Nyx faced down the two Fleshsmiths that stalked towards her.

  Both men’s weapons were daunting to oppose, and she somehow had to take them on together.

  A cudgel with cinders channelled along the metal and burning all flesh that clung to it swung through the air. The cultist practising his strikes. Or trying to intimidate her. Unsurprisingly for a weapon designed for such a gruesome purpose, while the tissue trembled beneath the fire, it didn’t truly melt away. Flesh burned as it was intended to.

  The short blade darted in and out of the cloud of dust. Each time it appeared, it struck out from a new direction, completely unpredictably. The long rope of muscle connecting the weapon to its user often tensed, snapping the weapon like a whip and altering its trajectory. Yet that alone wasn’t terrible. It was the unknown nature of the cultist’s name that worried her most.

  Nyx spread her wings. They protested at the pain of a dozen bullet-wounds riddling their length. Blood flowed freely, and showed no sign of coagulating.

  A name ability? Nyx thought, looking down on the blood pooling beneath her feet. Could those bullets do more than simply veer my way? Lucky I took him out quick.

  She glanced the way of the pistol-user. He was kneeling on the earth, clutching at his stub of a hand. Even if he did stop agonising over the loss, Nyx had cleaved through the weapon; there was no threat of him rejoining.

  Well, she didn’t consider him completely harmless. He was still a harbinger. But she needed to focus on the primary threats and deal with him later.

  The club Fleshsmith, K’roane, finally decided that looking menacing would get him nowhere and rushed forward. Instantly, Nyx was airborne. Despite the ache of her wings, they sky was her domain. Without their two gunmen, she was untouchable up here.

  A flying rope-dart immediately proved that wrong.

  She pivoted away, but the trajectory of the blade shifted into an arc as it followed her. Another beat of her wings, and she backflipped over the weapon. Something she’d gotten rather good at with the past few days of practice. What followed, was also something she’d worked to perfect.

  Her claws snapped forward, and clamped down on her target. The muscular rope severed.

  The blade flung through the air, no longer bound by the flesh that connected it to its user. But Nyx wasn’t unaffected. A heavy weight smashed into her chitinous fingers and blew them — and herself — back. If her hands weren’t so hard, she was sure they’d be broken.

  So his ability didn’t focus on the weapon itself? Just anything he touched? There was obviously more limits than that as he hadn’t struck her through the earth, but it meant he was likely able to do the same in close quarters. If she was going to end him, it needed to be quick.

  Not that she really had any other way.

  Her eye continued to try and eat through the dust, but there was always more blowing outward. The cultist’s ability obviously not a one time deal. Fortunately, with how dense it was at the centre, it was rather obvious where the man hid.

  She set her claws at her hips, ready to pounce, and waited.

  When the cultist’s muscle rope whipped out — frustratingly reconnecting with the severed blade above — Nyx beat her wings and crashed through the thickest part of the dust cloud. Her pincers struck… but there was no cultist to be seen. Her claws pierced through a small mound of muscle coiled like a snake, and tore them to ribbons, but the rope-dart wielder was gone.

  Nyx beat her wings to disperse the fog, but she was too late to react.

  The last piece of unshredded rope reached up to touch her, only for another weight to smash into her side. She was sent flying. It felt like a club had hit her.

  Then, a club truly did hit her.

  Before her wings could gain any sort of control over her, the glowing cudgel burst through the dust and crushed her other side.

  Nyx didn’t know how many times she rolled, but by the time she stilled, one wing was pinned uncomfortably beneath her back. She had broken ribs. How many was unknown, but she was certain with the stabbing pain in her chest that there were at least a few.

  A few hacking coughs spilled blood from her lips. She spat to the side as K’roane walked towards her, cinders burning through not only his club, but his own legs. Is that how he’d reached her so quick? It was clearly painful for the man, and he seemed to hobble while the glowing heat slowly fled his own flesh.

  Why is it taking so long?

  Stolen story; please report.

  She didn’t want to have to grow any more mutations, and relying on another Dark Star here in the Biovault would be labelling herself as the cause to not just the Fleshsmiths, but all the other cults that currently had no interest in her. There would be too much evidence to link her.

  She had intended to beat them with her current power… yet her plan was falling apart.

  Nyx scowled as the first cultist appeared from the dust. Far from where she’d thought he hid. His rope dart was fully back in working order despite her efforts to shred through the muscle. He approached besides his companion, but it was clear he was being wary despite her prone form.

  “You could have just come with us,” he spat. “The upper creeds wanted you alive. We were escorts. That’s it. But no, because you had to go and kill them, this will end in nothing but pain for you.”

  Even as her chest protested, Nyx couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out her throat. “You think I wouldn’t have been sacrificed?” He opened his mouth, but she didn’t let him reply. “Besides, their deaths don’t matter. Yours don’t. You’re all Fleshsmiths; you were all going to die whether you met me today or not.”

