Caitlin's body hit the ground. Katie's Knife was in her heart, but it wasn't Katie that struck her down. It was Caitlin herself.
"No…" For a moment, Katie knelt there, frozen and incapable of comprehending what had happened. Caitlin was dead. She was dead! She ended her own life! "No. No! It can't be! Don't do this to me, Caitlin! Damn you!" She knelt down beside Caitlin and checked her wound, hoping it was worse than it looked, but it wasn't. All evidence points to one thing: Caitlin was gone.
Over the next ten minutes, Katie tried everything. She tried spilling her own blood onto Caitlin's body, hoping the regenerative attributes in her blood could revive her girlfriend. After that failed, she literally went down on her knees and screamed into the air, offering anything to any god or deity that could save Caitlin's life. She even prayed to Satan. To Lucifer. If Hell could bring back her lover, then she would gladly swear her allegiance to the forces of Hell.
But nothing worked. The fact was that Caitlin was gone. Katie's Knife terminated her, body and soul alike, ending her life and freeing her from Mr. Isaac's grip.
Once that was clear, Katie broke down.
"No! No! Noooooooooo!" In that classroom, beside Caitlin's body, she cried and screamed. She cried and cried...until she started laughing.
Yes. Beside Caitlin's still warm body, Katie started laughing. She laughed and laughed until she was out of breath, and when that happened, she continued on and on until she was literally choking herself.
"Hahahahahahaha!" Even as she laughed in silence, Katie felt power pouring into her body. Where did this power come from? Simple. Agony was so much more than physical pain. It also included mental suffering, as well as guilt, grief, unsatisfied lust, and despair. And what Katie was feeling...it was worse than any physical pain she could possibly endure.
In the classroom, Katie slowly stood back up. With one swift move, she pulled her Knife out of Caitlin's chest. Her eyes were as red as blood as she made a simple promise.
"You wait right here, Caitlin, and I'll bring Mr. Isaac's head to you."
With that declaration, she marched out of the classroom. First, she would purge this building. Next, she would confront Mr. Isaac himself and slay him where he stood.
---
As Katie initiated her rampage, Mr. Isaac was still standing at the altar. He had no idea a frenzied and broken Katie Lockwood was ravaging across the building not far away, destroying everything he had spent the last three weeks building up. In fact, as far as he was concerned, everything was perfectly normal. A net of Spiers across the campus made sure if anything went wrong, he would be the first to know.
When the bloody figure of Katie Lockwood appeared in front of him, he knew he was dead wrong.
Katie stood tall and proud. Her clothes, well...the only thing left on her was her leather jacket, but only the sickest psychopath would find her beautiful. Blood and guts were all over her body, painting her in a midst of red. A few fingers were on her shoulder. It belonged to a Chaos Descendant that tried to seize her by the shoulder and pull her into a wall...now all that was left was the handful of fingers.
Her Knife was tight in her grip. It was a little dirty with all the work it had done, so Katie wiped it across her left forearm, making it clean and shiny. Good…
"How…" Mr. Isaac's face turned pale at a surprising rate, and even Katie had to admit it was a funny sight. "How did you get in here?" The teacher channeled the Spiers again. All of them claimed everything was normal, but he just couldn't psychically connect to any of them directly. That was when he realized it. "It's Lepon, isn't it! He helped you! He'll pay for this!"
Katie didn't recognize that name, and she didn't care. Instead, with the power of agony boiling in her veins, she slowly advanced, blade in hand and grin on cheeks.
Her bare feet left bloody prints with every step taken.
Mr. Isaac bit his lips before holding his hands out, channeling his power. Countless ropes came out of the shadows. It was a common trick Mr. Isaac employed, especially against Katie. In most cases, it would take a while for Katie to grow all her limbs back. Not this time. In fact, this time, as the ropes came reaching out, Katie dodged to the side with lightning speed and avoided the ropes. These ropes whipped by Katie, only to be cut in half before they could pull back.
Katie's powers weren't as fancy as that of Mr. Isaac. She was just extremely fast, extremely strong, and impossible to kill. Sometimes, that was all a girl needed.
