L'Opéra De Géhenne VII

I smile back at the motherfucker as I step forth.

"You wanna have a piece of me?" I ask with eyes warm and welcoming.

Yet ice-cold and unforgiving all the same.

Glazer |F|

A wandering aberration of hunger, a nightmare given form. It does not blink, nor does it rest. It wanders afloat, always watching, grinning, always. The moment it acknowledges you is the moment you have become its prey.

A levitating eyeball coated in pulsar veins and raw tendons. Possesses a ring of unfirm flesh instead of eyelashes. The lips curl, smirk, part. The pupil is a mouth, wide, unhinged, packed with scraggly teeth.

The tongue slicingly lashes out and stabs through with a dart, retracting thereafter. Any injury it inflicts struggles to close while the sensation of being licked lingers long after the strike.

The glazer hovers toward me, circling me from above.

I remain steady, standing, motionless.

I watch it calmly, tilting my head when need be. 

It watches back, though I don't know with what, drool seeping and pooling at the corners—

Hungering.

Then—

The tongue whips forward.

Not at me.

The air beside me.

Then constricts.

Then tightens.

The tip whiplashes toward my shoulder at a staggering speed.

I sigh.

I lean back, dodging easily with minimal movement.

Yet I miscalculate as the tip scratches against my titty.

Useless sack of meat.

I immediately grab at the tongue before it can retract.

It tries to.

Yet I harden my grip.

"Had fun?" I muse, tilting my head left and staring at the glazer.

"My turn," I say—

The tongue coils around my wrist.

The mouthbreather flies toward me at a flashing speed, the maw widening.

"Didn't I say it's my turn?"

I mimic its grin.

The glazer's grin freezes in turn.

I first pull and twist, wrenching the tongue to the side.

The glazer lurches midair, off balance, jolting, a puppet with cut strings.

It screeches from deep inside its body.

I reel it in hard.

Then bring my knee up.

Cracking.

It rockets upward under the impact.

Yet I don't let go of its tongue.

I instead yank it downward.

Swinging.

The floor cracks.

Its flesh ruptures.

Veins pop.

Then again.

Up.

Down.

The wet crunch splats.

Blood bursts outward.

Repeatedly,

I wrench its disfigured body up—

Then down.

Then up—

Then slam it back down.

Tendons flap like butchered flesh while its lidless grin quivers.

The mutilated nerves snap like confetti,

Falling everywhere wherever—

Like a pinata—

I continue swinging.

Like a rabid dog shaking a chew toy—

Left and right.

Right and left.

Ripping it apart.

Before flesh sloughs off in long strips.

Before capillaries spill down its puslike remains.

Before it laughs pathetically.

Laughing for mercy.

Laughing for pause.

Laughing for death.

Before I slam it down hard enough to split it wide open as its pulp explodes with fluids gushing and the impact sending waves of shredded bloodbath rain around me.

I breathe in, looking back at the tunnel.

There, tendrils dangling beneath it, an eye floats, massive, disembodied, an oversized eyeball dominating its body, bloodied iris locking its gaze with mine.

And so it watches me, emptily.

Greenish, venomous flesh, irregular ridges and protrusions, twitch subtly, spongy.

The tendrils taper into thin points, swaying and writhing about.

And so, unblinkingly, it stares.

Gazer |F+|

A sentinel aberrant of mysteries, neither intelligent nor mindless. Erodes the mind with its gaze. The eye observes, then hunts cautiously, tracking each motion, tricking the observer.

Its bloodied iris pulses, the sclera riddled with raw veins, streaked with webbed scars that throb with inner light. The flesh surrounds the eye, armored, layered with plating, fused together, reinforced, calloused. Beneath, numerous tendrils whip, searching motions.

The instant it blinks, it secretes an acidic venom, compressed into a focused burst of light. The venom ignites on impact, boils, and dissolves in seconds.

"Sending this… for what? To give me a blowjob?" I point at the corpse of the glazer. "That boss of yours— Tell that pussy to bring their ass up here before I fuck up this cave inside out."

I launch the corpse at the gazer like a ballistic missile.

The gazer easily dodges at an incredible speed, flying back and upward, then retreating.

"Don't let it go!" Mari shouts from behind. "I'm sure it's a scout!"

I glimpse back at her, the scratch left by the glazer on my left breast burning like hell.

"How am I supposed to catch that? Do I look like I can fly?" I ask, turning back.

I stuff my hanging titty back inside my magical robe.

Wish I didn't pluck my heart that time… 

That way, the robe wouldn't have a protrusion in the worst place possible.

Oh well, at least the heart grew back.

So all is well.

I hear Nan clap her hands.

"Your movements were most certainly flawless," she says, staring at me in awe with her deep crimson eyes. "Hmh. Were you a professional fighter in your past life maybe?"

What's gotten into her? I wasn't even trying. 

Besides, I haven't gotten used to this body yet.

"You should go grab the corpse," Mari remarks, coughing. "Pluck its core and absorb it. We need to attain maximum strength before fighting the boss."

"Boss or whoever that is," Nan says, tilting her swanlike neck and rapping her fingers against it. "Is defeating them the only way to get back?"

I finally step before them, stopping.

"You right," Mari says noddingly. "But how did you know?"

"I've played enough video games to know," Nan responds, rolling her eyes. "What was that thing anyway? That flying thingy?"

"I have no idea," Mari says.

Huh?

"Did you guys not read their descriptions?" I ask, frowning before upping my hand to my chin and brushing. "Glazer and Gazer, it said."

"You can, we can't," Mari says, stroking the ashes off her knees. "You have a guess, no?"

Then she tries to stand, flailing, frail. "That's a trait, a privilege only the Great Demons have."

"Me and Nan don't," she restates, sniffling, snorting back mucus. "You do."