Chapter 15: Threshold of Revelation
Scene 1: The Golden Hour
The sunset bled across the sky like molten amber. Tasiya gripped her waterskin, the leather creaking under her whitened knuckles. The wind carried the metallic tang of recent carnage, though the crumbling battlements now stood eerily still.
"Mother left answers in these mountains," she stated, her gaze fixed on the horizon where jagged peaks devoured the dying light. "Even if only fragments remain."
Raynia's armored glove clamped her shoulder. "Chasing phantoms will hollow you, child. Your mother's legacy isn't buried—it walks in your stance, your blade-work, the way you dissect threats like anatomical puzzles."
The uncharacteristic tenderness made Tasiya's throat tighten. She counted the bloodstains on Raynia's pauldron—eighteen fresh splatters overlaying decades-old patina.
When the abbess added, "The contract binds our tongues, not our steel," Tasiya's dagger flashed.
"Then let's carve truth from—"
A sentry's scream shattered the moment.
Scene 2: Necrotic Alchemy
The corpse writhed with black pseudopods, its ribcage undulating like bellows. Tasiya's gamma-blade hovered over the bio-mechanical horror—part human remains, part demonic incubator.
"Section the contamination zones!" Raynia barked, her bone saw whirring to life. The tool's diamond teeth sparked against ossified demonic tissue. "Full quarantine protocol! I want perimeter fires burning silver nitrate solution!"
Tasiya cataloged the metamorphosis:
Stage 1: Black biofilm colonization (3-5 minutes postmortem)
Stage 2: Osseous restructuring (observed calcium leaching)
Stage 3: Proto-limb emergence (see specimen #7's phalangeal sprouts)
A militiaman retched as his brother's corpse sprouted chitinous spikes. "They're...rebuilding him!"
"Not rebuilding." Tasiya injected liquid nitrogen into a pulsating mass. "Repurposing." The frozen tissue shattered under her boot. "These aren't resurrection attempts—they're manufacturing shock troops."
Scene 3: The Silent Compact
Nathaniel's cottage exuded calculated charm—wild honeysuckle artfully trained into fractal patterns, quartz wind chimes tuned to suppress infrasonic frequencies. He didn't look up from his leather-bound grimoire as Tasiya's scythe kissed his vertebrae.
"Your theatrics lack nuance, little anatomist." His page-turn revealed diagrams of her own circulatory system. "You should've asked why Seketh's 'corruption' follows precise geometric patterns."
The scythe drew blood. "Explain the necro-symbiosis."
"Ah, the million-argent question." His finger traced a sigil that made Tasiya's optical implants flare. "What if the corruption isn't infection...but awakening?"
Chapter 16: The Weight of Blades
Scene 1: Duel of Implications
The courtyard smelled of crushed thyme and unresolved tension. Tasiya pressed her sickle against Nathaniel's nape, its edge kissing the exact vertebra she'd once dissected in a bandit's corpse. His pulse thrummed against cold steel—steady, infuriatingly calm.
"Last chance to drop the riddles," she said. Moonlight glinted off the obsidian crucifix planted in the soil beside them, its shadow stretching like a gibbet.
Nathaniel tilted his head, silver hair catching the dying light. "Why the sickle, Little Anatomist? The crucifix could vaporize me in seconds." His smile sharpened. "Are you… hesitating?"
Tasiya's grip tightened. This man—this creature—had the gall to mirror her mother's cadence when explaining herbology. "Hesitation implies doubt," she countered. "I use precision tools for precision work."
His laughter rang hollow. "How economical. But tell me—" He gestured to the trembling sickle. "—does your 'economy' extend to withholding truths from Raynia? She still thinks Seketh's contract binds you to—"
The blade drew blood.
Scene 2: Pathological Theater
Raynia's lantern illuminated the necrotic mass. The corpse's thoracic cavity had become a bioreactor, black colloids pulsating in Fibonacci spirals.
"Stage Four colonization," Nathaniel announced, prodding the gelatinous mass with a birch twig. "The mycelium networks here—" He traced glowing filaments within the colloid. "—are forming a decentralized nervous system. Fascinating, isn't it? Like slime mold, but with ambitions."
Tasiya recorded the bioluminescent patterns. "You called this an 'experiment.' Whose?"
"Ah, the million-argent question." He snapped the twig, releasing spores that dissolved midair. "Demons crave order as much as chaos. This?" He kicked the corpse. "Is someone's failed attempt at bioengineering peacekeepers."
