Chapter 103: Tempting Cull

Rook’s chest shifted beneath the broken ribs as his body tried to remember its former shape. Reconstruction had barely begun because too much damage occurred too quickly, and the flesh along his back continued dissolving where the Pale Abomination’s memories entered him.

The two High-Rank creatures fought directly above them. A hooked limb swept across the street toward Mara and Rook, leaving her no time to move him.

Mara threw herself over Rook despite knowing her body would provide no protection. The anchor struck the incoming limb first.

The small Reaper planted both feet and swung her weapon into the Pale flesh. Her Death Imprint traveled through the impact and released enough force to change the limb’s direction. The hook passed over Mara and buried itself in the ground beside them.

Two more Reapers rushed in behind her. The first carried bladed tonfas and caught another limb between them, turning with the strike to guide it away rather than attempting to stop it. The second cracked a long whip across the Pale Abomination’s flesh, wrapped it around the joint, and pulled the limb backward.

"Get him out of here!" the anchor wielder shouted. "We’ll keep the limbs away as long as we can."

Mara slid both arms beneath Rook and tried to lift him.

He grunted loudly under the strain. His body folded in her grasp, and she felt broken bones moving beneath what remained of his coat. For one sickening moment, she feared pulling him would complete what the Pale Abomination had begun.

Leaving him there would be worse.

She dragged him away from the fighting creatures while the street shook beneath another impact. A torn section of pale flesh landed beside them and immediately began growing fingers, forcing Mara to kick it away without stopping.

Someone reached Rook from the opposite side.

Frederick appeared beside her with blood covering him from forehead to collar. One side of his armor had been torn open, and the muscles of his right arm trembled from the strain of fighting the muscular Fourth Rank beneath the breach. Behind him, the Manager had formed a cage of stone around the faceless creature, buying his unit several moments to regroup.

Frederick looked down at Rook’s ruined body. "How the hell is he still alive after being swallowed by that thing?"

"I don’t know, and I don’t care right now," Mara snapped. "Help me move him before it takes him back."

Frederick hooked both arms beneath Rook and lifted most of his weight. Mara supported his damaged shoulder and kept his head from striking the ground as they moved toward the shelters.

The Pale Abomination saw them leaving.

Its mouth and belly remained partly open because of Mara’s cut, with Rook’s blood and fragments of his coat clinging between the rows of teeth. The creature watched its meal being dragged away and drove one limb toward them.

The anchor wielder struck it aside again, although the impact forced her down to one knee. Her companion with the bladed tonfas entered beneath the next attack, trapped the joint, and carved through its underside. The whip followed, wrapping around exposed bone and wrenching the limb away from Frederick’s path.

"Keep moving!" the anchor wielder shouted. "Don’t give it another chance to reach him."

Frederick did not slow.

The Pale Abomination attempted to follow, but Mara’s attack had changed the fight. The wound along its back refused to close properly. Whenever remembered flesh grew across the divide, the feline drove its claws inside and tore it farther open.

Its abdomen had split deeply enough that several internal masses dragged along the street whenever it moved. The feline used that weakness to force it backward.

One black paw struck the Pale Abomination’s chest while the other entered beneath the separated plates. Its jaws closed around the side of the creature’s neck as its claws tore through the memories surrounding the central core.

The Pale Abomination lost another limb, followed by part of its torso. The feline pulled downward, and the dense memories shielding the core finally separated.

A translucent shape appeared beneath the flesh.

It was larger than the brief glimpse Rook had uncovered, yet no more stable. Human silhouettes moved through its ghastly light, folding into one another around a center too bright for the eye to follow.

Every Reaper who saw it stopped.

The battles around the breach continued as First and Second Ranks crawled through the streets. Frederick’s unit struggled to contain the muscular Fourth Rank, while the buildings sheltering the wandering souls remained surrounded by creatures.

For that instant, none of it mattered.

The core of a Seventh Rank had been exposed. Any Reaper capable of reaching it could complete the Cull.

Weapons turned toward the Pale Abomination as Death Imprints activated throughout the square. Heat spread across blades, frost gathered around spearheads, gas accumulated inside lungs, and altered weapons shifted into forms designed to penetrate the opening.

The intent was almost unanimous.

Every Reaper wanted the Cull.

Call it instinct, or maybe the senses of a high-ranking abomination. The Pale Abomination felt that hunger turn toward it, and its struggling abruptly ceased. Its divided mouth closed as far as Mara’s wound allowed while its featureless head moved across the gathered Reapers, sensing the abilities prepared to tear through its exposed memories.

Moments earlier, it had been a predator moving through prey. Now the Bastion looked back at it as one body.

The creature tore itself free.

The feline’s claws remained embedded in its back, so pale flesh peeled away around them as the Abomination abandoned entire sections of its body to escape. The outer half of its torso remained beneath the feline while the core retreated into the surviving mass.

Several Reapers attacked at once. A spear of ice passed through the space where the core had been, while heated chains wrapped around one leg. The Pale Abomination severed the trapped limb and left it behind before the chains could tighten.

It jumped toward the cavern wall.

Its ruined body struck above the rooftops, where hooked hands entered the stone and the remaining limbs dragged it upward toward the breach.

The Manager slammed both palms against the street. The cavern answered her.

Stone folded around the fleeing creature as boulders emerged from the wall and closed over its limbs. The surface beneath its claws softened, swallowed them, and hardened again. A massive ridge began rising above the opening, attempting to seal the passage before the Abomination could reach it.

The Pale creature continued climbing. One leg tore away inside the stone, and half its lower body remained trapped beneath a closing boulder, forcing it to rip itself apart at the waist. Memories poured from the wound and stretched upward, dragging the core with them.

The Manager’s arms trembled as cracks opened beneath her hands. "Hold it there! The core remains exposed, so strike before it enters the shaft!"

Reapers launched their attacks toward the breach. Most struck stone, while the rest tore through discarded flesh caught inside the Manager’s restraints.

The Pale Abomination reached the shaft and caught the passage above with its hooked hands. It pulled hard enough to abandon another layer of flesh while the surrounding rocks closed against it. What remained of the body narrowed and forced itself into the opening.

The feline leapt after it. Black claws struck the cavern wall beneath the breach, but the creature stopped instead of climbing farther and watched the Pale Abomination drag itself into the upper passage.

The Manager raised one final wall of stone. The Pale creature broke through before it closed.

Its ruined body disappeared into the passage leading toward the Hollow Road. Fragments of pale armor continued falling after it, striking roofs and streets throughout the Bastion.

Vanessa pressed her wounded hand against the ground and followed the disturbance through the rock. "It reached the upper tunnels and is moving away from us."

The Manager remained on her knees, both hands still buried in cracks across the street. "Where is it going?"

Vanessa turned her head as she tracked the fading presence. "It has already reached the Hollow Road. It looks like it’s joining the stampede."

Far above the Seventy-Second, the stampede had never stopped. Hundreds of Abominations continued toward the Forty-Second, and the wounded creature pulled itself into their path before disappearing among them. Its damaged core escaped with the wave before any Reaper below could complete the Cull.

The creatures already inside the cavern remained.

The muscular Fourth Rank tore one arm free from the Manager’s stone cage. Lesser Abominations filled the surrounding streets, while the shelters behind the defensive lines shook beneath repeated impacts.

Frederick lowered Rook near the base of the Soul Beacon. Mara dropped beside him with both hands covered in blood and half-dissolved memories, unable to understand how a body that ruined could still possess enough awareness to move.

Rook’s fingers scraped weakly against the stone.

Above them, the feline Abomination released its hold upon the cavern wall. It dropped back into the Bastion while the battle continued below.