Chương 79: A Bloodied Devil

Day 9 There was no more plan. There was only wrath. I didn't need the half-dragon's resistance—not when I had an armored shape that allowed me to properly embody that wrath. The orcs had not been ready for a Wrath-Touched Chimera. Their guns were almost entirely ineffective against my pangolin-armor. Their batons even more so. And once the kobolds actually found smoke grenades, there was nothing they could do. The complication wasn't defeating all of them—it was making sure that none could escape my retribution.

Like the good leader I was, I delegated. Those I had crippled, those whose legs I had shredded, whose spines I had crushed, who were drowning in their own blood after I had ripped out their throats—those, the hyenas gleefully finished off. The chief had offered more resistance. I hadn't noticed the difference in the gun he had been aiming at me. It was a taser. Debilitating pain took away all my control. By that point I hadn't decided yet what I would do with him.

His words as I was writhing in pain sealed his fate.

"Not so strong now, are you? You fucking monster. I will make you pay for what you did to us. You think this hurts? I'll show you pain. Your death won't be quick." I activated Power Through, switched to the half-dragon shape, and rammed my knee into the orc chief's groin. When he doubled over from pain, I gouged his eyes out.

"Neither will be yours. I got healing potions." I kicked his knee in and put my own knee on his neck when he was on the ground.

"I will tear your limbs out, and I will heal you, and then I will keep going."

"Try me, bitch," he groaned through gritted teeth. I screamed and threw him against the wall. Portraits of his human predecessors, notable bastards of the PD, clattered to the ground. As I stomped back over to continue with him, they manifested in my path. My reaction had been entirely automatic. A new obstacle, and I lashed out. I barely managed to pull my claw back. Not in time. Three red slashes appeared on Lucy's cheek. Right under my own exchanged eye, staring back at me. They hadn't even flinched.

They calmly reached up to their cheek and touched their wounds before they inspected the red on their fingers.

"This isn't you, kitten. This isn't the one who spared that elf. This isn't the one who blep'd for Sarah. And above all, it isn't like you to waste this much experience. You've let too much go to waste. Turn off that Perk, shift to that tortoise, and finish this." I was still staring at the blood on their cheek. It took an eternity for my mind to return to me and for their words to make any sense. I had forgotten Exemplar Leader. I had gotten zero experience for all of this. I turned the perk off.

Behind Lucy, the orc chief groaned as he reached for his belt. I pushed them aside, ran for the chief, and switched into the Nidhogg-touched Galapagos Tortoise. The shape was massive. The floor creaked under my weight. My beak took out the orc chief's throat. Another first kill done. The Crown offered me its reward. I read a single line and declined. I didn't need to transform into an orc to know that I was a fucking monster. There were no excuses. I had completely lost control.

Even when I shed all external influences, nothing had changed. I enjoyed inflicting pain. I wanted to inflict more of it. I had hit Lucy. ["I'm sorry for hurting you,"] I wrote in Guide chat.

"Do better," Lucy said before they vanished. Behind me, Zi'rah entered the room, joined by one of the hyenas.

"Hey, boss." I looked over to see her shake blood off her spear.

"We are done. Got them all. We think." While she showed zero horror at what happened, she only entered the room far enough to deliver her message. She kept enough distance to run if I turned on them. The hyena by her side did the same. I had done this to avenge their siblings. It had done fuck all for my grief and only made them fear me. Behind me, the chief's corpse had begun to wither away. Likely an effect of this shape. I didn't feel like inspecting its details.

The moment the timer ran out, I canceled out of the shape.

"Uh, boss?" Zi'rah asked.

"Yes?"

"You won. Everything in here is rightfully yours."

"So?"

"Will you, you know, claim your part? So we can claim ours? As is tradition?" This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"You want to loot this place?"

"Everything that isn't nailed down. Fucking gold mine in here." I looted the orc chief and put his taser into my inventory.

"You can have it all." As I wanted to push past the kobold, I paused.

"Have you grown taller?"

"I dunno what witchcraft it was you did, but you did something, and that gave us power." I inspected her and the hyena. If I remembered correctly, Zi'rah had been level 13, and the hyenas had been around level 5. Zi'rah was 18 now. The hyena was 12. I didn't know what to say. I walked past her. The other kobolds had reached 15. They also had a designation now.

'Cacklekin'. It didn't even say kobold anymore. Cackle. I had forgotten about that word. The proper term for a hyena pack. I'd have to figure out what that meant later. I let the kobolds loot, while I sat outside. The matriarch joined me. She had also gained two levels. We both felt the same. We had lost two of our pack, our cackle. I didn't even have any identity I associated with the individual hyenas. But they were my responsibility.

