Holy War

It sighed. "That damned God-King and his all-seeing eye." Its tone was laced with irritation rather than caution. "Let's hope that arrogance leads to its swift termination."

The bat creature leaped with great agility, landing silently on top of a building in spite of its great weight. Its lower body contracted, and it took a long breath. Its chest expanded like the rubber of a balloon as its lips sealed.

Then it opened its mouth and produced a sound beyond measure.

It was not a deep, booming roar like I had prepared for, but instead, a vibration of impossible frequency. So high was the pitch that the few panes of glass remaining unbroken in the rusted homes and buildings exploded into a storm of glittering shards. They remained silent as they clattered. The screech drowned all other noise. The sonic attack slowly died down as the creature expelled all the air it had drawn in.

A fresh horde of sinners emerged from the forgotten streets and alleyways.

Unlike the Black Beast's troop, these ones seemed to have been transformed directly by their deity.

They boasted forms closer to rabid beasts than humans. I had compared the large one to a bat, but it seemed that instead of being based on animals, most of the sinners bore a random display of predatory characteristics that warped their twisted and inhuman selves into adept hunters.

Some were large and hulking, claws like meat hooks and twisted, asymmetrical snouts marking them as patrons of their dark god. Others were lithe, feline even. Each member of the misbegotten horde was adorned with fur, feathers, or scales.

Some muttered with little coherence, others screamed out in grotesque tones, far removed from the voices of men, yet never fully sounding like those of animals.

I took the bat-like creature as their leader—this seemed correct. They surrounded the building he stood on, and slowly, their mumbles, snarls, and harsh voices dissipated as the bat raised his palm.

I could hear the sound of fighting from across the city. Gunfire and explosions were by far the loudest, but the roars of beasts and screams of men could be faintly made out. The skirmish had been going on for at least several minutes now.

After the snarling horde grew silent, a small reptilian advisor with many horns that curled inwards gave the leader a concise report. As the leader spoke, they raised their heads high in reverence.

"Those of the city have come to us. Rejoice, my brothers, for they have leapt into our maws, and all that is left is to bite down and swallow. Make haste and eat well—I shall join thee shortly."

An orchestra of snarls and battle cries lit up the air. The bestial sinners charged toward the source of the sound. Unlike the Black Beast's troop, they moved with swiftness and animal grace, some even climbing up buildings in their advance.

I took off, using a building near me as a springboard. I landed hard; metal talons dug through concrete before I exploded forward once again and cracked the wind.

I plunged into the roof of a building near the battle just as the sinners joined their brethren. I looked up at the bleeding horizon I had for too long ignored, and then down at the scene of war that I was all too familiar with.

The soldiers from the Holy City had spread themselves through the buildings and streets, staying behind the partial cover gifted by the walls of buildings and the husks of cars.

The soldiers in the streets below me wore a mix of practical equipment: plate carriers covered in slings and pouches held munitions and tools.

The men wore armor one would only expect to find on a medieval battlefield. Most were adorned with chainmail and plate. Despite many of them being armed with rugged automatic rifles, many soldiers also had sheathed short swords. Some carried lances, forgoing ranged weapons other than sidearms.

Their officers wore outfits that reflected not only a higher rank but also a higher social caste. Many wore white robes above their armor that somehow retained their pristine color, despite the rigors of war.

Their greater position in society was informed by the vast gulf in the quality of their equipment; they held weapons of the Long Silence—hateful guns that powered themselves not with the propellant force of gunpowder, but via the cruel manipulation of magnetic forces. They would propel a minute needle of tungsten at a speed that could rend apart any fortress.

Weapons of such caliber were seldom given to my kind. Humanity wished to keep such things out of reach. Movies and books had long since warned them of the possibility that we may act against our masters. Perhaps, in some possible future, we would have.

The beasts before them lunged from across the streets with gruesome might. Growls erupted from their horrendous jaws. They drew closer. A soldier gripped his machine gun tightly. He muttered a prayer.

Then, the instant an officer blew his whistle, their weapons screamed out in furious defiance.

The single shots I heard before were now a singular sharp volley of stinging noise. Bullets sprayed across the oncoming horde.

The fastest sinners were only rewarded with an early death. The hot lead cut them down with contemptuous indifference.

The sinners did not cease. Many took several more steps after being hosed down with bullets. Then, they slid against the floor like red paintbrushes, transitioning from living to dead without any warning.

