Chương 120: CHAPTER 117 - Triple Disaster

A thunder tore through the remains of the old monolith region, now reduced to a heap of crystalline rubble destined to plunge into the sea. The invisible Frequency vibrated, distorted in the black slime devouring the concrete. A light melted the rock, sliding through the ruins, clashing repeatedly against dark, scaly claws dripping with blood.

The figure, a black-haired boy, emerged from the sparks enveloping him, holding with all his remaining strength a gleaming blade, its cables exposed and bound tightly to his wrist by reddish bandages. The woman pursuing him chuckled, staring with a gaze both tired and yet so blazing. A red drop of sweat fell at their feet, shattered, and immediately the air was cut again, accompanied by the faint presence of sparks. The slashes were exchanged rapidly, never letting either gain ground on the other.

"Finally… The same sensations from that day are resurfacing!" Lance was sent flying, shattering the ground with his blade to keep his footing. Blood dripped from the claws, while his blade continued to smoke as he struggled to maintain that massive form. Behind Laure's shoulders, through the dense smoke, Noel burst out, making his chainsaw roar. She moved to react, but an incandescent dart pierced her calf. Muscles and fat were left boiling inside her tissues.

"A pincer from behind again?" The mechanical blades pierced her trapezius, spinning furiously as their little claws dug into the flesh. As Noel strained to drive the mechanical sword into the heart, Laure's skin scaled and thickened, mutating grotesquely. Veins and yellow blisters shattered the epidermis as she painfully contracted her muscles. Laure smiled at the same moment the chainsaw stopped. Noel fell heavily to the ground, still panting as he tried to pierce her one last time.

"Shit!" Lance aimed his free, bloodied palm at her, detonating another series of small whitish shards. The tail, once severed, regenerated so quickly it tore the air while the ground beneath Laure exploded with enough force to raise dozens of debris. The shots detonated in the smoke, followed by another explosion. The ground collapsed, carrying Laure and Noel with it, while Lance tried to follow them into the dust.

"A creature like you, all marrow and organs. Do you wish to become like me?" Laure smiled, tearing the chainsaw along with the remains of her musculature. Noel tried to kick her as they plummeted toward the blue.

"You don't have the stuff. You're bound to something. You're a sinner, yet you're still incapable of breaking away from the past." Her claws slashed his chest, releasing a red mist into the dusty air. She raised her arm, preparing a second strike.

"No… I'm a sinner… Nothing more to it." Noel's cold, mechanical hand tightened around her forearm with frightening speed, squeezing her muscles until they merged with bone shards. Grinding her teeth in pain, she pierced his shoulder, severing bone and tendon alike. Noel's grip on Laure's arm tightened, and the spilled blood multiplied.

"But you… You're worth less than me… Because you abandoned pain… You let the seeds of cowardice and lust take root in the cracks." Enraged, Laure moved to launch her tail directly at the veins of his throat, but suddenly the air broke. The same hand that held the heavy chainsaw had crashed, like a meteor, into her abdomen. A deafening boom tore through eardrums as the beast slammed onto a floating island below what remained of the region.

Noel landed among the ruins, feeling the flesh beneath his skin mutate and swell. He glanced at the prosthetic as he loaded the last nail: a strange phenomenon of arborification appeared between the very thin plates of the hand, creating colorful blood vessels and vaguely violet scales among the gears. Noel smiled, observing his rival. Laure panted, grabbing her dust-covered innards to shove them back into her abdomen, which slowly tried to heal.

Her gaze was so bloodshot with hatred that the anthropomorphic form barely distinguished her from a beast.

"You think you're better than me? A dirty wretch who will lose himself in his emotions?!" The tail coiled around her arm, trying to hold the mutilated mass together. Noel shook his head, smiling as he touched the only intact pocket of his uniform.

"A shame… I forgot my journal at home." Laure stared at him, baffled, feeling her heart beat so wildly she thought it would soon pulverize the few remaining ribs.

"I know how far I've pushed myself. In fact, maybe it's a miracle I can still communicate normally. Laure, right?" The woman nodded, this time with unexpected seriousness.

"I won't reach your point. I won't be consumed like you. Death will come for me on my own terms!" He raised the sword, making the engine thunder again as the chain sparkled scarlet. Laure smiled, stroking her chest.

"I, who breathe and hate—would I already be dead?" Noel surrendered to a grin from ear to ear, as was his custom.

"To lose your origin, to become completely different because of a disease… Isn't that like dying?" Both fell silent, exchanging the same smiling expression before vanishing. The clamor of the clash shattered the floating rocks, filling the air with the sound of thousands of slashes thrown with the intent to kill. In mere seconds, the island cracked irreparably.

