Chương 56: 55: Amalgation

The world had become a still life of horror. It had taken Katherine nearly thirty minutes to find this corridor again. She'd wandered the facility in a daze, passing empty quarters, unfamiliar hallways, and even a handful of people in white lab coats who barely spared her a glance, likely assuming she belonged there. Eventually, she recognized the route. She'd awakened alone on the floor, newly repaired.

The dead Steppers were gone, their remains completely evaporated, leaving only scorched walls and dark stains where the battle had unfolded. Now she stood frozen in the corridor's tomb-like silence. Beneath the shock, her body throbbed with one undeniable truth. She remembered dying. The memory lingered with unsettling clarity. She could still feel the contained implosion of her ribs, the flood of blood filling her mouth, and the nauseating sensation of her soul being filed into two separate versions of reality.

She had crossed that threshold. She was standing only because the Cobalt Nonagon had brought her back. Flesh and bone, however, had never truly healed. Her ruined organs were gone, replaced by shimmering structures of condensed potential and cobalt logic occupying the spaces where her liver, spleen, and shredded intestines had once been. They functioned flawlessly, humming with impossible efficiency. They simply weren't hers. She felt it constantly.

There was no pain, only an ever-present wrongness buried beneath every heartbeat, a quiet displacement that refused to fade. It was the soul's equivalent of something lodged in her throat - foreign, permanent, and cosmically incorrect. Her blood - Sylvia's blood now, a sacred thing they somehow shared - still coated the floor beneath her bare feet, mingling with silver ichor and blackened stains where the Syndicate soldiers had died. Her hand tightened around the object in her satchel on pure instinct.

The dead Stepper's weapon. Harmony still rested against her hip, a faint comforting hum beneath the silence, while the crimson-and-gold rifle hung across her shoulders, its hexagonal barrel retaining a trace of warmth. The Cobalt Nonagon remained silent. Sonata didn't. A faint, strained note still echoed from the cracked amethyst at her throat. It had fallen to a miserable one percent, its surface a web of fractures held together by little more than stubbornness. How much protection remained, Katherine had no idea.

She couldn't make herself calculate it. Her mind simply refused. Before her lay Butter. Headless. The word refused to fit. Butter was motion wrapped in a beanie. Pink eyes. Stubborn miracles. Laughter. This... This was only a body. Alabaster skin had faded to the color of old candle wax. Melody's bandages, once alive with quiet music, were nothing more than stained strips of linen.

Nearby, the Aria rested open in the widening pool of blood, its plush blueberry cover soaking up the crimson until the fur clumped together. Katherine couldn't move. The air had become glass inside her lungs. Is this a dream? The thought barely qualified as thought. Just a frightened child whispering from somewhere deep inside her. One of the nightmares after the pod. The ones where the Talon's lenses were the last thing you ever saw. Her thoughts returned in broken frames. First the blood. Then the Aria. Then...

Something stood over Butter's corpse. A grotesque humanoid stitched together from mismatched bodies. Corpse-pale skin had been crudely sewn to darker, weathered flesh with thick crimson thread, every jagged seam looking ready to split apart. Some patches were young, others old. Some smooth, others scarred and calloused. Powerful muscles bulged beneath the patchwork hide, straining against the stitches.

Long arms hung low enough for clawed fingers to scrape the floor, while powerful backward-bent legs supported its impossible frame. A neck far too long ended in a face that had once been human before countless borrowed features were sewn into a single grotesque whole. A wide mouth stretched beneath hollow black eyes centered by stark white irises that never blinked. Everywhere the crimson thread crossed its body, the flesh puckered and pulled unnaturally, as though every stolen piece longed to tear itself free.

It was chewing. On Butter's body. — Wet, rhythmic sounds echoed through the corridor. Crunch. Smack. A long tongue dragged across rows of broad teeth shaped like shovel heads, their flattened, spade-like edges gleaming with saliva, before slipping back into its mouth with another hungry noise. The thing ate with complete contentment, savoring every bite as though nothing in the universe could possibly interrupt its meal. Katherine stood twenty meters away, staring. She couldn't blink. She couldn't breathe.

