Chương 54: Chapter 51: Agonized Fury

Yawning as he walked towards his room, he felt the brush of Onward Evermore on his mind, prodding at him. Over the last couple weeks, they'd come to an understanding. More than an hour, Onward usually got four or five per day when Aaron fought the husks, getting its own cut of the profits with which to plant its own dandelions. It was an unregulated source of energy, but Aaron had Bwurzix on his side anyway, and his net of dandelions continued to grow thicker.

If he could use all the energy on himself, he wondered what would be possible, but he knew from trying that there was a limit- his body would become corrupted, just like if he overused his Primary, and start to rebel against him, acting in accordance to the will of the dandelions, even if they themselves didn't wish to take control. Another of Neenaw's hints showed itself: no matter how deeply entrenched he became, there was no way to fight endlessly. Not unless he took it with his own power.

Onward Evermore poked him again, and he finally asked"What?" It sent back feelings of the emotion appearing once more- the one he couldn't figure out the word to. It'd happened a few times over the last couple weeks, where Onward would tell him he was emitting flakes of the same powerful emotion, but still, Aaron had no idea what.

As the days passed, he'd slowly started to emit more of it- but it was still in such small quantities that Onward could easily miss it if it wasn't constantly searching for the valuable "Resource." Aaron could only shrug at his Primary. Perhaps tomorrow he could ask Ketzi for help on reading into the emotion, but today, he was tired from the night of fighting. Showered, clothed, and satiated, he flopped into his bed, End wrapped in its impenetrable ribbons beneath him.

* Something pierced his back, another slit his throat. He tried to scream, yet only a gurgle came out. Something grabbed at End beneath him, but instinct and fury cut through the haze, and his deathgrip on the handle locked shut. He was flipped over, allowing him to see three masked figures in shadowy robes. His mind faded rapidly, darkness closing in. With the last of his will, he handed over full control to Onward Evermore- not just over his body, but even the wellspring Bwurzix offered.

His body exploded into leaves and stalks, not unlike the birth of Bwurzix, even if on a much smaller scale. The assassins leapt backwards, and a mental map of the room and beyond unfolded, vibrations showing echolocation, a heat map of the building, air pressure providing an image of the hallway outside. Five assassins in the room, four in the hall, seven downstairs… and multiple cooling corpses. Internally, Aaron found himself faded.

Either because his heart and throat were destroyed, or because his brain was left to suffocate before Onward Evermore took over, Aaron wasn't able to muster the strength he normally could. Something was latched around his mind, keeping him weighted and weak- something not Onward Evermore, as the Primary tried prying him free of the sensation as well.

"Go," he said quietly, urging Onward to forget him for now and handle the assassins. In the real world, a few seconds had passed as the assassins froze in surprise at Onward Evermore's form, and it used that time to study them. Dark cloaks and with matching masks, each appeared quite similar to the husks they'd fought only a couple hours ago- shapeless black figures.

It was obvious, though, they they were simply humans wrapped in cloth, especially considering the painted white eye, right in the middle of their faces. A cloud of white smoke exploded from Onward Evermore using Peacemind Vapors, filling the room instantly, and the assassins darted through it, uncaring of the thick, heavy smog. Despite cutting where Onward had been only moments before, they found the spot empty, and the Primary having leapt to the ceiling.

Not bothering to hold a human form, Onward Evermore resembled a miniature version of Bwurzix, the core of it perhaps five feet in diameter, smaller than Aaron was tall. The new, inhuman shape gave it more options though, and its roots dug into the ceiling. Silently walking along it as the assassins scrambled below- though not for long. As one, they stopped, turning to look at Onward through the obscuring smokescreen.

Onward threw itself at the room's window, hoping to crash through and escape, intent on running away. Aaron had no energy to protest and beg it to return, to potentially save the inn workers that'd been nice to him- if only Yisti, the original one who'd checked him in, and he'd come to enjoy speaking with. It didn't matter. As Onward hit the glass, there was a thud, and it bounced, a barrier locking him in. with the five assassins- now three, as two lay dead on the ground with mysteriously slit throats.

