Chương 69: Unwelcome Rescuer

Nyx was exhausted. She'd been exhausted for almost as long as she could remember. The time before the Dark Star felt like a lifetime ago. In all that time, sleep was fleeting. The moment she drifted off, swarms struck like the very idea of her relief was antipathy. Only the reliance on her third eye kept her moving, but it didn't allow her mind to rest. With a brutal swing from Pushy, the edge of her rapier cleaved a shark in such a way that it could not regenerate.

It had taken a long time to become this proficient. Repeated motions following that guiding name gradually showed her the way to wield her blade as if she were a master. The bladed fins acted like blades themselves, so she had gained some experience… but it was difficult to see if that transferred when up against capable cultists. Those she'd been targeting so far — as high evolution as some of them were — had very minimal battle experience. Even having now killed so many, she knew she couldn't become complacent.

They were craftsmen; not harbingers. After such a long time of battling endless waves of fleshforged and avoiding the eye of the Fleshsmiths, Nyx had finally decided she'd grown enough to take a risk. She fought back. She hunted down the cultists wherever she found them. The first had been the most difficult. Not the fight itself. No, they had fallen before they even noticed Nyx coming. It was the challenge of tracking down one of the smiths without getting caught from the harbingers that gave her trouble.

She'd spent weeks trying. Each time the gong would sound, she'd beat her wings and fly high, hoping to find one of those protected by the fortress. It was a risk; each time she rose through the air, she revealed herself as much to the cultists as she saw of them. But it was a risk she considered worth it. Over time, the Fleshsmiths had closed in on themselves. They were quick to gather, and never veered away from their fortress. The fact that they had found safety in this disaster enraged her.

They were able to hold out while she struggled? She couldn't allow it. After ripping the head off the first cultist she'd caught alone, Nyx discovered how they were able to find each other with such speed. An amulet of two linked rings held together by what looked like a slender tongue. It had taken a few cycles to work out its functions, and after a close call with a harbinger, she shattered half of the second ring.

With the Fleshsmiths no longer able to track her — yet unwilling to do away with their system to find each other — Nyx had been given free rein to hunt their smiths. Her powerful wings made reaching the most vulnerable of the cult almost too easy. In the first few hammer strikes alone, she killed half a dozen. It became more challenging after that — what with the harbingers rushing, and the lack of easy prey — but every so often, Nyx would chip away another piece of the Fleshsmith cult.

It was these murders that she knew was slowly undermining those that remained that gave Nyx fulfilment. She'd killed so many more by igniting the Star itself, but the very nature of doing so with her own hand couldn't be beaten. She was succeeding, and she could see the results with each new prey that were increasingly exhausted and skittish. She avoided the harbingers, but she wasn't always successful.

Sometimes, the smiths gave her trouble, and another cultist came to support them before Nyx could abandon her attempts. If she was the same as she'd been at the start of this Dark Star, she would have died immediately. Now, she was too fast to catch. Nyx didn't lament those times she fled. She knew exactly how low her evolution was in comparison to every cultist she faced. In a direct confrontation, it was too risky. There would always be another gong.

Another time would come for her to cut down another of their vulnerable, non-battle-oriented cultists, and weaken their position further. Of all her improvements, her wings had to have received the greatest boost. She was at least twice as fast. Nyx didn't know exactly the workings behind it, but she knew it was one of her new names. Facing down endless waves of gummy sharks, and surviving the great white attacks had not been easy. But it had also been rewarding.

With her sense for names, she knew she'd gained almost a dozen additives since she'd resolved herself. Most, she believed, were nothing special, but a few had noticeable effects. Even if it was impossible to say for sure what they did. Unfortunately, her lacking time to rest extended to analysing her name. One of the additives gave a boost to her flight speed.

It was strange; she felt no different than before, and it didn't increase her running or reactions speeds, but it had considerably improved her flight, and only her flight. The name didn't increase the rate she beat her wings, or their strength when she tried to hold her body weight, so she'd come to believe they affected the airless void around her in some way that wasn't immediately apparent.

Beyond the increased flight speed, another immediate addition to her fighting ability was a name she was almost certain wasn't supposed to be used as a weapon. If she recalled correctly, it was Scol. A common name that usually gifted only a slight increase in dexterity to fingers. Helpful to writing, drawing, and more accurate rune and ritual creation, but as it didn't extend beyond the fingers themselves, it was rarely helpful for harbingers.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Yet the name applied to her tentacles. Such a simple name had amplified Shy, Pushy, Curious and Cuddly beyond their previous capabilities. Now, not only did they have longer range than her own arms when it came to wielding her sword, but they were simply more accurate. Quicker to strike. Better. It remained unsettling to know your name is not the one you knew. Nyx could feel it with her very being.

