The Demon Of Storms lets out a deep guttural laugh as crimson electricity sparks from him. The demon then gloats on the fallen man behind me. Hura's attention falls back on me as my eyes are stuck on Virgil's unmoving body.
"What a pity. I was starting to think he was a powerful Damned, given he seemed to be free. Looks like he wasn't. Back to you, Graves."
I hear a simultaneous scream from Vernon far away and the fast crunching of Hura's boots toward me. Red lightning illuminates my vision even in the daytime. With a quick gasp of air that siphons Ether toward me, I rip my eyes away from Virgil's likely corpse. My pupils go straight from my unmoving friend to the demon moving at me.
Anger boils within me higher than ever, and that rage turns into furious action. I don't even think as I move my Ether as fast as possible to strengthen myself for the demon's arrival.
The lightning arcing around Hura's body briefly dissipates just as he gets close enough to shock me as I inhale the Ether that encompasses it and makes it mine. My veins bulge, and my muscles tighten as I try something new again with Ether. Gritting my teeth, I spin and use that rotational force alongside my will to force the Ether from my lungs directly into my right arm.
My fingers struggle to make a fist as Ether so deeply fills the limb that it feels more like a sledgehammer weighing a tonne. My eyes focus on the face of Hura, whose eyes go wide at the disappearance of his Ether that was about to strike me. The demon attempts to restart his voltage, but before he can, my arm swings all the way around, and the brass knuckles upon my fist meet his face.
The very instant that my fist touches him, I feel an explosion occur within my arm. The Ether within that was not sent to any chains or even distributed evenly cannot be contained, especially under the force of the strike. Flesh, bone, and even visible cords of nerves go flying everywhere as my arm detonates like dynamite upon the demon's face.
The force of the impact sends me soaring backward and the demon in the opposite direction. I roll several times over the dirt as pain wracks my body. Once I stop rolling, I frantically look at my right arm. Or what's left of it.
The explosion of Ether left me with only a shoulder.
All the bone, flesh, and blood of my arm is gone. In the wind and the mud. All of it. Crimson liquid spouts out of the open wound that more resembles what a steel panel looks like after a twelve gauge hits it. Blown outward and malformed. The rapid blood loss and the Bloody Palm current rebellions make my eyes get covered with black dots. Blood loss is now something I have to worry about.
I look over to where Hura was sent, though. The demon slowly gets up from the muddy ground as bullets and gouts of fire stream at him non-stop. Bonfire and Johnny attempt to take this moment to finish the demon off and end his life, but the Demon Of Storms isn't so readily slayed.
My rough use of Ether likely left me just as damaged as him. The only difference is that he has that vial, Edmund's artifact, to heal himself. I, however, am currently at odds with mine. I think the thing is angry enough to kill me out of spite.
As he stands, Hura seems to struggle to cover himself with winds and clouds. But when he finally does, I see his wound. A massive portion of his face is missing from his left cheekbone to his jaw. It's all gone. The demon tries to speak, but he cannot. Even the tongue inside his mouth is missing.
A smile comes to my lip even as I lay on the ground, severely wounded. Just the fact I kept the demon from talking at all brings me great joy, but seeing his face rapidly regenerate as a red liquid like what was in the vial turns to flesh and bone makes that smile fade.
Fucker.
I guess I know how it feels, though. To be on the other side of someone who can heal that fast.
I put weight on my left arm, which is stiff and unresponsive as I stand. My only arm now is at war with me internally and wishes to not obey me. And the other is currently making me bleed out. Wonderful. I need to deal with the blood first. But can I? Hura seems concussed from my punch, but is he that concussed? I don't know.
But what I do know is that I'm bleeding. A lot. Enough to kill me in just a minute or so. Maybe more if I can keep my heart pumping blood with Ironheart. I frantically look around for anything that might help, and as Hura looks at me with a gaze of unending malice, I see a flame left behind by Bonfire.
What I have to do immediately touches my mind, but I hesitate. The pain will be a lot. Just as bad as that fire I was in, but I won't be protected by the Bloody Palm from the heat. A single incredibly short moment of hesitation comes my way as I see Vernon rush for his brother's body in my peripheral. I need to not only stay alive to keep Hura focused on me, but I need to stay fighting. And I burning my wound shut is the only way, then it shall be done. Even if I may never get the arm back.