A cornered animal, his Primary went berserk. The pressure in the room increased precariously as Peacemind Vapors was fed a massive chunk of Onward Evermore's energy. The assassins were thrown away, and the door blown off its hinges as twisting smoke lashed out- and through it, Onward Evermore darted through, lunging for the first.

Windwhipped Seedblossom grabbed the person's leg, and Onward spun like a top, its dandelions twisting it through the air as the assassin was yanked off their feet, bashing against the wall with a sickening thud. Another ducked behind the bed, sliding under it as the vine went for their head and springing back up, the purple knife glowing with a dark light, and when they swung out, a purple glow shot forward towards the core of Onward.

His Primary squished itself flat, going practically two-dimensional against the ground as the rent flew over its head, and it shot forward, opening wide and pulling the assassin into its rooted core, Aaron thought it was foolish to put the assassin in its most vulnerable spot, but trusted the Imprint's judgement- and was soon rewarded.

End sitting within him as well, its ribbons wrapped tightly around the purple dagger, and as more light exploded forth, it was sealed and suppressed under black velvet, harmlessly nullified. The assassin screamed as Onward chewed through their flesh, the first being in the room to make any noise at all in a strangely muffled fight, but Onward didn't stop.

A powerful gust of wind shot to the only standing assassin in the room, carrying on its back a handful of tiny white dandelion seeds, and the assassin's blade blurred, striking many out of the air as they twirled around others, those missing embedding themselves into the wall as they landed like bullets. The four assassins in the hallway finally regained their bearings enough to burst in through the doorway.

The seeds that'd struck the floor and wall exploded with energy, fed by Bwurzix through Mycelaric Expanse as his large friend did everything in its power to help. Two assassins were tripped as stalks wrapped around their legs, but an unlucky one stood right in front of the wall where a majority of the seeds had landed, the wood turning to roots and stems as dozens of plants burst forth, wrapping around them and pulling them tight, choking them in bindings.

The muffled screaming inside Onward Evermore finally went quiet, and it spit out a fully-formed plant person, adding an allied fighter to their side, the assassin's mind sealed within. Not waiting for a replacement, the unconscious assassin still in Onward Evermore's grip was thrown into its maw as well, its sickening conversion acting upon yet another victim- one that Aaron would not fight against, due simply to the nature of them.

The two standing assassins joined together, moving in perfect coordination to slink forward in a silent dance. Onward Evermore, having figured out that they were somehow using magical senses to detect him, went the mundane route. Lifting a massive oak bed silently, it threw the entirely normal object at the knife-wielding snakes. They didn't even see it coming, and the loud crash shaking the building as their upper torsos crunched under the weight.

Onward Evermore charged the ends of Windwhipped Seedblossom with energy, and a seed the size of a human palm was jammed down the throats of the two crushed, dying assassins. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. The seeds exploded, digging into the remains of the head and stopping the consciousnesses within from dying, locking them away instead.

Aaron, for his part, despite being drained and weak, turned his attention to the mixing collection of energy between himself and Onward. Though he couldn't do much right now, he focused on the ability he'd been training for the past two weeks, smoothing out his energy and removing the aura emitted by him. Onward Evermore spit out yet another plant monstrosity.

The person who'd been pulled into the wall was torn apart on their own, the plants who'd taken him embedding themselves deep in his flesh, and a second later, they stepped free, a dozen dandelions poking through their flesh, their eyes vacant. While not as perfect a transformation as Onward's, giving rise to jerky movements and a stumbling gait, the assassin was captured gruesomely nonetheless.

The other two, seeing themselves now outnumbered six to two, and immeasurably out-powered, tore themselves free from the dandelions around their legs and shot out the door. Onward Evermore, now invisible to their senses, followed after. Silent, they could not hear it. Shrouded, they could not see it. Onward Evermore moved through the hall like a ghost, the white wall Quickly catching up to the assassins at the stairwell. They leapt down as the Windwhipped Seedblossom vines shot forward, missing the duo by a hair.

