What…happened?
Neska shook her head, feeling sluggish and slow to respond. Every inch of her body hurt. She could feel an itching sensation–as if she were shedding her scales again. Her vision remained clouded, and she couldn’t make out more than muted blurs and bright spots.
Slowly, contrast returned to the world. She arced her body upward to get a better view, her vision slowly coming back into focus. What she saw shocked her.
The cottage was even more heavily damaged than before. The front wall had been blown out entirely, the debris smoking and blackened. She saw no movement in the prone forms of the men nearby, either. They had been incinerated, or their bodies twisted and bent at unnatural angles.
And then, there was Risha. Neska's breath shuddered when the realization hit her.
She knew this was her last moment.
Blood seeped across the floor, ominously smothering the flame from one overturned candle. Neska felt helpless as she examined her witch–and her deadly wound. The dagger remained lodged deep in her chest. Risha propped herself up and looked at her weakly. Blood dripped from the wound and her lips, her breath shallow and labored.
But when she saw her…she smiled faintly. “Neska…” Her words were barely a whisper. “You have to run. Rivilat Academy of the Awakened. East of the Garuna River, In the Verdant Valley. Find Professor Serkin. He’s one of the few I would trust. Professor Melissa...too.”
There’s a blade sticking out of you! C’mon, Risha, get up! I’m not leaving without you! We're going to see them together!
As if reading her mind, she pointed weakly at the weapon. A blue fluid, separate from the blood, leeched out. The powerful blade had pierced through her mana core. “I knew the price I’d pay, Neska. And I would do it again.” Another dribble of red escaped her lips.
How could someone so hurt still be smiling faintly? Neska slithered over to her, past the broken remnants of her enclosure, butting her head against her outstretched hand.
No! No, there has to be something I can do. Her mind felt alight, her breath sharp. The lab!
Her potions. There had to be something in the other room that survived the destruction, something that could heal her; it wasn’t impossible, one of the health potions, or the bandages that sealed wounds.
Risha blinked slowly, looking down at the fatal wound with a morbid recognition, then back to her snake. “Neska, you are the center of my world…but it won’t be our world for much longer. I love you so much, little darling. Grow strong. Survive. Train, study, lead at the academy. Do what I could not, and stop the monsters.”
A roar of outrage came from the outside of the home, drawing Neska’s attention. Her blood froze after seeing the battered form of Marikand, slow to rise. Blood seeped from his eyes, nose, and trickled from cuts too numerous to count across his body. His serpent mask had been knocked away, revealing a face contorted by rage, and eyes that were pooled with an unnatural amber color. His fervor was interrupted as he looked down at the twisted metal protruding from his torso. He gripped it with one hand and ripped it out with no hesitation. He leered at the dying witch, his posture staggered.
His eyes were manic, filled with something unsettling: a feral, uncontained rage. “Risha…you could never take the easy choice, could you!?” He brought a shaking arm up as he grabbed the sharp blade by his side, his boots clanking over the burning debris.
“Run, Neska. Grow strong.” Risha’s breath was little more than vapors. Yet, she waved a hand, and ice formed in rapidly spreading fractals across the floor–the last of her power. The [Hoar frost Hex] shot toward Marikand, freezing his boots to the ground. He was immobilized by the spell, jerking his body forward unsuccessfully.
“You dare to interfere with beings infinitely your greater?!” Spittle flecked as he screamed the words, rage contorting his face.
“I dare to dream of healing a broken world,” Risha coughed defiantly. Neska coiled her body, eyes locked on this foe, a clear danger to her and her witch. She felt the connection of the Interface, and her intent for what she wanted to do next.
[Coiled Strike] Activated.
She felt her body fly through the air, faster than she’d ever been able to, and opened her mouth wide. She felt her new fangs unfurl, and the man was too slow to stop her as she wrapped around him with the length of her body, biting down into the meat of his cheek.
He screamed in agony. He shook back and forth while she wrapped her body around him, trying to make him stop moving like the pesky mice that kept biting the cows. Except he was bigger and noisier. He dropped his blade in his panic, trying to grab hold of her.
But she felt stronger now. She tightened her grip around his neck, delivering another bite into his nose.
He finally got a good grip and managed to pull her away, flinging her back toward Risha. She landed with a tumble, the world spinning as her body absorbed the impact. She righted herself, arching her body high, ready to defend her witch.
Risha, her breath labored, reached out one shaking hand to Neska, ignoring her injury. “This is not a battle you can win. Not today.”
Marikand dropped to one knee, feeling the bite wounds on his face and still breathing heavily. “You, and the others who keep cutting out human souls and putting them into our young to pacify them, use them against us. All that effort, just to stave off the inevitable…and you call us monsters,” Marikand sneered, his breath ragged.
