“You can talk after all…” Veronika pointed the blade at the intruder’s face, its tip touching the man’s nose.
“Me? Yes… My creation? Not necessarily.” The intruder muttered, barely making any sense.
“Just who the hell are you?” Veronika pushed the blade forward, slightly penetrating the skin and flesh of the abomination’s nose.
“My name? It was long lost… Forgotten and abandoned. Currently, I go by the name of Peligon.” As the mysterious person introduced himself, Veronika put the blade away, seeing as the man was willing to talk.
“What might be your reason to attack the order? The protectors of humanity and the innocent.” Veronika’s tone was firm and at the same time threatening.
“Reason? There is more than one. For instance, I send my creation to evaluate the strength of the Order. My God wants me to evaporate any human resistance. You are one of those obstacles. As for my main reason… I wanted to test out my creation!” While he revealed his reason, he also revealed his true face, his excitement as he talked about his experiment. It wasn't an explosive type of joy; it was subtle and horrifying.
“How well it does, how it compares to other warriors, was my experiment a success? Part of it was… But there is one last thing I need to test out… Prepare yourself for the second stage of the test.” The warning was at the same time a threat.
The stitches began to glow with a sickening green color, and the abomination’s body began to shift and expand. Veronika was about to slice its head off, but she was pushed away by a tail, or at least something that looked like one. In truth, it was a spine that grew out of the body and moved like a tail. The sharp end of it grew larger, like a sting. His ribs pushed outward, revealing the insides, yet instead of organs, there were countless small tentacles made of bones moving out of its chest. The flesh and skin grew and expanded, making the abomination inhumanly muscular. The neck broke, and Tazien’s head dangled off its body like a bait on a fishing hook. Parts of the body infected by Veronika’s gate fell off, allowing the creature to regenerate those lost limbs.
Under the weight of changing abomination, Seweryn’s spear broke in half, leaving him with a broken metal staff. His moment of confusion and terror was cut short as the small bone tentacles flew toward him. He spun the staff around to push those bony limbs away. Three of them were able to move past his defense, drawing blood from his shoulder, arm, and hip. Those were small wounds, not life-threatening, but seeing as he was barely able to block them made him worry.
Seweryn moved backward to find a safe distance, away from the reach of those sharp bone-made weapons. Some of them were able to reach him from more than ten feet away. Veronika dashed forward to assist her companion, her heavy blade fell on the tentacles. They were too sturdy for her to cut or even scratch, letting her only push them down to the floor.
“One last lesson… Since I love talking about my studies…” The creature straightened its back for a moment and lifted a finger. “This abomination, as you called it, is only the prototype. So after transforming like that, it won’t last for long, thus your last test is to survive… Around five minutes, give or take. Good luck…” With those words, the creature bent its back, no longer resembling a human.
As the “Intruder” explained, he didn’t focus on the two warriors, giving them time to approach the monster unharmed. As it lifted its head, it saw the two Captains right in front. Seweryn took a wide swing with his extended, broken spear and bashed the creature’s leg while Veronika moved for a thrust to its head. It bent slightly from being hit in the leg, but the abomination didn’t waver as the blade moved closer to its face. Dozens of small bone tentacles wrapped around the blade and stopped it, while the tail with a sting moved toward Veronika’s back.
She only grunted in annoyance, bracing for the oncoming pain she would feel. Veronika didn’t close her eyes, not even in near-death situations, so she was able to watch as the abomination’s body was lifted and its sting missed, not even grazing her face. Right under it, the bricks grew upward, lifting it unevenly.
The creature tried to find a right footing, using the tentacles to help stabilize its posture by stabbing them into the stone bricks. Veronika tightened her grip on the sword with both hands and used her gate to push herself away. With a sudden jerk, she was able to free herself and the longsword. The abomination quickly jumped down to follow its prey. Both of them were falling, and the creature did with greater speed, its tail closing up on Veronika.
“Don’t cut me out just yet!” A shout came from the side, and the creature quickly changed the trajectory of its tail to meet an upcoming attacker, but as it turned away, the creature saw Kronel lying by the wall, his leather chest armor stained with his own blood, still dripping from his mouth, but he grinned with content as he said, “Got you…”
At that time, Veronika landed on the ground and lifted her sword far behind her back and took another swing, this time focusing on using her power to push and pull at the right time to make her blade move faster. Along with a scream of a warrior, the longsword moved in an arc, cutting through the bony tentacles, leaving a dark, withering mark in the place where she sliced them. Her blade breached the creature’s defences and stabbed it through its stomach. The blade stuck out of the other side, its flesh slowly turning black. As its hands moved to grab Veronika, she twisted the blade and jumped to the side, pushing the blade with her ability and cutting through its flesh.
As she dashed away into a safe distance, the creature’s stomach was cut open from one side, its heavy body falling toward the injured side as the remaining muscles couldn’t properly hold the body. Without even looking, the abomination’s tail moved toward Veronika’s back.
She didn’t even have to turn around to block it as she trusted her fellow warriors. The metal staff expanded and pushed the tail away. Seeing a chance to get rid of another obstacle, Veronika, in the blink of an eye, turned around and dashed at the tail.
