Chương 72: Disaster, But For Who?

Nyx's mind was lost in a spiral. Since when had he found her? K'Thorn mentioned having had enough time to set up that trap of his, so had he been following her since she was below the chain tower? Then why hadn't he attacked during her ritual, while she was vulnerable? She'd been downed before she could even put up a fight.

Maybe it was arrogance, but with the strongest cultists gone to attack the core of the Dark Star, Nyx had assumed that with her speed and third eye, she could notice any threat and flee from those she couldn't handle. Instead, she'd been shot out of the sky. In the dark of the rifle's barrel, Nyx stared at the convulsing bone and flesh deep within.

More than anything, she wanted to leap forward and rip the weapon out of his hands before shredding the man alive, but despite the casual way he held his weapon, his eyes followed every twitch she made. Unlike the low creed harbingers she'd killed what felt like years ago now, K'Thorn would not allow her to close the distance without being vaporised. She lowered her arm to the bloody stump of her wing. Too close was it to how she remembered. The loss was unbearable.

Not even the weapon pointed at her head inflicted her with as much gut-wrenching fear as the thought that she would never get to fly again. Never get to feel the soft feathers of those wings hugging her body.

"I told you there was no chance she was sane," K'Thorn's said to the woman behind him.

"Just a wretched soul twisted by the Dark Star into a weapon against us."

"Does it matter who was right anymore?" the woman carrying a long stick with what looked like huge needles poking out the upper length said with a scowl.

"Just kill her and be done with it. The Dark Star knows it cannot last; we should return and help the defences while the upper creed are busy with the whales." K'Thorn nodded once, and Nyx knew she only had the briefest moment to do something before she met her end. She wanted to attack. Burn him with her eye, spit and sizzle his hand, smack him with Pushy. But none of these had any chance of success. This cultist was not an inexperienced lower creed that would give her the opportunity…

no matter how she wished for it. No, there was only one way to survive.

"I… am sane," Nyx struggled to speak the words through gritted teeth. This was something she told herself she would never do. She was surrendering to the Fleshsmiths. Nyx had revealed herself, and by K'Thorn's widening eyes, he knew exactly what she was.

"I do not believe it." He glared.

"If you are not at the behest of the Dark Star itself, then what was that before? How did you attract the whales? Why have you been killing our smiths?"

"You and the rest of the Fleshsmiths deserve death," she spat.

"I summoned a god to wipe your cult from the face of Coral." Under normal circumstances, antagonising the one threatening to kill you wouldn't be smart, but Nyx knew that K'Thorn no longer could. His partner, on the other hand, was no so aware. She scoffed.

"You just summoned a god? Like that? With what sacrifice?" She turned to K'Thorn.

"Let's just kill her already and hurry back." K'Thorn didn't move. Maybe it was a lingering effect from Euphoria, but the woman's ignorance besides K'Thorn's paling face was hilarious to Nyx. She laughed. Her tongue joined in, giving off a similar eerie echo to the day of her sacrifice.

"With a little part of myself. Ask K'Thorn. He knows how valuable I am." The woman steps forward with her staff held like a bat. The needles twitching as if ready to pierce.

"What nonsens-""K'Caies, Stop. We can't kill her." His stiff voice makes her twirl on her feet.

"What do you mean we can't kill her? That's the entire reason we came out here." Nyx was tempted to attack while her back was turned, but K'Thorn's gun was still trained on her head. Regardless of what he now knew, he wouldn't sit still while she tore apart a cultist in front of him. He might decide she was safer without her limbs, then she'd have no opportunity to escape at all.

"If we do not take her with us as a sacrifice, then forget surviving the Dark Star; S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ will have our heads." Instead of getting worked up, K'Caies turned to inspect Nyx with a renewed interest.

"I thought those with cursed mutations weren't worth the risk." K'Thorn shook his head.

"Having that many mutations while retaining enough of her wits to respond… even if there's risk, we cannot ignore a sacrifice that could surmount the requirements for the millennia ritual." K'Caies's eyes widened at the statement, but the older man simply scowled and shifted his attention to a wail that made the earth tremble.

"Hurry and get your staff in her back. I want to make sure that whatever she unleashed on the fortress can't get beyond the chains." The younger cultist wasted no time sliding around Nyx's prone form. It was an effort to hold herself from snapping her claws around the taller woman's ankles as she lowered that needle riddled staff down on her back. From the corner of her eye, Nyx watched the length split down the middle, opening like a snake's jaw to sink its fangs into the girl's spine.

Only, Nyx's spine fought back. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Involuntarily, the spikes that grew from each of her vertebrae snapped upwards from their usual resting position. It was as if Nyx's slight fear and nervousness snatched the control away from her, and pointed them straight out of her back like the raised hackles of a cat.

Once the mutation had fully grown in, the array of spikes had settled from pointing straight out, to a more form-fitting column where they followed the orientation of her spine. When relaxed, the spikes simply made her spine appear taller; she could cup her hand around them, and almost have the base of her palm and fingertips touch opposite sides of her back. But when they extended, there was no chance of that.

As that staff came close to piercing her with those needles, Nyx could feel the discomforting sensation of her spine rearranging. It felt like she had a dozen balls in her back all sliding against one another as her extended spine rose almost half a metre from her back to fend off the perceived attacker.

"Drop the spikes or I'll make this much harder on you than I need to be," K'Caies said.

