The blast left me with a mind numbing ring in my ears for a stretch of seconds.
But the ringing was nothing compared to the white hot pain rippling up through my left foot.
I looked down and found a massive stone crumbled over it. My aura flickered in and out, slowly rebuilding with my focus.
The Shifters with their greater senses were in even worse condition. Even the ones who weren't toppled by boulders. They lay seizing in silence.
My hearing was returning. I could hear someone speaking.
"Why isn't it working? I have to keep experimenting until it's safe. I have to keep trying until it bonds correctly….. I have to keep…..I have to keep…. I have to keep…."
I listened to the Alpha as he threw the body off the stone table. From where I lay I could see a whole pile of bodies with missing arms. Hundreds upon hundreds.
The Alpha turned. Seeing its face was awful. Completely absent of fat— eyes black as midnight oceans with solar yellow pupils. Black slobber spilled down its chin.
The symbiotic thing on its arm pulsed and squirmed. It fought to cut its way out of the Shifter but the Shifter healed too fast. They were stuck together. One trying to kill its host and the other too needing of it to fight back. A terribly toxic relationship.
"They said…. They said they'd come from the seas…. Down below…. Beneath the trench…. Hardened by pressure….like-like diamonds. DIAMONDS FROM THE SEA! My beautiful daughter can be a Diamond. Tara…. My Diamond. I have to make sure she can take it…. My legacy…. It must survive…"
The Alpha's madness was as clear as the shadows were dark.
I found my eyes gravitate towards the unconventional again as the green gas from Eden's toxin spread further into the cave. Now no more than ten feet from me.
Hell it could've been right on me, I still would've watched Sgt Sayaad as the Alpha stared ahead blankly.
In the dark of the cave, he was barely visible. Thanks to the Alpha's sonic roar, the hole in the top end widened, spreading the evening light.
Just enough to see Sgt Sayaad dig through his cloak and pull out a scroll.
Id almost forgotten the mission bird came with two. One for the mission, and the one Sgt Sayaad had stashed.
He unrolled it. A vile with a cork in it fell into his hands. The fluid was clear— like water…. Only it had hundreds of little let red glowing orbs.
Almost like the black blood outside the cave.
"Sgt Sayaad, what…? What are you doing?"
He didn't look away from the Alpha, "I know you don't like fighting fire with fire in this way….. but we're losing, kid. Humanity is losing. If it's already at risk, we have to sacrifice more for progress. Before we lose even that chance. For a chance to win. Desperate times…. Let's hope I don't lose the rest of my face with this one."
Sgt Sayaad pulled down his kufiya, revealing his scorched and deformed face once more. He bit down on the cork and popped it from the vial.
As soon as the fluid hit the winds, the hideous thing on the Alpha's arm went haywire.
It flexed with a screech, turning to a metallic appearance with spikes all over. It developed fingers that reached for Sgt Sayaad as he drank the fluid.
Immediately he cringed. His veins bulged and the muscles in his neck rippled like a scrambling slug.
Then he went limp.
The Alpha moved— less than an inch.
I was off in a burst of lightning, aura enveloped my hand and focused around my broken foot.
I cut through the back of the Alpha's knees mid air, altering its trajectory.
It landed beside Sgt Sayaad's limp body.
Before it could recover and reach him, my hand ripped through its chest, holding onto the heart of the beast.
I ripped it out and crushed it before kicking it aside.
At least that's what I attempted to do.
The beasts parasitic limb didn't budge under my impact and it knocked me aside.
I rolled onto my feet and slid.
I found my silver broadsword beside me. I picked it up just in time to see the parasitic limb grow tendrils that stabbed into the beasts chest, braiding into the shape of a heart. Grabbing organs and ventricles to forcibly pump blood. Making the body hold on. Suddenly interested in the Alpha that it once wanted dead.
A gust of wind erupted from Sgt Sayaad's body. Tiny red orbs filled the air. The same went for his Aura as he got to his feet.
"OOOOH! This one's got some kick to it!" Sgt Sayaad flew into the Alpha with its back to a boulder.