"That's...that's impossible!" Mr. Isaac called out in disbelief. Two days ago, he literally subdued her in moments! But now...how was Katie getting so powerful this quickly? Was she also making sacrifices to the Chaos Domain? Tossing that thought aside, he snapped to two other figures behind him. Two fellow Predators. "Get to the school and bring all the sacrifices here! We're starting the ritual now"
He knew he didn't have nearly enough power to beat Katie right now. For an enemy like Katie, being on equal or similar footing meant being on the weaker end. He needed to make sacrifices at once! Only as a Dominator did he have some chance of beating the Katie Lockwood now!
The two Predators nodded and quickly departed as Mr. Isaac channeled all his power to prevent Katie from going after them...something Katie never had any intention of doing. Instead, she went straight for her prey, Mr. Isaac.
Chaos Descendants swarmed onto Katie in an attempt to exhaust her in a war of attrition. This was an effective strategy for the numberless Chaos Descendants, who could be summoned en masse by powerful Predators and Dominators alike. Unfortunately, Katie was more than happy to pay the attrition of blood.
The first Chaos Descendant Katie ran into was a familiar one. A Dasher. This one was really big though, being twice the size of regular Dashers. In other words, it took Katie twice the time to kill. As she dissected the Dasher and cut open its belly, and as the acidic blood sizzled against her soft skin, she suddenly had a really good idea.
Sticking the Knife into her thigh for safekeeping, she grabbed onto the Dasher and spun it around in a circle. Corrosive blood spilled out of the corpse and landed on the Chaos Descendants closing in all around, burning through their carapace and flesh alike. Most of them didn't have Katie's regeneration prowess. By the time the Dasher was bled dry, an entire circle of Chaos Descendants was already on the ground, screeching in excruciating pain and feeding Katie in the process.
Katie knelt down and picked up her Knife. Just as she got back up, an orange energy blast hit Katie right in the chest, leaving a scorch mark that disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Katie looked to the side and found herself facing a sci-fi looking soldier wielding an energy blaster. He looked unique in the sea of horrid beasts and logic-defying monsters. Then again, Chaos Descendants were formed by nightmares, and for many worlds, their nightmares were made up of columns of faceless, marching troops.
A more philosophical individual would comment on how this showed the weakness of human nature. Katie, as she tore the soldier's head off, simply showed her opinion on this matter by pointing that blaster at her chest and emptying its ammo at herself for the next five seconds.
Swarms of Chaos Descendants charged forward, only to be reduced to corpses beneath Katie's feet. Katie rarely bothered with dodging or deflecting. The Chaos Descendants would unleash a strike and be replied with a strike of her own. Both strikes would land, and Katie would at most let out a small hiss as the Chaos Descendants screamed and died.
Right here, right now, Katie was unstoppable.
At first, Mr. Isaac considered stepping into combat himself and taking Katie by surprise under the cover of his forces. Not anymore. Not when anything and everything around Katie, no matter how powerful or durable, rarely lasted a few seconds.
This girl...what was she? How was she capable of being this powerful this quickly? Were his suspicions correct all along? Did the same faction that created her intervene? But Lord Horen personally promised it wouldn't be a problem! How…
But as Katie got ever closer, it became clear that the reasons no longer mattered. Now, for the Dark Pantheon monster who had the blood of thousands on his hand, it was no longer about advancing. It was about pulling back...but as he glanced at the altar, the man knew he had nowhere to back off to.
He had spent too long preparing for this sacrifice. Yes, he could have fled and Katie would have no way of stopping him, but then what? First of all, he literally set up a pact with the Will of the Chaos Domain and promised it a huge meal. What would the Will think if he never delivered that meal? Would the Will just shrug and say 'better luck next time', or would it pull him into the Chaos Domain instead?
And the Dark Pantheon...the curses to conceal large-scale sacrifices like this weren't cheap or easy. Mr. Isaac showed a lot of promise for the Pantheon to back him up on his path to the Dominator rank. If he fled and wasted all those investments...he would die more horrifically than all of his victims did combined.
In other words, he had no choice but to stand and fight the invincible berserker that was Katie, to the death.
That was when some good news appeared...or that was what Mr. Isaac expected when he sensed the two other Predators returning to the altar. One of them waved his hand and teleported in around a dozen wrangled bodies, all of them being students who were barely alive. Among them were Kyle and Vivian. These were members of the last 30 sacrifices.
Another one of the Predators formed a ball of foggy mist in his hand, with the mist so dense that it almost looked solid. This mist was the soul of thousands that died in this high school.