Raynia's gauntlet seized his collar. "Enough poetry. How do we kill them?"
"Burn the corpses. As for the colloids…" His gaze slid to Tasiya. "Your little mountain shrine has a geothermal vent perfect for annihilating biomatter. Convenient, no?"
Scene 3: Contractual Subtext
The three "maids" materialized in triplicate holograms, their forms pixelating at the edges.
"Hostages?" Tasiya's sickle hovered near Nathaniel's radial artery.
"Insurance." He projected a parchment scroll—names glowing crimson. "Seketh's original contract stipulated child hearts. I renegotiated terms: sixteen-year-olds enter monastery witness protection instead."
Raynia's blade unsheathed with a harmonic hum. "You expect gratitude?"
"Expect? No." His finger tapped Tasiya's dagger hilt. "But your protégé here already deduced the loophole: Demons can't breach contracts… unless humans voluntarily renegotiate."
Tasiya's mind raced through prior dialogues—his casual mentions of geothermal vents, his insistence on touring the shrine. He's been baiting me to amend the pact.
"Clever parasite." She sheathed her weapons. "But if you want my cooperation, start by explaining why these 'peacekeepers' reek of your metabolic byproducts."
Nathaniel's smile finally died.
Chapter 17: Cartography of Betrayal
Scene 1: Geopolitical Calculus
The caravans creaked under necro-colloid loads, their stench overriding the juniper-scented night. Tasiya's sickle hovered at the lead driver's jugular, its curve mirroring the poisoned crescent moon above.
"Demonic territory?" Nathaniel's laugh carried glacial precision. "If I wanted Vincentia, I'd have let the third wave breach your charming palisade." He gestured to the splintered gates where carpenters hammered reinforcements. "Your defenses crumble faster than your hospitality."
Raynia's gauntlet clamped Tasiya's wrist. "This is how you negotiate after the St. Clarisse incident?"
The girl wrenched free. "Transport the colloids. Dump them in the acid springs. Or—" Her blade nicked the driver's neck, drawing black ichor. "—become feedstock for what you're hauling."
Scene 2: Hereditary Shadows
In the sulfur-lit armory, Nathaniel unfolded a bloodstained genealogical chart.
"House Vossiter's third son," he whispered, finger resting on a scorched name. "The real reason the High Sanctum exiled Raynia here? They feared her discovering your father's... extracurricular alchemy."
Raynia's dagger embedded in the table between his fingers. "Speak plainly, parasite."
"Gladly." He produced a vial of mercury-like fluid. "Your precious Tasiya's DNA shows 19% non-human methylation patterns. Curious timing—her sixteenth birthday coincides with the Colloid Emergence Cycle."
The Grand Abbess stilled. "You propose a pact."
"Counterproposal: I'll suppress her hybridization. No hearts required." His smile turned feral. "Just let me hunt the other half-bloods crawling through your precious Sanctum's basements."
Scene 3: Logistics Under Duress
Nora's tear-salt mingled with colloid rot as she clung to Tasiya. "Sister Margot's face... it melted when she touched the black mass—"
"Focus on the living." Tasiya disentangled herself, thrusting a manifest into the nun's hands. "Cross-reference these names against last winter's grain shipments. The infected clusters correlate with—"
A wagon axle snapped, spilling gelatinous horrors. Drivers screamed as pseudopods lashed their legs.
"Enough!" Tasiya's crucifix flared white-hot, its light fracturing the colloids' cohesion. "Load them faster! These remnants sense the geothermal vents—they're trying to reach the aquifer!"
Scene 4: Borderland Gambits
The Fifth District's envoys arrived bearing rusted iron and hungrier eyes. Tasiya counted their pikes—thirty-seven, exactly Vincentia's missing militia count.
"Reinforcements?" She snorted, cornering Nathaniel near the powder magazine. "More like vultures circling a gutted deer."
He traced the map's contested borders. "The Seventh District's absence is... telling. Seketh's last coordinates aligned with their geothermal plant."
Realization dawned. "The colloids—they're not invaders. They're leakage."
"Precisely." His claw tapped the Seventh's sigil. "Someone's weaponizing demonic biomass reactors. And Seketh? Either he's compromised... or becoming someone's fuel source."
Chapter 18: Feathers and Fractals
Scene 1: Celestial Interrogation
The moon hung like a deranged deity's grin. Seketh writhed in glyph-carved bindings, his horns scraping against obsidian slabs. Before him loomed two figures: a mountain of muscle cradling a pink-haired girl who cracked her whip at quantum frequencies.
