A disturbing scream sounded from a nearby room, making the floor tremble beneath me. I didn’t want to go in there, but I lost the chance to flee as the severed head of a bald monk was thrown through the paper-screen door. A second later, the tip of a blade emerged through the undamaged panel next to the hole the head had made on its way out and in three swift cuts the entire sliding door fell to pieces.

The sight of what emerged from within made my stomach fold and the acrid taste of bile flooded my throat. The figure was grotesquely bent out of shape, as though the bones had changed shape and size, resulting in an asymmetrical monstrosity that might once have been one of the temple monks. The remains of a white and black robe hung in tatters about the body, leaving the misshapen torso exposed, but covering the not-so-family-friendly bits below the waist.[1] Ribs poked the skin to the point of almost piercing, and the breast area was oddly misshapen, as though the monk’s body had tried to transform into that of a woman’s. Long black hair fell from its head, likely not belonging to the monk, who should’ve been bald, and its face was… unpleasant, to say the least. The eyes were hollow, totally obscured by darkness, with only a tiny spec of a reflection in them. The jaw seemed intent on leaving the body altogether and flopped pointlessly around below the head, with only skin and a few remaining muscle fibres keeping it attached. The teeth were of seemingly random length, but all shaped like a carnivore’s and with several rows like those of a shark. Its skin seemed to slump about the body in places, but were taut as the hide on a drum in other areas, and had the off-putting texture of some lemon-and-pineapple crossbreed. When it laid its eyes on me, my whole body froze. Its head titled from side-to-side, assessing me, while the lower jaw wobbled around below the head with a mind of its own.

A strange guttural stuttering emerged from its throat, and a long whip-like tongue emerged briefly to swipe through the air, as though tasting my scent and my fear.

I then noticed what it held in its right hand, which scraped along the floor as it took a couple steps towards me with its malformed feet. The blade was like a mirror, polished to a perfect gleam, reflecting mostly just the darkness of the room, though I briefly caught my own image, my pale skin and the twinkle of amber light in my chestnut-brown eyes. The rest of the Uchigatana, which the Horror held firmly in its grip, was fairly standard, with the most notable aspects being the grey colour scheme and white lotus flower insignia, as well as the red string that fell from just below the crossguard.

It took another step forward, and I snapped back to reality, pushing aside the dread just long enough to fire off my Quick Draw, slicing the Horror along its chest and upper arm, but failing to even split the skin, leaving only a groove in its granite-like epidermis.

Tremors shook the temple to its very foundations with the scream that erupted from its lungs, and I hurried past it and into the room from which it’d emerged, before it could reach me. My toes hooked on the arm of a body just beyond the threshold and I tripped onto the slick floor, coating myself in a wet layer of blood, grey water, and various bodily ejections.[2]

What my Sight revealed in that clammy darkness, was seriously fucked-up… Bodies were everywhere. I mean, literally everywhere. Some were pinned to the walls, some just tossed to the floor like broken toys, and a few even hanging from ceiling on meat hooks or ropes. The most disturbing part, besides the bloody pedestal in one end of the room, which seemed to have been the resting place of the sword until just minutes ago, was the fact that the majority of the bodies were in various states of decay, dating back several days and possibly even weeks. The corpses shared two commonalities: they had been exsanguinated, looking like used-up juice boxes, just with a few more meaty bits; and were similar in build to the malnourished townsfolk, trapped within the walled-off town just beyond the temple complex.

I doubted Ginko would still hold a grudge against me for killing the monks when he saw this… The monks had created the monstrosity in the blade. They had fed it with the bodies of the poor and weak. It was almost poetic that their monster had turned on them in turn. Almost… except for the tiny fact that not a shred of human intelligence remained within its black eyes. Only a bottomless hunger shone through, and now that it had finished examining me, it was ready to finally pounce.