Even if she didn't have her unique sense for names, the discontent would have eventually built until she instinctively knew. Even without the desire to know what each additive did, Nyx couldn't wait to consciously learn her full name. Shy hid beneath her robe as she raked her claws along a shark. Both Curious and Cuddly held another in place for her second hand to clamp down and obliterate the fleshforged creature. With a beat of her wings, she pealed forwards, continuing to fly low over the swarm.

Pushy darted out again with her rapier and dissected its target with only minimal input from Nyx. A few minutes ago, she'd taken out a fifth evolution Fleshsmith. She'd been lucky to have appeared so close. Every time she'd faced a cultist so challenging — even if they hadn't been a harbinger — they'd always been able to hold out long enough for their protectors to come.

The adrenaline flooding her veins — and mixing with the glowing substance from her third eye — powered her forward and away from the Fleshsmith's fortress. The amulet she'd wrapped around her own neck told her where they gathered, and she didn't dare come close. After her initial strikes, whether successful or not, she needed to get away as quickly as possible, lest she face whatever hunters they sent. Her third eye never stopped burning now.

Not only was it too useful, but she was concerned that should she stop for even a second, the accumulated exhaustion of such a long time would crash through her. If she stopped, she was dead. So when she fought, she melted through fleshforged. When there were no sharks, she ate through the earth. It wasn't easy. Though it also wasn't the worst thing she had to deal with right now. Like having to hold a constant glare indefinitely. Her greatest concern… was the constant flow of curses.

She hadn't noticed it at first, but corruption was constantly flowing into her soul. It had been since the beginning of the Dark Star. The fact shouldn't have been a surprise. Nyx had been the cause of thousands of deaths. All that ill will and malignity would inevitably come to form curses that linger and attach to her name. At least, that's what should have happened. She'd been watching a cursed additive take form when her base name had peeled itself open and swallowed the forming curse whole.

The sight had been shocking. It was not at all how she understood curses, or names to work. Names couldn't consume each other. Well, they shouldn't, but there was no denying what she'd seen. What she'd continued to see. Her core, Nỷx, consumed every ounce of vengeance the dying souls of the cultists tried to leave her with. Considering the corruption couldn't take form as proper cursed names before disappearing, it was almost like she was being refunded the corruption she'd used to start the Dark Star.

Not that corruption was a substance she'd ever run out of just by using it. As Nyx continued to fly through the endless expanse, slicing through as many sharks as she reasonably could, she pondered if the spite of a hundred thousand people would have been enough to recreate the Dark Star. Despite the strangeness of it, she was thankful. Having her name weighed down by a dozen crippling curses would have made her next evolution difficult.

She didn't have to ponder if it was best to combine them into her already majorly cursed name or try and sacrifice some of her lesser additives. Her name had already made that choice for her. And if it willingly ate those curses, surely it found them beneficial. With her acceptance of her mutations, she had by extension done the same for her core name's curses. Compared to the many curses she'd seen in cultist's names, they were oddly beneficial.

Cursed to grow wings or new limbs may be a sign of her value as a sacrifice, but it wasn't the direct pain or disadvantage most curses inflicted. She would take her third eye over wormy food, or constant sickness any day. The metal surface below her suddenly shook. Each shark lost their grip and became easy pickings, but Nyx didn't dive to take advantage. She shot upwards, fearful of a whale breaching the surface. Cracks spread along the metal, but no mountainous beast emerged. Well, not immediately.

After a dozen seconds, the wail carried her attention behind her, back to the Fleshsmiths' fortress. Visible only because there was no such thing as a horizon, A whale was ripping through the ground. Was it finally going for the cultists? Her amulet seemed to think so; it pointed towards the fleshforged's path. But there was something else in its path. A flesh and metal tree rose kilometres above the surface. Something that hadn't been there at any point in the past years.

Nyx didn't understand what she was seeing, but what happened next sent ice through her veins. The fleshforged whale was ripped apart and pulled beneath the surface by countless massive flesh and iron chains. Nyx turned and fled before she could even process the sight. A whale had been killed. Something more powerful than the strongest fleshforged had appeared. And it used Fleshsmith chains. Nyx had too many horrible memories beneath the grip of chains just like that — if smaller. She knew who had appeared.

She knew the cult leader had come. If that woman was here, then their preparations were done. If she was here, then there wouldn't be much time left before the Dark Star collapsed. Nyx had been making so much progress against the remaining cultists. She was sure she'd chopped away enough of their smiths that they were beginning to crumble. Only a few more months and she was sure all but their strongest would fall away. Now, they would survive. Nyx hated that.

Even as she raced through the air in fear of being seen by someone who would know her value the moment she saw her, Nyx determined herself to make a strike on their fortress. When Solan dove into the heart of the Dark Star with the strongest Fleshsmiths, Nyx would sabotage the cultists that remained. She didn't yet know how, but she would think of something. With all her mutations, there would be no hiding herself after escaping, so she might as well take the opportunity while she could.