Chương 28: Abomination

Patch elbowed me, slapping his hammer in his hand.

"You alright, boss?"

"Just dandy," I said.

"Is that recognition in your eyes, Sir Carrion King?" The plague doctor barked.

"Please. Die now, so I may reclaim that sword which is properly mine, and be done with your nonsense." The abomination raised itself high, doubling my height. Another skull popped out of the fleshy mass, sinew twisting into yet another ugly face, orange eyes flickering. The room became chaos. I sprinted forward toward the abomination. It held itself wide open, its bulging flesh an invitation. I lunged, and the sword bit deep, carving through flesh and bone alike. But the abomination barely registered it.

It swept an arm down, catching me across the chest and sent me flying backward like I was nothing but a rag doll. I skidded across the stone floor, breath snuffing from my lungs like a dim flame. Patch darted in from the side, hammer finding gaps between the twisted mass's flesh. Bone split, but the creature turned on him, unimpressed. Patch rolled under the abomination's first swing and inside the second, but a third arm caught him in the gut and hurled him into the wall.

Had Patch been a fly, he might have splattered. The goblin coughed out a trickle of blood, but rose with a devilish grin. The creature screeched, an ear-splitting cry that left its multitude of heads in a wave. It lifted itself high up, its legs carrying it forward like a millipede. It lifted a wide arm to the ceiling, grasping a heavy pipe jutting outward, and ripped it off with a heave. Bricks and broken stone showered down, crashing onto the floor.

The pipe became an oversized fly swatter as the abomination brought it down on the goblin. Patch rolled to the side, missing the blow by inches, but the abomination knew nothing of exhaustion. The pipe came down again. And again. It rose for a third time when Freddie's bow snapped and twanged twice. Each arrow cut through a joint, separating the creature's arms from its elbows and sending them spiraling off to the side. The pipe clattered to the floor—and three of the heads turned to Freddie, snarling.

I found my footing. The anger from losing my skeletons had faded with the blow I took. Karen! Send up the builders! We need help! [They will take some time to arrive. They are in the woods outside—] Send them now! I reached down my connections, finding Strong, Skully, and Explosion moving towards me. Not you three! Stay put! I will not lose you. The connection between us froze. The message was sent as a command—not something they could resist. Sorry.

"You look disturbed, Carrion King," the plague doctor said.

"Do you feel overwhelmed? Tired? I'll allow you to give up your soul easily, if you'd like. Believe it or not, I have little interest in fighting you—only taking what you have stolen from me."

"Go to hell," I said, and moved forward yet again—rushing the abomination as it regrew its lost limbs. I leaped, the Carrion Blade guiding me forward as I sliced down through two of the monstrous, rat-like heads. Toxic saliva splattered from each wound, spraying upward like a fountain and stinging my skin wherever it landed. A sour, metallic tang filled the air. The plague doctor cackled.

"I made some improvements after you dispatched the last one!" I raised my hand—gathering up the souls in my core—and released three minor souls in rapid succession onto the monstrosity. The first one struck its center of mass, sending it off balance and tripping it into a table filled with glass bottles. The next two it twisted and dodged with ease, and each soul blasted into the ceiling. Amongst the chaos, two more heads replaced the ones I cut off. Four more arms burst out where the other two had been.

How the hell do I kill this thing? [Death by a thousand cuts. The soul powering it is fed directly by the Doctor's mana stores. Stop it at the core, or bleed it dry.] Patch picked himself back up and gave a bellowing war cry, and half a dozen of Grelgo's warriors joined him in a charge. In a flash, the abomination knit two of its arms together to become an axe of bone and rotten flesh. The downward swing came down like a judgement from heaven onto the wave of green. The stone floor cratered, and blood sprayed.

I didn't dare look at the fallen goblins. Grelgo's men or not, they were people I neglected to save. I wasn't strong enough. The doctor laughed at the end of the room, hands twitching as he controlled the abomination. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Freddie spewed out another barrage of arrows at the abomination. I growled, "Don't shoot the creature! Fire at the doctor!" Freddie winced as I shouted at him, but nodded.

He reached into his depleting quiver and let another arrow fly. The bow snapped with a burst of energy, and the arrow whizzed on a direct path toward the masked man. With a snap, a burst of energy erupted from the doctor's hand, and the arrow shattered into splinters.

"Bastard!" I spat, and ran toward the abomination. Only a few of the goblins remained. Patch grabbed a femur off the floor, joining me in my next charge. He threw the bone ahead of me, and it bounced off one head, doing nothing. Patch cheered regardless. I sidestepped a swing of the abomination's flesh-axe, and raised my sword to deflect the next blow. As the axe lowered, I shouted, "Bind!" Karen could yell at me all she wanted, but feeding my blade would be the only way forward.

