Chương 110: Chapter 106 - Tough to Watch

The lances fell one after the other, picking up speed after around the fifteenth. Each one targeted a different soldier in purple. Chelsea jumped from Bradford's head in the same moment and flapped hard toward the battlefield. Without her flight titles assigned, she was not as fast as she was used to, but it was enough. All around her, soldiers screamed as the spectral lances struck. Men dropped to the ground in agony, their bodies seizing under pain that did not leave visible wounds.

Chelsea landed among them and pulled out her spear. The first soldier barely had time to turn before she attacked. Blood sprayed across her armor. Chelsea smiled. It was her sweet smile. The smile she gave to orphans who asked her with their little voices to play with them. She swung her spear down at the next soldier, and more blood covered her. Warm red splashed across historic armor, across her gloves, across the ivory scales and glowing crystals. Chelsea began to laugh.

She killed another and lifted him with her spear so the blood and entrails poured down over her. Her laughter rose, uncontrolled and delighted. She removed her helmet with careful hands. She did not need it. This was going to be a slaughter. Chelsea gingerly placed the helmet into her pouch. The green soldiers nearby backed away or ran when the blood-soaked girl neared them. Some stared in horror. Others abandoned their positions entirely. Chelsea barely noticed them except as colors she had decided not to target.

"Your turn, let's have fun. I want to see how many you can kill." She released Celeste.

"Chels, oh my gods, you're really letting me?"

"My gift to you. I keep you cooped up too long. Feast all you want sweet girl. I don't care which side." Chelsea gave back control. She felt her body shift slightly as Celeste took over. The stance changed first. The grip changed next. Then Celeste launched herself forward. Soldiers fell as she ran. There was no careful form. No strategy beyond forward motion and slaughter. Celeste swung the spear side to side, cutting through men with wild strength and no hesitation.

She laughed with the same manic joy Chelsea had felt moments earlier.

"Chels, thank you!" She ran in a straight line, mowing down soldiers as she went. When one man stumbled in front of her, Celeste stopped long enough to cut off his head. She pressed their face into the open neck where blood poured freely, then shoved their hands into either side and ripped the body apart. Chelsea was surprised. To do it, Celeste had dropped both weapon and shield. Without the Valkyr title strengthening her, Chelsea would not have expected her body to manage that much force.

Celeste did not seem to struggle at all though. She held the half of the body that still had most of the organs and bit into the heart. Celeste moaned. Chelsea wished she had control, because she wanted to moan too. It was so fresh. The warmth was perfect. Celeste worked their tongue into the heart before taking another bite, then dropped the body and recovered the weapon and shield from their cords. She continued.

Before long, the only people still alive nearby were those still writhing in agony from Chelsea's first attack. Celeste began to show Chelsea things she had not realized. As she butchered the wounded and dying one after another, she explained with the bright focus of someone discussing a favorite hobby.

"This part right here on their cheek. Here…" She took a bite. Chelsea understood immediately. Celeste was right. The meat was tender and different from normal muscle.

"Whoa I never realized that. Anything else?" Chelsea asked.

"Fuck, I wish you'd asked months ago. Heart is good but there's so much more," Celeste replied. She reached down, grabbed the bottom jaw of a random man, and ripped it away. Then she grabbed his tongue.

"Cow tongue is ok.. but try this." She tore it free and gave Chelsea control back. Chelsea brought it to her mouth and took a bite. She moaned.

"Oh that texture. That's what's been missing in my life," she said with a mouth full.

"What else? Still hungry." Celeste took control again and stabbed a man right in the groin.

"Try testicle. Here. Going to force you to try this." She reached down, ripped out a very real exposed testicle, and popped it into their mouth. Then she gave Chelsea control.

"It's really just the idea on this one." Chelsea explained but continued chewing." Oh gods it's so good though!" Passion"Passion, what the fuck was that attack? And is she really eating the soldiers!?" Truth yelled to her. The two of them stood near the edge of the cleared battlefield, far enough from Havoc to avoid being splashed but close enough to see exactly what she was doing. The fighting had ended too quickly for the rest of the army to understand what had happened.

Men in green stood at a distance, stunned and silent, while those in purple lay scattered across the churned ground. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Passion sighed.