"Human lapdog!" The girl's voice pierced the thin alpine air. "Do their prayers taste like loyalty? Or just indigestion?"
Seketh snorted. "Your 'paradise ranch' proposal reeks of amateur theatrics. Hearts fattened in pens lack the fractal despair I crave."
The colossus adjusted his grip, tectonic plates shifting beneath leathery skin. "We offer dominion over the Sixth Hollows. Yet you cling to this..." His thumb crushed a glacial boulder to powder. "...experiment with mortal governance."
"Dominion?" Seketh's laugh echoed through frostbitten pines. "You mistake my appetites. I don't want sheep—I want shepherds who kneel willingly. The contract with Raynia's brat has more layers than your ossified cortex."
The girl's whip lashed fractal burns across his chest. "Grandstanding cockroach! You squander demonic birthright for—"
"Enough, Abi." The colossus flexed, triggering micro-avalanches. "We harvest data, not obedience. Wipe his recent memories and implant the choice: Burn the shrine or feed it to the colloids."
Abi pouted, her form dissolving into bioluminescent mist. "Such wasted processing power. At least let me degrade his aesthetic parameters—"
"No cosmetic tampering." The colossus' ocular implants flickered with containment protocols. "The variables around Nathaniel require..." His voice trailed into subsonic rumbles. "...delicate observation."
Scene 2: Aerodynamic Negotiations
Tasiya squinted at the wing protruding through Nathaniel's shredded tunic. "Your anatomical concealment protocols need recalibration."
"Or you could admire their aerodynamic perfection." Nathaniel unfurled his pinions—quicksilver filaments refracting moonlight into prismatic halos. "Guaranteed faster than your arthritic mare."
Tasiya calculated the risk matrix:
Exposure Probability: 23% (acceptable if altitude >300m)
Time Saved: 47 minutes (critical for colloid neutralization)
Physical Contact: Inevitable (sanitization protocols available)
"Maintain cloud cover trajectory," she ordered, allowing him to lift her into the thermals.
The world contracted into topographic contours. Tasiya noted three anomalies:
Cluster A: 14 cart drivers veering off the geothermal route
Cluster B: Unidentified heat signatures near the shrine's western flank
Cluster C: Seketh's biometrics blinking in/out of reality
Nathaniel's breath warmed her temple. "The view improves when you unclench your ocular muscles."
"Focus on avoiding migratory birds," she retorted, gloved hand instinctively mapping his wing's tensile strength. Structural integrity exceeds avian biology. Possible nanotech reinforcement?
Scene 3: Biomechanical Foreplay
The landing zone reeked of sulfur and unsaid things. Nathaniel trapped Tasiya's wrist with preternatural precision. "Combat assessment or intimacy avoidance?"
Tasiya activated countermeasure #7:
Step 1: Sweep kick targeting peroneal nerve cluster
Step 2: Distal radius torsion maneuver
Step 3: Escape vector calculation
All protocols failed.
Nathaniel remained rooted, his smirk tectonic. "Muscle density: 82kg/cm². Reflex latency: 0.008 seconds. Still think I'm terminally ill?"
Tasiya recalibrated. "Demonic augmentation doesn't impress me."
"Augmentation?" His wings bristled. "This is curated evolution. No more artificial than your..." He plucked a hair from her scalp. "...melanin suppression treatments."
The accusation hung like a guillotine. Tasiya's blade found his carotid. "My pigmentation is none of your—"
"Ah, but the shrine's geothermal vents..." His finger traced her blade's fuller. "...accelerate telomere degradation. How many more years until your 'freckles' become necrosis?"
Scene 4: Quill Capitalism
Tasiya's fingers sank into his covert feathers. "Molting cycle frequency?"
Nathaniel's wings spasmed. "Why?"
"Market analysis." She plucked a loose remex, testing its nib on volcanic glass. "This could fetch 200 argent per quill. Supply chain logistics require—"
"Stop monetizing my plumage!"
"Alternative proposal: You donate shed feathers to subsidize the shrine's medical fund."
"Demons don't donate." His feathers retracted into interdimensional storage. "We barter. One quill = one truth."
Tasiya pocketed the stolen feather. "Deal. First question: What triggered Seketh's disappearance?"
Nathaniel's smile turned funereal. "He met something older than demonkind. Something that remembers when we were...conceptual drafts."