"You will die without the freedom to choose… I'LL SHRED YOU TO GIVE YOU AS A LAST MEAL TO YOUR COMRADES!" The chainsaw and claws impacted, with the latter victorious. Noel's pectoral was pierced and, consequently, his heart. Laure licked her lips as blood erupted from her rival and stained her face. His weapon had been broken, his prosthetic began to crack, and he felt his consciousness slipping away with every breath. On that man's face, however, the smile persisted.

As Laure prepared to tear out the organ, a hiss cut through the air. She moved to turn toward the source but was a few moments too late. Like a bullet, Lance streaked across the sky, driving the sword through her torso from side to side. The blade exploded, and its fragments burst around them as Laure's canines were tinged with gushes of blood. His knuckles impacted her face, sending her through the rubble.

"Noel… The injection…" He smiled, adjusting his hair with a hand soaked in blood and sweat. He spoke no word, merely smiling as he saw Laure rise in the distance.

"The nail is loaded, but it's the last one left. We can't fail now that her regeneration is low." He raised his forearm, aiming it at the cloud of dust advancing toward them. Lance nodded, coagulating the blood between his fingers to form a small dagger.

"We won't miss…" Lance darted toward Laure, merging into the melee of debris and slashes. Their features were lost in the conflict, limiting them to perceiving the beats of their hearts, the movement of tendons, the painful breaths, and the acrid smell of mixed bodily fluids. Three cuts slashed her face, securing Lance the first blow. His ankle was pierced, and without being able to understand from which angle the tail's stinger had penetrated, Lance found himself hurled like a puppet among the rocks.

His senses began to blur as he collided with sharp metal and rough rock. In the frenzy, he grabbed the slimy appendage, yanking it. Lance and Laure now floated in the air, a few meters apart." Karmesin Darde!" The same sharp coagulate between his fingers exploded, bombarding everything before him with a rain of reddish shards permeated by an unsettling violet glow. Laure shielded herself, withdrawing her tail and wrapping it around her body.

She found herself with her feet immersed in a pool of blood, identical to those that populated the surrounding craters. She glanced at the strip of flesh she held in her hands, shredded and barely able to move. She smiled, biting her own flesh to tear it away and spit it out.

"Where are those two? The big guy seems to have vanished for an ambush, while Lance…" As she murmured, she was grabbed from below. A powerful grip lacerated the flesh of her thighs as she found herself forced to her knees.

"Are your senses getting duller?" From the shattered rock emerged Lance, holding all the accumulated blood in a mallet wrapped in white light with strange black outlines. His golden eyes blazed before the blow exploded. He coughed blood as Laure pulled away, her torso torn open and her breath labored.

"Not bad… Not bad at all." She smiled as her flesh desperately tried to reconnect and cover the white tissue of her bones. Lance stared at his hand, now wrapped in bleeding, carved violet scars.

"If I can't hit her soon with another blow… The Overload will kill me." He swallowed, panting as he tried to grasp the desperate thoughts spinning around him. He could feel it. The same sensation that made his limbs soft and his spirit porous: the awareness of death. Laure licked her lips, ignoring her wounds as she raised her guard again while slowly approaching him. Lance sighed, glancing at his hand and then immediately at Lachesi. The relic lay silent on the dirty, dust-stained flesh, awaiting a final call.

"I realize I'm no longer in the best condition… But you know as well as I do that without the relic, you won't win." Lance gave no sign of change in his dull, rather pale expression. He knew Laure was telling the truth.

"Being free to hesitate... It's a nice way of saying you have a kinder jailer than most." Laure smiled, nodding. Lance's gaze grew ever sharper, as his mind tried to process what to do.

"And yet, I don't know why, but something doesn't add up. There's smoke around her." He remembered the first time at Arden Ring, that manual so full of notions new to him, now so ingrained in his person as to be almost daily routine. The blood coagulated again around his fingers, coated in flickering white and black flames. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Laure's cheek was sliced, and Lance's right shoulder impaled.

The exchange lasted less than a blink, raising a violent storm of debris and wreckage. Amid that storm, Noel managed to glimpse her drops of violet blood. He raised his arm, holding with extreme effort the amalgam of iron and flesh that his prosthetic had become. In silence, he closed one eye and detonated the shot. The metal shard cut through the air, vibrating, heading toward the expanding cloud of dust. The iron passed through and almost dug into her shoulder. The tip grazed her skin.

At that very instant, her entire body, as is customary for felines, rotated with discreet elegance. The nail was deflected.

"Too slow..." Laure, however, failed to see the silhouette spinning behind her.

"Got it!" Lance's hands grabbed the burning object, straining to smile. Before Laure could turn, Lance drove the iron into her shoulder. The surrounding dust vibrated before being suddenly heated. Flames and molten metal dispersed around them, while a crystalline glow blocked his sight.

