Tremors rolled across the gravelled floor with its monstrous roar, and grey water flowed from its blade, raining down on me, but sadly not managing to clean the filth from my skin. I started crawling backwards while it was occupied, and caught a glimpse of its skin tightening and turning solid, its insides and blood too.
So, this is the effect of its grey field…
It didn’t seem like it was impervious to crushing attacks though, considering what my Helm-Splitter had done to its cranium. But, this information was useless, as even the effort of crawling away from its growing haze and spreading grey pool was taking everything out of me. My head was woozy, like when I’d fought the Samurai with the red-glowing sword, and I knew that its next strike would kill me.
Then, out of nowhere, Ginko was beside me, helping me up. In his free hand he had a flask of the golden liquid. Kōki he’d called it. I thought it was meant for me, but as soon as the haze cleared a bit and the dark silhouette within was visible, he tossed it in a wide arc, landing right before its feet and erupting in a magnificent shower of gold. The haze suddenly condensed, and the figure vanished from sight. The golden light disappeared as well, as if swallowed up by the fog.
“What did you do that for!?”
“Just give it a moment,” Ginko replied calmly.
So, we waited. And waited. And nothing happened.
“What exactly are we waiting for? Nothing’s happening,” I said, after two minutes of staring at the grey fog in silence.
“Exactly. It has stopped moving.”
“Oh…” I replied, somewhat embarrassed, realising that this was the expected result. The fact that the Horror hadn’t re-emerged from its cover meant that whatever he’d done had worked.
I let go of Ginko’s shoulder and steadied myself on my blade, digging it deep into the ground to ensure a solid footing. I pulled up my inventory screen and withdrew the ‘Diluted Weak Stamina Potion’, downing the contents of the flask in one swig. It had an extremely-earthy flavour, and its effect felt quite different from that of the healing potions, and although it was diluted, I felt its energy rush through my veins and clear my head. It didn’t do much for my broken ribs, countless bruises, and torn skin, but it was enough to keep me upright, which was more than I could really ask for at the moment.
Gathering my resolve, I pulled my sword from the earth and walked towards the dense cloud. A few seconds later, Ginko caught up to me. As we approached, the rain and light wind slowly dissipated the dense fog screen, revealing a dark-grey silhouette, which was soon exposed to the dim light of the cloud-covered sun. It was a disturbing visage to say the least. The Horror had been captured perfectly, down to every horrifying detail, as it stood immovable before us, locked in a statue prison. I was fairly sure it was dead, but I didn’t move any closer than where we stood. The grey puddle that had marked its haze-field, wherein its skin became like granite, was now a solid layer of concrete atop the gravel.
“What did you do?” I asked. I also wanted to yell, “Why didn’t you do that sooner?” but refrained.[1]
“After being able to study the Mushi that resided in the grey water, I realised that it was the Ishi-no-Uji, also known as Mibōjin-no-Ke.[2] It is a Mushi which seeks out those struck by grief, especially widows. It burrows itself into the scalp of its host and slowly devours their hair, replacing them with copies of itself, which are in fact larvae. As their hair is replaced, the host gradually turns to stone, eventually becoming completely petrified, at which time, the hair-like Mushi leave the host and seek out new ones to continue the cycle.”
“And how do you cure it?”
“I don’t think it’s possible, actually. I have heard of attempts to pull out the Mushi which burrows itself into the scalp, but no one has survived the procedure, and to make matters worse, the Mushi is invulnerable to fire and many other remedies that normally work on other Mushi.”
“So how exactly did you manage to defeat it?”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“By exploiting its petrifying ability. When fed with Kōki, Mushi tend to rapidly progress through their developmental Stages, which means that even though the host was able to manipulate the Mushi somehow, he couldn’t keep it under control when I tossed the Kōki at him.”
“I see.” I didn’t, or well not entirely. It all went a bit over my head, truth be told.
“What I find to be disturbing though, is that the Mibōjin-no-Ke seem to reside within that sword,” he said, gesturing towards the mirror-bladed Uchigatana still in the grip of its petrified wielder.
“Do you know how to exorcise it? Or pull those things out from it?”
