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Wyatt' Wendigo' Graves
The blast of the pyroclastic shotgun to my face instantly knocked me unconscious by almost taking my scalp off with pure heat and shrapnel, but that doesn't mean I can't sense anything around me. The Bloody Palm does not adhere to standard biological rules.
My connection with the artifact grounds my mind and allows me to see and feel the world around me despite my brain being out of commission. And to add to my unconsciousness, the flame around me burns all the air making me suffocate, further making me less likely to wake up.
And so, I stay in darkness as I feel the world from the Bloody Palm despite my wishes that I didn't. The two eyes it has on its transformed self let me see around me. Although all that exists are flames. The flames lick at the hand and try to devour it, but the artifact is quite resilient, much more so than me. Neither of us can move, though, because I'm unconscious, and the Bloody Palm because it's just a hand.
I'm unsure why, but it's not taking me over like any other time. Maybe whatever Johnny did to me makes it so the Bloody Palm can't leave its hand. Or perhaps he stopped it from wanting to devour me at all momentarily. That's likely it.
I try my best to distract my thoughts as the entire world around me is suffused by flames that only grow, both in heat and volume. The Bloody Palm does all it can to keep both I and it alive. I can feel it struggle to pump out Ether from its core and spread it throughout my body. But it's not working, at least not like usual.
The fires from Intervention prevent regeneration, slowing down the artifacts efforts tremendously. And the fire somehow grows from a burst of pyroclastic fire to a swirling inferno. The Bloody Palm sends me sights of my body turning to charcoal beneath the unnatural fire. While at the same time, it also gives me the torment it is enduring.
The feeling of a Concoction is like magma running through your veins, boiling every speck of blood and energy within your body to cleanse it. But this is entirely different. It feels like I'm being presented to a deity on a pyre. The cleansing is from outside instead of inside. Heat tears its way through my flesh.
My skin cracks and breaks apart as the heat boils the water within, but the Bloody Palm twists the flesh back together, stopping the heat from digging deeper. What the artifact focuses on, however, is my brain. It keeps creating or secreting, I'm not sure which, a tremendous amount of blood in my skull to prevent the heat from erasing any semblance of a brain or nervous system.
This trial of literal fire that the Bloody Palm and I are put through lasts far too long. Long enough that even the Bloody Palm starts to run out of steam. The healing from it slows, and I feel my brain heat up and boil like the rest of my body.
But just before literal fire licks at the brain within my skull, it is doused instantly out of nowhere. The flame is replaced by freezing cold water. Water that soothes the dried-out and ruined body that is mine.
My mind is still turned off for another few seconds, the heat and lack of air rendering me unconscious. But after some recuperation, the Bloody Palm wakes me up with a rush of oxygen-filled blood to my dying brain. The only reason I can even think is because of the connection between us that grounds me. Wendigos genuinely are a force to be reckoned with. That and Hollows. They are supposed to be like me as well, only they're a tribe of people specializing in not turning to Wendigos.
A small gasp of freezing air compared to the heat within my body wakes me up entirely, allowing sounds to enter me for the first time in what must be over a quarter of an hour. And I hear a familiar voice that I've only heard in hallucinations.
"So you three… You seek to kill me? How laughable. My slave could kill you all three alone, but I guess I'll entertain you all. After all, it's been a while since I've had a 6th Sigil in my belly."
The Demon Of Storms, Hura, stands on top of me when I fully come to. My eyes are still not healed yet, so I only know by the direction of the voice and the boot on top of me. And I assume he's talking about Virgil, Johnny, and me by the way he talks.
Anger boils underneath me, and a heat that rivals the fire recently doused begins to grow within me. A short pause ensues for some reason; maybe Virgil and Johnny are hesitating because the demon is above. Well, they shouldn't.
Thankfully, my eyes are the next part of me to heal, the Bloody Palm returning me my sight as well. They flutter open just as the demon speaks his following words and moves.
"Are you too scared? That sounds about right. I'd be scared, too, if I had to face myself as a brittle human. How about I come to you since you won't come to me?"
His words remind me of Alexos. I can see the slight resemblance and the personality that the man adopted based on this demon, but there are differences. Hura is incredibly prideful. I wish to tear apart that pride. As I have my own pride. And I won't fail to kill one of my goals again.
So, with an arm that I'm not even sure will move, the muscles likely burnt to a crisp, I grab onto his seemingly expensive boot. And with wide-open eyes, I spit on his pride with words that tear their way through me from my vocal cords, every syllable sounding like a monster said it.