  Her grin seemed to set him off. He snapped the blade from the rope into his hands, and stormed towards her. “You still think you can win? I don’t know what you are, but it’s about time someone taught you how the world works outside the wards. You don’t cross the cults.”

  He swung the rope end of his weapon, clearly intending to torture her before she died, but Nyx only laughed in his face.

  About fucking time.

  “Are you sure this is your win?”

  Despite her words and confident grin, the cultist didn’t so much as narrow his eyes. He didn’t believe her… until K’roane screamed.

  As the cultist spun to his partner who had the fangs of an amalgamation sinking into his shoulder, Nyx struck. With all the force her wing could enable, she closed the distance in an instant. His ankles gave no resistance.

  The man screamed as he fell, but somehow, he found the will to throw his blade back at her. She rose her arms in defence, but it didn’t stop her being thrown backwards like an explosion erupted beneath her.

  Her wings caught air, and she landed on her feet. Everything ached. Her arms, chest, and wings all felt like they were on fire, but she still managed to keep her head straight and legs beneath her.

  As the cultist wailed and clutched at his amputated legs, he kept enough presence of mind to know he was still in danger. He felt the moment her chest eye began to eat into his head, and another explosion of dust shot out from him. A second later the rope-dart cracked towards Nyx. She didn’t want to fall prey to his name ability once more, so she beat her hurting wings and rushed to the side. Her claws could withstand the blows, but the rest of her body couldn’t.

  Unlike before, the blade didn’t curve to follow after her. He was unable to stand; so when she rocketed forward, this time, he was right where she thought he would be.

  In an instant, he realised his blade missed and her sharp claws were coming for his throat, so he abandoned his weapon, and swung his arms. His hand touched Nyx’s shoulder, and sent her spiralling away. But not before she’d cut through the tender flesh beneath his jaw.

  Sounds of sputtering reached Nyx as her wings caught her again — she was getting rather good at pulling herself out of a spiral before she crashed now — and through the dispersing dust, she found the harbinger clutching at his neck. He was unable to stop the blood.

  Leaving him to die, Nyx turned to the other cultist. The man roared as he swung his club through a pair of amalgamations. The burning flesh cut and scorched the bodies of the unnatural animalistic forms. Some swings crushed them. Other swings left nothing but ashen remains. He was bleeding far too little for someone who’d been struck in the neck by such large fangs only seconds ago, and cleaved through each amalgamation with ease.

  Fighting beasts like that was clearly something he was used to, but their numbers kept coming. They endlessly rose from Nyx’s blood. The same blood she’d been spreading through the forest ever since the first bullet pierced her wings. K’roane could handle the amalgamations, but it left him distracted.

  One more time, she beat her wings. One more time, her claws took a life.

  The harbinger never saw her coming, but he did feel the jolt. He did see the claws poking out from the front of his chest right before they crashed inwards and shattered his ribcage.

  Nyx knew better this time, and pulled her arm free before the heavy man could crush her with his weight. The embers cooled in his cudgel as it fell by his side.

  Now that he was dead, all the amalgamations turned their attention to her. Thankfully, there were none she couldn’t handle. None as large as a trolley… or worse. But the longer she left the pools to grow, the greater the chance would be. So, instead of cutting down the creatures immediately, she flew through the forest and spilled droplets from a vial.

  She’d found the substance amongst a bunch of Tarchon’s other equipment, and taken it for herself. Nyx assumed it was fine. If he minded, then it was his fault he hadn’t returned to tell her she couldn’t.

  Only when the pools of her blood had stabilised and no longer boiled did she rush down the remaining amalgamations and end their existences. They were much easier to defeat than the Fleshsmiths had been.

  Once she was done, she returned to the corpses. The rope-dart wielder had apparently not died right away; his arm was mid scrawl of a ritual circle when he’d bled his last drop.

  Depending on the ritual, that could have been disastrous. If he’d decided to try taking her down with him, he could have summoned some horrid monster from the Darkness. She would need to make sure her targets were dead from now on. Who knew what some of the stronger cultists could do if they became desperate enough.

  Speaking of… where is that gunman?

  Nyx glanced to the pool of blood where she’d sliced off the man’s hand. The cultist and his hand were gone, but the broken remnants of his handgun remained.

  Oh, that isn’t good.

  “Eyeball, where is the fifth?”

  Her observer spun its eye away from her to search through the forest. “Running.”

  “Okay, and where is he running.” It certainly wasn’t the main entrance to the Biovault.

  Little God tilted his body. “Aimlessly?”

  Nyx snorted and fell to her knees. She groaned as she sketched the circle of that basic healing ritual. The agony in her ribs and wings was horrible, and she needed to recover before she chased after him. The cultist could be searching for one of the many secret exits, so she couldn’t have this ritual take long. A few minutes at most.

  Once she healed, she would hunt him down.

  Nobody would learn of what happened here. Nyx would kill any that learnt of her mutations.

  Next one was even more so, but for a different reason ;)

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