A.N. Make sure to check out the new status page I created for Lyze in the auxiliary volume...
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Light snow fell through the streets of the empty, desolate ghost town as a chilly wind blew across the abandoned district of Orario. Once a part of the initial foundations of the Labyrinth city, now free of any visible lifeform beyond the occasional rat or roach.
No person in the right mind or in the right business would have any inclination in coming to this part of the city except if they were in the dealings of the dark and illegal kind. Such was the case concerning one singular door opening in a small house, and from the dark confines of the structure stuck out a hooded head as the individual glanced from side to side, up and down the street.
Confirming a clear coast, she hissed back inside the house and stepped out of the way as multiple cloaked figures in tan armours ran past her carrying sacks on their back. With light footsteps, some number of them disappeared into different alleys. A couple of minutes later, they came back on top of carts pulled by horses, and the rest of the quiet company began loading their sacks onto the back of the wagons.
One of them went around with a piece of paper in their hands and a quill in the other as they counted their loads. Upon seemingly being satisfied, they walked back to the first woman and scratched something onto the bottom of the page before folding the document and placing it into her hand.
"It's all there, My Lady." The man said to the cloaked woman. "I pray that good dreams befall us all tonight...and more to come in the future."
"Excellent." The woman grinned under her hood. "With the Reaper being distracted by Phobetor's goose chase, we've garnered plenty of time for our getaway."
"I wouldn't make such a heavy wager so soon." The accountant said. "Our window is very small and our enemy is very swift by land and by air. It won't be long before he smells a rat."
"Then let's get moving." The woman said as she strode up to the leading cart which was a little bigger and was drawn by two horses as opposed to one like all the others. One of her associates opened the driver's seat for her before kneeling down and offering his back.
Using him as a stepping stool, she hoisted herself into the seat and picked up the reins as the man rushed over to sit in the back of the cart which held the bulk of all the sacks they were transporting. The woman cracked a whip harshly, the tip smacking the rump of the horse as the she flicked the reigns, urging the two animals to begin pulling the large wagon along the frosted cobbled.
At a measured distance, the rest of the carts began to follow her as they drove further into the ghost town and towards the perimeter wall of the city. As they did so, the woman pulled out a map and studied its contents as her finger traced a marked out a route, the ending of which landed on the site of an old aqueduct.
A grin spread across her face as her escape route became clear. It would be hard to get out of the city using the gates, for obvious reasons. But nobody would ever mind the sewers...especially the abandoned sewage line of the derelict ghost town. She clicked her fingers towards one of the carts following her and the hooded driver urged his horse to pull his wagon up close to hers.
"Yes Mistress?" He inquired.
"Run up ahead and scout the old aqueduct." She ordered. "See how much we can get out at intervals with the manpower we have. We need these out of the walls by nightfall for our contact."
"Copy that." The man replied before he flicked the reigns of his horse harshly and the beast of burden began pulling its cart faster as the scout began to gain ground on his leader as he pulled further ahead.
When a considerable distance had been made between him and his mistress, the scout who was also an adventurer suddenly felt his instincts flair a little and urge him to look to his right. It was only for a split second but it was enough time for him to see the inevitable.
...
A wicked blade attached to a long chain shot out from a rooftop in the distance with a metallic drawl as it perfectly timed its strike with the scout's cart smashing into the side of the construct, cleaving it and the street as well as the houses to the scout's left completely in half as the blade ignited with orange fire that at once consumed the cart, its contents and occupier as the scout began screaming in agony as an unearthly fire took ahold of him and completely incinerated him.
The leading woman yelped as she yanked on the reigns of her horses and made them skid to a stop right before the infernal wreckage as black powder spilling from the sacks caught alight and began filling the air with a sickly smell. The rest of the carts were taken aback a bit more than she was and their disorderly reactions caused some of them to crash their carts into one another as they shouted profanities at both the unprecedented incident and at one another.
The sudden brake caused the woman's hood to blow back, revealing long black hair, pointed features and deep black eyes that had purple eye-shadow around them. She drew back her lips in a snarl as she looked to her right just in time to see a second blade coming towards her though this one came a little slower than the last. And instead of slicing straight towards her cart, it was instead sent into a deadly spin and it drew in from above.
With barely a moment to react, she withdrew a Durandal weapon that she'd gotten off the black market and swung it towards the offending blade. There was a loud clang and a flash of sparks as her arm jarred and she was knocked off balance, almost falling off the side of the cart itself. But the timely retaliation sent the chain blade spinning off and away from her cart as it embedded itself into the cobble.