"I'm… right… here."
The second the Demon Of Storms realizes what's happening, he looks down at me. The demon is beyond confused and only looks at me perplexed with a face that seems to say, "You're still alive!?".
He tries to keep walking forward and ignore my interruption, but I hold on as tightly as possible. Every scrounge of Ether I can pull together goes into my arm as I restart Adrenaline Surge and Strugglers Defiance. Both skills went out when my mind was no longer connected to my body. Daydream and Ironheart, however, do not require my body to function. Those two only require my mind.
The demon looks down at me once more, and with a face of disgust, he kicks down at me with a foot powered by a burst of wind. I hear a yell from a bit away as a boot slams into my chest, pushing all the air out of me and crushing my chest. The demon chuckles as I go limp from the strike and let him go from my grip.
Hura returns to his steps as I mentally scream at the Bloody Palm to fix my chest and lungs. My heart is punctured by a rib, and my internals are ruined, but that's not what's most important. My lungs are. Only with my lungs can I breathe. And only with a breath in my lungs can I fight.
The artifact diverts attention from my most vital organ to my lungs and fixes them within a few seconds. Without the anti-regeneration fire, the Bloody Palm heals like nothing else.
The Demon Of Storms seems to forget about me, though, assuming I'm finally dead, as he walks toward three men, two of which I was not expecting. I'm forced to turn my head slightly and look up while rolling my eyes back to see who's behind me. Johnny, Vernon, and Bonfire stand before a massive Uktena's corpse.
A corpse that was definitely left by Earl's gatling gun. I see deformed bullets everywhere and even in the skulls of some type of wolf I've never seen before. Their red fur and the fact they are unburnt by the fire makes me think they might have heightened it, and Earl put a stop to them. If that fire had been any hotter, I'd indeed have died.
Hura takes several more steps and nears the three men, who only react upon the demon getting close. It seems as though they are frozen for some reason, unmoving when they should be. But Bonfire is the first to react, and he does so with furious flame as he's known for.
A gout of fire comes from his palm as it visibly heats up white hot. This blast of heat goes straight for Hura, who only has to wave his arm to the side, causing a chilly zephyr to blow away all the fire.
A surprised look touches Bonfire's face as Hura dashes straight for him, invisible bursts of air pushing the demon to inhuman speeds. Instantly, I see the difference between Alexos and his master.
The Demon Of Storms doesn't play with his prey.
All his jokes, fun, and laughs end the second he is threatened.
Hura moves like a bolt of lightning as sparks curve around his body and seemingly make him faster. Before he can reach, Bonfire, though, a series of bullets and a spear of light come at him. Both of the threats make him pause and cover his body with a swirling whirlwind that disperses the bullets and takes the brunt of Vernon's explosive light.
The demon walks out of the blinding detonation, pats down his suit, and immediately returns to business. The business of killing men.
At this point, I feel even warmth has entered me from the Bloody Palm. I can once more breathe again. I still can't really move, but that will all come once I have enough Ether in me. Probably at least. I do still have a severed spine. But that hasn't stopped me before. I focus my Ironheart on the portion of my spine that is destroyed.
I feel a slight tingle emerge from my feet as I do so. The severed nerves are somehow being bridged simply by the will forged by Ether. I'm not one to question the mysteries of the world that benefit me, though.
Instead, I take in a deep breath. As usual, my Strugglers Gasp sucks in the Ether all around me, forcing it down my throat and into my body. The breath is so evident that it even makes the Demon Of Storms turn back just before executing Bonfire with a gust of sharp wind. The effect that my Strugglers Gasp has on the air and the Ether within it gives Bonfire just enough leeway to roll under the blade of wind from Hura by distracting him and weakening his attack.
The Ether in the air enters me and loosens the bonds that keep me weak or, in actuality, the ones that keep me feeble from injuries. Power flows through me once more, reconnecting the lost connections in my body. I feel every part of my frame again. From my toes to my fingers, all sensations return. They are numbed but returned nonetheless.
All the skills given to me by my Sigil now are now at full throttle. This is close to the most powerful I've ever felt; only my injuries and burns lessen my strength. But I'm never one to be kept back by wounds. And despite the protesting of my body and the cracking of charcoal skin, I force myself to stand.
The Demon Of Storms, Hura, finally acknowledges me as I stand. It seems as though he finally realizes who I am. That I am not some random dead man burnt to a crisp. That I am my father's son. The demon smiles a disturbing smile as words leave his mouth.