I did what I could to keep the humans at bay, but I had failed to consider the Created. Created warped by a profane space, no less. And all that blood had done nothing. No satisfaction, no relief. Just the same hunger for more violence, as if that would fix anything.

"Fucking sucks. I'm sorry." She didn't seem to forgive me. Made two that day. Three if we counted Aleria. Nor did she seem to forgive herself. At least she allowed me to give her some reassuring scritches. When I saw Dratz'zt carrying some loot outside to hide in a dumpster, I called out to him.

"Hey, Dratz'zt. I'll take the hyenas back to the yard. I don't think you need me to escort you back to the mall, do you?" He looked around, as if searching for someone else to take the responsibility of talking to me.

"Actually, I think it's fine if we bring them back later. You wanted us to work with them, right?"

"You want to make a detour before you bring all of this back?"

"Well, yeah? Figured we should secure their place against others a bit, and also she"—he nodded to the former matriarch—"definitely seems to have accepted Zi'rah and us." After a short pause, he added, "Unless you want to bring them with you, of course. We'd appreciate the extra jaws with us, though. I think." It felt like a cruel joke. Due to my own fuck-up, the problem that had ended up hurting the hyenas had been solved?

The kobolds would happily secure the yard and were even happy to stand side by side with the hyenas when, thirty minutes ago, they had to be careful to not end up as a snack. And now they didn't even need me to look after them.

"Yeah, no. Sure. Take good care of them, okay?" Dratz'zt saluted.

"Yes, mistress." I patted the former matriarch on the head.

"Don't eat them, yeah?" Oddly, she seemed to appreciate the affection. Maybe hyenas were more cuddly than I thought. I stood up and began walking. I should have made my way back to the tower. Or should have figured out where that flying mythborn creature was. Or done anything to catch up on all that wasted experience. Instead, I walked. Wasted all my mana looking like different people. Ended up looking like pre-Apocalypse Eve did.

Had she known, in that time in the flicker, what would happen if we lost those we felt responsible for? It wasn't even two weeks, and she wouldn't even recognize me anymore. If I met her, how would I even begin explaining the journey that got me to this point? I ended up at the ruins of the fire station, retracing the steps of that journey. The truck bay, where Ash had nearly attacked me with an axe when I was a blood-covered impala. Corridors I fought my way through, tearing down zombie after zombie.

The 'living room' where I ended up nearly killing myself, for like the fourth time in one night, to take down a single golem.

"You worked hard to help those people here," Gabriel said.

"So does Claire. She always strived to do good. Look where she ended up."

"Having darkness inside of you does not mean you are already damned. Instead of Claire, look at Stephen. He used to be someone the Eve you look like right now would have called a monster. She'd even have called him her enemy. And today you called him family. He's carrying his own darkness and keeps fighting." I huffed.

"Stephen. Out of all the people."

"Stop moping. How the hell am I supposed to be mad at you when you are already kicking yourself down?" Lucy said.

"I meant what I said. Do better. Don't walk through the ashes of your failures. Go and take care of the things that still stand, which you have built up." I made my way out of the ruins.

"You two really aren't good at the whole motivational speech thing."

"That's why I picked a charge who usually doesn't need them," Gabriel said.

"Ugh," I replied. My self-pity tour got interrupted by a phone ringing nearby. Not in the ruins themselves, but some nearby building. I went out to investigate, though I was already pretty sure I knew who this would be. It had only been a day. There was no reason to rush me like this. I found the phone in a building across the street, the same one in which Claire had set up before they burned the station down. In a ground-floor apartment, there was an old-school phone connected to the landline. I picked up.

"Yes?"

"Have you made your decision?" the Wyrm asked. It wasn't imitating my own voice anymore. It was an unfamiliar feminine voice.

"Not unless you are going to use a UAV to bomb Nemesis off the map. I was a bit preoccupied." There was a long pause.

"You ask too much. Assist, and I might."

"Bit of an impasse we got here, right? With neither of us bound to our word, how do we know that the first to help isn't left holding the bag?"

"Trust. I saw your claim to privacy, and I have not destroyed your watchdog." A shiver went down my spine. Did it think I claimed the tower just to stay out of its reach? Was it even an it?

"I appreciate that, I do. I need more time. I will reach out to you. This new voice. Is that someone, or is that you?" Another long pause. I shouldn't be asking this thing any existential questions. I'd only stop to think of it as a thing.

"Yes."

"Are you a 'she' now? New name maybe?"

"Irrelevant. Human classification and language are insufficient."

"Sure. I'll get back to you." I hung up on the Wyrm. And then I shifted into the hawk and raced for the tower. I had forgotten how the Wyrm exerted its will.