Chapter 206 – The Birth of the Maskless

Lilyth

I transformed into my Succubus form before we entered the catacombs, as I figured I might as well make the most of what I had available, and it wasn’t much. I went into the [Pyrokinesis] skill tree and picked up an [Ignite] Ability for one Perk Point since [Lesser Flame Manipulation] was my only form of offensive magic right now and I had to set shit on fire to be able to use it.

‘So, I’ve been wondering, Lil, how does the new tail feel?’ Aki asked as we descended the stairs.

‘Weird,’ I answered. ‘The fox tail is just there. This one feels like a piece of clothing dragging behind me. I have no idea how the fuck you walk with yours.’

‘Being born with it probably helps,’ Sav said. ‘Though I have to wonder about the relation between Hellborn and Demons. Can’t help but notice the similarities.’

‘I wish I had answers for you, Sav,’ Persephone sighed. ‘The Hellborn were long extinct by the time I had turned into one.’

Another mystery to the pile.

You know what's worse than empty catacombs? Empty catacombs that had people stationed inside them hours before. There was no trace of the Guardsmen we stationed inside anywhere.

‘So, how exactly do we find the place we are looking for?’ Aki whispered.

That knowledge died with poor Dain.

‘The hard way, I think,’ I replied in a hushed tone. ‘Then again it is probably a “suspiciously placed wall”.’

‘Could it be an illusion?’ Sav suggested. I mean… people have been coming and going through it all the time.’

Fuck. The acoustic pings would be useful in finding that.

As it turned out, whoever was inside wasn’t interested in waiting for us to find them and went on the offensive immediately, and, thanks to my blue-haired lioness getting tackled to the ground by two Hunters once she reached a split in the corridors, I discovered why tunnel fighting sucked major donkey schlong.

‘AKI!’ I shouted, activated the [Swiftness of the Wind] and charged towards her.

As it turned out… letting your feelings guide you when you don’t actually have full situational awareness is not that great of an idea. Who would have thought?

Unfortunately for the Lurker who was still well… lurking on the ceiling of the side corridor, the Hunters came from my dragon leather armour, which was somewhat too tough for its claws, so all it did was to send me flying. Straight into the desperate melee between Aki and the two Hunters.

Not again...

Milten

‘This makes me almost feel like I am home again, Sergeant,’ Sol remarked upon seeing the wet, blood-red sky and the black void where the sun once was.

‘I have… questions,’ was Milten’s only answer. ‘So many questions.’

There was no time for them unfortunately. Milten was used to Sol’s weirdness by now; he knew the boy was a riftling, so it was to be expected, but this was still an utterly insane statement even by his standards.

The two of them were currently running around the city and trying to direct people to evacuation points, so either the gates or the Compound of the Children where a portal has been opened to evacuate people to the realm of Life.

‘...help me…’ someone moaned from a side alley.

‘Sol!’ he shouted and both of them rushed in the direction of the voice.

The person calling for help turned out to be a city guard. Or at least that is what it looked like originally. Last Milten, checked his siblings-in-arms had more facial features than a lipless mouth filled with sharp teeth.

The nightmarish head seemed to have nested in the hollowed-out skull of whoever that poor sonuvabitch was, but still was somehow able to control the body. Very effectively too, judging by the bodies surrounding the abomination.

‘What the fuck!’ Milten shouted in fear and began backing away.

A fleshy tentacle shot out from a gash in the monster's stomach and wrapped around his torso.

His training reasserted himself and Milten drew his sword to fight the monster, but it proved to be unnecessary, as Sol burst past him, cut the tentacle in half, whirled around and using the power of his momentum, lopped off the monster’s head.

To Milten's horror, that didn't actually kill the creature as the severed head kept snarling at them, but Sol was having none of its bullshit and crushed the monster's skull under his standard-issue City Guard winter boot.

That didn't seem to be the end of their problems, as the bodies began to stir and rise. Sol just looked at them, sighed and turned into a whirlwind of steel.

Milten could only stare at the boy, mouth agape.

You know… On second thought, Sol can be as weird as he wants.

‘What the fuck was that thing?’ he asked, kicking the body of the monster.

‘Level 5 Sanguine Puppet Master, Sergeant,’ Sol read from his interface.

‘Sanguine…’ Milten repeated, a new wave of dread filling his body.

He heard stories about the Sanguine. They were rarely good ones.

‘Aren’t Queen Caeileera and Miss Deirdee Sanguine, Sergeant?’ Sol wondered out loud. ‘They don’t look anything like that monster. They are nice too.’

“A mystery for later, Sol. I doubt this was the only one of those monsters, so our timeline just got short considerably.’

This was further underlined by new screams of terror, different from the current “the world is ending ones”, in the distance, that began as the two guardsmen rushed to hurry the people out of danger.

