Chương 136: The Hanging Tree

Ch. 136 - The Hanging Tree The Ebon Blade had not expected to find this circle's Princess much before the gate to the next circle. It also didn't expect that gate to move, but it was wrong on both counts. The second part it only discovered by accident, while walking in straight lines for hours. It saw animals, or sometimes even shapes that might have been people, but they were almost always far away, and those that got closer fled at the sight of it.

The blade could have chased them down, of course, but that would have cost more energy than such a hunt would have granted it. Instead, it focused on moving ever forward. -217 Life Force. As it got closer to its destination, it would look around only to realize it was diverting ever so slightly to the left of the ideal course, obstacles notwithstanding. The Princess, though, was heralded by the giant tree that it saw in the distance. At least the weapon was pretty sure that was where it would find her.

At first, the sword thought that it was just like the other trees it had killed so far on its long walk through the muck. That became less likely as the blade walked toward it, but it got no closer. No, not no closer, it realized. I'm just still very far away, which means it has to be huge. It was huge. It might have been as tall as any of the mage towers in had brought down to date. It might have been taller, but it was only when it saw the bodies hanging from it that it really understood the sense of scale.

When the weapon first saw the huge drooping bows, it had assumed that they were foliage, but in reality, the limbs were full of corpses that had been strung up there by the neck. There were hundreds of them, which were enough to make one wonder what the point was. It's a message, for sure, the blade said to itself, but who is the intended audience? -61 Life Force. It didn't know, so it asked a couple of the demon spirits from this level.

They didn't know why it existed either, but they knew of it at least, which was how the weapon learned it had a name, the Hanging Tree. It is a place that is sacred to the Princess, one whispered. It exists for the Hag to hang her trophies, another one claimed. That second answer proved to be more interesting, because when the blade looked closely, it discovered one final answer. The bodies that hung from the tree weren't corpses, but still squirming souls.

It really was a trophy of sorts, though perhaps it was the strangest one it had ever seen. Still, that did not deter the blade. On the contrary, it enticed it, and as it approached, it marched ever faster. The weave of the layer said that its destination was somewhere beyond this point, and to the left of it, but right now the blade didn't care about that. What it cared about was that there were hundreds of squirming souls, many of whom still shone with the light of creation rather than the pits of hell.

That represented the first real meal it had tasted in a long time, and it craved it. By the time it reached the base of the tree, the thing soared hundreds of feet above the knight that held it. It was a vast, giant of a plant that had died long ago. It looked like it should have been the king of an entire forest, but there were no other trees nearby. -54 Life Force. As the blade approached, it was on guard for surprise attacks from its roots or anything else.

If it had attacked the blade in the same way as the other trees it had slain, then the thing would have been a leviathan, but not much more dangerous. Still, there were no attacks. The closest there were were the weak struggles of the men and women hung from its branches by their necks. Some were demons, but the vast majority of them seemed to be human souls. The blade reached out with its mind almost at random, plucking one of the men closest to it, and devouring his soul like a ripe fruit.

It didn't try to ask him a question, though his crazed, blank eyes made it appear that he was far too likely to answer even questions as simple as his own name. Rather than worry about any of that, the Ebon Blade simply enjoyed the taste of a human soul once more. +1 Tainted Human Soul. It wasn't quite a ripe fruit, as its previous metaphor had made it out to be.

It was an overripe, slightly spoiled fruit that had been permeated with the tastes and smells of hell, but it still tasted a hundred times better than anything it could remember eating since it had arrived. The blade ripped another dozen souls off the same branch, not because it needed the Life Force, but because it wanted to bask in sensations that didn't feel like rubber and taste like poison. That might have been too much, because even as it was enjoying the flavors, something moved in the shadow of the tree.

+13 Tainted Human Souls. The blade feared that the tree itself was finally attacking it, but instead, a giant serpent that had coiled among the roots rose up to regard the blade, or at least the clockwork knight that carried it.

"Foolisssh demonssspawn," it whispered.

"You rob from the sssomething that isss not yoursss to take."

"Are you the Hag then?" the blade asked through the mouth of its metal wielder as it moved into a combat stance.

"The Hag? The Hag you call or dear Princesssss Rizzeldah?" the snake asked, obviously offended on its mistress's behalf.

"For the theft, ssshe will kill you, but for the name? For that, ssshe will make you sssuffer as you have never dreamed! Ssshe is a patient and beautiful woman, but hasss no patience for sssuch ugly wordsss…" Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. The blade looked around, but saw no one else coming for it, beautiful or otherwise. It didn't bother to apologize, not would it, had even death herself been bearing down on it.

Instead, it said, "If she values her life, she's welcome to stay far away. I'm only passing through." As it stood there at the ready, the snake slithered out from the tree and began to coil around it, creating a ring that was nearly fifty feet across. It was the height of a tall brick wall, which was impressive, but that only became more so as the second and third course grew, trapping it in a tiny area. Well, trapped was a bit too generous.

It had several ways it could escape, but for the moment, the blade chose not to tip its hand. It merely regarded the titanic beast and said, "I thought your mistress was going to be the one to kill me. Will you do her dirty work?"