Looking down at her Durandal sword, her eyes widened as she saw deep fractures in the blade. A moment later, the fractures widened into devastating cracks before it completely broke in half. Contrary to what it should have been. Durandal weapons could be damaged but they were never supposed to break like that...but what could be done about it? No Durandal weapon could stand up to the weapon that had just nearly taken off her head...much less the one wielding said chain blade.
Hoisting herself up into a proper seating position as she gripped her broken hilt and called out aloud as she followed where the chain blade had come from.
"Kratos...Lastborne." She said aloud, firmly with as much defiance as she could muster. Following her gaze, her Familia looked out to a rooftop in the distance.
...
Atop it stood a young man, tall at 6'5 approximately and broad shouldered with flowing black hair and burning golden eyes as he yanked on two chains and the wicked blades came spinning back into his hands.
Donned in light armour, a shoulder rest of black fur covered his neck and upper back as chains curled around vambraced forearms. The thick fur was covered in a light layer of snow, and as the young man bent his arms, large biceps made the fabric of his long sleeves stretch as they threatened to tear.
Going down his body, there were lengths of chains hanging from a utility belt around his waist and in each chain link seemed to hand what looked like amulets of crystal, each depicting a face wreaked in agony, faces that were familiar to some among the woman's group.
"Lady Morpheus." The young man, Kratos as his name were, said in a deep voice. A sly smirk spread across his face. "Ever heard of the term 'caught-red-handed'?"
"You're no more of a criminal then I am boy." Morpheus rebutted with a smirk of her own. "After all...isn't chasing us down a penance for your own crimes?...slave of the Yggdrasil whores?"
At that, Kratos's mouth tightened as a furious glint occupied his golden eyes, and Morpheus snapped the reigns of her horses as the animals hit top speed and she continued to flee along the small road with her Familia. For all her shameless taunting, she knew that she was at a dangerous and severe disadvantage now that she'd been found and running away was the only viable option.
Kratos growled as he ran across his rooftop and leapt off of it in the direction of the getaway wagons, the force of his jump creating cracks all down the side of the building as it collapsed into a wrecked heap as a mushroom cloud of dust was left in his wake.
The air ruffled the snow off the fur of his shoulder rest as snow particles got caught in his unblinking eyes. His body sailed through the air, aimed specifically at the Morpheus Familia as he neared another tall building of quite a few stories just ahead of the fleeing goddess. With a grunt and gritted teeth, he flung out one of the Blades of Chaos towards said building and cleaved the top half off before pulling the blade back to himself.
As he flew between the partition, he turned in the air and flung his other blade towards the severed half which was still suspended in the air from the force of being severed so violently. The blade hooked into the side of it and the chained pulled taught. Turning back around to face the fleeing carts, he yanked on the chain and pulled the building forwards as he flung it past him with no amount of his immense strength to spare.
Morpheus watched as the building flew in her direction, spinning on an axis as its great mass actually created a whirlwind around it with is spin. There were a couple of seconds of complete terror as her children cried out in fear before the building collided with the road behind her cart, subsequently crushing her Familia into bloody stains as the entire district shook with the impact. At the same time, the street beneath her cart exploded as a shockwave ripped through the area, levelling several other streets and buildings, and sending her and her captain who had been riding in the cart with her flying out of the seats.
The man quickly grabbed onto her body and shielded her as they bounced off of houses and along the cobbles of the streets as grit and paving filled their mouths, their eardrums ringing from the sound of the exploding neighbourhood as they rolled to a halt. Bits of buildings, glass, wood, cobblestones, their carts and the powder from their sacks as well as pieces of their horses fell all around them in a messy rain of debris as a giant cloud of dust rose from where they'd last seen their Familia.
"Are you alright my Lady?" The man asked her as he coughed.
"Forget about that you fool!" She chastised as she picked herself up on her feet though with a slight sway due to her disorientation. "We can't stay here!"
She began pulling on the man's clothes, trying to urge him to come along with her before a voice rang out from the dust cloud.
"You can't run either!" Kratos said as he emerged from the smog, swinging the blades of Chaos leisurely as the blades cut into the ground. Each connection let off a small shower of sparks and deep cuts in the cobble, as if the young man was sharpening his already crazy sharp blades with each swing.
He took slow yet heavy steps towards the two individuals who tensed as he came to a stop a few feet from them as he continued to swing his blades, smiling mockingly at them while not looking the slightest bit winded from his recent activity.
"I have to say, running that faux name through the network was smart." Kratos said to Morpheus, completely disregarding the man standing in front of her. "Of course, unluckily for you, I was already aware that the name Phobetor is just a contemporary name for Ikelos. Nice try though."
Morpheus stared her fellow Olympian up and down as she tensed, her body tingling with heightened adrenaline as she cursed in her mind at her ploy being so easily unwoven just because of some bit of foreknowledge.