The Alpha rolled out of the way and Sgt Sayaad blasted through the boulder like a bullet.
The wind aura around him caused the crumbled stone to fly in all directions like a particle blast.
I sliced apart the ones coming my way as the others blew holes in the Alpha.
He wasn't even concious of my presence. I could see it in his eyes dotted with red.
The Alpha fought against its infection and the crazed Sgt Sayaad in the shadows.
He swung his Hallowed Mace wildly, carelessly hitting the stunned and recovering WereLions— blasting them to bits.
Even his skills were different.
He used his (Gale Step) skill and teleported around the cave in bright dotted explosions.
It was fast but he broke off the Shifters left leg and only functional arm.
The creature went down and Sgt Sayaad went in for the final blow.
He stopped.
With his face exposed I could see the intense amount of effort such an action took. Saliva poured from his teeth. The veins in his forehead bulged as he held back his mace.
Then the parasitic arm on the WereLion glowed in and out of red.
I found myself thinking back to Vulture Black and his Morse code.
"….Communication?"
Sgt Sayaad blinked a few times before standing up straight.
"That's better…. I'm ok."
"What have you done?" The poison mist was close enough to touch.
Sgt Sayaad picked up the WereLion by its last remaining leg. As if he planned to take it alive and not burn it to ash.
"It's business, kid. A desperate business. The desperate business of human survival. And we're the working class. Our hands get dirty. What can I say?" Sgt Sayaad shrugged and fought off a shiver. Red dots glowed under his skin.
"You can explain yourself. Right now to me, it looks like you just communed with something that corrupts even ShapeShifters. You took a serum that looks a lot like what Akuma taint did to people when I lived in..."
Sgt Sayaad was staring at the parasitic limb again as the WereLion lay unconscious. It glowed and shivered in communication.
My hand fastened on my sword.
Sgt Sayaad looked up quick and snapped his fingers, "We decided not to tell you. You're young. You still think In black and white. "
For a second he sucked the wind out of my lungs.
I could almost see him take on an apologetic look of panic before my breath returned. It was quick. Someone with his skill even when inebriated wouldn't lose control that long. But I noticed it. He just tried to kill me— well, not him. Whatever he drank. But I stayed quiet.
I ignored the lump forming in my throat.
"Man and Monster is as black and white as it gets."
"But what if Monsters aspects could be used by man?" Sgt Sayaad questioned. "The System is a slow process that's only shortened our life span…."
Ronin couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Faustian Fischer's been in works with a Special Ops group. Another letter group employed by the GME. Saints of the Shining Sun. They're working on something….."
"Something that could disfigure you forever?"
Sgt Sayaad didn't say anything, "We're losing Ronin. Look at us?! THERES only fOUR left! And we're SSSTRONGER than eighty percent of the planets people. What do you think that means for everyone else? They need this. Humanity NEEDS people who can take risks. It's time to man up, Ronin."
My face went blank. I still remember how broken he looked when Senso Starve died against the Elven Primal Lord. They were going to get married after all this. They….
"Stop." I quieted my thoughts and spoke.
"Are you taking this one alive because you want to study that? To use it one day? For the sake of humanity and humanity only?" I asked.
Sgt Sayaad sighed, "Faustian's orde—"
I activated (Precise Violence). A simple jingle of Muramasa in and out of the sheath.
His head fell.
I blinked in the silence. My ears rang. My heartbeat punched my chest.
Shifters died around me. Deaf and choking on Eden's toxins. Full of puncture holes. Missing limbs. Their tears burned as it mixed with the mist, turning their own bodily fluids into biochemical weapons against them.
I walked towards the table under the skylight. Stumbling on my broken foot— stumbling from the toxin id already ingested.
For a moment I considered a Samurai's end. Then I remembered.
"We kept it from you." He said that to me.
Eden. Vulture Black. Senso Starve. Tenebris… the list goes on. Every one of them knew. Faustian had dealings with inhuman experiments.
Faustian was going to blur the line between man and Monster because he was a coward. A deviant with no morals. No spine.
I jumped out of Triton Mountain with a new mission.