On the landing, though, both stumbled, and one fell, grasping at their chest. The one that kept standing continued forward, unstable on their feet and struggling to turn the doorknob, their grip sliding off twice before they managed to turn it properly- it seemed that Peacemind Vapors had finally caught up to them. Onward's gargantuan body leapt down the stairs too, the one at the bottom, likely expecting it, swung their knife blindly, and another purple cut flew through the air.

Onward Evermore's dandelions hit the right wall, pushing it to the side just in time for the cut to shear through where they'd been, physically severing multiple stalks. Unnatural pain and a hollow sensation radiated off his Primary, confirming that they were using Abyssal magic to strike. The dandelions fell to the ground, disintegrating and flying into the one that'd swung out, but Onward was on them only moments later, sealing their knife in ribbons, right next to the other three, and consuming them.

The last assassin made it two steps through the door to the lobby before Onward's vines wrapped around their ankle. Aaron felt some kind of thrum through his Abyssal stat, and the seven assassins, placed all throughout the building, came running. Three burst through the doors just in time to watch their friend be dragged into the wall of smoke, knife stabbed to the ground as they tried stopping themselves.

They vanished a second later, and two sets of screaming filled the air as Onward crammed them both together inside its roots, pulling their minds apart and sealing them away. The three present immediately turned, fleeing from the room and instead heading toward the nearest windows, as the front door in the lobby was blocked off. Those that came after saw their friends fleeing, and followed suit.

The entire fight, Aaron had both suppressed their signature, and continued to work on fighting against whatever tried to put him to sleep. It was hard to truly place what was causing it, but the longer he resisted, the more he found a heartbeat echoing through his mind, the colors of his emotions returning. Onward Evermore mentioned that it felt relief as well, something strangling the gateway to its food source- his mind.

Now, with Aaron slowly waking back up, it was able to draw more freely on him and fuel itself more, which was exactly why it'd tried to ensure he didn't fade away the first time, despite the potential to rid itself of him for good. Going for the doors, Aaron wanted to warn them that the people might not be so understanding of a monster leaving a house with multiple corpses, but as the assassins leapt through the windows, the barrier dropped, and noise returned to the world.

Screams, crashing, warning bells, and the crackle of fire. Not only the inn, the entire town was under attack. Onward Evermore rushed out, leaping to the rooftops and seeing where the largest fires were, or the loudest points… and ran the other way, fleeing towards the wall of the town.

"Wait!" Aaron said"What about getting more hosts? Capturing more assassins that I won't fight you over? They give an incredible amount of food, don't they?" His Primary hesitated for a second, but kept running.

"Not to mention, if you help the town, you'll be allowed to walk around freely! They'd see you as a person, not a monster!' That made it freeze. It'd been a point of contention between them that it wanted to experience the town and not just fighting, but Aaron was adamant. Neenaw, as well, said that even the most reverent civilian would balk at the idea of letting an Imprint walk freely about.

"You've just torn through a band of assassins that specifically came here to kill us. With our stealth, we can ambush more before they even know we're there!" He could tell that it was reasonably afraid of running into the "Head" of the raid- and he understood where it was coming from. The assassins were too coordinated. Yes, he could tell that they held independent thought, but there was something about them that reeked of the aspect of Abyssal magic where one could summon subsidiary monsters.

These humans were leashed in some way, and there was a person out there holding the end of it. Onward Evermore did not wish to meet this person.

"They'll want to thank you for helping them as well… maybe you could ask for more coins?" He gave it the final nudge. An odd trait of the ebon-opal coins was that they, too, could be consumed for energy- and were much more potent too. It finally turned around, venturing towards the nearest source of noise, and here is where Bwurzix chimed in as well, pointing them in a specific direction- towards Aliata's house. Aaron felt his heart sink, even as Onward Evermore shot forward unhesitatingly.