I burst toward the fire quickly as Hura rushes at me. While I move, I feel a sharp pain in my chest and lungs. The aftereffects of my rage-induced strike on Hura don't end at my lost arm. The Ether had to travel there, after all. All along the way to my missing arm is a line of sharp agony as if the paths inside have been ripped open. That's not even to mention the headache that comes along with the dizziness of using too much Ether. Those are almost permanent at this point for me.
When I reach the fire, I slide past it and catch myself with the arm that is bleeding me dry. Every second I waste is another second for me to grow weaker. My burst shoulder, which resembles a spent bullet, is roughly placed upon the bonfire that lingers on the ground.
Heat sears its way to my mind from my missing shoulder as it closes the wound. Veins and arteries are forcibly closed by the blessing of fire. Tears flow out of my eyes as I scream in pain. Another guttural laugh comes from nearby. My tear-covered face spins up from the fire as I see Hura just five feet from me.
Without even checking if my wound is fully sealed, I kick away from the fire and frantically stand up. While I do so, the demon charges up electricity that it prepares to strike me with. Hura rapidly moves toward me as bullets strike his body, bullets that he has now given up on defending himself from. The flesh removed by lead is quickly replaced by red liquid, so the demon can just focus on ending my life. He does still throw up streams of water to defend himself from fire, though. So Bonfire can likely still kill the demon.
Luckily for me, though, my newest skill that I name off the top of my head in the heat of combat, Rapturous, protects me from his lightning. And he doesn't seem to know that yet. So, instead of dodging away, I move toward him. If I can keep him still and allow Bonfire to scorch him to prevent his regeneration, then we win. We won't even need Alexos. We can kill him with just us.
I feel slightly off-balance as I move toward him with one less arm than usual, but I quickly recover. It's not the first time, after all. I charge straight for him as he sends a current of red electricity at me. An arc that doesn't end after just the initial strike. It keeps coming without end as I move at him.
Every step feels like I move through syrup as the multi-colored Ether in my body struggles to expunge the red lightning made of foreign Ether from my body. Some bits even seem to get through, shocking me and causing pain to sprout near my heart. And these small shocks grow in number the closer I get and the longer I'm exposed to his lightning.
But I push through the spasms and shocks. My rage and heart of iron allow my charred boots to carry me to him. And when I reach him, I bring up Intervention with my left arm and rapidly pull the trigger, firing all six shots as fast as possible. Gunpowder, fire, and lead go everywhere as the gun flies out of my hand on the final shot and clouds my entire vision.
The stiffness of my left hand prevents me from holding the shotgun as tight as I need to. But when the gun flies out of my hand, I don't wait to see if the six rounds do the trick. I assume they didn't, and I rush Hura through the smoke.
My feet slam into the mud as I bring my shoulder down to do the slam to the demon in front of me somewhere. And I rapidly meet the obstacle in question. But not as I expect. When I collide with the demon, the cloud of gunpowder, smoke, and fire instantly dissipates, revealing the demon within. His flesh is torn and broken on his chest with signs of burns, and his suit is torn to shreds, but the demon doesn't seem to care.
Hura grabs onto me as I slam into him and puts something cool against my chin. A cruel smile touches the demon's face as our eyes briefly meet, but I hectically look down to see what it is.
And what meets my gaze is a beautiful revolver, one with twisting spider lilies over the black steel of the barrel.
The Blooming Spider Lily.
*****************
Vernon Boone
Fearful for my brother's life, I sprint for him as fast as I can despite the war waging around me. I want to help Wyatt and them, but my concern falls on Virgil first and foremost. I slide through the slick mud to my brother's unmoving body as a rock is created in my throat. Again he seems like he's about to die.
I rapidly search for his vital, my fingers going for his neck and wrist as I check his pulse. His heart barely beats, but his skin feels as hot as fire. I have to quickly pull my hands off of him as he burns me, even with my resistance to fire from Priest.
Fear, worry, depression, and a thousand other things emerge as I realize there is nothing I can do to help him. At least not right now.
In the background, I hear the fight between Wyatt and the demon continue as the young man is supported by the Gunfighter and Bonfire. Without those two, he'd be dead long ago because they occupy most of Hura's focus. Defending is always harder than attacking, after all. Destruction is easy. Defending is hard. And healing?
It's the most difficult thing of all.
Life is so fragile and weak that its preservation is the most challenging thing in the world.