"I knew a wound like that would give her power back…" His arm was pierced by pink crystalline spines, fusing with his blood vessels to expand and lacerate him. In a few moments, all the flesh up to the elbow had been reduced to a crystalline pulp; despite this, Laure's face was frozen in a deplorable grimace, perhaps caused by Lance's smile. Blood coagulated around them, while from Lachesi a long iron barrel began to emerge.

The relic had halted the infection, repelling the foreign Frequency and giving Lance enough time to metabolize the damage. In Supplicium's chamber, a new bullet had formed.

"But it doesn't matter!" A violent detonation definitively shattered the island, scattering the trio across various floating islets. Laure held on, immersed in dust, her shoulder bleeding. A viscous, dense slime had formed where her shoulder once was. Lance, meanwhile, leaned against the debris, tearing the crystals from his arm while stabilizing the Frequency.

"You're two ignorant bastards… The worst I've ever dealt with." As much as she tried to regenerate, her arm could no longer maintain its form, stopping at becoming a blade of crystals wet with that otherworldly blood. While she tried to analyze her surroundings, a shadow completely covered the islet. The impact shook the earth, almost rearing it up as it floated in the void. Laure found herself crushed under Noel's sole, repeatedly stomped with enough force to make the air vibrate.

"What is this strength now?" Each blow slowly restored the Frequency in her veins, yet the pure, brutal violence with which she was tossed into the rubble shattered every attempt at regeneration or counterattack. Suddenly, the powerful hand gripped her face, contracting every muscle bundle, and hurled her, like a trebuchet, toward the larger island that partially obscured the sky. The impact opened the surface, raising numerous slabs.

A second impact, this time stronger, carried rock and Laure with it as they devastated the remains of an urban area. With a sweeping blow, Noel lost his arm and with it the prosthetic. Her legs, wrapped in sharp shards, tightened around his shoulders, lacerating them. Amid the remains of Icarus's civilization, the two stared at each other in the deafening destruction of the surrounding buildings.

"I recognize it! You're strong." Noel had lost his prosthetic, but from the amalgam of muscle and bone, no blood flowed. Rather, his entire body seemed somehow invigorated. His bronze skin had turned red, covered in veins imbued with a violet stench. His hair, once golden, had lightened to the point of becoming white, almost like his pupils, which now raved beyond his adversary. He raised the remains of his arm, every breath accompanied by a hiss.

"I… Here… Will stop you…" He assumed his classic pose, raising his only fist to temple height. Laure, for some strange reason, did the same while smiling.

"Yours will be a decidedly more bitter fate than mine." Despite all the wounds she suffered, her ability managed to restore her speed. Laure appeared behind Noel, holding a shard between her hands. The crystal exploded on contact with his muscles, barely scratching the skin. With equal speed, Noel's fist cut through the air, compacting it so much that it exploded into violent gusts of wind.

Soon the battlefield began to tremble again, and new rock formations tore through the building remains only to be shattered immediately after. His eyes widened, bringing the full weight of his body exactly where Laure was about to land from one of her numerous leaps. Reflexively, her vision sharpened, and she raised her clawed leg. Palm and sole clashed, making the ground erupt beneath them.

The entire area almost began to cavitate with a terrifying boom, as if their very blood had compacted in that small space to absorb all the energy. The first to yield was Laure, repelled and hurled through the ruins. She tried to rise in the cold, dusty room, feeling the glass try to open her elbows. The only result of her effort was a dense vomit laden with a miasma she had learned to recognize. The same viscous smell emanated from Noel's Frequency and Lance's relic: the miasma of Hel.

"That slash damaged my core... Good job, boy." Her consciousness tried to cling to the count of blood drops she had spilled, hoping that innumerable sequences could keep her sane. A tremor had nested inside her and was shaking her just like the incessant ticking of a clock.

"Damn it… This place will be my grave too?" Laure managed to get back on her feet, shoving back down the mass of tissue trying to escape her orifice, while everything began to tremble. Noel's steps raised the rock as the blood accumulated in the veins boiled, lifting a reddish vapor from his shoulders. Now, in place of the prosthetic, an oval calcified mass had formed that, just by looking at it, conveyed its density.

Laure leaned out of the hole caused by her impact, accumulating what remained to form a crystal lance directly from the remnants of her shoulder.

"Noel… I'll remember you as long as I live." The giant halted his march, staring at the woman from the top of the building. The two lunged at each other, never taking their eyes off the other's face. The impact made the region tremble, devouring the atmosphere with jaws of dust and rock. When the tremors ceased, Noel stood statuesque, muscles rigid and face covered by the vapor of his exhalations. Laure was at his feet, the stump of her arm extended toward him.