The venom should have killed him by now, yet he persisted, even as his limbs began to twitch. He still had strength left, and he gripped his weapon, blood seeping between his fingers. His sword lit up with blue flames, and the fiery particles wrapped around his hand and crept along his arm.
His flesh sizzled and seared, but he did not cry out in pain. Instead, it looked like the flesh after the flames passed along it was mending, turning from charred to cracked and bleeding, all the way to pink, undisturbed flesh.
“Neska. Run.” Risha channeled a spike of dark energy into her hand, shadowy tendrils creeping along the floor. “You have everything you need to make a difference.”
Her heart was set on defending her witch to the last. But the logical side of her mind, the one that had seemed so comforting, presented a bitter argument: she could die alongside her witch and accomplish nothing, or grow strong and stop the monsters.
Her heart twisted in on itself as she made the choice that cold logic dictated. She had to survive, to see Risha's last promise fulfilled.
Neska turned tail and slithered across the floor, toward the destroyed wall, and activated her [Coiled Strike]. She leaped over the now-searing flames, even as Marikand tried to break his entanglements and jump at her and missed. The shadowy tendrils kept him rooted, and he brought his sword high, despite the resistance, screaming in rage.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
Neska landed in a coiled pile outside, unharmed by the speed at which she landed, and sped across the path to the woods.
She hadn’t made it past the barn before the cottage erupted into bright blue flames. The heat seared with an intensity of pain on her scales, and she slithered as fast as she could. If she stopped, turned around, or gave any thought to what just happened, she would hesitate and die.
She heard screams behind her, forcing her to glance back. One man had survived and charged at her, sporting bloody wounds on his face and arms. His pace was erratic, and he held an axe haphazardly, screaming incoherently. I can lose him in the woods. I need to hurry!
She felt faster now. There was an energy to her sliding motions that made her feel as if she were merely gliding over the ground. Gravel and slippery grass blades provided no resistance as she slithered with her head held low, darting as fast as possible for the gnarled oaks and low-lying bushes marking the perimeter of Risha’s home.
Still, the man charged. He would close the distance before she could break the treelines. Neska whipped her head back to see him waving that axe, with murderous intent in his eyes. Not today, monster.
The man trampled through the garden, where gourds grew on vines sprawling out over most of the well-tilled area. It was as perfect an area as any to try out a new plan. She mentally fired her [Rooting Hex] and felt a jolt down her spine, along the length of her body.
The gourd vines sprang to life and whipped around for a target. One vine snapped at his ankle, tripping him and sending him sprawling to the ground mere inches from her. He still managed to grab onto her tail, and she let out a hiss of pain. His axe lay in the soft dirt, just out of his reach, and he reeled her in despite the creeping vines winding around his body. He gripped her tightly, threatening to crush her with his gauntleted hand.
She had to get him to let go. She triggered her [Coiled Strike] one more time, coiling her upper body and striking at his neck. She clamped her fangs down while the vines crept up along him, holding one arm rooted to the ground. His other hand reached for the axe, almost in range.
She struck at the fleshy part that the armor didn’t cover. Her fangs drove deep, and he screamed in response, flailing. She felt her [Venomous Bite] trigger, pumping the deadly liquid into the wound. The man lurched for the axe again. It was too late as his limb convulsed, and his grip faltered, the axe tumbling to the ground. She slithered away to a safe distance, now free.
She lay there, watching the man gasp, his mouth flapping, and unable to get any air. The wound bled, and his veins bulged across his face, turning a sickly pale color.
That was for my witch, you monster! She bared her fangs at him for emphasis and hissed menacingly, arching her whole body upward.
But the man didn’t care. Choking wheezes gave way to nothing but a gaping mouth and bulging eyes; the rest of his body went slack. Then, one of those strange messages appeared. The ones from that inky dark place her mind had gone. Except…they seemingly were right in front of her.
[Human mimicoid Defeated, experience gained.]
Neska stared with unblinking eyes as the Interface message faded. Let’s see what you really are, then, mimicoid.
Her mind recoiled at the new development before her, yet she forced herself to watch. The man’s flesh turned bubbly, the dark veins where her venom had pumped through shifted to darkly necrotic and blue. The corruption spread across his face, crumbling the hair, the eyes, the teeth, even.
The rest of his flesh followed suit, practically rotting in real-time, but not the metal gauntlets or the mesh armor he wore. Those sank as the rest of the flesh melted into a gooey puddle, stinking of chemicals not unlike Risha’s laboratory when she had been using her alchemy. Where there had been a man, there was soon nothing left but the remains of something she had seen from Risha’s books.
So that’s what they are. Monsters, through and through. But how many of them? Not all of the seekers on the ground dissolved. In fact, only a third of them had shown signs of rapid decay.
She knew she didn’t have all the facts. Logic overtook her shock as she processed every bit of data. The glaring holes in what she knew of Risha, the Seekers, the ominous Voice that was different from the interface, even the world. The holes in knowledge were too uncomfortably large. But this latest discovery shook her.
