Chương 81: CHAPTER 80 – Vibration

Roman's body flew across the dry water basin, his limbs gone limp, held together only by the black creepers that threaded through his skin. The sound of flesh slamming against concrete, universally hideous, echoed in Maica's bloodied ears. The girl tried to turn, only to be halted by the danger right in front of her.

"Don't get distracted..." Said the figure before her, spinning the heavy U-shaped iron rods he gripped in his thick, red-slicked hands. A white forelock filled her vision as she felt her organs shudder under the impact. Maica's body flew too, skidding across the ground. Maica sprang up again, a heartbeat before Lautre would have pulverised her into the floor.

"... Otherwise your death will be far worse than the one waiting for you." A whisper pressed against her cheek. She caught the smell of the blood smeared across his face. A vicious kick sent her spinning through the air like a rag. From the corner of her eye, she saw the face of that pale man, so terribly white except for his large red eyes." A rabbit…" Lautre drove his fingers into her throat, slamming her back down. The ground erupted, fracturing as he dragged her with her spine to the stone.

"If he doesn't rely on sight…" The ground beneath Lautre's feet turned jagged, gashing his legs with long spines of rock. At once his face locked onto her, his fingertips already tight around her calf.

"I'll take away his hearing!" In that instant Lautre's Frequency began to distort completely, holding itself just stable enough to keep his legs from disintegrating. Maica tore free, scrambling back and snatching one of the cracked pipes. At once the iron seemed to thicken, its volume shifting, its edge honed.

"No matter how strong you are, you won't be able to follow my movements like that." Maica left a wall of dust behind her, charging Lautre from above while he stood motionless. The first impact shattered the floor under his feet, but her weapon shattered too. The recoil threw her past him. With a flick of her wrist, she launched the pipe, now a pyramid-tipped lance. The shaft rammed straight into his shoulder as he stood there, still as stone." Is he concentrating frequency in his body to dilute the effect?"

Maica muttered, shaping the rock beneath her into a pair of brutal, square-edged daggers. She drew the points back to her hips, bent her torso, and raised her gaze straight at his broad shoulders.

"I will not become a burden!" She launched herself, so fast she escaped human sight. The dust clouds split open at her passage as she kept accelerating. In that single sliver of time, Maica saw Lautre's neck severed.

"A man sees with his eyes, but to observe he needs the whole body." Not even that speed and strength could bring down Lautre Clerc. The man had been born with a pale veil drawn over his pupils, born with brittle bones and weak muscles, yet the thought of being weak had never once crossed his mind. Even in the absolute blackness he had sunk into, Lautre could still feel the air shifting against his skin and the sharp, grim reek of blood mixed with sweat.

Not even in that state would Lautre have called himself cornered. Maica's blade shattered, scattering sparks across the floor. Rotating his whole body, he struck her flush in the flank. A thread of drool and blood slipped from her lips as she felt her own body crater into the wall.

"Not yet!" Maica threw herself sideways, hurling her blade straight at him. Lautre caught it between his index and middle fingers. Maica managed to brush against him for a single instant, this time distorting the entire skin of his arm. Splinters of bone and hardened capillaries burst through the flesh. She watched him spray blood, and she smiled.

"Not bad." Lautre turned, raising his fist. For one moment, Maica could see her own death bearing down on her. The air seemed almost to split, followed by a thunderous boom. Her heart began to shake inside her chest, a few steps from where the ground had been utterly scoured away by the pressure.

"Hooray… I can hear again." Lautre appeared at her side, kneading his ear with his knuckles. The light reflected on his tuning fork seemed almost to dance along with the iron, locked in an erratic series of vibrations. Maica stood staring at him, fighting to calm her own heartbeat. Before her, that man, similar to a rabbit, gave the impression of being the worst predator ever to set foot on the earth.

"Maica, during the assault, stay close to me." Roman rose from his armchair, its nauseating greenish colour interrupted by the white stuffing poking through the tears. All around them was darkness, and the smell of blood steeped the silent air. Maica sat patching an old black cotton jacket. The man before her had fixed his gaze on the crackling fireplace, smiling at the dance of the flame.

"Of course… But you know I can look after myself!" She huffed, though it did nothing to shift the grim atmosphere hanging between them. He cracked his neck, turning silently toward her.

"What do you think we are?" He smiled, studying her eyes without ever changing that stern expression. Maica pointed toward the darkness, where a severed arm marked the border between sight and oblivion.