"Just how much did you see during your 'enlightenment'?" She asked, trying to be mocking although the tremble in her voice gave away the true state of her inner self.
"Enough." He replied before swinging the chains around his arms this time. The blades swung around his forearms at ballistic speeds as their chains wrapped around his vambrace and the hilts caught in his hands. The chains then detached from the blades as Kratos sheathed them behind his back. "Though I do love the poetic irony about the whole thing. The illusive hallucinogenic drug called Nightmare was being manufactured by none other than the goddess of dreams herself. You just couldn't help yourself could you?"
"Jut as you can't either...god-killer." She spat, knowing there was no escape. "So what now. Are you going to cut my head off just as you did the rest of the gods you captured?"
"Naturally." Kratos answered. "The penance for all Evilus associated gods is death and banishment from the mortal realm." He took a step towards her. "Don't bother resisting, cuz it's just gonna happen."
"Mistress, run!" Morpheus's captain spluttered as he drew himself to his feet and brandished a revealed sword. Blood dripped down his face from some head in jury as he positioned himself between her and the approaching executioner. "I'll buy you some time. Hurry!"
Morpheus took one look at the man and Kratos who just stared at her with a raised brow. She kissed her teeth and began running off in the opposite direction as Kratos just sighed and tutted.
"Would have though she'd be smarter than that." He said to himself.
"Don't talk about her like that!" The captain said before he limped towards Kratos and swung his sword in a clearly telegraphed move. Kratos kept eye contact with him as he simply caught the sword between two fingers.
"Captain Agam Emnon." Kratos said. "First captain of Morpheus's shortly established Familia...and heavy user of her special drug it seems given your brazen foolishness." The Reaper kicked the captain in his shins faster than the man could reacts and completely shattered them as Morpheus's captain collapsed on legs that were broken at different angles with a shriek. "In what world could you even conceive the possibility that you could stand up to me?"
"Kill me if you wish." Agam said through gritted teeth even as bone shards began sticking out of the skin of his legs. The pain made him clasp onto the hilt of his sword which was in the grasp of Kratos, therefore causing him to be held aloft by the stronger adventurer. "But the vengeance of our goddess is inescapable. No man is free of sleep, and those who wrong her will be throttled by their dreams!"
"Any chance you snorted a line of 'Nightmare' before taking on this pointless escape?" Kratos asked with a raised brow as he shook the man off, making him let go of the sword and collapse onto his elbows with a cry as the broken legs shifted and blood began pooling onto the stones. "Because you don't seem to be able to see the line between dreams and reality. But then again I don't imagine you do get much chance to be lucid considering the rumours surrounding you and your goddess...it is my understanding you spent copious amounts of time in her personal chambers."
"No tact, and unrepentant to boot." Agam spat. "This isn't the end you freak... you have more people that fear than people who love you now."
"I never had much people who loved me to begin with. I had enemies everywhere." Kratos said as he tossed the man's sword away. "The difference is that I can take care of myself now...they will all meet the same fate as you." Kratos said as he flicked the amulets hanging from around his waist.
Agam's eyes widened in horror as he realised what was about to happen. So far, he'd only heard rumours of this...but to actually seeing it about to happen now to him made him a firm believer already. He pathetically tried to push himself backwards on his elbows given the useless state of his legs.
"And so will every member of Evilus until their souls are all at my mercy." Kratos said as he raised both hands to face Agam, and a silver glow emanated from them.
Agam froze as his body seized up with excruciating pain before his body began to melt away into motes of light which gathered into a collecting orb of swirling life energy. It floated there for a moment before Kratos waved his arms in a circular manner which urged the orb to fly to his palms as he closed them over the orb tightly. A moment went by before silver ripples travelled across his body from his closed palms as he absorbed the soul of the Captain of the Morpheus Familia.
Opening his hand revealed a new amulet in his clasp, of crystalised energy that depicted the last pained expression of Agam before he was forever sucked away into the energy reserves of Kratos Lastborne, formerly Lyzof Keele, never again to enter the cycle of reincarnation and finding 'peace' in a death of perpetual suffering, his body now sealed in the amulet to be released for the uses and bidding of the Reaper.
Kratos smiled in satisfaction before clipping the amulet onto one of the chain links around his waist. Looking back up at the fleeing figure of the goddess, he sighed before raising his palm and a purple fireball appeared in his hand.
...
A moment later, a giant explosion rocked the ghost town accompanied by a beam of light shooting straight into the sky, signalling the death of Lady Morpheus and forever ending her time amongst the mortals. Just another evil deity fallen at the hands of the one known as the god-killer, the Bane of Evilus.
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