Chương 186: Prong

Forty years of service in the guard of the Cultless had bestowed a well earned fear of the unknown. Every new face that walked through the upper gate, he treated with the utmost scepticism and suspicion. And none were more deserving then the girl he'd just let walk through the Refuge. She came down from the surface during what was said to be the most intense accretion storm in a century. A Deific Tempest. Then, in the face of all their weapons, she actively chose to aggravate him. Before all his men, too.

He had intended to silence her before her words undermined his position, but that had only revealed the greatest warning signal. The girl was strong. Far too strong for a youth of her size. Prong spent hours training his body each day. Even as his sixtieth year came around, he trusted the muscular strength he'd built to stand above the young and energetic. And yet Nyxala had caught his blow as if it were nothing. It wasn't meant to kill the girl.

He'd only put enough strength in to knock some sense into her, and yet when she'd caught it, he couldn't pull away. All those years of workouts to keep him strong in a place where the body was all that mattered — not the abilities of one's soul — had been for nothing. With a single hand, she'd overpowered him. That was not the way things should be. Here, everyone was suppressed. He'd never seen a single person walk through those gates and not be affected.

Not even the few times a high creed thought themselves above their defences, and paid for it with their lives. But not this girl. He didn't want to believe that the suppression ritual had no effect. Nyxala had even questioned what was happening… not that he didn't suspect her of deceit. But what other answer was there for her strength, and the oddity with the fixed mount's sudden inoperative state.

They had regular maintenance every few days, and there had been nothing wrong with that machine gun prior to her arrival. It didn't help that she was short even for a woman. Without the benefit of names, women made sup-par soldiers. Sure they could pull a trigger like any man, but when physical strength and endurance became the most important aspects of battle, they fell short. Prong was more than a little humiliated at having been shown up by one. This was supposed to be his domain.

One he'd carved for himself, and where countless cult victims relied on him for survival. Where the unforgivable cults that surrounded them at all times were bound to fall should they challenge him. He was suspicious, and knew she was hiding something beneath that thick cloak. But never could he have suspected she was so… vile. Monstrous. The way she walked, with the long cloth of her cloak shifting where her legs should never have touched.

Her torso, which clearly held enough layers of cloth beneath her cloak to obfuscate her form. Normal for a shy girl… or one with something to hide. And her head, which she kept downcast even as she layered her threats, drowning her face in shade. She was a threat to the Refuge, and even as he listened to Judge's orders to bring her down to the lower gate, he tried to glean what exactly it was that she was hiding.

But it was only when his eyes landed on the mutated man she'd asked to be brought in, did he finally understand. Prong tossed down her hood, revealing not two, but four eyes. The upper ones were unnatural, and blinked in from the sides as well as typical. Short, unnaturally blue hair that shimmered in the light. It took a moment of staring to realise that the transparent, splitting strands barely resembled hair at all, besides the fact that it grew from her head.

And, from the side of her head sprouted antennae like that of a strange sea creature from the books he'd obsessed over as a child. She was not human.

"I knew there was something wrong with you." She was a danger they never should have let within their home. Prong went to step away. He needed space to call on the guards to fire upon her. Nyxala moved before he could. She spat on her cuffs, and in a blink her hands were free. A smoking pile of scrap metal clunked to the ground.

"Shoot h-ugck" He didn't have the time to even raise his own weapon before something had him around the neck. His eyes had never left her hands, but now he was choking? An agonising strain entered his neck beyond just his windpipe being clamped shut and he felt his feet leave the ground. Both of her hands were still empty. No. Now they weren't hands at all. Prong dropped his weapon and desperately reached for that which had his throat. His fingers found something soft.

It was soft, and yet it refused to budge against his desperate efforts to save himself. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. His eyes dropped, trying to find what had him in an inescapable grip, only to discover the purple length of a tentacle slipping through the front of her cloak.

"Wrong?" the girl's voice echoed with a sinister undertone even as it left her mouth.

"There is nothing wrong with me. Nothing besides the mistaken trust that you would not be a fool." As his fingers continued to scratch fruitlessly against the boneless muscle strangling him, he felt terror overcome him. Her teeth were that of a predator. Two rows of fangs, one behind the other, sharper than any razor he'd used. She glowered up at him, completely unburdened by the effort of lifting a man almost three times her weight. Her upper eyes were sharp. The pupil was nothing more than a thin line.

So thin Prong wouldn't have thought it real, had he not felt the daggers of her gaze. Desperate, and fearing his neck would snap before he was choked to death, he abandoned the struggle and simply hooked his arm around the tentacle to hold up his weight. With his other hand, he waved for the soldiers to fire. The stunned men standing in the ramparts above the armoury barely even remembered their job — not having faced such circumstances before — and only moved with his scrambled signalling.