"Filthy assassins without morals, I believe." Maica answered, picking up her fixed key from the red-smeared glass table in front of her. Roman sighed, moving closer to the edge of the furniture.

"Relatively correct. Without a passionate drive, that's exactly what we'd be, but it's still wrong to lump us all into that one category!" He said, settling beside her after slowly circling the table.

"Sure, Malcom, Ascan, and Angel fit your description perfectly. But David? Laure? You and me? We know exactly what we want beyond the fog of blood." Maica kept listening, tapping the iron against the glass. Roman tugged at his beard with each breath, watching her intently.

"Do you think all the desires in the world can be granted?" The girl thought about it for barely an instant before shaking her head sharply. Roman sighed, like a grandfather imparting a lesson to his granddaughter.

"That's right, and the reason why is even more depressing. It's simply a matter of coexistence. The fulfilment of one desire inevitably denies something else. Nothing in this world is given to us. The foundations we fight on are built with the bodies of other people's wills." Roman pointed at the severed arm at the edge of the surrounding darkness.

"You and I want a world where no one has to live the way we did. Sacrificing people is the only road a glorious man can walk. It's the fate of all souls who burn with desire to carry their own flame and their own blade." Maica's eyes widened. She gave a faint round of applause without ever letting go of her key.

"Always stern, stern, and more stern!" Maica joked, miming a moustache with her fingers. Roman stroked her head, careful not to scratch her with his nails.

"Old age changes your way of thinking, unfortunately. But do you think we're the only ones who understand this?" He paused, resting a hand gently on her shoulder and smiling at the girl. Maica shook her head, rubbing her side.

"NOIR…" Roman nodded slowly, several times. The air grew heavier, and the firelight began to dim, yielding to the pale moonlight straining through the half-closed windows.

"That agency is exactly like us. They're not necessarily good people. The history behind them is littered with death and carries the stench of blood." Roman said, raising three fingers. Maica looked away for a moment, watching the last sparks of the fire.

"Aside from Lucas, who will almost certainly never leave the base, and the Commander… NOIR is made up of nothing but killers. Even their recruits aren't normal. Lance Klint's past is wrapped in thick shadows, and his mental state is precarious. Jeanne Goghette is probably responsible for the brothel incident in Sector II. They're threats, but they're not the ones who scare me." Roman bit his finger, suppressing the dark memory that surfaced in his mind.

"Lautre Clerc. That man is dangerous, and you should know it well." The girl scratched her head, accidentally tugging out a few hairs from her crown. She remembered all too well the vacant, dead expression of that man.

"He was a soldier in Andimica's army like all the others, but he was more similar to an ember than a man." Roman sat beside her, resting his chin on the back of his hand.

"An ember? What do you mean?" She asked, her tone oddly cordial for Maica. His face was as finely balanced as a woman's, but the breadth of his back and arms spoke of the harsh weight of years of desolation. And yet a touch of femininity still hovered about him, despite all its incongruity.

"That man burns and burns with hatred. He didn't enlist out of his own volition. He was given a choice. Die a criminal or hope that Fortune kissed him during the war. Unfortunately, he got the kiss… Do you know about the Raymond Coast massacre?" Maica nodded, pointing at a map behind them.

"One of the great victories of Andimica's army against Termìe. They say it was a slaughter with no chance of escape." Roman applauded her, smiling in total contrast to the mournful air he carried with him.

"Well done… How do you think they pulled it off?" Maica paused, mulling it over for a few seconds. All the information in her head was blurred, maybe because she was beginning to understand what Roman meant.

"The reports are fragmented, but it was most likely the general's strategy…" Roman's gaze skewered her on the spot, slicing the words right out of her throat.

"No, Maica… That massacre was the work of three people. Of the three divisions that took part, Malcom and Maverick broke the defence, but the one truly responsible for the victory was Lautre Clerc. Over six hours of battle, Clerc racked up the highest body count of any division, without ever firing a single shot." Maica stared at him, perplexed, smiling nervously.

"Not a single bullet? That's impossible." Roman shook his head, flicking his wrist as if mimicking an axe blow.

"The story has definitely been blown out of proportion, but the majority of the casualties he caused were from cranial trauma, not gunshot wounds. That man burns with a hatred aimed at anyone who threatens his well-being… He is truly the worst opponent we could ever face." Back in the present, Maica stood petrified before him, before that beast wrapped in white. His unsettling red eyes were fixed directly on her bloodied face.

