{28} - Io: To Be Human Part II
There was a name in the back of her mind.
She couldn't remember it, no matter how hard she tried. She didn't know who it belonged to, nor why it felt so important. But it lingered, like a fading ghost.
Io stood. She looked down at her bloodied rags. They stuck uncomfortably to her skin, but there was little she could do about it. She'd have to wait for the clothes Sir Evans had ordered for her.
She took a breath, and winced. Her throat was screaming in pain. She wasn't surprised—she'd nearly suffocated in her own blood just moments before.
Still, she was glad she did. Because, for the first time, the wriggling weight in her chest was gone. The squirming corruption in her blood had been expelled. The System had turned her into a [Human].
It meant she could no longer revive, but she was fine with that. Losing her ties to the Queen-
It was the greatest news she'd ever heard. Even if she didn't quite understand why.
But something was…off. Hadn't she coughed out all her blood? Where was it? Why was the ground so clean? And where was the corpse of the Butterfly? Was it not-
She heard something move. She tried to turn.
She wasn't fast enough.
Something smashed into her back, hard. She screamed in pain as she felt her bones shatter, and she was sent flying into the air. She grit her teeth and wrangled back control over her body. She summoned her halberd, and jabbed into the ground to slow her down.
She eventually skid to a stop, and she stepped onto the ground with a stilted breath. Her back was hurting, and she could no longer feel the regeneration her corrupted blood once offered.
She looked up, and her breath froze in her throat.
The Butterfly of Delirium floated before her, changed. The paper-thin wings stretching from its back were replaced by a mutated collage made of hands, formed into something only vaguely like wings. The dragon-like thing stretching from its tail had grown dozens of eyes on its head and within its mouth. A wriggling mass of eyes grew out from its severed neck.
She spun her halberd. Faced its blades towards the mutated monster. Clenched her fingers around her halberd until her fingers turned white.
There was a visceral disgust in her gut. A calling that begged her to kill and burn it until nothing remained. Because the blood that now flowed in that mutated monster had come from her. Had been the thing that gave her strength.
If such a horrid mutation lived in every Revenant, was it not a surprise that a Vestige would harbor monsters like Sir Evans had described?
She shelved those considerations for later. Right now?
She took a breath. Her arms began glowing white. Her eyes, normally golden, turned a demented red.
[The Skill [Divine Bloodlust] has activated!]
She had a monster to kill.
She surged forward. Its dragon tail rushed towards her. It roared as an avalanche of poisonous blood blasted from its jaws. She leapt over it, only to find the monster inches away from her, its wings poised to strike her down. She swung her halberd at it, and the blades barely dug into the wings' flesh.
She swung herself over the wings, letting them pass her by as she swept her halberd towards the mass of eyes.
The mass contorted around her halberd. The flesh morphed, twisted into a mocking smile as a tendon surged. She cried as it stabbed through her forearm. She spun, swept her leg towards the tendon and tore it apart. The tendon broke away from her arm with a wet squelch. She leapt away, and winced as she cradled bleeding arm.
It wasn't healing.
She sucked a breath through her teeth. This was what it meant to be human, she supposed.
Her eyes snapped forward as the ground shook. She saw the monster land on the ground, its fleshy wings anchored to the ground like pairs of legs. The mass of eyes contorted, forming into something vaguely resembling a head, with a pair of fang-shaped bonds protruding from it.
A shiver crawled up her spine.
The monster jumped high into the sky, and its jagged bones protruded from them as it fell. She leapt aside, her teeth grit as the monster missed by inches. The ground exploded from the impact, and she dug her foot into the ground to weather the winds.
She spun her halberd then. Called for her Strength. Her arms glowed white, and she swung.
A small chunk of a leg was lobbed off. It was hardly anything consequential, but it showed that she could at least hurt it. She followed the attack with another swing. Her halberd sliced off another small nub of flesh from the conglomeration of flesh.
But then the flesh morphed, and a fang-shaped bone rose towards her neck. She quickly brought her halberd's blade between it and her neck, and winced as the bone smashed into her halberd. The impact shook through her bones, and she could only gasp as she was sent flying back.
She didn't let the shock stop her. Her hands glittered, and she threw a grenade straight at the mass of eyes. The monster watched, confused, and then she heard it shriek as the grenade exploded. A purple cloud rose into the air—made from a mixture of poisons she couldn't quite understand.