Unfortunately, Mr. Isaac's excitement was short-lived as soon as he discovered the quantity of these souls and bodies.
"Where are the rest?" He demanded, practically screaming at his underlings. There are only 3,000 souls here! Where are the other 1,000 or so? Also, which part of 'last 30 sacrifices' don't you understand? Is it the '30' part? What do you mean you only have 12 sacrifices for me?
The two Predators exchanged a nervous glance before replying. "Elias, these are all we found on campus! The others...they're all dead, body and soul alike! There is nothing to retrieve!"
"That is impossible…" Mr. Isaac froze as he snapped back to Katie, his eyes landing on her Knife. He knew the Knife could kill souls a long time ago, but he never really thought much of it. A weapon like that was powerful, but it meant nothing in the hands of someone as weak as Katie. He was hopelessly mistaken. "She must've arrived a long time ago! How did I not sense it...fuck!"
Sensing his gaze, Katie tilted her head and gave Mr. Isaac a bloodthirsty smile. As a consequence, some sort of bear-like beast tore her entire left arm off, taking her attention away from its master...at least for the next seven seconds, with seven seconds being the time it took Katie to rip that bear to shreds.
Standing on the altar, with two fellow Predators staring at him for orders, Mr, Isaac knew one simple thing. He was fucked. His perfectly coordinated scheming that would result in his ascension to a Dominator has failed, partially due to the betrayal of a colleague and more due to the presence of...what even was Katie? An anomaly? A...a monster?
Either way, he was hopelessly fucked. Fight, and he would die. Run, and he would still die. Maybe he could go on his knees and surrender to Katie? After what he did to Caitlin...he might as well kill himself right now to go down more peacefully.
Finally, as Katie got closer and closer, Mr. Isaac made a decision. He was a cornered beast, but he wouldn't go down without a fight. In fact, whether it was the Dark Pantheon or Dominator Lupon or Katie...if they didn't let him live, then he wouldn't let them emerge from this unscathed either!
If he had to die, he would set the world alight first.
He quietly held his hand out and psychically reached into the altar. As if a process was initiated, powers of utter chaos and anarchy started to form on the table and quickly started spreading from the center of the field to encompass the entire high school. On the field of battle, Chaos Descendants screeched into the air and transformed, empowered by the energies of anarchy.
In front of the altar, one of the Predators felt the souls in his grip getting sucked into the altar, where space itself started to fold. Before long, there was a scratch in the fabrics of this world itself. A tiny piece of space above the altar was no longer a part of this realm. Instead, it now held a projection of the Chaos Domain and a representation of its Will.
The souls of thousands were sucked into that tiny realm of anarchy and instantly devoured. As the one who made these sacrifices, Mr. Isaac felt his powers amplified in return. Thousands of souls were nothing to the Chaos Domain, but likewise, the power it granted Mr. Isaac was also relatively insignificant.
"What are you doing?" One of the Predators demanded with his eyes widened. The politeness in his voice was long gone. "We don't have enough sacrifices for the ritual!"
Mr. Isaac didn't bother answering them. All he did was tilt his head, and two black ropes appeared out of the ground, grabbed onto the two Predators, and chucked them at Katie, who was just steps away from the altar now.
A path of dead Chaos Descendants littered the ground behind her.
"Holy shit…" One of the Predators was completely caught by surprise. By the time he realized what happened, he was already in mid-air, and Katie was all too prepared. In fact, the moment Katie saw the Predator flying toward her, she took a few steps to the side so she was directly on his path of trajectory, and as he came crashing down, she held her Knife out…
The Predator tried to react, but it was too late. All he could do was watch helplessly as he impaled himself on Katie's Knife.
The second Predator was a little luckier. He got back up and formed two blades in his hands. A black armor covered his body as he prepared himself. But when he saw that in front of him, Katie had buried her Knife into her own belly, twisted it by two circles, and pulled it back out with surprising ferocity, he couldn't help but feel his knees buckle.
He didn't even have time to flee before Katie removed his head cleanly, swiftly and relatively painlessly ending his life.
Finally, as the last outsider was out of the picture, Katie found herself face-to-face with Mr. Isaac.
"So, Mr. Isaac…" She whispered while her body shook in a level of agony impossible to be described by words. "Are you ready to die again?"