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The Horror made a crazy leap, which covered the distance from the door to the other end of the room where I was standing and left a long, perfect groove in the tatami floor and wooden wall right where I’d been seconds earlier. I came up behind it after finishing my panicked dodgeroll and stabbed it in the back. My blade only chipped the surface slightly and the moment’s hesitation that followed, allowed the Monster to score a hit on my armoured stomach with its blade. The impact sent me flying across the room, and I only stopped when I reached the wall, my body slamming hard enough against it to break a few of my ribs and shattering the wood behind me. Without my cuirass, my body would’ve been cut in two, and even my armour, which had weathered blow-after-blow, now had an alarming channel across the lower chest area.

I hurried to my feet and, just as the Horror leapt for me again, turned away from it and jumped out the second-storey window, as though mimicking the flying corpse we’d seen earlier.

The landing on the gravel outside was murder on my knees and made my pained ribcage feel ten times worse. To my dismay, the tactic only prolonged my impending doom by about fifteen seconds, as the Thing quickly followed behind me, taking the entire window frame with it.

The ground caved slightly under its feet as it landed, making me think it was a lot heavier than it should’ve been, which probably also explained its incredibly strength. Instead of immediately leaping for me again, it paused to perform a loud weeping sound, which was utterly distorted by its alien vocal cords. In response to the sound, the mirror-like blade of its weapon began crying, sending forth big globules of the grey water, which soaked into the ground and spread the unnatural haze with it, completely altering the texture of the gravel beneath it, and partially obscuring the Monster.

“It’s producing more of the Mushi!” Ginko suddenly warned, but I had no idea what he meant. I just knew I had to stop it, so I charged into the fog, praying my Sight would light the way. However, it wasn’t dark enough to activate, which left me with a massive disadvantage. Nonetheless, I pushed on until I reached the grotesque silhouette at the centre of the haze.

I only barely managed to sidestep a reactionary strike, but turned the Monster’s overextension into an opportunity for me to exploit by following up my sidestep with a partially-charged Quick Draw into a Lacerate. There followed three distinct sounds of metal-on-stone and though I couldn’t see where my attacks landed, it was clear none of them had done much damage. I swivelled around the Horror just as I heard the mirror-like blade whip through the air towards me, and then I hammered my Helm-Splitter down against what I assumed was the back of its head. Instead of the sound of metal-on-stone again, I heard a satisfying crunch, followed by a screech and a backwards kick to my stomach that sent me flying out of the haze-covered grey field. I tumbled across the gravel, ripping and tearing skin and leather armour in the process, and reaffirming the fact that, yes, my ribs were indeed quite broken. Another screech and it leapt from its haze cover, clearing the distance between us in a single bound and slamming the mirror blade against my cuirass before I could move away, pinning me to the ground. I felt an alarming give in my otherwise-impenetrable ‘Blacksteel Cuirass’ and the kinetic force squished my chest and probably broke a few more ribs, not that it really mattered at this point, because I was fairly sure this was the end.

I looked up at my doom. The Monstrosity’s previously-malformed head was now a complete and utter mess following my successful strike to the back of its skull. I could’ve sworn that it grinned at me as it lifted its mirror blade again. From my prone position I pointlessly stabbed my blade at its gut as a last futile retort before that mirror edge fell upon my chest, cleaving my armour and, more importantly me, in two. The tip of my katana hit its impenetrable hide and I felt a surprising give, as it dug itself into its flesh. I immediately cast forth my Lacerate, feeling the last embers of my stamina whisk out and disappear with it. My blade pulled itself through the Monster’s stomach forcefully, no longer obstructed by granite skin, and spilled its vile blood and intestines all over me. The stench was foul, gag-inducing, and eye-watering.[3] Worse yet, it was still alive…

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[1] And thank God for that. I didn’t want to have that image burnt onto my corneas for the rest of my life…

[2] Don’t ask.

[3] Imagine the smell of a sun-baked, bloated corpse, which on its third week of being exposed to the elements, suddenly erupted and cast its scent to the air. Now imagine that you happened to be in the range of the splatter, and you might begin to understand what I was experiencing.