"We brought a demon to kill her favorite food. What were you expecting?" Truth looked back toward the field. That was a mistake. Her face changed at once. She brought one hand up toward her mouth, swallowed hard, and took a step back from the sight of Chelsea crouched among the bodies. Passion, likewise, was doing her best to hold it together. She had seen battle and she had seen berserkers lose themselves. This was way more difficult to watch.

"They're mostly dead. We need to get her out of there. No, better yet, you need to get her out of there. She's your pair." Passion turned to stare at her.

"You want me to stop a demon Havoc while she's in a bloodlust and literally feasting on humans? Are you out of your fucking mind?" They both looked back over the field. Chelsea seemed to be done eating directly from the nearest body, but she had not stopped gathering pieces. She was moving with a kind of delighted focus, sorting what she wanted and tucking some of it away. Truth went pale.

"Oh gods she is saving some for later." Truth finally lost it and threw up. Passion felt strangely proud of herself for lasting longer, though that pride did not feel stable. She kept her eyes on Chelsea, partly because someone had to and partly because looking away felt worse. Havoc was still their responsibility. Chelsea was still in there somewhere beneath the blood and the smile.

"Where do you think the hearts she eats come from? They literally come out of people. But oh Havoc no," she drawled.

"not the tongues." Passion lost it too at that point. She bent forward and heaved, one hand braced against her thigh while the other held her sword out of the way. When she looked back up, Chelsea was lifting another body and emptying as much blood as she could across herself. Chelsea caught them watching her. Her eyes lit up. She skipped over, jumping across as many bodies as she could.

Truth wanted nothing to do with her and moved away at once, putting several more steps between herself and the blood-soaked demon girl. Passion stayed where she was. She did not recognize the girl in front of her. Chelsea was just red. Blood covered her hair, her face, her armor, and the spaces between the glowing pieces of her historic gear. Even the light from her pauldrons seemed red now, tinted by everything coating them. Her smile was bright and proud.

"Passion! How did I do?" she asked. Passion forced herself to answer carefully.

"Chelsea. That was hard to watch," she replied.

"You were literally pouring their blood on you."

"Yeah. I let Celeste out for a bit. I had to keep telling her not to masturbate in the blood. This was totally a sexual experience for us." Chelsea was high. There was no other word for it. Her voice was too fast and too loud. Her movements had too much energy. The blood and the feeding had filled her with so much pleasure that she could not see the horror on the faces around her. She was open in a way she normally would have been mortified by. Passion kept her own voice as gentle as she could manage.

"Hey, are you about done?" Passion asked in the best soothing nice voice she could muster.

"We are being told to clear out soon."

"Oh but…" Chelsea looked back over the field.

"So much food is going to go to waste." Passion swallowed hard and nodded quickly.

"OK OK. Grab a few hearts and get back on your turtle."

"Tortoise. Sounds like a deal." The demon girl curtsied to Passion before running off. The first thing Havoc went for was another tongue. Passion bent at the waist and heaved again.

"Oh Havoc," she said quietly to herself as she watched the little demon skip happily between corpses.

"This is going to hit you so hard." Passion surveyed the battlefield. There were no more enemies standing. There were barely enemies left intact enough to move. Green soldiers kept their distance, staring at the small figure collecting food from the bodies of men who had been fighting them minutes ago. Chelsea did not see any of it yet. She was smiling, humming under her breath, and choosing what to bring with her.

Passion wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and watched her pair with a growing sadness for her Havoc.

"So hard." Chelsea"Hey there Bradford," she said as she flew up past the ridge. Chelsea landed on the edge of Bradford's shell just behind his head. Her wings folded against her back, heavy with blood. The battlefield smell followed her up. Suffering ran toward her from beneath the tree.

"H-havoc, are you OK?" Suffering asked.

"I'm great! I'm more than great! Though, I think I may have over-ate. It was all so good though." Suffering stopped a few steps away.

"Havoc, I've never seen anything like that." Chelsea furrowed her brows.

"What do you mean?" Suffering pointed down toward the battlefield.

