Chapter Forty-Seven

Ambrose threw Rudy bodily to the side, willing one of the ghostly chains writhing with black flame to wrap around him as he did. He cursed as the skill immobilized him. Rudy cursed, struggling against the skills' effects to no avail. Ambrose regarded the steely-eyed woman with a kindling fire beginning to blaze in his chest.

“I’m going to burn this entire place to the ground. After I kill you.”

Ambrose’s green eye blazed as he [Recalled] his axe in a flash of fire and explosive sound. Annie snorted and, from seemingly nowhere, produced a small rotund potion bottle filled with yellow liquid. She downed it; Ambrose widened his eyes. The woman began to bulge, body rippling, morphing in grotesque jerks.

He didn’t watch the show finish. He merely willed the ghostly chains of [Sanctuary] forward. Only to have them snatched out of the air by Annie’s twitching hand. She gripped the chains, the tendons and muscles of her hand standing out against her skin as if they were going to burst forth from it any moment.

She had turned into a monstrosity, all inhumanly large muscles and power. It was like she had transformed into some flesh ogre. Ambrose used [Insight] on her, and his eye-patch flared.

[Annie Hyde- Level 125- Earth's Third Forerunner]: Four forerunners are chosen on each world to integrate into the System early, giving them a head start and a potent skill. Forerunners were expected to build settlements and lead their world anew once integrated into the System.]

Annie yanked on the chains, grabbing them with her other hand; she pulled and, to his shock, ripped the skill apart. She roared a guttural and utterly inhuman sound. She bounded toward him in a leap, fist superheating the air as it flew towards him like a rocket. Typically, Ambrose would have used [Infernal Aegis], but he couldn’t do so at the moment, and Annie wouldn’t give him time to figure it out.

Old instincts flowed through him, Raylen’s voice echoing through his mind, DODGE! And he did, flowing around the punch and slashing outward with his axe. At the same time, he used [Infernal Infusion] and [Infernal Smite]. The axe bit into her shoulder, fire beginning to eat her skin like an avatar of gluttony. It should have been a decisive blow.

Annie didn’t care. She jerked her shoulder, ripping the axe out of his grip and, at the same time, flinging her opposite fist right into his armor. The blow was so powerful that he was lifted off his feet, sent flying through the air, crashing into a bike with a thunderous sound that boomed around the cavern.

Annie roared, fists clenched outward in challenge.

Ambrose got an idea. It was a wild idea that came like a thunderbolt from nowhere, clapping into his brain. Until now, he had been infusing his axe or the ground around him. But I’m not limited to just those things Ambrose thought. The motorcycle he had crashed into was sleek, silver, and black. His hand was right against it.

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He used [Infernal Infusion]. Infernal mana flowed from Ambrose’s core into the machine. It began to change. The metal warped, turning blacker than the void of hades. Handlebars twisted, and the bike’s chassis turned…devilish. Ambrose turned, pulled the bike up, and hopped on it. Abyssal fire lit up the bike, becoming one with it. Ambrose throttled the engine, and hellfire roared in response.

He called up [Sanctuary], and transparent, silver chains imbued with black flame came into being around him. Ambrose floored it, the bike tearing into the floor as Ambrose rode forward, lashing his chains outward. Annie attempted to grab them, grunting like a beast.

Ambrose had been prepared for this. He willed the chains to twist around her grip, going low. The chains wrapped around her knees. One principle Ambrose had always known to be true was that anything fell when you hit it low. Ambrose drove the bike forward in a blast of red-black flame, and the chains, pulsing with void fire, yanked against Annie’s legs, pulling her along like a rag-doll.

She howled her rage, trying to grab at the chains, except the front half of her body was far too bulky for her to do so. The System could bend reality itself, tossing out physics and the fundamental rules of reality Ambrose had always thought to be true.

But in those moment, those rules had their say. They said that Annie wasn’t going to be able to reach the chains. Not at the speed Ambrose was dragging her along at. Screeches, like nails on chalkboard magnified tenfold, filled the air as Ambrose flew out of the cave, Annie going airborne behind him, jackrabbiting in the air.

If she had thought it through, perhaps she could have taken another potion to change back or into something else. Except she didn’t, because the form she was in clearly had limited intelligence.

It was her weakness. Ambrose ruthlessly exploited it, turning the bike in a fire and blazing steel screech. Annie’s body slammed into the ground, sanguine drops like twinkling red stars popping forth from her in a spray. Ambrose [Recalled] his axe as he throttled the bike forward, going in a circle around the downed Annie, chains burning her very spirit.

He brought the axe down at an angle as Annie attempted to grab him. He sheared her right arm from her elbow. Blood sprayed as if from a hose. Annie howled as the flames consumed her flesh. Whatever resistance she had before was waning. Maybe it was Ambrose’s skills putting in the work.

It didn’t matter.

He drove the bike some distance away, turning it to line up in a direct shot towards her. The motorcycle rumbled, growling like a hell beast as Ambrose gave it gas, shooting forward like a falling comet.

He ran her over.

Then he did it again. And again. As he did, Ambrose hacked pieces of her off, little bits at a time. Wrath was a storm around him that he did not acknowledge. He was the eye of it, the calm, and the deliverer of its vengeance.

She was nothing but chopped, bloody, and burnt pieces by the time he was done. Her screams didn’t even register to him. All he saw were the faces of the enslaved children below, eyes full of fear, collars around their necks. Ambrose would never get to meet his child; Eric had taken that from him.

Annie was connected to him somehow, and in the moment, she represented him. Upon her, Ambrose enacted every terrible thing he would do to Eric. He showed no mercy, even as she became a weeping husk. In the end, he stared calmly at the extinguished life before him.

He spat on it.

Then he turned his gaze forward, scanning for other threats, Rudy specifically. He was nowhere to be found. He didn’t think he could escape his chains, but he had been wrong. Rudy was gone. Ambrose could have followed. He doubted the bruiser would have been able to go far, and he had an incentive to do so because Rudy would likely tell Eric that he was alive.

Thunder roiled within him. Let Eric find out. Let him know that he was coming for him.

Ambrose drove the bike back into the cavern.

He had children to free.