The long tuning fork slid through his fingers, striking the ground for an instant and starting to hum. He glanced at her arm, distorted and ripped open, and smiled.

"I take it this is your best? Truly not bad! I thought you would be worse!" Faster than the eye could follow, he raised the shorter iron rod, aiming for her forehead. Maica stayed perfectly still, waiting. Lautre stopped, the longer weapon now hoisted above his shoulder, pointed at the ground. The blade of black creepers and iron shrieked against each other. Roman clicked his tongue, straining his body desperately to wound him.

"You're a tough oldie. Congratulations." Lautre smiled, or maybe just hinted at one. His face, despite the filth, was brimming with vigour. In a single soundless instant he turned, shattering Roman's blade and striking him square in the chest. Roman felt his whole body vibrate, his tissues tear. He vomited a spray of blood before being kicked away again. Maica rose behind him, brandishing a fresh pike. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"I don't care… He's dying right here, right now!" Lautre turned in time to find the point of rock and iron inches from his face. The weapon connected, scattering sparks. Her expression went dark in an instant.

"Nhot Bhad!" The blade had barely passed his lips, stopped by nothing more than clenched teeth. The steel trembled in his smile, splintering bit by bit. Then it snapped, dropping at his feet. Maica tried to pull herself together, but Lautre laid a hand on her shoulder. A deafening boom, a violent blast of pressure, and she was hurled against the wall.

"Stay there. I'm not interested in killing you." The moment the words left his mouth, he spun and kicked Roman full in the jaw. The old man spun three times through the air before another pressure blast slammed him back into the wall. Lautre's grip on the handle of the tuning fork tightened, every muscle coiling to raise the weapon above his shoulder. Before Roman could react, his foot was pinned to the ground by the instrument.

"Kaboom…" Lautre closed the gap, hitting him so hard the ground gave way and the tuning fork shot into the air. The energy rippled through the floor, making it tremble. Without wasting a motion, Lautre kicked Roman aside and snatched his weapon from the air. The moment Roman grazed the wall, his neck was caught by the instrument, which embedded itself in the stone. Instantly, the iron choked off his breath, and Lautre didn't keep him waiting.

"How about a soprano?" The smaller tuning fork smashed into the old man's ribs, transmitting a vibration so violent it cracked the wall all the way to the ceiling. His organs began to dance, and a thin, unsettling female voice echoed through the arena. The voice sang in dialect, delicate, far too delicate. With every impact, the volume and reverberation swelled along with the fractures in the wall and the blood pooling at their feet. The light in Roman's eyes began to gutter out, slipping slowly away.

Maica watched, struggling to piece together the amalgam of bone and muscle that was her arm. She was weeping, trying to walk, slipping in her own blood"Please… Stop…" she whispered between coughs and stretches of silence. But Lautre didn't hear her.

"Let's wrap this up." Lautre drew back his bloodied fist, bringing it close to his face, poised to strike again. Again the air began to vibrate, almost sharpening and distorting his knuckles. Lautre hurled himself at him once more. The ground beneath Lautre's feet collapsed, throwing him off balance and forcing him to cling to the fork that was strangling Roman. Then the wall itself seemed to shatter, or rather, to break apart into small geometric shapes. A tentacle burst from the rock, snatching its target away.

A grim aura, inhuman howls and grunts swallowed the area. Lautre spun around instantly, his expression nothing like the impatient, apathetic mask he had worn until now. Now dismay and bitterness had spread over his skin like dew at dawn, in tiny beads.

"Why? Why push yourself this far…" Lautre's words were meant for Maica, or whatever was left of her. The purple, nearly red syringe was still jammed into the vein in her neck. Her skin had become a mass of greyish polygonal scales, and she bled copiously from her eyes, now violet with pupils divided into segments. Her right arm had lengthened into a squared blade of bone and flesh. Where her spine met her pelvis, a tail of rock and bone had sprouted, sharp and slender.

She took a step toward him, panting, desperately trying to drag that new limb. A retch of blood spilled from her throat, dislodging the syringe and splattering her legs. Roman stared at her in silence, pale, his mouth frozen in despair. The man wrenched the tuning fork from the wall and clashed it against the smaller one.