The sinners behind them dove for cover. Their bestial looks and ravenous hunger did not seem to reflect upon their behavior. They realized that they too could become victims.

However, many of them were undeterred. Foolish or perhaps arrogant as they were, they stepped out of cover only to be scythed down in an instant.

Serves them right.

Perhaps this was what humans call catharsis. This is what I feel, yes.

I enjoy catharsis. My memories of the past… Have I always enjoyed catharsis? Is the lens I am seeing my own experiences through altered? I don't know. I enjoy it now. But, did I always?

It matters not.

The sinners who had gotten close had begun to create a violent picture of their true nature. I realized that amongst those initially shot, the only ones down were the ones killed.

Many rushed forward with bodies in an irreparable state of damage; they even collapsed suddenly as if the plug on their lives had been abruptly pulled.

Moderate injuries incapacitate humans. However, these sinners were rushing forward as their bones shattered and their guts tasted the light of day.

These creatures don't seem to feel pain. No, that's incorrect. It appears more so that the pain they feel is irrelevant to them, as if it was only a fraction of what they would deem agonizing.

Was the torment they felt in hell of such magnitude?

…Is this sympathy? Even if it is, it's still overshadowed by the satisfaction their deaths bring.

This sight, it's quite the treat, I must admit.

I never thought I would find myself so thoroughly entertained. Scratch that, I never thought until recently. Now I can think, and I can enjoy it.

So, I will enjoy it.

A particularly horrid beast had managed to get past one of the cars. It lifted a clawed hand as shots ripped through its torso and left its back. The bullets tapped lightly against the tarmac as they penetrated it end to end.

The soldier that stood before it panicked as his clip ran dry. The beast's hefty arms grabbed ahold of him.

The top left half of the sinner's head was split open, its left eye socket was reduced to a bleeding puddle, the clear vitreous fluid mixed with the red streaks of brain matter that now covered the soldier's front shirt.

His weapon hit the ground, and his screams instantly vanished under the beast's jaw. He dropped to the earth, headless. The beast swallowed.

The creature turned its head just in time to stare the soldier's comrade down. Its remaining eye widened in fear as a sword dug into its throat. It gurgled; blood left its mouth in a gentle stream.

With a harsh tug, the sword split the left half of the beast's neck. The stream from its mouth stopped as it was redirected into the waterfall that its throat had become.

It fell to its knees, and the soldier, in a mix of fury and desperation, hacked it apart with rough swings.

He hardly had time to quell his rage as a pack of smaller beasts ripped into him. He tried to slash away at them, but it was in vain. Soon the jaw of an avian sinner closed around his spine and snapped the vertebra.

The dark expanse of a window flashed orange. The small pack came undone under rifle fire. Their thin bodies failed quickly as hot brass riddled them.

This scene repeated itself for several minutes. More sinners gained confidence and charged forward, and although many were killed by the iron maelstrom, some made it through to the other side and claimed one or two lives before losing their own.

The trade was unequal, as each soldier killed was at the cost of four or five sinners. However, the sinners had far more to trade with.

Slowly but surely, the sinners gained inches of terrain, and more of them managed to break through the front lines with each passing second. Up close, the trade was reversed as the soldiers' guns couldn't kill the sinners in short enough order, and the heightened physical ability the Hungering One granted them was far more effective than any meager sword or axe.

Claws tore through the chainmail and plate armor, powerful jaws crunched through bodies with all the effort it took to pick food from a buffet.

The soldiers' aim faltered as fear claimed them. Many broke formation in an attempt to flee. They only found death as gunfire no longer shielded them from the sinners' voracity.

Time stilled. An officer raised his weapon. The power coiled within was so great that any instance of its shooting was the equivalent of burning away half a gas station's worth of oil.

Had it been any cheaper, the sinners would already be facing the music.

The Gauss rifle he held was minimalist in design. It bore a sleek form that thinned out near the front end. Long cables extended to a battery pack that served to power it. He carried no ammo. The weapon made its own internally with the same nanomachines technology present in my wings.

He pulled the trigger, and a sound too low to be a gunshot slowly rumbled through the city.

The bullet was far too rapid for even my hypersonic kinetic vision to follow. All I could make out was the thin trail of irradiated hydrogen ions that flickered like fireflies where the shot had been.

