Chapter 153 – Lendaria, The Painter of Misery

Aki

We entered the next room. It was a wide round chamber, the centrepiece of which was a glowing pillar. There were lines of energy on the walls that concentrated on the ceiling above the obelisk and flowed into it.

So this is the source of the power of the Murdergrove.

In front of the pillar, there was a large blood-splattered surgical table surrounded by six ornate stone cataphalques positioned in a hexagon pattern. Multiple exits were leading out of the room, most of them merely looking like open side-tunnels; however, on the opposite side of the chamber, there was a large ornate wooden double-door. Its importance was further underlined by a line of magical energy flowing along the floor from the pillar to whatever was on the other side.

A black-haired figure in a green robe, holding a staff, stood next to the pillar and turned back towards us. At first glance, it was a woman, but her greenish skin tone and posture felt off. It was hard to tell for sure in the poor light, but there were weird bumps on her sides.

The woman seemed to ignore us and just kept staring at some point near the door.

‘I don’t like it,’ Deirdee muttered and took aim at the figure.

I motioned at Lilyth, and we began to slowly approach the woman, our weapons at the ready. Suddenly, my wife’s ears twitched.

‘Undead in the side passages,’ she whispered. ‘Skeletons and something fleshy.’

Zombies? Revenants?

I looked at the other three and pointed towards the passages. They began watching them.

The oddest and spookiest thing was the woman. She still didn't react despite us obviously being there. Lilyth seemed similarly disturbed.

I have a bad feeling about this.

As we resumed our slow creep towards her, I started wishing I had a gun. I would have felt more comfortable with it.

Eventually, when we were almost at arm’s length, Lilyth pressed the blade of her sword to the woman's neck.

‘Don’t move,’ she barked at the woman, though I thought it was a completely dumb thing to say to someone who has been perfectly still for the past few minutes.

It was then that the undead from the side tunnels struck. There were maybe two dozen of them, mostly the smaller constructs, but among them were also two Bone Juggernauts and what looked to be smaller fleshy variants of those - human corpses turned into grotesque blade-handed abominations. I could see remnants of blue clothes on one of them. I would say I felt sorry for the Red Mask, but that would be a lie. Screw those guys.

At first, it seemed the undead wanted to flank us, but then they began rushing into the gap between us and the girls. ‘No!’ I shouted, but it was too late.

All hell broke loose.

Lilyth momentarily stopped paying attention to the robed woman. The bitch used that moment to strike. She rapidly turned around, and we saw that her jaw was missing and her eyes were all black. The woman's robe was open, revealing her small waxy breasts and a stomach with a wide mouth filled with sharp teeth where her navel should have been. She swung her staff at my wife. Lilyth tried to dodge, but in the heat of the moment her timing was off, so she was hit on the side and was sent sprawling. I leapt to help her, but before I could, A pair of hidden thin arms emerged from holes in the robe’s side. She pointed both at me, and I was hit by a powerful [Gust of Wind] that sent me sliding across the floor.

Shit!

As I quickly scrambled to my feet, I saw that the other girls were being overwhelmed by the onslaught of the undead. Caei had summoned a glaive and was doing her best to fend them off with Ren’s and Deirdee's support, but I was getting worried it wouldn't be enough.

‘Lilyth!’ I shouted. ‘Go help them.’

My foxy cutie threw a single glance at the situation and leapt into the fray without a second thought, but meant I had to deal with the multi-armed bitch, and she sure wasn’t going to make it easy for me.

She was on me the moment I got up, trying to hit me with a sideways swing of her staff. I tried to parry it, but I was too slow and was painfully hit on the ribs. My armour absorbed some of the blow, but I still thought that some of my ribs got cracked.

‘FUCK!’ I spat, as I desperately moved to avoid another swing.

I managed to duck under it and as I tried to counterattack, the bitch simply jumped back. Still, it gave me enough room to fully gather my strength and go on the offensive.

The woman was agile. I had to give her that, but so was I, even though my ribs hurt like a bastard, so I was quickly able to start pushing her back. She must have realised she couldn't keep up with me, so she slid back and sent me tumbling with another [Gust of Wind].

I hit my ribs a few times and almost ended up impaled on my swords again. The woman pounced on me, trying to crush my skull with her staff, but before she could land, she was blown back by a strong gale.

It seems I still have a knight in sl… furry armour.

As I was getting back to my feet again, I spared a moment to look towards Lilyth, but she was back to fighting the undead. She was trying not to get cut in half by one of the Juggernauts, so I had no idea when she managed to cast that spell. The others were in similarly dire straits. They have thinned the number of monsters considerably, but a few new ones seemed to have joined the fray when I wasn't looking.