"You can barely stand, you can't even breathe properly… You're wielding a curse." Maica's blade grazed his nose, missing his skull from ear to ear by a hair. A grim hiss rippled outward, followed by the crunch of concrete fracturing under the force of that creature's legs, invisible between lunges. Lautre clicked his tongue and snapped the weapon upward. The blade came crashing down from the ceiling, slamming into the iron and shattering the earth beneath his feet.

A thread of drool leaked from Maica's mouth, now fitted with strange pincer-like appendages.

"The worst of the worst…" Lautre muttered, spinning on himself to hammer the woman into the ground. The instant her blade tore through the floor, every sound vanished from the world. Only a vibration in the air remained. Blood sprayed from his arm, then disappeared into a blanket of whitish smoke. The far wall exploded into a sea of debris. Lautre clutched his arm, trembling.

"I'd rather not resort to Mistinguette' s full potential, but that beast doesn't reassure me in the slightest…" As he thought this, he glanced at Roman, pale as a ghost and looking even older than before. He moved toward him, jerking a thumb at the hissing creature now emerging from the smoke.

"She can't be stopped… It was a last resort. This is all my fault." Roman had sunk to his knees, head bowed over them. Now and then a tear slid from his cheeks and tangled in his beard. Lautre watched him in silence and reached out a hand. He snatched it back just in time to stop the tail from amputating it. With a rapid slash of the tuning fork, he shredded the rocks poised to skewer him.

Maica had mutated terribly, drifting further and further from her humanity: her hair was longer now and coated in a rocky film, her teeth had sharpened, her lips darkened, the blade thickened and studded with strange twisted metallic thorns. Roman swallowed hard, lifting his head and his wet eyes.

"Why, Maica… WHY DID YOU DO IT?!" The creature turned silently, the ghost of a smile on her face, letting a single tear fall. The ground beneath their feet weakened, and cracks spread in an instant. Lautre understood at once, but his ankles were already snared by tendrils of rock and iron. Slowly a wall, a mass of triangles, began to separate the three of them. By now Roman was off the ground, on the verge of falling.

"I'm not… useless like this, am I?" Maica's body dropped into the void, dragging Lautre with him, still tangled in the collapse. Darkness swallowed them both, though it was only the absence of light, not the relic that gave the tower its properties. Their bodies slid along iron pipes, smearing themselves with filth and scraping against the slimy walls. Both tumbled into a gigantic sloping tunnel, plummeting downward.

One of the rocks smashed through the conduit wall, releasing a gush of water and washing them down to the bottom of the sewer shaft.

"Taking a bath in the sewers wasn't something I ever hoped to repeat." Lautre coughed, rinsing blood, drool, and the indescribable fluids of the sewer from his mouth. Maica rose, hissing and coughing, nervously slapping that strange tail against the ground. With her violet, bloodshot eyes, she sized Lautre up, grinding her teeth and twisting her hideous, pale, scarred face. The mutation had reached her thighs, leaving them scaly and oddly squared.

"Lautre Clerc… I will kill you, even if it's the last thing I…" She was cut off by the thick gush of blood that erupted from her ears and eyes. Lautre's expression shifted, turning pitying enough to make him lower his arms for a brief moment. Maica's blade tore across his chest, but he remained impassive. Her tail coiled around his neck, squeezing tight.

"You still think I'm weak! You still show compassion even when you mean to kill me? SPEAK, YOU FILTHY MURDERER!" Without a word, Lautre stroked the scales near the tip of her tail, smiling faintly, his lips slick with blood and foam.

"You're doing everything you can to hold on to your humanity, but you're slowly eroding, and you know it." Maica tightened her grip, yet the man's caresses and his voice did not stop.

"I didn't want it to come to this. I would have preferred to save you as far as possible. Can you hear my heart now? Around us? Inside you?" Rain. Raindrops shattered everywhere around them, yet not a single ripple disturbed the thin film of sewage. Her arm and tail began to tremble, as if pelted by winter water.

"Heartbeats are like music. You don't need sight to understand them, and above all… They perfectly reflect a person's soul." His fingers curled gently around her tail, still trembling, still shaken by that unnatural downpour. Lautre's smile grew weaker, even as his grip tightened.

"And sometimes the songs of souls can convey more than a face, and…" The tail stopped trembling. It shattered into a thousand pieces, releasing a cloud of blood and purplish fluids. Maica stood impassive, not even registering the pain, too absorbed in the echoing rain.