Her entire body trembled so violently her teeth clicked together. The creature finally paused. Its head turned with slow, unsettling curiosity until those hollow black eyes settled on her. The stark white irises narrowed. Its swollen belly shifted. Brrrp. A satisfied burp echoed through the corridor.

"Lovely..." Its voice was a chorus of stolen lives - a frightened child, an elderly woman, a teenage boy, a man with a smoker's rasp - speaking in eerie unison, only to slip out of sync for a heartbeat before locking together again, as though dozens of stolen voices were fighting over who owned the sentence.

"Another succulent little girl." The smile widened.

"So that's your friend." It looked down at Butter's body with something disturbingly close to affection.

"She was... exquisite. Tender. Such a delightful little thing." Its long arms folded beneath it as it began crawling toward Katherine on all fours. The movement was unnervingly ape-like, slender but immensely powerful, its backward-bent legs driving it forward with effortless grace.

"I wonder if you'll taste the same." It chuckled softly to itself.

"You shouldn't run. It spoils the meal." Another slow crawl.

"I'd rather you stayed. Don't be frightened. It only hurts for a little while." Its grin stretched wider.

"I'll keep you alive as long as I can. That's always the best part." It gave a dreamy little moan, shivering at the thought before laughing under its breath. Katherine continued shaking. The creature crept another few meters.

"You're trembling. That's normal. Everyone does at first." Its voice became almost comforting.

"Just accept it. I'll start with your legs. After that, I'll break your spine so you won't struggle anymore. You'll still be awake, though. I need you awake. Food always tastes better when it knows it's being eaten." It licked blood from its lips.

"So don't run." Silence hung between them. Katherine finally spoke. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The words emerged in a whisper so unsteady it could have been mistaken for fear.

"... Run?" The creature tilted its head.

"You keep saying that." She inhaled shakily.

"Why..." The trembling stopped.

"... would I run?" She raised her head. The emptiness in her eyes was replaced by something infinitely hotter.

"You killed my friend..." Each word grew louder. Her fingers tightened around the grip until her knuckles turned white.

"Run?" The scream that tore from her throat seemed to rip the air itself apart.

"WHY THE FUCK WOULD I RUN?!" The corridor shook with the force of it.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" The creature sighed.

"What a nuisance." Its limbs compressed. Then it exploded forward, far faster than something that large had any right to move. Katherine had already made her choice. The rifle had been charging from the moment she noticed it. Its core screamed. Target acquired. Threat profile complete. Containment geometry adjusted. She pulled the trigger. BOOM. The corridor disappeared beneath a blast of white light. The creature vanished into the impact, hurled backward as blue blood exploded across the walls in a violent spray.

The blast carried it the length of the corridor, smashing through stone before crashing into the far wall with enough force to shake the entire structure. It moved anyway. Its shattered limbs clawed at the stone, dragging the ruined body away as Katherine advanced. Another shot. BOOM. An arm disappeared. BOOM. Its torso burst apart. She never stopped walking.

"I WON'T LET YOU GET AWAY!" Another shot thundered through the corridor.

"YOU DIE HERE!" The rifle bucked against her shoulder again and again until nothing recognizable remained. The creature dissolved into little more than a twitching puddle spread across fractured stone. Silence followed. The ringing in Katherine's ears slowly replaced the thunder of gunfire. She stood motionless for a long moment before turning and walking back to Butter. She lowered herself into a squat and stared. Nothing happened.

The tears came anyway, rolling down her face without permission and dripping into the widening pool of blood. Her chest hurt. Every breath scraped against her ribs until the sobs finally escaped, violent enough to shake her entire body. She cried so hard she never noticed the puddle behind her beginning to move. It crawled across the floor like spilled paint flowing uphill. Bones assembled. Muscle wrapped itself around them. Skin stitched itself together. The creature stood. Its grin widened.

Malevolent crimson energy ignited around all it's hands, writhing over stitched flesh like living fire. KOOOM. The uppercut caught Katherine beneath the jaw, launching her skyward before her mind could register the blow. In the same instant, one grotesquely elongated arm snapped after her, fingers clamping around her ankle as the crimson aura flared brighter. The corridor became a blur. It slammed her into the floor. The wall. The ceiling.