I gave it two more Common Souls, saving Horn's soul, and the blade ignited in a fury. The axe came down and, while it did not break, it stopped it in its tracks. I grinned, letting the blade's hunger consume me. Dodge. Slice. Cut. Slam. The sword and I were two minds working in tandem, and together we cut through the abominations' defenses. It merged more bones together into a fleshy hammer and brought both of its bloody weapons down on me. [You are at the precipice, Travis. You must stop!] I leaped over each impact and brought the bulk of the blade down on its center. Every inch of the blade, from crossguard to point, cleaved through the monstrosity. It split in two, right down the center, unleashing its acidic bile across the floor. Both halves staggered. The cluster heads on either side shrieked, but both bisected forms continued their assault as two individual units instead of one. [You might need to run, Travis. You don't have the power to stop this thing without endangering yourself.] I shook my head. I couldn't flee now, could I? I turned to the doorway, contemplating, when a figure stepped through. Hollow. In either hand she held her broken daggers—half the size they were meant to be. Stick had recovered them from the last abomination's corpse, but they would never be the same. Only a sliver of metal sprouted from each hilt now. Her movements were forced, almost lethargic, but her training and martial prowess were unmatched by anyone else in this room.

I opened my mouth to tell her to fall back, but she met my gaze, eyes narrowing—daring me to say something. The open wounds on each half of the abomination knitted together. The creature remained two, its wounds became a hardened carapace. Both lurched toward me, wielding their axe and hammers. I raised the Carrion Blade to deflect their next attack, when Hollow leaped into the air, jumping almost double her height, and landed on the axe-abomination.

She drove both broken blades into its collarbone and ripped the rotten head off. More arrows flew forward. Patch threw more broken bones. Grelgo's warriors came in groups of one and two, slicing away at what they could before getting knocked to the side. Hollow used her daggers to hold on to the abomination, one by one chopping away its heads.

"Hollow! You still need to recover!" I shouted at her. She spat at me. The plague doctor staggered back as I deflected the blow of the flesh hammer. He held one hand against the rear wall, and gave a quick glance up the stairs. He was scared. I dove past the next blow, running in a dead sprint towards the doctor. I rushed to the back of the room, leaping over debris, and drove my blade onto my rotten twin.

The same wave of energy that destroyed Freddie's arrow met the blade, and I pressed down, both of us locked in a standstill. Beneath the masks yellow lens—my same eyes stared back up at me.

"Fuck you!" I barked.

"Give me my skull back!"

"Your skull?" Not-me shouted back.

"And are you so sure that you're not the one wearing my skin?"

"Bind!" I screamed, pouring a notable soul into the Carrion Blade. The runes sparked with energy, and the shield between us cracked.

"You play with powers you barely understand!" [Don't listen to him,] Karen said. [He's taunting you.]"No shit!" I shouted back.

"Bind!" The sword raged as the next Notable Soul flooded into it. The blade grew, shifting in my hands, and the shield shattered. The man stumbled backward, but was too slow. I cut through his arm, not even feeling resistance as it fell lazily to the floor.

"Get him!" the plague doctor yelled. Both halves of the abomination surrounded me, flesh-weapons raised. I spun to deflect, slicing through the falling flesh as if it were nothing.

"I've had enough!" I shouted. With a sweep, I severed the hammer-abomination. Its upper half separated cleanly from its bottom half, and crashed to the floor. I drove the blade into the last of its remaining heads, and the mass of flesh deflated. Hollow rode the other half still, prying off another head as it swung down at me. The Carrion Blade pulled me forward to impale the abomination's center of mass. Something clicked, and as I pulled the blade away, the construct burst.

Soul Cleave had activated, and the soul channeled down the blade and into— Karen's presence slammed against my mind like a door, and I staggered back. The soul tried to enter my body, but through some Herculean effort, she stopped it. [LET IT GO!] I spun, looking back at the plague doctor. If I were going to let it out, it would be back at him— He was gone. Every part of me screamed. I clutched my head, Karen's resistance failing, and shouted, "BIND!" one last time.

The power of the soul, so unobtainable to me, flowed into the Carrion Blade. The light of the runes became blinding, painting the entire room red like a dying star. I screamed, the weight in my hand doubling. The blade widened by an inch, grew longer by half a foot. The hilt twisted, the crossguard morphing into something more jagged and sinister. Someone clapped at the other end of the room. Grelgo.

"Well done, Carrion King! Taking down such a tremendous foe!" The goblin leader grinned wide, not a speck of dust, dirt, or blood staining him.

"Sorry about this, though." The room exploded.