LIGHTNOVELONLINE 218 – Vs. Semzar Pt. 4 – ASHURBANIPAL
To Semzar’s gaze, which instinctively understood anatomy for the purposes of assessing a would-be host’s suitability, she was worse than a rotting corpse. She was poison. Death on two legs in more ways than one. No… Not death. Murder on two legs.
“Why? Why? Why?! Why won’t you die already?! Whywhywhywhywhywhywhy-”
Each “why” was accompanied by a flaming fist, a machine-gun cadence of thaumaturgic strikes. Each potent enough to strike down its target, each ripping apart furniture and flooring when it inevitably missed. Dust and debris wildly scattered into the air all around her.
Each fist flew mere centimeters from its intended target. She swayed as she walked, moving no more than necessary to remove herself from each fist’s generously telegraphed trajectory. With each movement, minute bursts of flame sprung forth from the many glowing fissures that split her skin. The wild currents of magic that leaked from her being set her hair billowing in all possible directions, and the dark smoke of entropy shrouded her. Semzar could swear she initiated a purge every ten seconds, as if mocking him, and all the more infuriating still, he never managed to hit her during one. Even while devoid of magic, she simply denied him at every turn. Each time he got close, she would simply vanish in a plume of smoke and appear elsewhere nearby — sometimes less than a single step’s distance, other times a full three meters, and everywhere in between. It was Astro Skimming, that much he knew, but he didn’t know the maximum range. It had to be something like five meters, it couldn’t be more, but he wasn’t even certain of that much at this point.
There wasn’t a person behind those eyes, which swirled and flickered with green light. Indeed, through their apertures peered not a human, but a demonic being of murder. A single-minded obsession, a whirling madness, spilling out with such pure hate and revulsion that Semzar thought, perhaps, she was employing an ocular curse. He had felt it before, having been the subject of curses, and he recognized that curse-like will flowing in abundance from her gaze, only… she was staring not at Semzar, but through him. For a moment, he genuinely considered if Blackhand intended to use his corpse as a medium to directly strike at his father or at the Benefactors. He well and truly came to think that this was the true reason she was after him — such was his coping mechanism for the reality that his own actions had directly led to this.
And the music. Why was the band playing? What was this trite love song?!
"Mad machine - I chase down my prey on a speeding bike! Mad machine - this fire burning in my chest defies logic! Time flies, chasing us, like a suffering, wounded beast. My burgeoning ferocity has me in its grasp…”
Another line came, but Semzar didn’t hear it. That infernal bird screamed over it: “The more masks I remove, the less human I become!”
Then, wasting not a moment, as it bombarded Semzar’s barrier with explosions, the red-eyed thing began… Orating, for lack of a better term. It spoke in a man’s booming voice, the volume exactly matched with the music, creating a confusing and frightening cacophony. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the tirade was twofold: The plethora of alien words used, and the fact that Semzar, somehow, understood all of them, their meaning imbued into the sound itself.
Thus spake the raven:
“AT AGE TWENTY-ONE I SLEW THIRTY MEN WITH MY BARE HANDS I STRANGLED SEVEN WITH THEIR OWN PLASTIC INTESTINES I STRUNG THE HEADS OF THEIR KINDRED FROM THE RAFTERS AND DROWNED THREE MORE IN WHITE BLOOD. BY MY OWN HANDS I FORCED OPEN A STEEL BULKHEAD AND HAVING THUSLY BEEN CRIPPLED I BIT OUT THE TENDONS AND THROATS OF THREE WHO SOUGHT TO VIOLATE MY FLESH, AND TOOK THEIR LIMBS FOR MYSELF.”
Blackhand rapidly closed the distance in the form of a flittering smoke-demon, emerging only momentarily to lash at Semzar’s barrier, cutting gashes into the floor with each flash, gusts of flame erupting from her palm each time she opened it to cast the thaumaturgy. He couldn’t comprehend how it worked — it appeared to simply cut, but it was such an outlier, why would she only have this one arcane thaumaturgy when everything else was either energetic or construct-reliant? He glimpsed the flickering remnants, thread-like in appearance, but they were so short-lived that he simply assumed them to be the bare minimum to which she could reduce the thaumaturgy’s visibility.
A dense mass of smoke erupted from her mouth, writhing forth like a swarm of ravenous insects, moving to envelop him. Semzar’s fists, both those he set forth and those which defended him, scattered it handily, his own thauma neutralizing Blackhand’s. Even still, what remained of of the cloud swiftly moved in to fill the gaps and obscure his sight as best as it could.
“I HAD THE BUNKERS OF THE CITY OF ANGELS UTTERLY DESTROYED AND I COUNTED THEIR OWNERS AND SPONSORS AS DIGITAL GHOSTS I TOPPLED THEIR SPIRES OF STEEL AND GLASS I TOOK THEIR BRAINS FROM THEIR DATA-TOMBS AND DAMNED THEM TO THE NERVE LATHE. I LEARNED FROM THEIR DYING SCREAMS THE NAMES AND HOMES OF THOSE THEY SERVED AND HUNTED THEM IN THE SAME MANNER.”
Despite the fact his eyes could somewhat see through the smoke, it added to the numerous elements acting to overwhelm his mind. He didn’t even know it, but he had already been driven on the back foot — even as he lashed out and forced Blackhand to back off, Semzar didn’t think. He didn’t make plans or consider how he would finish her off. He was just reacting.
She appeared from the smoke, far too close for comfort, and Semzar’s first reaction was not to strike — it was to pour his will into the Crimson Star ring. The artifact replied with the cruel knowledge it wouldn’t be ready for some time.