I hate necromancers.

The four-armed bitch seemed to have realised that the fight wouldn't be as simple as she thought. She started making rapid movements with her two lower hands, and a bunch of bones from the dead skeletons flew towards her and began hovering in front of her. She made a series of cutting motions, and the remains shattered into sharp-looking shards that began to orbit her in a thick ring-shaped cloud that extended maybe a metre away from her body.

Shit.

Deirdee

Deirdee was starting to get really tired, as she was never trained with prolonged engagements in mind, and while her month as a dancer did improve her stamina, it wasn't nearly enough. For a moment, Deirdee thought she should have joined Taros, but the former assassin dismissed the thought immediately. There was no point in dwelling on the past, and if faced with the choice again, she would have still stayed. She wouldn't. Despite what the other lost souls said, Deirdee owed them big time. After all, it was thanks to them that she was able to be herself for the first time in her life, and… she started to entertain the idea of maybe asking them to try to help her rescue this world’s version of Zvirvil. She knew she had no right to ask that of them, but what hurt was there in bringing that up?

Still… for that to happen, her friends had to be alive, and it looked like Aki was in dire straits. After their adversary created the [Shard Storm], the girl had no way to attack her. You needed to engage such enemies from range; however, the spell was one of the few that required some concentration to maintain. There were too many moving elements you needed to keep in sync, or something. No matter what it was, Deirdee had a solution to both these problems.

‘Cover me!’ she shouted to the other three involved in the melee fight.

Not waiting for an acknowledgement, she jumped back, holstered her knife, took the carbine from the shoulder strap and took aim at the necromancer. She wasn’t going for a headshot. There was no time for that, and it wasn't necessary. Instead, Deirdee went for the chest. It was a better choice even in optimal circumstances. She fired three shots. Two went wide, but one hit the woman on the shoulder. It was enough though. The ring of bone shards started to lose cohesion almost immediately. First, its shape grew wavy and irregular. Then the shards started to crash into each and finally the force holding the thing together completely dissipated, spraying the bone pieces around the room.

It was quite a sight, but Deirdee had no time to admire her handiwork. There were still undead to kill.

Aki

I winced when the bone pieces pierced and cut my body in several places. One of them even came dangerously close to hitting me in my left eye.

I really would be Dread Pirate Aki then.

Still, I had no time to worry about such silly concepts: I had to capitalise on the necromancer’s loss of focus. I leapt towards her and attempted to cut her open from shoulder to navel. I misjudged the effect my wounds had on my body, so I ended up hitting one of her upper arms. The sword bit into the bone, but didn't seem to do much damage. The woman pushed me away with her lower arms and began retreating. She started casting something again. This time the bones converged on her sides and back and formed eight thin and long limbs, two of them ending with blades and the other six with sharp points. The necromancer immediately turned the latter into extra legs and began to scuttle towards me like some oversized spider.

Third time’s the charm, I thought as I dashed forward and dove beneath the reach of her combat limbs. The moment I was behind the woman, I turned around slashing with my swords. I had no issue cutting through the reformed bones of the new limbs and managed to sever most of the mobility ones, causing the woman to crash to the ground. She looked dazed and beaten, so I briefly wondered if I should finish her off.

But then I remembered the paintings. The screams of pain. I realised the same fate could have happened to Milla. To Bergia.

To Matis.

To me.

To my mom.

And rage began to rise within me. Anger that was far greater than the one I felt towards myself in the dungeon. It was also mixed with hate almost as intense as the one that Xyrus and Kojiro caused me to feel.

Both those emotions mixed into conflagration that filled every part of my very being.

I saw one of the bladed limbs shoot out towards me as the woman began to crawl away. It never reached me. There was now a red flame surrounding my body, and the bone burnt into nothing just by touching it. I looked down at the woman. There was no pity in me anymore.

No mercy.

Just fire.

I pointed my hand at her, and a spout of fire shot out of it and engulfed the woman. She let out a guttural howl of pure agony that quickly died, and soon only ashes remained of her. I understood then why my grandfather was called “Lord of the Ashen Storm”. Still… I wasn’t done.

I turned towards the pillar. It had to go. I pointed both hands at it. The intensity of fire that erupted from them terrified even me. But that was no reason for me to stop, and soon, the obelisk was reduced to glowing slag, and the magic flowing around the room died with it.

I smiled. And then all fire died, and I collapsed to my knees. I was spent. I never felt that tired in my entire life. With the last of my strength, I looked towards my companions. All the undead fell apart, and my friends were looking at me with wide eyes. That brought another smile to my face.