The smoke evaporated, revealing the branches of pulsating crystals that had pierced the colossus. Slowly they lengthened, sprouting from beneath the skin and arborifying into the tissues." Le Grondement de la Révolte …" The shards exploded, hissing from his back, spreading dark ichor over the ruins. That man's body fell to its knees, pierced from side to side. Laure passed him, casting a tired eye on the ribs turned outward like wings.

"I didn't imagine I'd have to use it… All the abuses condensed into a single lance, just like a great revolution." She raised her clawed arm, smiling.

"Lance…" Her ears pricked, catching a delicate rustle in the distance. More blood gushed from the hole as the air tried to accumulate in what remained of his chest. A figure wrapped in a reddish cloth streaked across the sky.

"NOW!" Noel's scream cracked the rock, stunning Laure for a brief instant, leaving her helpless to the rain of energy artillery. Numerous darts fell upon the two, raising a violent blanket of electrified smoke.

"You managed to regenerate?" Laure and Lance clashed, emerging from the smoke with weapons drawn. Between his bandage-wrapped hands, he held the remains of his blade, its edge cracked and full of fissures, slightly bent to one side. With violence, he swung a slash with his tortured arm, clashing against the claws.

"Your ability is incomplete compared to mine…" Almost as if their earlier clash were but a memory, she kicked him away, sending him tumbling through the rubble. He rose sharply, shattering his blade against a crystal. Laure appeared between one dart and another, opening new gashes on his legs and chest.

"Noel isn't dead… I can still feel him trying to move. She's at her limit too! I can see the flow where she's concentrating." He ignored the fibers of his flesh being cut, as well as the rapid rise in temperature at his temples.

"You recover decently well, but organs, tissues, Frequency... They're not as important as spirit! Your reservoir is decidedly fuller, but you can't draw from it." The knuckles coated in a dense crystalline plate impacted his abdomen, hurling him through the building where he had fallen. He forced the blood back down his throat.

"Almost there… I have to trust." His vision began to abandon him as an unbearable itch began to harass his limbs. He slowly brought his palm close to Lachesi, letting the vibrations replace his senses. He began to trace rapid movements, spreading blood from his wounds. A hiss, thin and elusive, flew toward him. He turned, raising the heavy arm with all the Frequency he had left." EINBRAND!" The fist impacted at Laure's feet, embedding itself in the ground.

The woman laughed, marking her laughter with every gasp of the boy.

"It'll do… I wasn't aiming at you." Laure noticed the viscous blood accumulating around them. Immediately, she raised her arm, creating a second lance from the stump. The boy's bandages moved on impulse, blocking them in that pool.

"Einbrand should normally transmit Frequency to a point… But if this time I could use it as a conduit?" The blood detonated violently in a crimson column of Frequency. Lance and Laure flew into the sky, wrapped in a red, filthy rain. At that precise instant, a roar shattered the sky. With all his strength, he had uprooted an entire complex of dwellings from the ground, lifting it while his organs poured out of his body. The aggregates of veins pulsed uninterruptedly and in sync, like so many small hearts.

A dense vapor accompanied him during the throw. Metal, concrete, wood, glass flew like a disc, soaring through the air with grace.

"Is he still alive?!" Laure tried to find a gap in that deformed mass of wreckage, failing. Laure didn't manage to find an escape route in time. With the lance born from her flesh, she pierced the building thrown into the air. Crystal shards exploded in a pink mist, wrapping around the remains of the apartments. Her visibility was reduced, and in the floating labyrinth, a presence had become more intense. Laure chuckled, staring at Lance above her, holding with his bandage-wrapped arm what remained of his sword.

They exchanged a glance before the boy shot the blade as a projectile and pierced her heart from side to side. She crashed to the ground, impaled and bleeding, while a fragile, heavy rain destroyed the surroundings. Lance appeared in front of her.

"Finally…" She smiled as Lance grabbed the hot, wet hilt, grinding what remained of her chest. With the same clumsiness that usually accompanies exhaustion, the boy retrieved what was left of the weapon: the hilt, the guard, and a few centimeters of the blade, leaving the rest embedded.

"The hunt…" He pointed the tip at the center of her forehead, with a grimace of pain and fatigue. On her face was the strange appearance of bliss. She gazed at the boy's eyes, shining with a deep golden glow. Lance won, but despite that, not a single smile formed on his bloody face.

"Comes to a close…" What remained of Lance's sword broke through her cranium, piercing Laure's brain. The Frequency around him went mad, writhing away from that body that had surpassed the limits of humanity until it became something unknown to Earth and the beyond. A dense black smoke rose from the corpse, completely enveloping the two. Thus concluded the story of the beast, finally hunted and killed by another victim of the hunt.