Chapter 13-352: A Legion Going Fishing (2/2)
There was no mark on either sirine, but they wouldn’t wake up from the shock of a Mercy deathblow for hours.
They looked at the skulls mounted in places of honor down at the water-line, rattling occasionally in a passing wave.
Human, elven, dwarven, orc, even a hyn one there... and at least two human children.
There was a glint of bone from the passageway ahead, smoothed down by high-pressure water jets over time, and they already knew what they were going to be seeing.
Invisible again, treading on air, they walked forward into the grotto where witchlit skulls gleamed as trophies and foci of power for the inhabitants of this place.
They had no eyes right now, so they couldn’t close them, and could only watch it all and make plans.
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A hooved foot struck stone, chipping it with the force, and the fey beauty there spun around in shock from the fresh new skull she was slowly and painstakingly cleaning to a blinding white state.
They all glared at her, that impossible flawless beauty, and knew they couldn’t possibly hurt her in the slightest. It was a powerful glamour, and the only defense against it was to not be able to see her.
That was fine. In their left hand was a specific skull, taken from a rather large Deep One. The pale-skinned, golden-haired vision in front of them gasped to see it. “<No!>” she blurted out in Aquan, starting forwards. “<Give that back!>” she cried out, lunging for the skull.
Legion flicked the top of the old skull off with a razor-nailed thumb, exposing the rolled-up golden cloth within the braincase. Casually, they flipped the skull up to their mouth, bit into the folded shawl, and sucked it down as the nereid actually ran into them, clawing frantically at them... harmlessly and uselessly, although every cell in their body lit up in delight at the contact.
They brought the skull down, and the nereid clawed at their eyeless face and the patterns of the Mask Tat there. Silver, heavens-blue clouds, aquamarine whorls, and black-red flames glowed back at her, clearly looking at her, unable to make a move against her, only endure the attacks... because the fight was already over.
There was just a flash of black and red hellfire in the back of her throat, sucking in that golden shawl, and the nereid started to scream.
A second later, her body spontaneously reverted to the water it was made of, splashing to the tiled floor of this room... every tile Bone-Warped from the polished white skulls of the fey thing’s victims.
A nereid’s soul was in its shawl. By eating it, they had Consumed her and sidestepped her immunity to being attacked by anything with a sexual interest in her... which some of the ex-Ruedians definitely were.
The nereid was now screaming on the Hellpact, its hydrous Elemental nature fully on display: a purple-black water blob, capricious, inhuman, uncaring, vain, cruel, and merciless. They stared in the Pactspace at it as Wrath and Scorn went to work on it in passing, and turned around to head back to the two sirines now laying unconscious in their rooms. A new Pact gleamed in the grips of the Hellpact, a dark and fluid thing of lives lost to the Waters, and the other four tied to it were about to join it.
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The three fishermen had just finished pulling into the dock and were preparing to start unloading their catch into the fishery’s slides when she came down out of the sky like a meteor.
There was no reduction in speed as she slammed to the ground, but the impact was absolutely silent, a pulse of golden light radiating out from where she landed, shivering the dock... and blowing all three men there, but none of the other fisherman, nor the cannery workers, right off their feet.
They were all men there, and gaped at the valkyrie or angel come down from Heaven, bearing down on them with a dire aura and shining silver eyes, golden hair, and a burning Sword in her hand... and a naked skull clutched in the other.
The three fisherman, one seeming near his sixties, the others in their thirties and probably his sons, scrambled awkwardly in their heavy coats as they all clambered back to their feet.
Pure instinct had every man there backing away from the trio. Everyone knew what silver eyes represented now, and if those angelic wings and that Aura weren’t beating the fact into them, they had absolutely no wish to get between this woman and the three of them.
She said nothing, merely holding out the polished white skull in her hand at them as the frightened men got to their feet.
Black, gold, and grey flames gathered around the skull, dripped down from it in a rush of liquid flames... and as they fell, like pigments across an unseen canvas, they painted a picture.
A face. A man, and one they recognized, phantasmal flesh and features inked into existence, staring at the three men in front of him.
The image reached out to point at the three of them. “Henrik. Jorian. Lars. You murdered me and offered me up to the Drowned Witches to satisfy your Pacts, as you have so many others over the years. This Heavenbound found me, and has done for your witches, she has.” All three men went pale. “There’ll be no more Pacts for your sons, nor those of Ulfi and Leif when she reaches them. Heaven has come for your sins, Drowners of Molde, and the Waters are having you at last!”
“No!” the father, Henrik Ivarsson, shouted, bringing up his hands. Inky aquamarine power surged out of his hands, going right through the ghost from the skull, but avoided hitting the golden-haired, statuesque Heavenbound behind still holding it up.
She barely acknowledged what he’d done, letting not a peep of sound escape her as she frowned.
The Sharding stroke divided the older man in two, and the halves of his body crumpled to the ground as the golden light cut him in twain.
His sons panicked and tried to retreat, their own hands coming up, and that blast of eldritch energy the hue of the deep, dark ocean, blasted out at her... and again just missed her, as if they couldn’t bear to shoot her.
She ignored the blasts calmly, and her Sword flicked back and forth so fast only the golden fires on it allowed those nearby to realize it moved at all. Arcs sliced through the necks of Henrik’s sons, and they dropped down next to their father as their heads rolled free of their necks.
Even the most idiotic of the men looking on realized there was something going on when the corpses and heads did not bleed...