“It doesn’t have to do a lot of damage… We just need to weaken it and then finish it.” Veronika didn’t trust the words that came out of this creature’s mouth. The monster dying over time could be a lie to drop their guard down.
The blade touched the tail and clanked as it couldn’t pierce the bone or even make a scratch on it for the wither to spread. Using its half-broken bone tentacles, the creature created a simple armor for its torso. The abomination was about to advance forward to get rid of Veronika, who seemed the most dangerous out of the three for the creature. Barely making a step forward, a sound of vibrating metal echoed for a second as a metal staff hit its face. Before it could even turn its head toward the attacker, it got hit on the other side of the face than a leg, torso, arm, and face again.
The creature was forced to take a step back every few attacks, being able to only block one in three swings. It wasn’t able to even lift a hand to attack Seweryn, but its eyes were constantly on Veronika. Whenever she wanted to join her companion on the offensive, the tail would try to strike her and block her path.
“I don’t seem much of a threat to it. While I may not be a dangerous opponent, I’ll be a hindrance.” Using only a single hand, his attacks slowed down, which almost gave the abomination space to attack Seweryn, if not for his quick thinking. He took out a knife and stabbed the creature's fist. As the blade sank into its flesh, the blade extended within its body, nearly to its elbow. The abomination's right fist loosened, and its fingers went numb.
As it stepped forward to push Seweryn away, a blade suddenly sank into its knee and extended downward half the length to the ankle. The tip of the blade slightly stuck out from its flesh. With those knives inside its flesh, Seweryn switched up to his broken spear, pummeling the abomination. From up close, he could hear its bones breaking from inside, the joints dislocating, and the creature fell to its single knee and looked the warrior straight in the eyes as it whispered “Gate… Open…”
A light appeared right between them, and it expanded, creating an explosion from up close. Seweryn didn’t have time to raise his guard or even try to move away. He suddenly felt light and moved backward as Veronika was pulling him with her Gate. Although it was too late, all she could do was to move him away from the center of the blast. Then the shockwave and heat reached him, knocking him away into the wall, his face covered in burns, his lips nearly turned into crisp.
Veronika was the only one remaining. Even with the wounds the creature had, she didn’t find it much to her advantage. This monster didn’t care about those knives inside it, nor about its upper body being attached to nearly half of the flesh it was supposed to.
“Shit… Those explosions are deadly… And it can make them so effortless. Does it have any limit?” Veronika slowly lifted her longsword, pointing it at the creature. “My blade slowly feels heavy. I don’t have much time left. I’ll have to push my body to the limit and slay it before I fall.”
Even though she was standing in place, the creature could tell that she was doing something. Her armor and sword were vibrating as she tried to take a good grasp of her power, limiting it to only herself. Taking similar measures that Kronel did before losing most of his strength.
Compared to Kronel, the creature could track her movement, and it didn’t seem like she teleported. Yet as she slid toward the abomination, it couldn’t react in time, and its jaw was split in half, the flesh turned black, and its teeth fell out.
She could feel her arms shaking, but that wasn’t the end. She could do more. Not wasting any time, she swung her blade again, standing so close to the abomination that it was harder to maneuver, which the monster was able to use. Its tail intercepted the attack, and the creature threw a devastating punch, bending the armor near the shoulder inward, nearly leaving an imprint of its fist. Veronika’s left shoulder was dislocated, and she could barely move as the crushed armor limited her movement.
“Even with one arm, I can lift my sword!” Veronika lifted the sword near her shoulder and, in revenge, pierced the creature’s shoulder, and the withering of flesh spread around the wound. Abomination’s left arm barely moved as only a few muscles were supporting it. Retracting the blade, she ignored the fist flying toward her and slashed from the bottom, carving through flesh and bone. The arm to the elbow hit the ground, not reaching its target.
Her arm went numb, barely feeling the sword she was grasping. Veronika’s breath was heavy and rapid, and her eyes turned pink. Blood flowed quickly all over her body with the help of an intensely beating heart.
Taking half a step back, Veronika screamed with her last breath, “Perish!” The blade stopped at the bony armor near the stomach, unable to cut through if not for her Gate. Pushing with her muscles and power, the bones broke into pieces, and the blade cut through with resistance, tearing the muscles and even the spine.
As the torso of the abomination hit the ground, Veronika’s legs gave up, falling to the level of the fallen creature. She was near collapsing, barely hanging onto her consciousness. As she looked up, she could see a dark figure looming over her. When she blinked, Veronika heard something akin to a lightning strike echoing from one wall to another, her whole body feeling the vibrations in the air. As she opened her eyes again, a man in heavy armor kneeled in front of her, one arm lightly touching her shoulder.
Even with a spinning head and constant ringing in her ears, she clearly understood the man’s words, “You did great, Veronika.”
“Grand Master…” She whispered before collapsing, the man quickly grabbed her head and gently placed her on the floor.
The man with long golden hair stood up and looked around at the damage. The walls and floors which crumbled under the explosion of the abomination’s power, pieces of flesh scattered all around the rubble, and right in the middle, scorched ground, stuck in it a war ax with a sun engraved into it. Smoke still lifted from the ground where his power burned the flesh of the fallen abomination.