"… Can break other people's hearts." With a swift motion of his arm, Lautre's knuckles grazed her chest. The air began to vibrate, then exploded violently in a blast of whitish, faintly warm mist. Maica was hurled backward, clawing at the ground to stop herself. Lautre adjusted his hand, retrieving the shorter fork from the sewage. He cleaned it by running his palm over the metal, setting it humming faintly.

"Can you understand it? Can you feel my heart in this storm?" He raised both weapons into the air and struck them together, unleashing a deep rumble, like a thunderclap torn from black clouds. Maica lifted her blade, shaking her head and snapping her jaws.

"Even if you can't, it hardly matters… I've already deemed you worthy." The sound of rain intensified terribly, now almost a barrage of cannon fire. Maica snarled, heedless of the blood and sweat streaming down her now greyish skin.

"MAICA BOMBERG, I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE!" Both tuning forks thrummed furiously in his hands; the floor fractured violently, and the air grew thick. His pupils once again became musical notes, this time far more pronounced and unsettlingly vibrant. In the hall engulfed by flames and molten iron, a swarm of lightning bolts streaked through the air, chasing a man cloaked in slimy black. The lightning coiled into a spiral and shot toward him, striking him directly on the nape.

He emerged from the smoke, landing on the rim of a cauldron. Beneath his feet, seething red fluid churned against the iron walls.

"I understand… He's using the mark on his own flesh to amplify and redirect his body's electrical signals." Malcolm lifted his gaze, smiling at the sight of the man wrapped in sparks and smoke. Maverick, dangling from a gigantic chain, had his rifle aimed straight at him, the bullet held between his lips. His arm had been torn open, or rather, it was as if a chunk of it had simply vanished.

"What do you hope to achieve? A single shot from my ability has already reduced you to this." Malcolm gestured at the black flesh, poisoned by the same slime that clung to his clothes. Maverick glanced at the wound, then at him, and smiled.

"All I need is to shoot." The bullet flew into the rifle's chamber and was instantly fired. Malcolm spread his barrier, but the lead pierced straight through. It ricocheted off the metal edges, shearing clean through the chain holding a cauldron. The impact sent the man tumbling into the furnace, and Maverick seized the opening. With an electric discharge, he heated the chamber and severed the bindings, dropping him to the ground.

A flood of molten iron devoured the forge floor, while Maverick steadied himself on a column, clutching his arm.

"It's not over…" From the bubbling red iron, a hand emerged, wreathed in flames. The torrent of fire hadn't stopped. It kept flooding the area. And from its very heart rose Malcolm, utterly unharmed by the weight of the blazing cascade. His eye appeared through the iron: dark, baleful. He fixed Maverick in silence and took a step forward.

"I'd like to stay here long enough to amuse myself with your futility, but personally, it's time to end this." Black tentacles sprouted at his feet and coiled around him, winding over his shoulders and hips. The magma stopped radiating heat, turning cold yet still liquid. Maverick felt the blood freeze in his veins, powerless to stop his teeth from chattering.

"The blight common to all existence, to everything that has purpose… is the End." The tentacles pulled taut, stretching into a dark, tangled pool. The very air seemed tainted. Maverick raised his weapon, aiming at Malcolm's forehead. Malcolm, with that dead, lifeless face, smiled. Suddenly, a blood-chilling scream shook the space around them, freezing the red in their veins. The tentacles stopped, slowly dissolving. A drop of sweat rolled down Malcolm's brow. A thin, nervous laugh escaped the man's lips.

So strange, so alien that it left Maverick frozen in place.

"This is truly the worst imaginable scenario." He pressed his palm to his face, staggering backward. Quick and precise, he tore open a rift in the ground, separating himself from Maverick as the space filled with molten iron.

"Next time I'll tell you more, but right now I want to avoid finding myself up against that 'beast'. There are nightmares best left buried in the minds of the dead…" Maverick aimed, shaking off his torpor, but Malcolm had already vanished. He stared in silence at the bubbles bursting from the lava, his fingers trembling, quivering. The first note of a scream rose from his throat, then a louder one, and finally a howl vomited up by the hatred at the bottom of his soul.

"MALCOLMMMMMM!!!!!" Electrical discharges erupted from his bleeding eyes, and every pore on his face began to weep blood—at least until the air ran out in his lungs. When it was over, he collapsed to his knees, weeping, sobbing, hoping the roar of the forge would drown him out.