Chương 198: Ep’C̜͞ail̜a̙r̽r̽i

Ep'Cailarri was befuddled. He couldn't remember a time he'd been more confused. If the Omen Artisan had been mistaken or lying, then that was one thing, but in such circumstances he expected his strike unit to come face to face with Fleshsmith patrols. Not a pair of girls barely out of their wards. If it was that alone, EpCailarri might have cast aside the thought as random happenstance. Coral wasn't the easiest place to navigate in the best of circumstances.

It wasn't odd to think a couple of inquisitive teens had getten lost and found themselves in a dangerous situation. He doubted it was even uncommon. But he knew these two girls. One was this year's Bodytwister champion. The elusive Lysyra that had been the talk of the cult prior to the war. But the girl beside her… it was the same one Lysyra had lost to in the final Trial. The Technocultist. What was their champion doing with one of them?

It took a mere moment of inspecting their reactions to stumbling across Ep'Cailarri's covert encampment to realise they had neither been looking for him, nor were they at odds as their cults demanded they be. Even if the Technocult had stolen the Grand Sacrificial Chamber from them, he had to begrudgingly admit they were hardly near the top of his shit-list. They were, after all, likely the only reason his cult remained.

They might have had their own reasons for striking at the Worshippers — the two cults were always skirmishing — but there was no denying their presence evened the playing field. So if the two had a… youthful amity not yet disturbed by inherited grudges and power struggles, then he was willing to overlook it. This time. What he couldn't overlook, was Oe'Aivo's reaction. The man had gone near Mad in incredulity. Ep'Cailarri prided himself on being able to imitate a person's face in it's entirety.

While most assumed the challenge in that was shaping the flesh to match someone else's, the actual difficulty usually lay in mimicking a person's habits and moving the way they did. Because of that, he had an almost innate sense for reading people's body language. The girls were shocked and clearly unsettled, though that was to be expected when stumbling upon an ambush they couldn't possible deal with. But Oe'Aivo? He'd been incredibly stoic up until now.

Ep'Cailarri was sure he wasn't the type to break down over being caught in a lie… and yet he was. He hadn't even needed to shout for Ep'Cailarri to know how impossible the man thought the appearance of these two girls was. But why? Ep'Cailarri trusted his instincts, so when an uneasy chill rolled down his spine, he listened. As confusing as the situation was, something was wrong. And so his gaze fell on the Technocultist. Nyxila. There was something strange about her movements. The way her cloak moved.

How her eyes shifted between him and the rest of the harbinger Bodytwisters he'd unfortunately been sent on this mission with. Even the way she stood. It was all too… exact. Everything moved perfectly to the way he would have expected her to. She stood as his assumptions told him she should. That wasn't odd. He wasn't sure why her predictable motions was getting so deep under his skin. Well, until the crack. It was loud.

The distinct sound of bone snapping echoed through the expanded area connecting the wardrobe and the space between the walls. Not a single person missed the origin. And yet the girl who likely just went through a horrible spinal fracture stood unperturbed. Uncomfortable at most.

"Shit."

"Shit." And with that response, it was clear both girls knew what had happened. Ep'Cailarri stepped back. His instincts were screaming at him, but they weren't being coherent. He couldn't tell whether they were yelling a danger to him, to the girls, or whatever form it might take, only that something bad was about to happen. The lights flickered overhead, but he paid them no mind as the Technocultist's chest suddenly bulged outwards with a chorus of cracks somehow worse than the first.

Nyxila gasped, and curled her arms around her chest. This time, the snapping bone was clearly painful. He didn't move. Ep'Cailarri's instincts were still screaming at him, and he hesitated to interfere with… whatever was happening. In fact, he took another step away. And it was a good thing he did; not a moment after, did the girl's chest outright explode, painting the entire room in a red coat. He carefully sidestepped a chunk of lung that flew across the room.

Nyxila fell to her knees, but her chest was wide open. Her ribcage was broken. It looked almost like a bomb had gone off in her chest, vaporising the sternum, and leaving the rest of the individual ribs to spread out from her sides. Her innards were bare. Besides the fountain of blood and the patchy flesh clinging to her spine, there was nothing within the cavity of her chest until her intestines. Somehow, she was still alive. Breathing in deep gasping breaths with lungs she no longer had. It was a pitiable sight.

He had heard talk during the Trial that the girl was well known in her ward for being cursed. Never would he have thought a curse this horrible could be passed on through blood. He'd seen curses of similar devastation infest some of the cultists he knew, but they were all very experienced. Each had workarounds to keep them alive when the unfortunate curse conditions activated. They weren't children. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. But this girl?

She was what? Third… fourth evolution after the Trial? Impressive for one so young, but it was hardly going to help her with a lethal curse. It was a surprise she'd lived as long as she had. Ep'Seflin, the scumbag who'd killed Ep'Cailarri's latest personal acolyte, crouched before the dying girl. Ep'Cailarri would have joined her — if nothing else but to stop her killing another up-and-coming acolyte — but his instincts hadn't settled. Not even a little. Instead… Why was this ominous feeling growing stronger?

Ep'Cailarri's head lifted at the flickering lights above. It was only a soft wavering, but these LED strips were made to hold their steady glow in perpetuity. They did not flicker. Only in the presence of a being from the Darkness did they waver. He glanced around. Was that what was throwing his instincts off? The chill didn't have anything to do with the girl. With a nudge of the head, two of the other Bodytwisters that had joined him — more cooperative than Ep'Seflin — moved deeper into the wall.

They would keep an eye out for whatever nightmare was nearby. Ep'Cailarri? Well, he was fine leaving Ep'Seflin to blunt the attack if anything came through the wardrobe.

