,” the Widow stammered.

Wretch’s claw caressed the war-pick. The head was made of crystal that caught the light. A Blessed item.

Burden’s Gift Bind the weapon with a flush of flame. It weighs all that you’ve carried since you last received a kiss of love. Each pound of weight increases the weapon's effect when slammed into the earth.

“You two were decent, but I needed you gone,” Wretch said, lifting the weapon with ease as he refused to bind it.

“You can talk!” the Widow said carefully, floating sideways so that her back was positioned to an exit. “But this is not over. He was a fresh one. I’ve been around since this place was formed and the Father’s engine first rumbled alive.”

“A coward then,” Wretch said as black wings pierced out of his back in a grisly display of jutting bones and reaching muscles. “Letting the kindling of your city fight for your revenge.”

Her face twisted in a grimace. “I’ll rip those words from your mouth and age your pretty weapons to dust.”

“Start with this,” Wretch said and threw the Blessed pickaxe in a violent thrust. A wave of the Widow's hand, and the glimmering crystal cracked, breaking into glittering dust. But Wretch was already on the move. A locket and the remainder of his sword chimed against the floor.

He shot forward, across the open ground marked by jutting blocks of stone and broken pillars. A scream rattled from the Widow’s throat, infused with a Blessing he had not seen. A flash of his claws mutilated each of his ears, breaking the attack. She retreated into the tunnel, launching a barrage of needles his way. He’d dodged every one so far. And the Widow relied on the attack to make distance between them. But his skin was not ordinary. It was stolen from a man named Karthal, a Blaze from the upper echelons of the Gulschak army, and even Blessed blades struggled to pierce it. A few needles tipped with poison were nothing. But she didn’t know that.

With a burst of movement to the side and a beat of his wings, he catapulted toward her. The black-feathered wings tucked behind his back and both arms crossed before him—the needles merely peppered his skin without breaking through.

And then he was on her. A wave of foul odor and sweet perfume itched his nose. A wave of cold, and his clothes disintegrated to dust. At the last moment, she swayed forward to meet him in a last-ditch attack.

The two intertwined in the air, claws and fangs tearing at one another. They hit the ground with a thud. Wretch crushed one of her arms, ripping her to shreds with unbridled ferocity. She allowed him, a detail he only saw a moment too late. Her mouth shot open, unnaturally wide. Her glinting fangs caught his neck—and pierced his skin.

A warm sensation flowed from his jugular. Then a numbness spread like cracks through ice. A deep cackle came from the Kalina, the Hunger of Yore. A fitting name, Wretch thought as his flame was sucked from his body and some wicked poison spread through his veins. "This will be the end of us both," she hissed without releasing her bite, the black cloth of her dress binding around them to stop his onslaught. Enveloping even his wings.

The toxin took hold, numbing his fingers and disintegrating his muscles. This one was far more shrewd than the other. But he was not defeated yet. Inside him, his fire still burned in a waning blaze, surrounded by all those he had slain. So he used it.

A torrent of flame flooded into his flesh. A maelstrom of power that could have sustained him for days—used in an instant. His veins seared, his skin churned, and the poison burned from within. His veins grew orange with heat, sizzling her lips.

Pressed to his chest, the Widow's restraints faltered for only a moment. And for someone like him, it was more than enough. His form struggled against the restraints and broke free. The unnatural robe ripped to shreds as he splayed his wings wide.

A claw punched through her chest in one fell strike. Grabbing her coal before it had barely begun to glow.

And so he was done.

Kalina, the Hunger of Yore, fell to the floor as he turned, consuming her power while surprise still shone in her hollow eyes.

Coals of Worthy Prey: 6

On the ground lay a locket next to his weapons, and he clipped it over his wrist with a shivering hand. He crouched and let his back rest against a broken pillar. His wings slithered into his back as he once more took on the form of Vasili.

And with that, a hoarse laugh escaped his throat between harsh breaths. He closed his eyes to rest, one step closer to his true goal in this forsaken place.