Talia ducked under the sweeping sword strike, then leaped high into the air in order to avoid another. She landed in a roll that took her just out of reach of a descending axe. However, she could do nothing to avoid the stabbing spear from the fourth armored foe. It took her in the shoulder, lancing through flesh and bone before erupting out the other side in a shower of pale flesh.
“Undead filth!” cried the man. His armor was clearly high-quality, though the once shiny surface had been marred by dirt and quite a few dents. There was even a crack in the breastplate. The other men were even worse off, with each one wearing damaged armor and bearing visible scars. But their weapons proved viable enough, and they were certainly high enough level to kill her.
If she hadn’t already been injured, they never would have stood a chance, though. Or if their group had even one less member. Yet, that was the hand she had been dealt, and there was no point in lamenting the unfairness of it all. Especially considering that, only a few dozen feet away, Zeke still lay unconscious in the wagon she’d been pulling. He was defenseless, which meant that she couldn’t afford to allow herself to be defeated.
So, with that in mind, she yanked herself free of the spear, taking quite a bit of her shoulder with her, then used [Flood of Death], sending a beam of pure rot to hit him in the exposed face. The effect was immediate, as great, black tendrils of decay spread across his visage, down his neck, and beneath his breastplate. A second later, he let out a gurgling scream as his skin began to slough off.
Talia didn’t worry about him very much after that. Instead, she turned her attention to the other former Knights of Adontis. Using [Calcification], her claws grew to a length of almost a foot, and she threw herself forward with all the speed she could muster. And given that she was using [Inevitability] as well as [Unliving Speed], she could bring quite a bit of speed to bear on the battle.
She raced forward, and less than an instant later, her claws clanged off of a breastplate. The Knight tried to respond, but his counterattack came far too slow, and his blade bit deep into the turf. Talia was already gone, though, raking her claws across the unprotected hamstrings of the axe-wielding Knight. He let out a cry of pain as the backs of his legs were shredded. More, Talia’s other skills, [Frigid Claws] and [Plague Strike] inflicted their effects on the bearded man, slowing him while also infecting him with a lesser rot.
He stumbled, but he didn’t fall. The Knights had clearly fallen on hard times, but that didn’t mean they’d lost their levels – or more importantly, their stats. So, they could stand up to quite a lot of damage.
That was fine, though.
Talia was nothing if not persistent, and even injured, she could run circles around the much slower Knights. For the next few moments, she proved that that was the case, darting between them with impunity. At first, it wasn’t difficult to keep them off guard, but after that initial burst of activity, her own injuries began to make themselves known. As a result, Talia very nearly had her head cleaved from her body. She only avoided it by ducking at the very last second, but still, the intended decapitation sliced a bit of her skull free.
She responded by ramming her claws into the man’s neck and ripping his trachea free. However, that opened her up for reprisal from his companions, and Talia took another couple of injuries – one to her shoulder and another to her bad leg. That slowed her further, but by virtue of being one of the undead, she had an extraordinary tolerance for pain. More than that, though, she was committed in a way most people couldn’t understand.
She used those traits to spur her on, diving out of the way of another attack, then dipping low to rip through a second Knight’s ankle. The tendon severed, and when he tried to pivot, his leg collapsed beneath him. Talia took that opportunity and pounced on his chest. He struggled, but as immobilized as he was, he had few defenses against her claws.
She struck three times in quick succession, eviscerating every bit of exposed flesh she could find. That meant his face and neck were torn to shreds, sending splatters of blood everywhere. But the man still didn’t die.
Not until Talia sensed another attack coming her way. She sprang backward, flipping in mid-air as she avoided the knight’s axe. It hit the man’s wounded companion in the chest, cleaving through his breastplate and into all sorts of necessary organs. The prone Knight died with a gurgle.
His stunned ally fell a moment later when Talia threw another beam of rot at him. It hit the man in the back, rusting his breastplate in seconds before boring through the compromised metal and into his vulnerable flesh. He fell atop his slain companion, where he writhed in agony.
That left only one man standing.
Talia turned on him. He smirked at her. “Fiend. You will pay for that. You will all pay. The beasts and that metal man over there. Don’t think I don’t know who he is,” the Knight spat. “He is the leader. The one who slew Lord Adontis. When I kill him, I will be hailed as a –”
His tirade was cut off by Talia’s sweeping claws that ripped his throat out.
“You talk too much when you should be fighting,” she rasped as she grabbed him by the breastplate. The man tried to continue the battle, weakly flailing his sword at her. But there was no strength to it. Talia ignored his efforts, instead reaching out to slice through the leather straps that held the breastplate in place. Then, she ripped it away, exposing the Knight’s chest.
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His shirt was already soaked through with blood from his throat wound, which was severe enough that he should have known he was dying. Yet, his eyes widened as he gurgled, “W-what are you doing?”
Talia had no idea how his vocal cords had remained intact. Nor did she particularly care. So long as he didn’t have some hidden healing ability, he wasn’t long for the world. Even if he did have some miracle up his sleeve, he would soon die. To highlight that, Talia cocked her arm back, then plunged her claws deep into his chest. They snagged on his ribcage, but Talia persisted, stabbing again and again until she broke through.