"I can't," Nyx said, and it was true. The damn spines had been the most difficult to control of all her changes. While her tentacles amounted to breathing, and would act both independently and when she commanded, the spikes were the same as her heartbeat. They just reacted however they liked. It meant that she couldn't just hide them under her robe, lest they react and shred the entire back off her clothes. Nyx had to carefully thread them through the fabric. Exposed both when relaxed, and alert.

Well, even if it wasn't true, Nyx might have said so anyway. No way she wanted that gnarled fleshforge creation anywhere near her. K'Caies looked like she would push the issue, but K'Thorn was quick to interfere.

"Forget it," he said to his fellow cultist, before his tone darkened and it was clear he was speaking to Nyx.

"She will walk. And if she tries anything — or wastes time — I'll blow off her limbs and carry her that way." As the woman's firm grip yanked her up by the shoulder, Nyx noticed that K'Thorn's gaze lingered on the summit of the forge volcano ahead. It was clear where his greatest concerns lay. K'Caies shoved her forward. Nyx, once again, suppressed the urge to swing at them. She knew it would be in vain.

Besides, these two obviously didn't know the full extent of her plan — even if it was a bit disconcerting that they didn't find the attack of multiple whales something to worry about. Once they learnt… That's when Nyx would strike. All things considered, this wasn't the worst situation. She hated the idea of being within cult captivity again, but she didn't intend for that to last more than an hour. At least this time she wasn't bound by that horrible chain. Nyx marched forward.

When prodded by the heavy steel of a barrel, she increased her pace to a jog. Or, at least what made for a jog with three tentacles and a single leg. The veins had thankfully suppressed the pain of her severed leg and wing, but that didn't make them any less of a problem. They bled profusely, and, forced to run as she was, she wouldn't last long as they were. Refusing to complain to the Fleshsmiths behind her, she continued on despite the debilitation. But her troubles must have been all too obvious to the pair.

K'Caies slammed her staff into the side of Nyx's leg stub. A long needle pierced bone, and held her in place. In an instant, her bleeding stub had skin growing over it as if it had never been a leg in the first place. The cultist freed the needle from her leg, then did the same with her wing. Nyx didn't thank her. She simply stared down at her sudden impairment with frustration and loss. Somehow, she cared little for the loss of her leg.

She considered it the same as a couple of toes: what difference were they going to make in her life compared to her tentacles? But the wing was different. A hollow, phantom sense lingered. Without two intact wings, flight would be impossible. Not only had she lost a wing, but now she had a second limb that had become almost completely pointless with the loss of its partner. Limb regrowth was possible, but not with her budget. Not while remaining inconspicuous. And not without the help of the cults.

She could overpower the Fleshsmith's ritual of wellness all she wanted, but it was unlikely a general purpose healing ritual could ever replace what was completely missing. As Curious, Pushy and Cuddly carried her up the slope to where she'd first been shot, Nyx glared back at the woman. K'Caies paid her no mind. She was too busy feathering her eyes across all the oddities of Nyx's form. Her expression seemed to gleam, before she cast glances at K'Thorn.

K'Thorn himself was too busy looking over the piles of giggling gummies to notice. As soon as they crested the side of the volcano and were given a clear view of the towering Fleshsmith fortress, Nyx couldn't suppress her grin.

"What is this?" he exclaimed. His shock clear. Before them, no part of the tower's chains remained unobscured. Across its entire width, an army of Amalgamations shifted like a mound of ants. Above, the weaker of the lot were obviously being fended off, but there were already thousands of giants clambering up the sheer sides in their desperate attempt to reach their prey. Below all of that, a lake of blood spread all around the base of the chains. From that blood, spawned ever stronger amalgamations.

They had not yet reached the size of those in the first Dark Star, but considering the lake's rapid expansion, it was only a matter of time. The Fleshsmiths had been too distracted by the whales — and the mind rending god — to notice the expanding pool of blood right beneath their feet. In all her time in this Dark Star, Nyx had learnt — rather quickly once Tarchon's stabilising agent ran out — that she could stop her blood from being affected by corruption, even after it had left her body.

With that, she'd been able to bleed herself for a few days before this attack, so that she'd have enough stockpiled that she could be sure it would expand with speed; just as it had done that first time she'd been attacked by an amalgamation. Her only problem was that without a distraction, it was all too likely to be noticed and dealt with before it became an actual threat.

Really, her choice for a distraction might have been overkill even before Euphoria decided to join in, but if the Fleshsmiths died to some whales before the amalgamations got them, then that was fine too. As she watched with surprise as her ocean of blood began to climb up the tower as it it were alive too, she noticed a massive taloned hand breach the waves of red before pulling out some arachnid monstrosity larger than her old ward. The stronger beasts were manifesting now.

She didn't need to worry about the fortress surviving. Nyx readied herself, and turned to K'Thorn. He was too enraptured by the sudden rush of beasts as they finally breached the walls and ripped apart cultists left right and centre. It was the perfect opportunity for her to attack. But before she could, K'Caies stepped forward and placed her staff along K'Thorn's spine. The man paid it no mind, likely used to it's unsettling method of healing.

For a moment, Nyx thought the cultist was preparing for Nyx's attack, and that her opportunity was lost. Though she didn't say any warning. Then, the Fleshsmith wrenched. K'Caies pulled her staff away from K'Thorn, taking his spine with it. The older cultist only had time to gasp and whimper out a confused, "My acolyte? Why?" before he slumped. Dead.

"You always taught us that if there was an opportunity, then take it." She looked down at the fresh, spineless corpse with an expression of grief, as if she hadn't just killed the man.

"And I will never gain a better opportunity than this."