"You're hanging on rather well, huh?" Ep'Seflin said. Crouched before the doomed girl, her head twisted to the golden sceptre in the girl's hands. How Nyxila got her hands on a Relic, he didn't know, but it wasn't a surprise Ep'Seflin had become interested in it.

"Since you're done for, you won't mind if I take this for myself." Ep'Cailarri shook his head. The woman should at least wait until she was dead to rob her. Ep'Seflin laid hands on the bright Relic, and pulled. It didn't budge.

"You're a strong little bugger, huh?" She tried again, this time with more strength than any young girl of fourth evolution could reasonably defend. The sceptre never left the teen's grip.

"Learn to let go already, you shit." While she was busy losing to a corpse, Ep'Cailarri was growing ever more tense. His instinct was screaming louder every second. The flickering of the LED strips had grown intense enough that there were brief instances they were shrouded entirely in shadow. He glanced over his shoulder. Wherever the entity was, it was getting closer.

"Fucking. Brat. Let. Go." As much as he despised Ep'Seflin, he would never call her weak. Why was she struggling so much. The moment he saw her shove her leg into the teen's chest cavity to kick her off the sceptre, everything fell into place. His stomach sunk. The girl's shadow; it depicted something horrific stretching beyond the limits of her form in the flickering light.

Each flash of light seemed to twist the shape further, never giving him the time to perceive exactly what he was looking at besides the simple fact that this was no child. It was no human. Nyxila was the nightmare. There was a ripple around her chest. What he saw was trying to make him think that there was nothing strange about her chest, but he could see the massive cavity; it couldn't possibly be normal. Despite that, the sensation only grew stronger.

It was like something was adapting to the sight, and trying to hide it from him. Ep'Cailarri couldn't comprehend it until the girl's eyes began to glow. He was in his seventh evolution; he had experienced too many horrors in his time to count, and yet the sight of her eyes twisting away to reveal an endlessly deep pink glow had him choking. It took him longer than he would ever admit to snap out of the terror, and yet in that time, the glowing pink orbs had increased by three. She had five eyes. Not two.

That was the last nudge he needed to realise his mind was being touched. He closed off his thoughts, and through a technique of severing the nerves of his brainstem, and rerouting the information was he finally able to pierce the powerful mental obscuring shroud covering the girl. At least long enough to take in her actual form. Ep'Selfin shoved her foot deeper in the girl's body, pushing against her spine to continue her futile effort to part the girl from her sceptre.

Except, it no longer looked like the cavity of a corpse. The ribs splitting her torso were massive, curved fangs, and her internals were barely visible. The best way to describe what he saw within was emptiness. Like the emptiness of space, except contained entirely within this child. And Nyxila's eyes — all five of them — looked ravenous. As Ep'Selfin kicked, he had no time to warn her. The monster with the face of a girl pounced.

Half of Ep'Selfin was swallowed before the massive fangs crunched down on the woman's ribs. Only the toughness of the Bodytwister's otherflesh kept the arrays of spear-like fangs from bisecting her. Though, that was anything but a relief. The woman barely managed a scream before the torso maw used its grip in her chest to launch forward and swallow her whole.

Ep'Cailarri stood frozen for a moment as he watched the former ribs chew a few times before settling in place, sliding along one another to form the torso whole once more. Crimson fluid dribbled down from the not-quite perfect seal. It was clearly blood, but his mind couldn't help but see it as drool. Her eyes turned to him. Even the strange gem in her chest, which peeked through a gap between her interlocking teeth. Ep'Cailarri snapped out of his funk.

He'd been ready to fight ever since he first felt the touch of unease. He stepped forward, fingers unravelling… only to feel the sharp prick of steel in his back. Stiffly, he twisted back on the one who dared to stab him in the back, only to find his cult's champion vanish in a puff of her characteristic white mist.

"Traitor," he spat. Ignoring the brat for later, he turned to the actual threat. One that swallowed a seventh evolution harbinger whole. He grunted. Lysyra had cut him right between the vertebra. Moving made him realise it was a lot worse than he thought. How had she managed to get her hands on a flesh-drill dagger? Even at the sixth creed, it would take substantial effort for him to be granted access to one.

Already, he could feel the poison spreading through his body faster than any normal syringe could hope to achieve. Finally, he turned back to the monster, only for an angry buzz to strike his ears an instant before a chainsaw found his face. Blades dug into skin, skimming the otherflesh with only minimal effectiveness. But try as he might to brush it off, the momentum behind the saw was greater than anything he'd been expecting. A sharp blade caught his lip, and ripped off his face.

The stitches along the hair that wasn't his unravelled by the force his face was torn off. Ep'Cailarri reached up to the creature even as chainsaw blades caught his teeth, shattered them in his mouth, then ground its way through his jaw. He grabbed her by the neck, immediately sending the sharp tips into the skin, but she twisted her head with far too much flexibility, and simply bit his wrist. At first, he assumed he would be fine.

The otherflesh of his arms was far tougher than Ep'Selfin's, so he doubted the smaller mouth could cut through what the larger, clearly more dangerous one couldn't. He was wrong. She bit off and swallowed his hand as if it was a soft slice of bread. He brought up his other hand, determined not to make the same mistake. But he never reached her. His hand stilled long before it ever became a threat to the nightmare. Lysyra had stabbed him. Through the eye, and into the brain.

He wasn't dead, but whatever poison that was, it was rapidly slowing him down. Not even severing his brainstem and reconnecting it to the spares helped at all. He was alive, but as he stared at those horrifying rib-jaws opening again, he knew he wouldn't be for long. Ep'Cailarri lost himself in the endless expanse of Pink through the gem floating in the midst of the void. He imagined it was the afterlife that awaited him. It made it easier to accept his fate of being eaten alive.