Nyxala didn’t really have a plan of action beyond follow the Fleshsmiths to their peripheral Island. She would take their isolation as an opportunity to cull them. More than that… her ideas were only inklings. And they would stay as such until she had an idea of what she was dealing with.
For now, she wanted to find a way to slip inside the expendable ritual site. Normally, she wouldn’t dare. Under typical conditions, cultists below seventh creed wouldn’t be allowed near it. But Lysyra had discovered Fleshsmiths as low as third had been invited. Or, ordered.
It went to show just how strained the cult had become.
Nyxala would love to take the full credit for the Fleshsmiths’ current predicament, but it was more likely the strain of being dragged into the messiest parts of the war by the Scriptures. Their willingness to actually follow the pinnacle cult was strange. So much so, that Nyxala was hardly the only one on Coral that had to wonder what leverage Zoaul held over Solan.
So, considering most of the Fleshsmiths heavy hitters were deeply entrenched in the war against the Bodytwisters, the task to enact whatever unreasonably dangerous ritual Zandisth was attempting fell on the lesser creeds. And of course, that meant a whole lot more of them.
Under typical conditions, Nyxala wouldn’t have dared jump inside such a well guarded place. But these weren’t typical conditions. This was an opportunity she couldn’t overlook.
She would rush there right now, flying below the belly of Coral if it allowed her to eliminate another significant chunk of the Fleshsmiths. But the cult wasn’t rushing, so neither would she. A ritual that required one of the peripheral Islands was not something that would be completed in a day, and the cult would want to command full control over the area surrounding the bridge before they all passed.
How horrible it would be if someone were to destroy the bridge.
Nyxala loved to imagine doing that herself, but the cultists who designed the bridges that held the Islands to Coral weren’t stupid. Eliminating dozens of high creeds in one swoop… or simply stopping what could be a threatening ritual was an opportunity many cults would take. Damned be the consequences of the Treaty. The bridges would not be simple to destroy, even if they were explicitly designed to sever in the worst case scenario.
Metal scraped against metal, and the intense buzz of the chainsaw drowned the tunnel in noise.
The thrum of vibration rolled up her tail, through her spine, and filled her chest. She relished the sensation. It grasped her restlessness and urged her to move. To leap forward and let her body move the way it was intended. Nyxala barely held herself back.
While the Fleshsmiths wasted their time being careful, she was going to use hers to finally begin the task she’d set herself when the war had begun.
Nyxala was going to slaughter some cultists.
She leaned forward. Claws scraped at the grated metal, leaving deep scratches from her casual grip. The slime of her feet stretched out like roots, clinging to, and sinking beneath the spaces between the steel weave. She ignored the metallic taste, and focused on the way her feet almost dripped into the cavity below. None of the liquid left her, but lacking an entirely full surface to lean on, her slime dribbled below.
The two heavy boots were strapped to the sides of her tail with the new harness, hidden beneath her cloak. Not that she needed bother; Nyxala doubted any would actually see her.
With so much extra weight behind her tail, this stance seemed to give her the best balance. Bestial, it may be, but whatever worked. Many of her mutations could already be considered animalistic, and she was hardly reluctant to embrace that fact if it made her a better predator.
Her claws dug into metal. The sludge of her feet gripped the floor infinitely better than the stiff boots could have with a similar angle of her leg. Using her hands like a quadruped might diminish her ability to pincer her foes, but she had so many more weapons to use. The stance brought her head further forward, carrying with it a deadly maw of teeth and frightening acid. Beyond that, her tentacles swayed by her sides, rapiers held in each. Even Shy was out, gripping a blade of its own.
As Nyxala crouched lower, all five eyes staring ravenously down the corridor, she felt O̅s̫stho̲th all but swoon with the new approach. In the past days, she’d felt its satisfaction at all the recent mutations. It wasn’t a solid feeling, nor did she gain anything for satisfying some arbitrary conditions. The sensation was much like hearing the muffled purr of a beast through a thick wall. Her name was responding to her mutations… she just wasn’t sure how.
Thoughts of the name’s indecipherable nature were tucked away even as it rewarded her unfamiliar orientation with a powerful boost as she prepared for the fight to come.
Coiled in Cuddly’s base — the tentacle always found a way to be clingy, even when already wielding its own rapier — was her sceptre. The golden, curved tip held tight to her back glowed brightly with little more than a mental nudge. In an instant, the corridor was flooded with light.
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No doubt her targets had seen it, but that hardly mattered. Subtlety was unnecessary.
Nyxala leaned forward, tensing her legs and wings even as Tsal̺air̡ did its job. The thickened darkness that manifested in the wake of the sceptre’s light swirled around her, covering her in a dense storm of black.
Fleshsmiths and their peripheral Island were Nyxala’s targets, but she still had a warzone to cross to reach them. It wasn’t their chokepoint she had to pass. Rather, the Bodytwisters owned the fleshy obstruction that was in her way.
A checkpoint in contested grounds. Nyxala had to pass one to reach the Island, and Lysyra had guided her to this passage.
The moment she was satisfied by the dark, swirling cover, Nyxala pounced.