They raised their weapons and fired.

"Stop!" Judge roared.

"Cease fire." It was too late though. The guards saw one of their own in danger and weren't about to doubt their orders after Prong had given them. That should have been it. A dangerous threat riddled with bullets and dead. Instead, her eyes flickered like lightning. The girl's body reacted fast enough that some bullets sailed right past her, while the rest — those that couldn't have missed — ricocheted off her ceramic, bladed arms.

"Stop!" Judge repeated. Prong felt his body flung through the air. He held tight to the tentacle, let his spine snap, but was soon brought to a halt. Nyxala held him close, using him as a human shield. Three tiny flying balls of death split his flesh before the guards stopped firing. There was a lull as the armoury fell silent for all but Prong's continued choking. He was starting to get light-headed. Not even the pain of bullet wounds bothered him in comparison.

"No one is to fire another shot." From the corner of his eye, Prong watched Judge approach him and the monster, only to halt when she unveiled another tentacle. This one held a sword towards the man. Judge raised his arms pleadingly.

"Just put him down, and we can sort this out peacefully. Let us talk."

"Peacefully?" the monster spat.

"You've seen what I am. There is no peace for me unless every one of you is dead." Judge turned his back to her, approaching the unconscious boy.

"Cursed mutations. Two of them, in fact, and surprisingly they have not gone out of control." He turned to gaze the girl up and down, seemingly unbothered by the world slipping from Prong.

"While you have so many more." So desperate for breath, Prong gave up on holding himself upright, and threw every effort into tearing off the tentacle. His nails bled, but his assaulter remained unbothered.

"No one in this room will speak a word of what they have seen. I vow this to you under threat of a curse of my own." Judge let his arms spread outward.

"I implore you. Please let Prong go." Prong saw black. Then the next moment the world was spinning. He realised in mid-breath that he was wheezing. Void was too slow to join his lungs, and so his throat squeezed their already bruised muscles to swallow down more. He coughed a dozen times, but it seemed nobody was paying him any mind.

"Do you know what my mutations mean, don't you?" the monstrosity asked, stepping past him with those deadly claws still posed to strike.

"While retaining your sanity?" Judge never glanced his way.

"I do." Prong crawled forward, clasping his weapon in comfort as he finally regained a few deep breaths. The last few minutes seemed to spin in a haze. All that his mind could grasp with any cognition, was that the monster was an enemy.

"Then I have no reason to trust you."

"Nor I you." Judge's words were far too lax for the amount of danger he was in.

"I have no reason to take in one bound for Madness, but I did not turn him away. That is how it must be here. To be given trust, you must first give it. So today, I trust that you will not kill me." Prong pulled himself to his feet. The monster was not looking his way. Bullets didn't work, but a knife to the back?

"Let me speak to L-" He lunged. Before the outsider could react. Before Judge's eyes could widen at his valor. Prong threw all his strength behind the blade as it struck her through the heart. At least, that's where the knife should have gone. The monstrosity moved faster than he could see. There was a flash of white. Something sharp. Then, he found himself on the floor, staring down a bleeding stump where his arm had once been. Once again, he couldn't breathe.

His hand still clutched the knife, yet it lay on the ground, severed. He stared. Prong reached forward to grab the hand, but when he tried to press it against his stump, there was far too much missing. Only then, did he notice the teeth marks. Prong glanced up. He watched in horror as the monster swallowed. Her throat bulged as she gulped down far too much flesh. His flesh.

Blood spilled from her lips and rolled down her neck, but it was the way she relished in the meat and bone of his arm as if it were the finest delicacy she'd ever tasted that finally brought him to clarity. A whimper spilled from his lips as he tried — with little success — to scramble away from her. He couldn't take his eyes off her. Only when her eyes, burning with malice, found his, did he scramble back to his feet and flee. He didn't make it more than a step.

A heavy weight slammed into his side like a battering ram. He was knocked clean off his feet and when he landed, he knew he wasn't getting up. His chest burned. Like hot embers had been sown beneath the skin. He didn't think he could get up, but he was dragged to his feet all the same. A guard at each arm. Prong tried to plead with them. They needed to run. To get everyone to kill that thing. But their grip was not friendly.

"Gag him and throw him in an isolation cell. I don't want anyone speaking to him." Judge looked upon him with disgust. Why? He'd been trying to save him.

"I never thought you this much a fool." He waved and the guards dragged Prong away. Blood continued to spill from his arm and he was growing weary by the second, by he still watched over his shoulder. Judge bowed his head to the monster. There was some words of forgiveness asked, but Prong was too woozy to hear them properly. One thing was clear though. Their Judge was consorting with monsters. Was he no better than the cultists?