"Just look at that battlefield. I've never left one looking like… well… like that." Chelsea turned around with a smile still on her face. Then she looked down. There were no fallen soldiers in any way her mind could understand. The pleasure vanished. The gravity of what she had done struck her all at once.

"Oh gods no. Oh no oh no." Chelsea put her hands to the sides of her head. Blood smeared against her hair and horns, and that only made the horror worse. It was on her. It was all over her. She had wanted it there.

"Passion!" Suffering yelled.

"She's coming down." Chelsea crawled to the side of Bradford's shell and barely made it before she began violently vomiting. Her stomach twisted again and again, emptying what it could while her mind supplied everything it should have understood earlier. These men had families. They had names. They had people waiting for them. They weren't bandits or cultists trying to sacrifice children. They were soldiers. Regular people. Men who had been ordered onto a battlefield and ended up beneath her spear and her teeth.

Chelsea could not cry hard enough. There was no apology large enough for what she had done. No way to atone for the parts of them she had eaten. She curled into a ball near the edge of Bradford's shell and scream-cried until someone lifted her and carried her back toward the shade of the tree.

"I'm sorry!" She wailed.

"It isn't your fault Chelsea," Passion said calmly. Chelsea barely heard her. Nice Chelsea was back, and nice Chelsea was horrified by everything. The bloodlust had burned away, leaving her with memory. Passion held her carefully, but Chelsea did not want to be held by Passion. She wanted Ivy. She wanted Adriane. She wanted Freya. The fact that Passion was the one there made her feel worse, because Passion was trying and Chelsea could not make herself accept it.

"Suffering is there anything you can do?"

"I wish there was. My skills stop at physical pain. This is beyond me," Suffering said quietly.

"They were all innocent," Chelsea wept. Celeste pressed close inside her mind. She wanted control. Chelsea had no strength left to argue, so she let her. Calmly, Celeste pushed against Passion.

"Put me down." Passion hesitated, confused by the sudden change. Then she complied. Celeste stood on with their body covered in blood and walked toward the shade without stumbling. The grief was gone.

"Let me know when it's time to leave. Until then, get off of my turtle." Passion understood enough to know she was no longer talking to Chelsea.

"OK." Suffering stared between Chelsea and Passion, her confusion plain.

"What the fuck was that!?" she hissed to the larger woman.

"We need to get off of the turtle," Passion said. Celeste waited until they were gone before sitting beneath the tree. The battlefield still existed below. Chelsea's grief still pressed against her from the inside. Celeste could feel it, but she did not let it take her hands.

"I'm not going to apologize for what we did," she said simply. She sat there, expecting Chelsea to seize control again and scream at her. Chelsea didn't. Celeste let the silence stretch for a while before continuing.

"I meant what I said when we were out there. Thank you." Still, Chelsea did not answer. Celeste sighed and reached into their pouch. She pulled out one of the wet towels and unfolded it across her lap.

"For the record, Chels, I'm cleaning myself. Not you." She removed the armor carefully and stowed it piece by piece. Since the enhancement had leveled up, there was an absurd amount of free space in the pouch. Chelsea still carried the small three-slot pouch she had taken from the first bandit all those months ago. She had bought other bags since then, some bigger and much better, but none of them felt as right at her hip as the beat-up one.

Celeste finished storing the broken pieces until she was left naked except for the rings, amulet, and earrings. Then she cleaned. She worked slowly and methodically, wiping away every patch of red she could see. The first towel was ruined almost immediately. The second followed. She did not rush. She did not let Chelsea look through their eyes at the gore covered towels longer than she had to.

"Chels, I know I'm not the elf or your god..." Celeste stopped. She shook her head and chose not to continue. On the third towel, the heavy red finally became pale streaks. Celeste ran the damp cloth through their hair, then scrubbed their face one more time, trying to reach anything she could not see. When she was done, she pulled out a pair of shorts and a simple shirt and put them on.

"I umm…" She stopped again. Celeste sat down beneath the tree and wrapped Chelsea's wings around their body in a tight cocoon. It was something Celeste knew how to do that Chelsea had never quite mastered. Celeste wrapped their arms around themself in a self-hug.

"Try to get some rest." Then Celeste released control. Chelsea fell onto her side inside the wing cocoon and began sobbing.