Zekuthran

Zekuthran was beyond furious. What in Sun’s name was the fucking birdman thinking? Did he seriously believe the plausible deniability bullshit he told Nyx would fly? With him?

Varyag must have forgotten that Zekuthran as merely an agent of the Sun That Burns No More was not bound by the same rules his master was. He only followed them because of the treaty his liege signed. A treaty that has now been violated by the stupid bird.

He realised that Lord Sun might have a different perspective on the matter, as unlikely as it was.

Still… Sometimes it is better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

‘Thank you, Ere,’ he finished the magical contact with the goddess. ‘I appreciate the heads-up.’

‘No problem, hon,’ the goddess blew him a kiss and ended the spell.

Zekuthran took a few deep breaths to calm himself and summoned his second-in-command Eurydon.

The demon entered his office. He was a middle-height man with two ten-centimetre long curved black-red horns coming out of his forehead, cropped bottle green hair and violet eyes. Eurydon like all demons also had a thin fleshy tail, in his case, it was heart-tipped. He wore the standard double-breasted black uniform of the Abyssal Legions with a flame pin on the right side of his collar, indicating his rank of a praetor and a sun on the left side marking him as a member of Lord Sun’s personal legion. On his shoulders, there were epaulettes with five silver bars.

Eurydon stopped in front of Zekuthran’s desk and knelt on his left knee with his right fist over his heart. This was the traditional ceremonial salute among the Legions, though for the past few decades, it had been slowly replaced with a two-fingers salute which previously had been reserved for situations where expediency was more important. Zekuthran couldn't blame Eury though, they went back centuries and the ritual was heavily ingrained in both of them. So the Archpraetor responded by standing up and putting his right fist over his heart. He then resumed his seat.

‘You’ve summoned me, my Lord,’ Eurydon said, remaining on his left knee.

‘Yes,’ Zekuthran curtly responded. ‘Gear up and tell Arandor and Tevilla to do the same. Heavy Assault Kit. ’

Eurydon looked up and asked:

‘My Lord?’

‘We’re deploying to Dwynveia on a rescue op. Actually… grab Savri too. The place is Rot infested.’

‘But Lord Sun…’ Eurydon protested.

‘I’ll handle our liege, don’t worry. I am not ordering this as the Archpraetor. Let’s call this a personal favour for Zekuthran the Demon.’

‘Your granddaughter?’

Zekuthran nodded.

‘Then you need to say no more, my Lord,’ Eurydon proclaimed, cold steel entering his voice. ‘We will make whoever threatens the family of the Blade of the Ashen Storm pay for their insolence.’

Lilyth

The Rot Hound was terrifying. But such was my lot. I had to buy Caei enough time to heal Aki. Between the three of us, we could probably take it. Probably being the keyword. So, as I ran towards it I drew my other knife. I had no idea of how to fight with two knives and barely could do so with one, but going at the thing with just Luna felt… inadequate.

‘Let’s dance, motherfucker,’ I said, holding both knives in reverse grip.

The monster was turning towards the broken form of Aki, so I had to catch its attention first. I saw the wound Aki’s falchion left in its front arm. It was slowly sealing itself. The girl’s sword must have fallen out of it.

No… I saw it lying on the ground. Most of the blade was missing and what was left was rusted almost beyond recognition. In the corner of my eye, I noticed the Storm lying by the wall. Aki must have lost it during her tumble.

Once Caei gets back she can use it to help. I don’t think her glaive or rifle will amount to much against that thing. Then again, neither will Sol and Luna. We really need Aki for this one.

I dashed towards the damaged leg. To my great surprise and delight Sol actually bit into the wound and reopened it. That caught the bastard’s attention, so I immediately jumped back to avoid a punch from its other armleg.

Hit and run is the way to go here. I really wish I had access to the Swiftness of the Wind.

I pounced at the extended limb of the Rot Hound and sank the blades of the knives into its elbow joint. To my dismay, I couldn't remove them in time, as I had to avoid attack from the other arm.

Fuck, I thought when I saw the Rot Hound take its arm out of my immediate reach. I need those!

The blades suddenly reappeared in my hands.

Wuh?

I jumped back and quickly peeked at Luna’s stats.

Item: Luna

Class: Weapon - Daggers - Combat Knife

Rarity: Unique

Durability: N/A

Traits:

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Soulmade - Created out of a piece of the user’s soul. Cannot be destroyed. Can be resummoned if lost.

Elementally Infused - Shadow - Attacks have a chance to inflict additional Umbral damage. Higher levels of Umbral Arcana knowledge will improve the probability of the effect occurring. (Currently unavailable)

Oh. Right. Those aren’t bound to me. Those literally ARE part of me.

I wouldn't quite call it a game-changer but being able to pull the same bullshit with these as with the Blade of the Black Rose… Yeah. That would really come in handy.

With renewed vigour, I resumed my attacks. Thanks to hit-and-run tactics I was mostly able to force the Rot Hound to react to me, rather than the other way around. The problem was… the knives really lacked sufficient oomph to inflict meaningful damage on the fucker. And despite my best efforts I was accumulating damage faster than it was. A burn on my cheek here, a nasty nick on my hip there. It wasn’t that bad if you ignored the agonising pain, but it was slowing me down. Based on my experience with fighting the undead, which I was like seventy per cent certain applied here as well, we had to destroy its head for it to definitely stop. I was lacking the reach to pull it off, though.