More messages appeared.
Level Increased: Witch 1 → Witch 2
Ability Proficiencies increased
Rooting Hex 1 > Rooting Hex 2
Coiled Strike 1 > Coiled Strike 2
1 Essence Point and 3 Attribute Points added
A jolt of energy ran down her body as the messages displayed, nearly knocking her upper body to the ground. She rose shakily, trying to comprehend what had happened.
The house was ablaze, and she could hear screams. Risha’s or Marikand's, she could not tell. The sight of the cottage undergoing such destruction–it felt like someone had stabbed a dagger in her heart, and not just Risha’s.
I can’t stay here. I…I have to go. For her.
She snaked her body over the low roots of the mighty trees and soon disappeared into the bushes as night gathered, and the illumination of the blaze faded into the distance.
Your last promise will live on, Risha. I’ll be the one to stop the monsters. Once and for all.
Her home and her heart were left behind, burnt to ashes.
Initiate Seeker Bryce awoke to a stabbing pain in his gut and a world that was far too hot for his liking. His blurry vision cleared, and he felt aches across his back and shoulder like he’d been flung at speed.
When he took in the surroundings, he let out a curse: the cottage they’d been trying to breach was now wreathed in destruction, the thatch and timber roof going up in a giant plume of flame before collapsing inward. Smoke billowed out, carrying noxious soot that caused him to cough, and led to a discovery as he wheezed.
Pain overwhelmed him, and he looked down, trying not to scream. A jagged piece of glass had left a piercing wound in his belly, likely from the detonation, and he turned his head to look away from the injury and let out a whimper of pain, breathing through gritted teeth.
He had to get help. See if anyone else was alive. Bryce groaned as he held the shard steady in his torso, and he rose shakily to his feet.
“Sound off!” he called out hoarsely. He looked on in horror at the other Seekers, all prone, broken, or slowly being consumed by the flames. He was the only one moving, as far as he knew.
None had responded. The witch had not gone quietly. And not only that, she had possessed a class tier far, far beyond what they’d been told.
They’d never stood a chance. Not against that level of power. She’d slaughtered everyone with little effort, with power he could not even comprehend.
And the messages from the Interface…what was that all about? Something had beamed out messages that normally should not be visible.
They’re all dead. He surveilled warily and saw a pile of twitching roots by the garden. Was that someone else alive?! He staggered over, holding the glass shard gingerly with one gloved hand, hoping not to jostle it. If it broke inside, he’d die.
Damn witch. She couldn’t have just done this the easy way and listened to Marikand. What she had done shouldn’t have been possible. He grimaced as he stopped and stared at the prone figure of Curt on the ground.
Or what used to be Curt.
Instead of a man, there was a puddle of viscous goo where his body had been, the vines still aggressively latched onto the fabric and metal armor that had protected him. Had the snake done this?
No. He dropped to one knee, touching the liquid and rubbing it between his fingers. “Shit…a mimicoid,” he gasped.
Another, impaled on a thrashing, thorn-covered root, slowly seeped to the ground, fluids congealing into a pool in the grass. Oh gods…no!
The seekers were supposed to be monster hunters. Not be monsters themselves. He put his hand to the small device on his armor, a small crystalline relay clad in an outer metal jacket that would allow him to reach out to the Seeker garrison back in town. He grimaced as he summoned the strength to get out a few words. “HQ…this is Seeker Initiate Bryce. We suffered massive casualties attempting to bring in Risha Aksen. Worse, some of the Seekers are–”
He heard a ringing sound of metal behind him, like a sword being drawn. He reached for his own short sword, but he was far too slow. He felt a piercing pain as a sword was driven through his back, pushing through his lung, and then the bloodied blade slid through, right in front of him.
He wheezed, in shock, staring at the deadly wound. He tried to draw breath but only choked on liquid filling the wound. Someone reached down and grabbed his relay–a burnt hand, covered in Seeker armor.
He craned his head to see his attacker. Marikand stood there, burned, with ochre eyes boring into him. “You were right about casualties, Bryce. You’ve seen something you weren’t supposed to see. I’ll have to amend the report that you didn’t survive your deadly wounds, at the hand of the rogue witch Risha.”
Marikand placed a boot on Bryce’s back and shoved his body. He fell forward off the impaled weapon, gurgling on fluid. He tried to call for help, but instead choked on warm blood. He couldn’t fight back against the inevitable.
The Seeker stood before him, sighing softly as he looked at the remains of the armor covered in goo. “Well, shit. I can’t track that thing now. She’s shrouded. The bitch got in one last laugh from the grave. This just got a lot harder.”
The world faded from Bryce into an abysmal blackness.
Prepare for the Revolution!
More monster girls here!
Evil Lemon, ,