A row of sinners died instantaneously. Everything in a perfect circle from where the gun was aimed had fizzled away from the sheer energy unleashed.

The sinner directly before the gun's barrel had that perfect circle displayed for all to see. His chest, now a porthole window.

The others behind him had sections of themselves erased along the same vector. Half of one's head was taken away. Another missed half its torso—steaming guts hit the floor before it followed them down, wilting like a flower.

The wounds to them must have spontaneously materialized. One sinner who only had his arm blown off turned around to see the vast crater that a singular shot had made in the building behind him. The force of the shot had crushed the wall like a beer can that was shotgunned on a hot summer day.

Officers began to unleash shots with abandon. They fired those instantaneous bolts of death that left gentle snowflakes of charged particles as trails into the horde.

One sinner managed to slip by the lethal streams of annihilation. It was an agile, panther-like creature.

It pounced upon an unsuspecting officer. With a gentle stroke, the sinner was sliced into twin, vertical halves.

The officer spun around his oscillating saber before returning it to his sheath. He couldn't hold back a triumphant, deserved laugh as he stepped over the remains of his enemy with a polished, black boot.

The tide of battle rocked back then fully reversed. Beasts up close were taken down by the soldiers; no more could breach their lines. Oncoming hordes were vaporized by the officers' advanced weaponry. The soldiers, now with victory in sight, fought with renewed vigor. Screams of terror became cheers and battle cries.

One of the officers stepped into the streets and drew his ornate saber into the air, eager to order that final victorious charge.

A dirty, grey shadow fell over him. He was a smear, crushed under one great talon.

His body was strewn around like jam on a slice of toast as the large bat-like leader looked upon his men and then the soldiers with its large predatory eyes.

"My apologies for my tardiness, it was inexcusable and I will be granting you my share of the spoils, I assure you." His voice held an eerie calm. It was laced with a disgustingly genuine warmth. All the sinners stopped. All the men stopped.

It was his presence that had halted them. I had combat logs on the angels that were recorded in the Rapture War following the Long Silence. Apparently, they exuded to creatures of flesh an immense sense of either awe or dread as was necessary. The ones left after the war lost most of this power.

This creature exuded it fully. I believe this is because, much like the black beast, this being is a prophet of its god. It could be considered a sort of angel.

It crossed its arms over, smiling with wicked glee. "It was rude of you to come attack us while we were unprepared. We were planning to come to you and give you a formal declaration of war before we ate you."

It rubbed its chin with its finger and hummed in contemplation. "Either way, now that you're here, I can't exactly ask my precious guests to leave, so I guess I will have to sort you out since you aren't giving me much of a choice… or no—that would be far too cruel."

He looked straight at them. His smile fell away. He was dead serious now.

"Actually, if you leave now… we will let you go. Your force is too small to win this, and it would be despicable to kill these poor young men. Now, the civilized man doesn't discard his men like mere bombs and bullets, and no gentleman kills someone defenseless when mercy is a valuable skill."

One of the sinners, his small reptilian advisor, spoke in a mix of confused terror. His raspy voice shook. "Sir, they have killed many of us, you can't just let them…"

The bat-like leader grabbed the advisor's head and popped it like a grape. He lifted his hand and licked the mix of blood and brain. He savored the flavor like one would a fine wine.

"It's rude to interrupt… Anyways, gentlemen, have you decided? My men hunger. I can't attend to each one, so do make haste."

He began eating the headless corpse of his advisor. Sinners who caught his slowly shifting glare flinched away. They hushed any of their complaints, not at all willing to risk the same fate.

A gruff officer stepped out and stomped forward. He attempted to conceal his fear with confident, strong movements. The soldiers' eyes were locked onto the pair. The officer lifted his finger and unfurled it stiffly, pushing past the trembling of his hands.

"You… disgusting heathen… you worship a false god. We won't yield to the mercy of a demon. We will kill you in the name of the holy God-king."

The leader frowned slightly. "Alright then, return to your formation before we attack. I'll grant you that for fairness's sake."

The officer nodded grimly. He marched back inside the building.

The bat looked back to his monstrous armada. "Men, don't attempt to rush toward them. Enough of you have died. You may take them only after I have broken their formation."

The horde scrambled for cover. The soldiers leveled their weapons. A whole arms bond worth of barrels pointed toward the leader.

He sighed.

Then he was upon them.