"You… You are him… Yes… Only his son could survive that. I destroyed your heart, and yet you breathe. Oh, how I've been waiting for you to appear, young Graves."
Hura turns away from Bonfire, who scrambles away and seeks to gain some distance. The poor man who threw the first punch finally gets a break. But the one who sacrifices for his suspension from the threat of death is me; Hura seeks my end the second he knows who I am.
I, however, am just as ready to meet him as he is to meet me. My voice comes out garbled and burnt as I smile back at him.
"I've been waiting to meet you too, demon. Too bad you hide behind so many lackeys."
His grin spreads even wider as he ignores Johnny, Vernon, and Bonfire, who take a short break to recover. The pressure he put on them in just a few seconds is enough for all three to need a few seconds to recover. Especially Bonfire. That man is gasping for air like he just ran a marathon.
"Only for those who do not matter. But you… You matter. Even if only as a main dish to lure out your father. I've been preparing for him."
Attempting to buy some recovery time, I pounce on that opportunity, the demon speaking of my father.
"You want to lure him out to fight him? Do you have a death wish?"
The demon chuckles as he rolls up his sleeves, revealing delicate skin underneath, evidently untouched by the sun.
I take stumbling steps toward him as I struggle to get my enhanced strength under control. I mostly figured it out last time, so it shouldn't take too long. It's just that my injuries are making it hard to move at all. Some bits are fine and just as strong as they should be, but others are scorched and feeble. I need to find the balance.
Or make it.
I feel the rejuvenating effort of the Bloody Palm touch my spine as I move my Ironheart to encompass my entire body. The purpose is to both supplement the missing strength and connect my mind to my body wholly. It works, and my steps rapidly turn to stable marches from stumbling wobbles.
Hura's words make me bark out a response, even if only to piss him off. That and I remember Alexos saying that he only loses his focus if his pride is challenged. Every bit of advantage I can gain will matter, and if he thinks he can kill me, let alone my father, he's got another thing coming.
"Why do you think you can kill my father, Hura? You left me and my mother alone because he was thought to be there, no? Did you not have the balls to attack us in our home?"
The smile on Hura's face rapidly turns to an irate expression, his eyebrows constricting and his face squinching. Even the horns on his way-too-handsome face seem to tilt toward me.
"No... no... no... I do not have any of the sort. When your father comes, I will not be alone. Many seek revenge against the Undying. I am merely the closest. The closest to you!"
He rapidly turns this anger into action. The Demon Of Storms makes a ball in his hand as he stomps toward me and twists it in a throwing motion toward me as he opens his palm toward me. Only as his arm reaches the peak of its movement do I see what's in his hand.
Sparks of electricity.
A veritable lighting bolt comes flying from his open palm straight toward me, thunder and all. The sound of the thunder deafens me at this proximity and shakes the brain in my skull. The impact is so much worse than the sound, though.
As I roll from the impact, I get hit straight in the chest and sent back dozens of feet, head over heels. Dirt comes flying up as I slam into the ground, and for several moments, I lay still, my heart stopping from the electricity that ran through me. Thankfully, though, I'm not alone.
Another resides within my coil. And it makes my heart beat once more without any input from me.
But that doesn't mean it's all over. Paralysis from the lightning taking over the control of my body still remains, and the entire front of my body is covered with even more scorched burns from just-healed flesh. Bits of foreign Ether with a primal feel keep me from clearing my veins and using my own Ether effectively.
Quickly, I call on the Bloody Palms's help, and it obliges. Dark Ether comes from the palm, which is more like an entire forearm, and clears out my innards of lightning-caused Ether. As it does, though, I'm forced to lay still. And Hura continues his approach toward me. The demon doesn't believe I could die from such a strike, though I'm pretty sure it'd put anyone else down for the count.
"I know you aren't dead from that, Graves. One little bolt can't dig a grave for you."
He is beset by the other three the second he moves toward me after the lightning, which seems to slow him down. The demon has to constantly create icy rain to part Bonfire flames, summon powerful whirlwinds to deflect bullets from Johnny and create small dense clouds to stop the explosive light from Vernon.
The three's efforts aren't for naught as I recover enough to stand before the demon approaches me. But as it does, I realize all my weapons are gone, either burnt off of me or left on the ground. My only choice is to rely on the Bloody Palm and its ability to transform my flesh into lethal tools.
So, I call on the Bloody Palm once more as I stare down the approaching storm.
But this time, it refuses, and a tiny bit of dark ambiance returns from it.