Her wings crashed into void with all the power accumulated by the unpredictable rhythm of her heart combined with a more aggressive than ever angle of attack. She shot through the corridor much like a spear. Head forward and straight. Each tentacle snapped back; the blades slipping in parallel with her tail to keep her form factor thin. Even her arms and legs held in close, allowing only the smallest movements of her wings and tail to guide her through the twisting, corrupted tunnel to the Bodytwister blockade.
The instant she came into sight of the blocked off eight-way crossroads, a flicker of doubt crossed Nyxala’s mind. What if Lysyra’s information was wrong? Maybe there was a high creed amongst the three dozen Bodytwisters just waiting to strike her down the moment she came close.
Her doubt lasted barely an instant. Nyxala crushed it under the weight of hunger.
It was… more than a little concerning that the moment she saw the cultists blocking off the road, it was her stomach that demanded their heads the most. One time. She’d eaten human flesh one time; it was not going to become a habit. She was not going to become cannibalistic.
No matter how delicious raw human flesh had tasted.
Nyxala struck the sentries like an asteroid. The two watching her narrow passage didn’t have the time to realise the light shrouded in blackness was coming towards them until one had her throat torn out, and the other was beheaded.
Swallowing, Nyxala let out a slight moan of appreciation.
Fuck, she swore to herself. That resolution didn’t last long.
The crossroads was entirely infested with Otherflesh. It was anything but expertly carved. The masses of unsuited muscle were grown with no purpose other than to make traversal inconvenient for those that weren’t familiar with the temporary fortress’ layout, and to halt rapid movement. Both of which worked against Nyxala.
Going off memory, she snaked around a jutting bone, up a wet eusophagus, and hugged the metallic wall until she reached the next sentry point. Lysyra had told her where to go, but she had still been forced to slow down more than she’d liked. These Bodytwisters had the time to shout and raise the alarm. Though, that was all they could do before they, too, lost their lives.
With three huddled together and slow to rise from their flesh-raised seats, Nyxala was all too giddy to finally try her chainsaw. She ducked her head, her wings angled her to the side before snapping high and low, forcing a pivot. Nyxala’s tail didn’t quite strike like a whip — the weight imbalance rearing its head — but what she lost in speed, the chainsaw made up for in sheer destructive, shredding power.
There was a wet squelch as it cut through the stomach of the first. Almost underwhelming, if not for the splatter of blood that rained down over both Nyxala and the man’s colleagues. Then it hit his spine, and the vile crunch of bone tingled her ear tendrils.
The man fell. Screaming but not dead, despite being bisected. Her chainsaw flung tiny shards of spine across the room as it continued to its next target. Depending on perspective, she was even less lucky. The chainsaw struck her side as she was turning. Her ribs posed no resistance at all, and the long blades of the saw chomped through bone like they were toothpicks. The crackle of snapping bones only grew more intense as Nyxala’s new weapon made its way through all of the woman’s ribcage. Spine included.
The third of the group had seen her coming. Well, it gave him time to raise his arms in a weak effort to defend himself, but not much more. The saw chewed through both of his arms before Nyxala’s arc pulled it away from him before any fatal wound. Still, he lost both arms; he wouldn’t be a threat.
Not that he would have been a threat anyway. None of the cultists she’d faced so far had been over their fourth evolution. Most were second or third. Second or third creeds alone must mean this was a disposable military checkpoint for the Bodytwisters.
Either that, or her sensibilities had warped.
Nyxala uncurled herself to land on hands and feet. She had to give credit to her slime; it was really good at halting her momentum, even at awkward angles.
The last two immediately backed off. As one, they pulled back the sleeves of their arms to reveal identical stitches. In near perfect sync, the two pushed their fingers into the stitches and pulled—
Nxyala didn’t give them the chance. Whatever they had been attempting, Pushy and Curious put a stop to it by drilling rapiers through their skulls in similar synchronicity. Perfectly between the eyes.
For a brief instant, Nyxala took in the brutality of her kills. The chainsaw was anything but clean in its cuts. It dug into flesh and peeled it from bone. There were more scraps of flesh on the ground then there was blood. Though… that might be because the blood was already clinging to her waist.
“Hey, try not to let yourself be seen moving towards me.”
She settled for the subdued nod from the blob of blood. Or… at least what she assumed was a nod. Hard to tell when it didn’t take on a humanoid form and instead clung to her.
Nyxala moved deeper into the redoubt. There were still six sentry positions to reach, and she doubted she was going to remember the directions for any beyond this next one.
“What the fuck is that?”
Though, that didn’t seem like something she needed to worry about anymore. It seemed the others had heard the screams and spread the alarm. Her bright, yet shrouded form came face to face with the rest of the cultists blockading this crossroads. All twenty of them. And there was more still falling in to join the defence.
One man stepped forward. His soul was at the sixth evolution. Possibly even nearing his seventh. Much higher than all the other cultists around. Strangely enough, he was only fourth creed, going by the marks on his hood. A deception? Maybe just not that dedicated to the cult… or his creed was lowered as punishment?
His eyes skirted around her swirling cloud of darkness, unable to parse anything about it. His brows were furrowed, and he watched her with as much wariness as any other cultist in this enclosed fort of flesh. They all waited for him to move.
“Time to show your loyalty to the cult,” he announced with a haughty tone. “First creeds attack. Give me valuable information to work with, and you’ll be well rewarded.”
Ah. He was just incompetent.