I pull out the thumb from the dead Outlaw earlier and my Concoction that I kept as my gaze falls upon the two of them. This is suicide. I haven't proven my Metaphor yet. Without doing so, advancing is likely guaranteed death for me, either during or shortly after the advancement in The Cabin.
But I couldn't care less about that. My brother is dying in front of me, the man I look up to more than anything in the world. And he's been through so much for me and my siblings. I have no clue exactly what he was put through when he was first recruited to the Hunters, but it's not what he's told everyone else.
He just disappeared one night. I barely even remember it, but it was long before he says he actually joined the Hunters. I must have been only five or so, and he was around fifteen. He came back two days later, covered in blood and shaking. That, I believe, was when he became a Damned. The slave dogs of the Estates.
They train them particularly young and exceptionally harshly to prepare them for their tasks when they come of age to bear Sigils. Assassinating demons and other people. They are treated only as tools and not people. My brother rarely goes into precise detail about his time as a Damned, or that he even was one, they are very secretive, and I heard they are forced to sign contracts that limit what they can talk about.
But despite his lack of sharing, I know it was Hell. And Hell, he suffered for me and my siblings. I'm unsure how he escaped from them, but I reckon it was because he completed a task for them. One that earned his freedom. I became a Hunter to try and ease his burden, for none of my other siblings had it even remotely in their bones.
If this is how I do it, then I will. I'll give my all to heal him.
I take the thumb that bears a Priest within it and put it in my mouth. I need both hands for the syringe. I've never used a Concoction before, so I need my hands to be stable. Or else my anxiety might ruin it.
The taste of the thumb in my mouth makes me queasy as I set the tip of the syringe against my chest with both my hands. Then with a deep breath, I push the sharp end of the needle into my skin, breaking into my body. Then, I compel the dark liquid within into my body. Searing heat immediately meets my senses as the fluid enters me.
And it's a heat I'm somehow not resistant to. The Priest Sigil grants resilience to heat, and I feel none of that boon as the liquid burns its way through me. But as it does so, I enter the thumb with my mind while I still have it and frantically take the Priest within. Rejuvenating warmth comes from the Sigil, which resembles a divine sun emitting its blessed heat.
After a moment of resistance, I feel the Sigil touch upon and enter my mind as I do the same. Then, I am within The Cabin.
I open my eyes to the eerie place that bestows all the information about our Sigils. But it does not appear like the other three times I have been inside of it. A dim light that somehow has a black tone to it comes from the wood around me. This otherworldly and impossible color of light sneaks its way to me along the floorboard, almost like a snake approaching me slowly.
The sight of it instantly lights a fire within me as a fear more primordial than death itself corrals me into action. The fear of the dark, of the unknown where you cannot see.
Almost mad, I move toward the table with the dusty tome and jump atop it. The book flips open as I do so, but within the book are not the typical words either. I look down at them as these tendrils of black light come toward me. I need to get out. This was a terrible decision. What the fuck am I doing?
The words of the book bring me zero comforts as they are distorted and missing their standard luminance. Half of the page is either incomprehensible or straight-up evil. It even tells me to die. I read the whole thing in a panic without stopping as the dark lights come closer.
The reader of this page reaches a new stage of life. ~~~~~~~~ May you die.
Your fourth Sigil toward Death…. Death… and more DEATH.
The Unshadowed
Your shadow has left you to join the dark. You have betrayed yourself and your future. It shall now hunt you. You have failed to prove your Metaphor. You have failed me. You have failed yourself. No longer can your soul resist the dark behind these walls. Your body may have grown, but your soul has not. While you may glow brighter now that your shadow has left you, it shall be a brief illumination of the world around you that heals and redeems any in your radiance. That is if anyone else is in your radiance from here on out.
My eyes turn to the second page as I take in the Sigil drawn. It looks like a sun experiencing an eclipse, but not one made by a moon. Instead, it is one made by dark tendrils of light. Like the ones that are now wrapping around the legs of the table. My weight shifts as I, full of terror, read the second page.
May your death be worthy of my intervention.
Your chances of going any further in your pitiful life are slim. There is no point in me wasting any more effort on guiding you.
To continue, my Unshadowed, place your mind within the Sigil and return to whence you came… Unless you wish for the Darklight to taint you further.
Without even hesitating, I put my mind unto the Sigil. But I do it just as one tendril of Darklight wraps around my foot and pulls me from the top of the table.