Stone exploded with every impact as craters bloomed one after another, her body ricocheting through the corridor faster than sight could follow. The stitched monster whipped her around like a ragdoll, each collision erupting with crimson flashes as the malevolent energy bled into every strike. Mid-swing, another arm lashed out in a blur, ripping the rifle from her grasp and swallowing it whole before she could even realize it was gone, then flung her the length of the hallway.

For the briefest instant, she hung weightless. It was already there. KOOOOOM! Its crimson-shrouded fist crashed into her mid-air, the impact detonating like artillery and blasting her the length of the corridor. The cracked gem absorbed what little force it still could. Only then did time seem to catch up. Katherine skipped through shattered stone before smashing into the ground and tumbling end over end. Instinct took over before panic could.

Her body tucked into the impacts, turning what should have been a fatal collision into a rough roll before she finally skidded to one knee. Sonata shimmered weakly. The creature chuckled.

"Well... that was rude." It stretched lazily, joints popping one after another before scratching absentmindedly at the side of its stitched head. One crimson-lit hand drifted down until its fingertips brushed the floor. The concrete responded like flesh. Slabs slid, rotated, and traded places until the corridor resembled an unsolved puzzle. Nothing had been destroyed. Everything was simply in the wrong place. It smiled.

"You know..." Its hollow eyes drifted toward the cracked gemstone hanging from Katherine's neck.

"That little jewel of yours is remarkably sturdy."

"Without it... this little trick of mine, Haemoglobin, would've left you wonderfully misaligned." One crimson-lit hand flexed slowly. Katherine's stomach tightened. It wasn't trying to break her. It was trying to put her back together… incorrectly. Like an unsolved puzzle. Bones would mend inches from where they belonged. Muscles would stitch themselves to the wrong tendons. Organs would settle in impossible places until her own body simply… stopped working. She didn't need to be overpowered.

It only had to touch her once. It gave a delighted shiver. Its impossibly long arms spread until the knuckles rested against the floor.

"I'm rather weak, by Abomination standards. There are many stronger than I am." The grin somehow widened further.

"My regeneration, however... that's another story." It tapped its stitched chest.

"I regenerate from erasure." Another tap.

"From a single atom." Its head tilted.

"You can't kill something that's already dead." The stitched flesh across its body rippled. It was a monument to failure. A patchwork sewn together from discarded experiments. Different ages. Different genders. Different dreams. Pieces that had never belonged together, yet somehow still lived as one.

"They called me many things." It bowed theatrically.

"I call myself... Amalgation." Katherine stared. Fear had burned away. Only rage remained. She forced herself to breathe. Think. Her perception expanded. A second stretched until it became minutes. Then hours. Harmony. Sonata. The Cobalt Nonagon. Everything she possessed. Butter had died to this thing. She would avenge her. Even if she died here. Her thoughts turned inward. The Nonagon. It had rebuilt her. That meant it could do more. She reached for it, not with her hands, but with herself. She felt it.

An ocean resting beneath her consciousness. She could touch its power. She simply couldn't understand it. She thought about Morwenna. The Aswang. The Tenebrae. The endless dream where she had fought, failed, learned, and fought again. None of it had been real, yet the lessons had. Butter translated impossible power through music. What about her? What was she? Books. Stories. Worlds she had lived inside since childhood. That wasn't enough. It had to become something concrete. A language. A certainty.

She searched every memory she possessed until one idea crystallized with absolute clarity. Of course. Her breathing steadied. To Amalgation, barely half a second had passed. To Katherine... Hours. She looked up and spoke a single word.

"Ellipsis." And everything...... began...... to change. Amalgation's hand struck empty air. For a heartbeat, the world refused to explain itself. Its momentum carried it several steps forward before a violent explosion erupted across its lower back. BLAM. A monstrously heavy punch. Its spine burst apart.

"SKRRAAAAAAAAGH!" The stitched abomination wailed in agony, its voices collapsing into a grotesque chorus as it lurched forward, claws gouging deep furrows through the floor while it fought to stay upright.

"Where is she...?" Its hollow eyes darted wildly.

