Balton’s lungs struggled hard to gather oxygen. He fell to the ground, too exhausted to even breathe.
I don’t know what the hell that was, but it cost me too much to bring him down… I can’t feel anything anymore. He thought.
Another pirate rushed Balton, wielding an old sword. “You’ve earned this award for gettin’ in the way, greedy rat!” He came down with his rusty blade, digging it into Balton’s already cindered leg. Agonizing screams from the Bullet Blitz spread across Vitality, but was quickly drowned by the overwhelming chaos.
“Yeaah!” the sea swordsman taunted, driving the tarnished blade deeper, “Yell ye damn dirty dog! Scream for me more! Scream more, bit-” A colossal hand grabbed the pirate’s neck and crushed it like a tin can. The pirate was held up from his spinal cord like a slewed chicken before being tossed aside.
“You ran off so boldly, I did not expect to find you like this,” Zaltanya lifted the broken Bullet, “doesn’t matter, we don’t have the time for weeping now. Zaltanya sprinted back to central, bulldozing and crushing unsuspecting raiders with her deadly strides along the way.
“Jawn, get some rum, Balton needs it on his leg…” Central had six other Keepers inside, devastated by gashes.
“We’re running low on it, as you could probably guess…”
“Where’s Zolton?”
“Who?”
“The baby, where is he?”
“Oh, I put him over there,” Jawn pointed to a bed far away, “As people started coming back in… I don’t think he needs to see all this.”
Zaltanya rested Balton next to the infant, his leg running a mix of green and red. Jawn’s eyes followed Balton as he was lowered, locked back to Zaltanya, and then rolled with an annoyed sigh.
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“I’ll try to get to him quickly, Zaltanya,” Jawn consoled as poured the rest of a nearly empty bottle onto a soldier's wounds, “But I’m not sure if-”
“He’s not any more special than the rest,” Zaltanya barged, “their lives are just as important as his, get to Balton after you’re done with those who came before him.” Zaltanya charged back into the mayhem.
“There’s still a lot of ships, but they don’t seem to be populated…” Zaltanya muttered to herself, ”That can either be a good thing or a bad omen.”
The Berserker slowed down as she recharged and analyzed the area for a longer time as the Sun's receding light made it more difficult for a swift scan. The once clear land was now coated in puddles and fragments of magic, blades of the Raid, and components of the body. Her eyes turned to a single pirate in the distance upon a higher elevation of Vitality.
He seems hesitant. Understandably so.
The pirate put his hands up in the air and began moving himself to her. Zaltanya tensed up with distrust, but continued forward. The man walked forward for a few seconds longer, before lowering one arm. Zaltanya stops walking and becomes defensive. The walking pirate stops moving and they have a stare down.
"Hi!" the pirate shouts, waving his raised arm.
Zaltanya stays silent and defensive, raising a brow. He waves his arm once more and as he
allows his hand to be lazy, a slab of rock juts from the ground and launches him forward. Zaltanya attempts to dodge, but fails to move quickly enough and is shot skyward by jet black, skeletal arms as a massive black skull follows. The skull shrieks with such shattering force that Zaltanya's ears begin bleeding, her skin gets thinner and thinner before turning pale as bone. The Berserker's blood is ejected through her back by the screaming and rains down like a crimson shower adding a new flavor to Vitality's vegetation. She desperately tries to pry the Shadowbone arms apart, but ever-growing feebleness shuts down power in her arms. Her mind begins to weaken as the air becomes thin and her body goes cold. Her body becomes so empty that its pigment is now comparable to that of a cloud's, her eyes shift gray, and she begins to end her skyward journey. Despite Zaltanya's fading mind, she mustered just enough strength for final thoughts: her lover, her newborn, and a powerful seafarer. The shrieking shadow skull goes silent, shutting its shambling skull and fades into nothingness with its arms soon following suit. The Berserker Blood falls through cloud after cloud until they become scarce and Vitality grows closer, rapidly. At last, Zaltanya the Berserker Blood finally returned to land, concluding her journey with a big crunch.