"I would never think of denying Princesssss Rizzeldah the pleasssure of sssuch a moment," it hissed.

"Ssshe, and ssshe alone will ssstrike you down. I will merely keep you from essscaping…" The blade waited until the statement was almost done, then it charged forward to show the beast how wrong it was. It did this not with spells or abilities, but with simple speed, revving up the metal knight's internal engine as fast as it would go for a brief period as it surged ahead. The giant snake had intended to bar the Ebon Blade's way, but all it had done was ensure that it would be impossible to miss.

Still, it was surprised when the thing didn't even try to move. Instead, it lay there quiescent, as the Ebonblade brought itself down on its scaled flesh, but surprisingly, nothing happened. It had struck with triple the force that Var'Gar had used to force city gates open, and there was barely a mark on the serpent! There was an impact of a sort, though it felt strange.

There was a storm of sparks too, as its edge dragged along the metallic scales, but they were nearly as hard as dragon skin, and its edge skittered off, shocking the sword.

"Do you sssee?" the serpent gloated, tightening its coils, reducing the small arena that the weapon seemed to be trapped inside from fifty feet to forty feet, and then from forty to thirty feet.

"My ssscales are imperviousss, even to—" As it spoke, the blade struck again, cursing itself for relying on brute force. It had once cursed its shepherd wielder for the same foolish strike so long ago; the difference was that it knew better. Scaled enemies might be powerful, but even its vorpal strike couldn't simply cleave right through its armored enemy; there were weaknesses between every scale. This time, it didn't try to stop the giant, slithering form in half.

Instead, it ran along the body, sliding itself in a seam between two scale layers, and penetrating into the flesh beneath. First, it sliced only the first few inches of the polluted flesh, but after a moment, it embedded itself completely, cutting several feet into the monster. +41 Life Force. The snake screamed then. That scream was an unholy sound that nothing should have been able to make. It tightened its coils, too, but it was too late for that.

The blade was already running along the walls of its prison, cutting as it went. +38 Life Force. +43 Life Force. The knight that it was puppeting was a heavy thing that weighed as much as any five wielders put together, but it was moving so quickly that it moved up with every stride. The dying animal, giant though it might be, was dying.

It had a wound as long as deep as an irrigation ditch, and as it shifted in an effort to squeeze the blade's metal wielder to death, that terrible wound vomited out gouts of black blood. +36 Life Force. +40 Life Force. That rising tide of death reached the top of the coils as the blade did, creating a small volcano of black blood. The Ebon Blade leaped out ahead of the spray, which was so toxic it sizzled and hissed as it reached the ground. That wasn't the reason it wanted altitude, though.

It moved up this high and fast so that it could descend like a thunderbolt on the serpent. It used Vorpal Strike then, severing the top coil, and the middle coil before hammering down on the serpent's neck and severing it from the rest of its flayed body for good measure. +41 Life Force. -50 Life Force. When it was done, the giant serpent that had thought itself utterly invulnerable only a few minutes before lay on the ground in flayed pieces. It was a gruesome scene. That was pretty typical for its gory combats.

What was strange was that it didn't give the blade a soul when it died. It had been expecting a greater demon soul at least, but instead, all it received was an eerie silence. Something was amiss. Then, slowly, dead flesh began to crawl and shift as the pieces of the giant, hacked-apart snake started to twitch, one at a time, then they slowly melded into the earth. No, the mud is melding into them and becoming flesh, the blade realized.

Still, it did nothing but back away from the closest piece until the dead-eyed head of the serpent came to life and began to speak. This time, its strange sibilant voice had vanished. It was replaced by a barely human growl, and even though there wasn't a trace of femininity to speak of, the weapon was sure this was the Hag.

"Why would one of Voltrim's wind-up toys come all the way here to pluck my trophies and kill their guardian?" it asked.

"I am here at the orders of no one," the blade responded, watching for treachery in every direction, including below.

"I merely seek the first ring."

"Even if your death were not imminent, you would never make it there," the dead-eyed monster answered, still mutating and changing as the ground beneath its wielder's feet started to bubble and swell.

"I have defeated your minion and two demon princes. I can defeat you as well," the blade countered, tightening its grip on its hilt as it tried to figure out where the inevitable strike would come from. The laughter the severed head made was a low tectonic rumble more than anything. It had melted so badly that it no longer looked like a snake. It was the decaying head of some long-dead giant, and according to the threads, it was connected to a neck that disappeared into the earth.

"How can you defeat the earth, or the sky?" it demanded.

"This realm is mine, and so is everything in it."

"Why should the souls in the tree matter then?" the blade asked, stalling for time with its metallic voice as it studied this strange transformation.

"The people who come here did nothing with their lives, so I will do whatever I like with their deaths. Most of them sink into the mud, too pitiful to matter, but a few… a precious few are beautiful enough for me to display for all of eternity," the monster growled.

"They are mine, and you can't have them." To show how false that was, the blade reached out and simply devoured another branch full of corpses, drawing them into its soul gem, and even tasted a few of them, though it had vowed to savor them. That made the rapidly reforming monster scream in frustration. This time it surged forward, not as a monster, but as an avalanche of mud and loosely connected body parts bent on revenge.