Eventually, she managed, but by that point, the Knight had succumbed to his fate. It was no matter, though. What she wanted – needed, really – was already at hand. For the final time, she thrust her hand into his chest and wrapped her fingers around the Knight’s heart. Then, she yanked it free.
For a moment, she stared at the blood-coated knot of muscle. In the past, her stomach might have roiled at the thought of what she was about to do. It was why she had come to prefer heartsblood elixirs. However, she’d begun to come to terms with her own nature, and as such, she didn’t find the necessity of the act nearly as distasteful as she once might have.
After another few seconds, she brought the heart to her mouth, then bit into it. Immediately, she felt a flood of foreign vitality. Talia had no idea why the heart contained so much life energy, but it was practically made of the stuff. She took another bite, receiving another wave of vitality. Then another. A few more massive bites, and she’d consumed the whole thing.
That’s when she activated her skill, [Focused Reformation]. In seconds, her body knitted itself back together. Bones mended. Wounds sealed. Weariness she hadn’t even acknowledged melted away.
But she focused on the emotions.
The fear.
The disgust.
The sheer hatred flowing through her mind.
Until that moment, she had considered the implications of everything that had happened through the haze of her muted emotions. But now, that obscuring fog had been stripped away, laying everything bare. She dropped to the ground, overwhelmed by the sheer scope of what she had seen.
Millions of people had died. Most had fallen under the necromancers’ sway, but quite a few more had perished because of Zeke’s actions. He’d destroyed Darukar, and the Pillar of Life with it. That powerful dungeon had been responsible for the entire kingdom’s death-attuned nature, and without it, the region had been flooded with vitality, which was like poison to the undead. On top of that, they’d suffocated – in a metaphysical sense – due to the lack of death-attuned mana.
It was a horrible way to go.
Over the past week – as Talia had traversed the Kingdom of El’kireth – she had seen countless undead villages and towns. Every single one of them played host to nothing but the truly dead. Only due to her muted emotions had she been capable of keeping going, but now?
She was like an exposed nerve.
More, she couldn’t fathom the reason behind it all. Certainly, she understood the actions of individuals. People like Micayne craved power more than anything else, and they were willing to sacrifice everything to attain it. And Zeke had done what he’d had to do, using that terrible skill to eradicate the mass of zombies and flesh giants that would have swept across the world, killing everyone in its path.
She knew those things. And yet, that knowledge was no comfort. If there were gods up there in the higher planes – and the presence of the Framework suggested that there were – then why would they have allowed so much death, destruction, and tragedy? The entire system seemed hellbent on pitting everyone against one another, and all in the pursuit of more power. It was so senseless.
She knelt there amidst the dead bodies of her enemies, and she wept for the injustice of it all. But then, her sadness turned to anger. And that anger became purpose. She wasn’t satisfied with the state of the world. Once, she’d trained to be a healer, but that ship had long since sailed. That was no longer her nature. However, what remained was a drive to fix things. So, while she could no longer repair people, she could work toward figuring out why the world had to be the way it was, and if she wasn’t satisfied with the answer, she would change it.
But to do that, she needed to play the game. She had to grow much, much stronger if she ever wished to challenge gods. And she could not do it alone.
Her gaze flicked toward Zeke. Not only was he her friend, but he was also the key. He had more power than her. More potential. And even more importantly, he was equipped with a similar sense of justice. He was the key to everything. As he went, so would she.
But first, she needed to complete her journey across enemy territory. Now that she was healthy, it would be much easier. However, the presence of the dregs of the Knights of Adontis would complicate things. Clearly, the conquered territory wasn’t nearly as under control as Zeke had thought.
Regardless, her task remained the same, and she once again took up her position at the head of the wagon, and trudged forward. Fortunately, the country had been fairly well-developed, so she’d found a road early on. She followed that, trying to remember the maps she had seen.
Along the way, Talia saw plenty of evidence of strife. A couple of villages had been completely razed, and though she wasn’t entirely sure who the culprit was, the Knights of Adontis seemed to be likely perpetrators. Talia only paused briefly to investigate, though. Her goal wasn’t to fight a war, after all. Instead, she had a singular task – get Zeke back to the tower so he could heal. Only then could they focus on everything else.
On and on she went, and on more than one occasion, she was forced to fight. None of those battles were nearly as harrowing as the first clash with the Knights, but she couldn’t completely dismiss them either. So, as she traveled, she left a trail of blood and corpses in her wake.
It was unavoidable.
And yet, it was a grim reminder of her previous vow to discover the reason the Framework seemed so focused on fostering conflict. It could have just as easily rewarded crafting. Or diplomacy. Friendship or art. But it gave them skills focused on killing.
Certainly, there were people with supposedly non-combat classes. Crafters were the most prominent, but she’d seen a few entertainers back in Darukar as well. There were healers and administrators, too. But the vast majority of the world’s skills were focused on combat. That was a pretty good indicator of the Framework’s intent, at least as far as Talia was concerned.
Regardless, after three more weeks, during which she was forced to fight dozens of small battles, Talia reached the labyrinth. She’d hoped to find kobolds manning the fort guarding the entrance, but it was entirely abandoned.
That didn’t matter, though.
Talia knew where to find the tower, so while it would have been nice to find some allies, she wouldn’t be deterred by the lack. Without a single backward glance, she trudged forward, dragging Zeke into the labyrinth.