She skidded to a stop, took a breath, and looked up just in time to see the monster reach for her. Its fleshy wings grew two dozen fingers, and they dug into her cheeks as it slammed her into the ground.
She struggled against it. Tried to pry its fingers away from her face.
It didn't work. The concrete below her cracked as it drove her further into the earth. Chunks of debris began stabbing into her back. Her hands grasped onto the mass of flesh, but she didn't have enough strength to pry the giant mass away. Her legs kicked into it over and over, but the monster didn't react.
The flesh was covering her face. Her nose.
She couldn't breathe. She couldn't pry the mass away to even try. She didn't have enough Strength.
It was unAcCEptaBlE.
Strength coursed through her veins, and she heard flesh tear as her fingers dug into the monster's wings. But its fingers remained on her face, and she could hear static filling her ears. She needed to breathe.
She asked for more Strength. Begged for more.
Her fingers dug deeper into the fleshy wings. Her kicks began producing shockwaves.
The monster's fingers remained on her face.
She asked for more. More. More. MOrE. mOre. MoRe.
She heard a whine of confusion, and then one of panic as she began lifting the monster off the ground. Her fingers have all stabbed into the monster's flesh. Darkened blood was trailing down her arms.
And still, the monster's fingers remained on her face. She hadn't taken a breath in a minute. Her head was getting light. She could barely hear anything past the static in her ears.
She was dying, she realized.
She was dying.
…
Her arms fell to the sides. Limp. Her head rolled slightly to the left. She had no more strength to keep her head upright.
She was dying. She was conscious still, but trapped in a body that couldn't muster even a lick of strength.
And yet, despite knowing that she should've fallen unconscious, she hadn't. There was something inside her keeping her awake. A plea deep in her gut that staved away the creeping darkness.
For some reason, she thought of the girl she'd seen during the last moments of her transformation. Of the way she cried in the midst of a dying city. Of the pain and agony she felt. Of her begging. Of her pleas.
Of her Anger.
Suddenly, vitriol rose in her chest—a feeling so foreign it forced a flinch out of her dying body. It was a scathing emotion, setting her chest alight.
"It was them." Laughter echoed through the static. "They took me. Turned me into something else. And then they had the gall to fail."
[The Skill [Divine Bloodlust] has activated!]
Her arms shined. But not with the usual white. Instead, a rolling blackness surged around her skin, crashing like waves. The laughter in her ears grew, rose above even the static.
[The Skill -Blood Code: Eos- is reacting!]
Her arm swept to the side, dangling like a puppet's on a string. Her fingers clenched into a fist. Blood dripped from her palm as her nails dug into her skin.
And then, faster than the monster could react, she punched.
A metallic screech sounded, and from what little she could see, the world seemed to twist around her hand as her fist dug deep into the monster's flesh. The fingers that'd clung to her face were pried away, and she fell back onto the ground as the monster was sent flying. The world shook as the monster crashed into the small mountain just behind them. The rocks came crashing down.
She coughed. Everything hurt. Her hand was screaming in pain. And yet,
Io looked down at the rolling darkness that covered her hand, at the way it tumbled and surged and folded. And driven by some unseen force, her lips curled into a dark grin.
"Humans deserve to die." Chilling laughter sounded in her ears. It took her a moment to realize that the laugh had come out of her own lips. "Pathetic beings, desperately reaching for power they were never meant to touch." More laughter involuntary left her lips. "But, well, I guess I can make an exception this time."
Io forced her lips shut. She didn't know who it was that was speaking to her. Nor why it felt so familiar. But this wasn't the time.
The mountain exploded as the monster tore itself out of the fallen debris. A massive chunk of its flesh had twisted, torn and filled with lines of bleeding wounds.
She called for her halberd. It appeared in her hands with a flash.
The darkness coating her hand surged onto the halberd. It clung onto it, consumed it, and her halberd soon morphed. It grew to nearly thrice its normal size, blocking out the late afternoon sunlight.
The monster froze at it. Stared at it in what almost looked like horror.
Against her will, a manic grin came onto her lips.
[The Skill [Divine Bloodlust] has activated!]
Her grin grew, and her eyes shone red as she took a step forward. "Die."
Her halberd fell onto the monster. A massive tide of darkness swept into the earth, tearing into the stone and washing away everything that stood in its way. A pained screech sounded from the monster, before it too drowned beneath the rolling darkness.
She took a breath. Then two.
And then she lost all her strength and fell unconscious.