"She was-" It turned. Katherine stood behind it, chest heaving, sweat streaming down her face. The Stepper's knuckle weapon sat over her fist. She hadn't teleported. She had simply... been omitted. The missing seconds still existed. Reality had simply declined to show them. She had sprinted around the creature, swung with all her might and returned to stillness. To Katherine, every movement had happened normally. To Amalgation... There had only been the gap. Using the ability felt strange.

There wasn't a cooldown, yet every use left her feeling as though microscopic pieces of herself had quietly become dream-stuff. She couldn't see it, but she could feel it. Amalgation's regeneration immediately surged through the ruined vertebrae. Flesh crawled across exposed bone.

"Spectacular..." it rasped. Its smile slowly returned.

"You're editing the fight." Its outline rippled. The air shimmered around its body until the creature simply... disappeared. Katherine staggered back, eyes darting across the corridor, searching for the slightest sign of movement. Nothing. Then something struck her from behind with the force of a freight train. Before she could even leave the ground, the impact drove her straight into the floor. Concrete exploded into a crater as fists hammered into her in a relentless blur. BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!

Each blow landed before the last had fully registered.

"RAAAAGH!" Her roar shook the corridor. She ripped the knuckle weapon through the air in a savage sweep. Nothing. It slipped away a heartbeat before the strike connected. She wasn't fast enough. Even so, the shockwave tore through the space where it had been hiding. A sharp hiss answered. A spray of blood shimmered into view before splattering across the floor. Sonata's crack deepened as Katherine rose from the crater, fury twisting her expression.

Her eyes locked onto the fresh droplets, tracking the trail it had left behind. Before the wound could fully close, Katherine lifted her hand again.

"Onomatopoeia." Something settled. She looked upward.

"KLANG." The sound came first. A deafening metallic report split the air. Then an anvil simply...... arrived. It crashed into Amalgation's head, driving the creature face-first into the floor with a crater-shattering impact. KLANG! The corridor trembled. The anvil disappeared as quickly as it had come. Amalgation's body flickered back into view, its shimmering outline collapsing into solid flesh. It groaned. Katherine didn't hesitate.

She sprinted straight at it, planted a foot, and launched herself into a crushing right hook. BLAM! Her fist caved through its face. Bone, teeth, and stitched flesh erupted in every direction as the entire head burst apart, the force blasting the towering abomination backwards in a staggering stumble. It didn't fall. Blue flesh crawled across the ruined neck. Bone knitted together. Fresh muscle twisted into place as another grotesque head rapidly grew back, its hollow eyes blazing with rage. Katherine didn't stop.

"WHOOSH." A violent gust erupted through the corridor, hurling debris into its face and forcing it backward. Each word became reality. Even as she attacked, her mind refused to stop searching. It had regenerated from a single atom. How did you kill something like that? She barely understood physics, but could an atom itself be destroyed? Could a punch ever do something like that? She didn't know. She kept thinking. Amalgation snarled.

"ENOUGH." Its stitched flesh rippled, then split as two new arms tore from its ribs with sickening speed, longer than the originals and ending in oversized hands. Light flared around all four limbs, burning darker than before, while the fingers blackened from the tips inward like flesh dying of frostbite. The creature ripped forward with explosive speed, the corridor shuddering beneath the force of its acceleration. It blurred. All four hands descended at once.

Katherine barely managed to cross Sonata in front of herself. The impact detonated. BLAAAAMMM! The cracked crystal screamed. Then... Shattered. Fragments of amethyst light scattered through the corridor like dying stars. Sonata was gone. Amalgation laughed triumphantly. Four hands closed around Katherine before she could recover, lifting her effortlessly into the air. One enormous hand clamped over her mouth while another deftly slipped the Stepper's knuckle weapon from her fist and swallowed it whole.

The light around its hands faded, snuffing itself out as darkness spread from its blackened fingertips up its forearms like creeping frostbite. It chuckled.

"No..."

"That would hurt you far too quickly."

"There." Its breath reeked of decay.

"Now it's over, you horrific little child." The white irises trembled with delight.

"No more little silly words."

"You're mine now."