I briefly considered throwing the knives at the monster and just resummoning them, but I had no idea how many times I could do it before the burnout was done with my bullshit. Getting a pseudo-heart attack while fighting this thing struck me as mildly problematic. So those things stayed in my hands.

On the plus side during the fight, we managed to knock over and shatter six out of the ten crystals. Meaning… if push comes to shove we could just leg it soon. In fact…

Yeah. Retreating was the only option here.

There was just no way we could kill that thing without risking more severe injuries. There was also the big monster to contend with. We could not fight it if we were too fucked up by the world's worst dog here.

So… keeping the monster always in my sight I started circling the spiral to the p popinions with the crystals on them. Of course, the already bad plan almost immediately went tits up when the monster was hit with a Blood Lance on the side.

Caei!

Unironically, the spell did more damage to the creature than I had for the past few minutes as it shattered some of its ribs and… was that a cracked vertebra? It was too hard to tell.

Alas, Caei actually dealing damage to the monster meant that she became the primary target for the monster. Maybe Aki though…

Wait. Where is Aki? Oh no. I hope she was not hurt too badly.

Still… I had to get the Rot Hound’s attention back on me. So, it was likely the time to pull another crazy stunt. The problem was I had no immediate idea what, as whatever I could do was so monumentally stupid even I considered it to be crazy.

Still, I had to try something. My attention turned to the Rot Hound's vertebra I thought Caei had cracked.

It was time to graduate from “cowboy” to “hold my beer”.

Caeileera

Caei left Aki under the effect of the Sleep spell. The poor girl was in no shape to fight. Despite the Sanguine’s best attempts at healing and an extra potion, the normally vibrant girl was ashen-faced and weak. Caei had to remove Aki’s arm from the middle of the forearm down. All that the magic was able to do then was heal the wound over with a skin flap, which at least confirmed no rot-infected flesh remained. The girl would likely need a prosthetic. She had heard of magic restoring missing limbs before, but based on what happened with Deirdee it was not any magic that Caei possessed. Hopefully, the books from the Administrator's library would hold the answer to that question, though likely not within any timeline practical for the girl.

She thought about taking Aki’s pistol, but it felt wrong to keep the girl fully defenceless. She didn't know how to reconcile it with Aki being left asleep, but this was more in case she and Lilyth died and the girl woke up.

I closed the door. That should keep Aki safe.

When she got back to the spiral room she saw that most of the crystals were broken and Lilyth was currently doing her best to keep the monster at a distance.

Damn. She actually didn’t get herself killed. Welp… Time to help her with killing that thing.

She cast a Blood Lance and it hit the Rot Hound on the side, breaking several of its ribs. This must have hurt it, as the massive thing lost interest in Lilyth and started turning towards her.

Oh.

She looked around and saw the Storm lying by the wall to her right. She would need to grab it.

‘Caei!’ she heard Lilyth suddenly shout. ‘I need a perch. Cast that disk of yours near the monster’s ribcage.’

‘What the fuck are you planning to do, you fucking idiot?’

‘Hopefully? To kill that thing.’

Caei sighed and cast the spell. She then hurried over to get the Carbine. As she did that she watched Lilyth get a running start.

Don’t tell me.

‘NO!’ she shouted but it was too late.

Lilyth jumped on the disk and used it as a boosting spot to leap over the Rot Hound while stabbing it in its spine near the point her Blood Lance hit it. To Caei’s immense shock, the bone broke and the monster collapsed on the ground in two halves. What didn’t surprise her, however, was that Lilyth didn’t plan on what came next. So she eyeballed her reckless friend’s flight path and conjured a second disk there. Lilyth hit it face first, but it was a good learning experience for her. And hey. It stopped her from plummeting into the rot.

Her attention was brought to the Rot hound when she heard scraping on the floor. The best was trying to drag itself towards her.

‘Persistent little bugger, aren’t you?’ she asked and threw another Blood Lance towards its skull, shattering it and causing the monster to start to dissolve.

Level 45 Greater Rot Hound has been slain.

You have received 1500 experience points (2576/5000 total experience points progress to level 10)

Lilyth recovered and immediately got back to the task of destroying the crystals. Caei, after picking up the carbine, helped her. The Sanguine was surprised Lilyth didn’t ask about Aki, but she surmised she wanted to secure the area first. Once the last gem was gone the rot spiral began solidifying and after a moment turned into likely harmless detritus. The air in the room became less oppressive too. They’ve done it. They’ve really done it. This was further confirmed by the quest update that popped up.

Quest updated: Akh’ret’s Mercy

Type: Dungeon (Historical)

Difficulty: Deadly

Description: You’ve discovered ruins of a hospital dating back to some ancient era of Dwynveia. There are secrets to discover here, but is the reward worth the price?

Objectives:

* Discover the secrets of the hospital

* Find the source of the magic preventing you from leaving

* Leave the hospital alive

Rewards:

* 3000 experience points

* 2 Perk Points

Lilyth ran over to her and asked:

‘How’s Aki?’

Caei saddened and started saying:

‘She…’

But before she could finish they heard heavy stomping coming from the direction of the staircase.

‘Found you little morsels,’ the big monster said in its raspy voice.