Death's Embrace (2)

"There are no saints in a slaughter."

Derrion quietly thought as he touched the jagged scar that ran down his cheek—a twisted relic carved into him during his early years as a hunter. He remembered the first time it burned and what he lost to control it.

And then he activated his Cursed Mark and awakened his three triggers.

Triggers: [Transmutation], [Dead Aim], [Ghost Grip]

[Transmutation]:

Trigger description: [reshaping of cursed matter into projectile weapons.]

[Dead Aim]

Trigger description: [Automatically adjusting thrown projectiles based on target movement.]

[Ghost Grip]

Trigger description: [ Can briefly hold cursed artifacts, without being harmed by residue or recoil. The higher the level of cursed artifact, the shorter the time one can hold.]

After activation, corrosion erupted across his face and torso, iron-red-blackish and blistered as though time itself were coming to reclaim him. His veins swelled, his breath sharp and uneven.

Decades of survival had taught him control even as power hollowed him from the inside out. Amidst the discomfort and pain, he held the cursed shard safeguarded by Ghost Grip and began transmutation.

The shard turned under his grip, melting and distorting into a twisted, dissonant-edged spear of compressed force, a seething spearhead of vibrating edges and silent, gathering fury.

The stunned Chimera twitched after the recoil of the shattered shield. Its serpentine head hissed, sensing danger.

Too late.

Derrion moved fast. He hurled the shard, now a projectile of alarming force, straight into the serpent's skull. The Chimera attempted evasive action, but the projectile bent in flight, tearing through bone and brain.

It collapsed. Dead. Clean. Decisive.

Without a word, Derrion vanished into the tunnels on his own. Survival was his only creed.

Pearl watched Derrion disappear into the darkness beyond from the back of the cave. She didn't blink. Her tiny fists gripped her mother's robe until her knuckles turned white.

Her voice was slightly quivering.

"He … he changed into an ugly monster."

Her mother, uncertain what to say, somberly agreed.

"To fight a monster, you have to be a monster."

Pearl solemnly nodded, her hands clutching her dress with a sense of urgency that wasn't there before.

George exhaled through his nose, watching the corrosion trail dissipate into the cavern's gloom with silent contemplation.

"Derrion had always known how to fend for himself. But sticking around is something he never learned."

There was disappointment, but there was also something more muted — the echo of respect tinged in the years of men outliving battles while leaving people behind.

He turned away. There were wounded to raise. Weak to steady. A girl to carry.

***

Outside, the newborns went mad as they felt death approaching. They started to drag mortals into the ice-hot lava, and some just hacked away at them in mad rage.

The Rotters, with their mosquito-bodied forms, spat out corrosive yellow virel that melted skin and stone from their lofty position. They used their air superiority, with frightening precision and effectiveness, against the weakened humans, as they whizzed through the darkness like ugly shades, their trajectories madly unpredictable.

The underground was dim and lit only by a dim bioluminescent fungal outgrowth and the rare flicker of crimson residue, other than those near the vicinity of the lake... A place all humans avoided with dread.

For human eyes, already wearied by fatigue and pain, five meters was the best they could pierce—a dance of silhouettes and silent death.

And so, the human ranks became more and more filled with the slain. Screams yowled through the darkness as bodies were dragged into its shadows, limbs severed, lives taken. It was a losing battle against the inevitable end.

***

As Murphy's group emerged from their cave under George's leadership, they encountered a chilling sight.

Pearl clung to her mother, her little hands gripping her clothes tightly. She stared, wide-eyed and visibly shaken.

"Mummy…" Pearl murmured, her voice low, like a silent whisper.

"Are we going to die?"

Her mother did not respond immediately.

Her lips opened, then closed...There were no words. She drew Pearl toward her, covering her eyes with a trembling hand.

"No," she replied, her voice crackling, but soft.

"Not today."

Pearl nodded, though her eyes remained open, wet and wide-eyed. Her eyes darted to a detached limb that lay nearby, twitching slightly in a puddle of blood. She whined and pressed her face into her mother's side, trying to disappear into warm flesh as the world around them fell to pieces.

Her mother ran her hand through her hair, gently, and murmured something repeatedly, it was not words so much as a rhythm, a lullaby without melody. Frantic attempts to drown the screams.

Murphy, meanwhile, carrying the unconscious May, stumbled through the carnage. His ballerina performance continued, as he avoided falling debris and the unfolding one-sided massacre. 

Why did he carry May so resolutely? He was not entirely sure. She was a stranger, mostly. A stranger who had called him brother and fought by his side, fought for him, and bled for him.

Murphy didn't know her heart, but knew her story... their story, and what sort of man allows someone to trade their life for his… and walks away? Ungrateful. That's what he'd be. That one word left a bad taste in his mouth.

Maybe he is wrong. Perhaps he isn't. He'd figure it out later. Once the ash settled. Once they stopped running.

If they ever did.

***

Amid the chaos, the blood, the devastation, someone had had enough.

A prime hunter, faster and stronger than most, his face smeared with ash and wearing cracked armor, climbed onto the body of a fallen infant wretch. His voice was hoarse, but behind that hoarseness, there was the power and authority of an experienced hunter. 

His eyes burned… not with fear, but fury. He held the infant wretch's head high, dripping with purple blood.

"Brothers. Sisters."

Voice booming like a thunderstorm, he said.

"Look around you. Look at the blood. The broken. The burning. This is how they see us."

He gestured at the tunnels, where beasts were still howling in the dark.

"They think we are prey. They think we are forgotten. That we will die here, nameless, faceless, buried in the dark."

He paused, breathing hard, sword trembling in his grip.

"But I say, no more."

The crowd stirred.

"And to you—hunters who stand with me, and kin who choose to stay behind, your courage will not be forgotten. It will be remembered in blood, passed on by those who survive."

He stepped down into the crowd, voice rising like a war cry, after tossing the wretch's head aside.

"We are the knives in the night!" he roared.

A few voices echoed him.

"We are the fire inside the frost!"

More joined in, fists clenched, teeth barred.

"We are the last breath of the fallen!"

Now dozens shouted, their voices sending small tremors to the ground.

"We are the wrath of the dead!"

And then they burst out, in Alamananis, all at once.

"Rah Rah, Rah Rey Rey!"

"Rah Rah, Rah Rey Rey!"

"Rah Rah, Rah Rey Rey!"

They would not die quietly.

They would not die alone.

They would invite death with open arms and bring their enemies with them.

This was not surrender.

This was Death's Embrace.