“No.”
“Great.”
As the last remnants of the fog vanished, a glowing wisp suddenly burst into life around the blade and hovered in the air, indicating that I could pick it up. A cold sweat ran across my body. For a split second, I actually contemplated what it would be like to wield this weapon. I mean, if it could give me the Stoneskin as an ability, I would become unbeatable. Well, unbeatable unless someone had a blunt weapon or abilities that did crushing damage like my Helm-Splitter.
“What are you doing?” Ginko asked, as I took a step towards the petrified Monstrosity. “I don’t think you should touch that…”
Ignoring his advice,[3] I stuck my hand inside the wisp, and a tooltip appeared.
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‘The Weeping Blade’
-Melee Weapon-
Sword > Two-handed > Katana
“The Widow plunged her husband’s sword deep into her gut and cursed the name of the White Tiger. As her life ebbed away into the blade, a mournful weeping could be heard across the region. It is said that ever since that day, all the white lotus flowers in the country have wilted and withered.”
Trait(s):
‘Cursed’
‘Haunted Dead’
‘Pact’
‘Unbreakable’
Equip
Discard
Weight: 1.4 kilos
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I looked at its four traits: ‘Cursed’, ‘Haunted Dead’, ‘Pact’, and ‘Unbreakable’. I’d seen the ‘Pact’ trait on the first cursed blade I’d encountered, and ‘Unbreakable’ was self-explanatory, however, the ‘Cursed’ and ‘Haunted Dead’ piqued my interest. The first one stated, “Wielding this blade lowers maximum health and stamina.” The latter read, “Those slain by this blade cannot find rest and will haunt the places they died.” It seemed that in this particular instance, the reduction of health and stamina was meant to counter the sword’s strengths, similar to how the ‘Heavy’ trait on ‘The Claw of the Forlorn Shadow’ had been an obvious weakness.
As for the other trait, I wondered what its implications were for players killed by it. Would they be unable to reset back to the first World, or was there perhaps a time limit on it? I honestly couldn’t tell what it did, as I saw nothing out of the ordinary with the monks that the Monster had slain. You know, aside from the fact that they all had the same kind of frozen expression of horror on their faces… The item art showed the sword itself, the mirror-polished blade, dark grey scabbard and handle, the white lotus emblem, and the red string tied around the handle just below the crossguard.
When I read the flavour text, it confirmed what Ginko had told me, that the Mushi were attracted to widows in particular, and it seemed to confirm something about the thing possessing the blade having a relation to the White Tiger clan, and, now that I thought about it, the sword was likely of their design, meaning her husband had been one of the clan’s soldiers, though I had no idea why she would be cursing the clan for her husband’s death. The mention of the lotus flower was also interesting, as that was one of the few flowers I hadn’t encountered throughout the super-blooming forests and gardens.
When I’d finished reading, I grabbed the handle, but struggled trying to wrestle it from the statue’s frozen grip. I ended up snapping off two fingers before I was able to pull it free. Thankfully, the Monster was completely dead at this point.
I made it all of two steps towards the exit, when I realised something. The music hadn’t stopped, and, as if on cue, the entire area was blanketed in fog, so thick that I could barely see the ground.
“What’s happening?” Ginko yelled from somewhere a few metres ahead of me.
In response, a screeching female voice cleft the air with its high-pitched tone. “WILL YOU BE MY VESSEL? THEY MUST ALL DIE! MY POWER IS YOURS IF YOU FINISH WHAT I COULD NOT!”
My ears were ringing from the pure volume of it, and I felt a presence just behind me somewhere, though there was nothing when I turned around, but, even if there had been, I likely wouldn’t have seen it through the fog.
“I won’t be your puppet,” I told the spirit.
“NO!” it yelled, the sound dragging out until it lost the last shred of its human quality, becoming more like the roar of the Monster I’d already fought. The blade flew from my grip off to somewhere deeper in the fog.
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[1] I know, it surprised me too.
[2] 石の蛆, “Stone worm/maggot/larvae”; and, 未亡人の毛, “Widow’s Hair”. Both had an unpleasant ring to them.
[3] Shocking, I know.