Higher over the town now, with their plant monsters following more slowly on the ground, Onward formed a set of human eyes to look around with as it went, needing a more detailed, further view. Now that they weren't in an enclosed space, it was significantly harder to track everything. What he saw… Magic flew in all directions, multiple guardsmen facing off against dark robed assassins that leapt from rooftop to rooftop.

The guardsmen were stronger, each with abilities that made them faster or more durable, but he could see that they were outnumbered eight-to-one at the very least. Yet, the smaller invaders were not the only ones. A silver metallic monstrosity rumbled through town, a giant gyroscope that barreled through buildings, crashing over and crushing its victims even as Utrisnic chased it.

Standing on a glass board, the Sheriff was surrounded by an angry swarm of sparkling shards, controlling the cloud of glass and firing multiple down at the gyroscopic ring, chipping away at it, even as the monster caused unregulated, wanton destruction. Internally, his emotions twisted in a sickening realization.

'That's the vehicle the new cannibal leader used… they're here.' The System, it seemed, was not willing to wait for the Purge to cause its chaos. Despite pulling the cannibals up, it seemed they were here once more- and strong enough to fight and raid a town with an entire division of people with Imprints.

Not only did the metal monster break the skyline, but multiple gargantuan dandelions whipped about, squashing robed assassins on nearby roofs with reckless abandon, willing to destroy everything if it meant ending the invasion.

'How?' Aaron wondered, but soon got his answer. As they passed over a wide street, he felt Onward's senses wash over a group of twelve Abyssal-magic users dancing around a guard in a display of dexterity. The taurin held them off with a sword in both upper hands and a shield in both lower, the guard's blades extending and moving in strange directions, striking at unexpected angles, but there were simply too many, and the assassins were too good at predicting the trajectory of the guard's blade.

He didn't want to stop, as he knew Aliata was in trouble, but he found that he didn't need to. Fffffffwhi- BOOM Something whizzed down from the sky slamming into a collection of assassins like orbital missile, obliterating four of them and sending everyone too close stumbling. From the crater, a green stalk exploded out, grabbing one of the assassins and whipping them into a wall.

When the remaining assassins went for the downed guard, leaves extended from the base of the stalk, covering the man at the last minute; the leaf whipped, sending them away before they could cut through it, and the budding dandelion head came down on another assassin, crushing them Bwurzix, it seemed, was willing to burn through all the energy they'd managed to store in the past two weeks, not nearly as helpless as it'd once been.

As quickly as the scene unfolded, it was soon out of range, leaving Aaron wondering if the guard survived. Aaron saw that the place Bwurzix directed them had seven of its own dandelions, each of them fighting a single enemy that Aaron couldn't see, and a constant bombardment of seeds rocked the area, showing that there truly was an incredibly powerful enemy there- why they went for Aliata specifically, he couldn't know.

As they crested the final house, jumping into the fray, right between every massive dandelion, Aaron saw the monster they now faced. A dull steel humanoid covered in twisting notches and markings, it was a man of metal that the plants around them beat down on- but he continued to stand tall, uncaring of their pathetically weak strikes. Whether he'd dodged the seeds, or if he was simply too durable for them, Aaron didn't know, as Bwurzix was forced to stop.

In his right hand, lifted above his head, the man held a struggling Aliata by the head, and if Bwurzix sent any more strikes, he would hit her as well. Aaron screamed out within the shell he was trapped, loud enough to crack the bindings placed around his mind entirely, and his emotions sprang forth as a torrent, power flowing through him and Onward both. The man glanced his way as Aaron and his Primary fell from the sky, an enraged cry ripping from their throat as Aaron's voice pushed through.

And, looking at him, something within Aaron recognized the face. The one he'd left behind. The one who he'd assumed was killed by the Mushki.

"RICHARD!" he screamed out, but if the man recognized Aaron's voice, he didn't show it. With a simple flex of his steel muscles, Richard's vice-like hand crushed Aliata's skull, killing her instantly.