They were too late though. Three four-armed Sanguine abominations were tearing their way through a large group of people they pinned against a wall of a house. Whoever they killed, soon began to stir and rise.

Milten and Sol looked at each other and charged in to help.

Laachersain

The two City Guards appeared to be getting overwhelmed by the onslaught of Thralls and Lower ones.

‘Now’s our chance,’ Raveen said. ‘While they are distracted.’

Laachersain just shook his head and drew his longsword.

‘You can't be serious about helping them,’ the man protested.

‘And what's your plan after leaving the city, Rav?’ Laachersain asked. ‘Just go on the run? Live as outlaws? In the middle of Winter, no less? Caeileera is living here and doing fine, maybe we can too.’

‘I doubt they will welcome us with open arms,’ Umaheet pointed out.

‘Follow me or don’t. I’m helping.’

‘Call me sentimental,’ Veersavil said as he joined him,’ but I don’t want the first action I take as a free man to be “leaving people to die in a disaster I helped cause”.

‘Well said, old friend,’ Laachersain smiled.

‘If I get killed because of you two idiots, I will haunt your asses!’ Umaheet shouted.

Milten

The arrival of the three strangers saved the lives of Sol, Milten and several citizens. He was about to go over to thank them when he noticed that they were Sanguine.

‘We mean you no harm,’ their apparent leader, a five-horned man wielding a black-iron longsword, said, as another of them, this one having four horns, went over to check on the wounded civilians. ‘My name is Laachersain.’

The man’s declaration of friendliness was made stronger by his companion starting to use healing magic on the people they just rescued.

‘Are you friends of Queen Caeileera?’ Sol asked, likely deciding they were safe enough.

‘Queen… Caeileera?’ the strange man repeated.

‘You actually know her?’ Milten asked.

‘It’s complicated but you could say we are siblings.’

‘Probably a subject for later, then’ Milten then pointed at the glowing beam of blood red energy.

‘Your handiwork, I imagine?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Laa… Lak… the man replied. ‘We were a part of the force that caused it. I know it doesn't make it any better but we weren't aware the Cabal was planning it.’

‘So… why help us?’

‘After Caeileera and her friends almost slaughtered our entire invasion force we decided that we’d rather live,’ the only woman among the three supplied. ‘Then we saw your group being attacked and decided to help.’

‘Not gonna turn down three extra men,’ Milten decided. ‘I’m Milten, this is Sol.’

The woman introduced herself as Umaheet and the healer was Veersavil.

Once the latter was done, taking care of the wounded, Milten directed them towards the Compound of the Children, and then it was time to follow more screams.

Savri

After rescuing one (1) blue-haired party leader and one (1) fiery orange-furred furball from the latest mess they got themselves into I appointed Deirdee to be our pointwoman. She was still wearing the leather armour she had in the morning AND had combat training.

Honestly, I couldn't even blame the two actually horny lovebirds for this. It was fully on me. This place required heavily armoured soldiers to clear. Not irregulars. And having a potential basket case and a heavily traumatised teenager lead the way under these conditions was especially stupid. Truth be told, Deirdee likely wasn't doing much better due to losing her brother AGAIN after he had just tried to kill her, but it was a choice between her, someone who just died and someone the love of whose life just died. Sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got, so fucking sue me.

The fact that Lilyth almost fell victim to the exact same fate as poor Dain wasn't lost on me either. I knew she had some understanding of military tactics, whatever she gleaned from TV, video games and war coverage anyway, but ultimately she, like Dainyir and the rest of our group, was just a glorified civilian. Meaning, I would have to treat her like it.

My first thought was to turn her and the rest into a copy of the Fourth, but that wouldn't work. As I said, we were irregulars, or we would be if I got off my ass.

Deirdee

Based on Sav's reaction to Lilyth's and Aki’s mishap, we had to end this mess quickly, as none of us were in the right state of mind it seemed. I wasn’t sure whether it warranted switching the formation, but then again I wasn't in charge. Another thing that made the change perplexing was the fact that I may have been a melee fighter, but I wasn't a frontliner.

What kind of logic is it to place a fucking assassin in front of the formation?

The point turned out to be moot anyway, as Aki stopped us and asked;

‘Lilyth, remind me, Dain said that they found whatever it was when digging out a fourth level, correct?’

‘Yes?’ the furball confirmed.

‘So it would follow that there is another floor below us?’

‘That’s why we are looking for the hidden staircase,’ Sav said, unsure where Aki was going with this, but I was starting to get an inkling.

And it was perfect in its simplicity.

‘Caei knows [Rock Burst],’ Aki simply said.

Several emotions flashed on Savri's face.

‘Why didn't I think of that?’ she finally moaned in despair. ‘Doing shit like this was my job.’

‘If it makes you feel better, it was also mine,’ I tried to comfort her.

‘Let’s do this near the entrance. If we cause a cave-in, best to have a way out.’