Chapter 368 - Cause It’s A Killer!~ A Killer’s Tiiiime!~

Alright! For all the excitement of it all, this chapter came out in an unexpected blind sprint and turned out way different than I thought it would. It's a good chapter, don't get me wrong, but it's a very mild time-skip and has a lot of grimness going on rather than victorious joy. We'll get back to that shortly, but I guess when I thought of what this chapter had to be, it came out a lot more "A Farewell To Arms But I Get Superpowers" than I ever thought. I agree with it, but boy howdy, not what I expected- in a good way, I think!

Anyways, it's late af and I wanted this out two hours ago, so here it is! Raaah!

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The most important thing to remember about a war is that no one who matters is ever doing the fighting. 

Now, this does vary as powers and technologies vary, and “mattering” is relative, but if a war would harm the real players in the world, it just wouldn’t happen. They’re in charge of the rules, and every conflict, to them, is just a game, or an equation, or a dialogue, or anything but a real fucking war. 

They say that everything but sex is about sex, and sex is really about power. In truth, the reality is far less comforting- everything but power is about power, and everything about power is about getting more of it.

No one who’s ever been in a real fucking war has ever wanted to cause another one, or been willing to do less than everything to stop it from happening if they can. So of course, they’re the ones on the front lines. The idealists, the believers, the soldiers, they’re the ones who do the fighting, who crawl through trenches and over corpses and through the intestines of slain giants and beneath a sky of raining death. 

War is the privilege of the mighty. War is the joy of the rich. War is the prayer of the selfish who have more than they should, seeking more . War is anything but war to those most responsible for it, and if not for what war does to people, what it turns them into, that would be the worst part about it. 

-Musings of a nameless sage, buried with all honors and enshrined on the battlefield, where his grave was promptly lost.

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The world beneath the ground is dark. 

Sounds obvious, but until it’s experienced, directly, painfully, it’s technical knowledge, not understanding. 

Without sun, without sky, without space to breathe, without the wind and the ability to feel the vastness of a place, the world is dark. It stays dark, no matter how one lights it, no matter how familiar it becomes, no matter how deep a person walks into it. 

He’s not sure how long it’s been since he came down here. Days, surely. Weeks, perhaps. It doesn’t matter, really. He was given a mission, and the time-scale of grander beings than he grants him leeway. It’ll be weeks more before he’s officially catalogued as dead, and that gives him this opportunity.

Damn the Heavens for time and opportunities. 

He washes a space of the Death that encompasses it, Burning it away with a flick of his wrist. It takes effort, strains him further, but without the act, those of his party still living would be doing far, far worse. Their surroundings radiate that pale thing of life-end, and he’s started getting familiar with it. All the time fighting in war helped, he’s sure, but here, crawling through the darkness of a once-person, he can practically feel it in the air, pushing against his Truth, pushing against the idea that Everything Burns. 

It’s exhausting. It’s filling. It presses against his senses, broadens his awareness, gives him something like echolocation for the claustrophobic tunnels and the horrifyingly empty caverns they find.

The depths of this dead place go far, far beneath the sands, and Shin Ren needs every bit of his focus and strength to confront it.

He’s not the only one dealing with it, of course. Ironically, in spite of how much more power he has, the others in the group seem far more at ease in this particular hell than he is.

Many-Grasping and Taran both respond to the spaces they travel through differently, but equally comfortably. Taran, of the two of them, is damn near thriving, the stiffness of his earlier movements gone entirely in favor of a smooth gait, almost human. Almost alive. As they descend deeper into the black caverns and ever-shifting sand, he almost seems to grow taller, his shadow larger and strangely-angled in the lights that Shin Ren brings to the space, and his presence has deepened with prolonged exposure. He stops on occasion, harvesting little resources. At one point, they found a cave with stalactites shaped like bullets, god-slaying calibers hanging from above and leaking streams of gunpowder from small holes dug into their sides. Taran convinced them to wait there almost a day as he laid out all the guns dangling from him, forming a circle out of their many varied forms and meditating beneath the falling black sands. Another time, as they crawled through a tunnel of sharp-edged triggers, small metal legs wriggling behind each one, he took hours longer than the rest of the party, collecting piece after piece. 

It would be an unforgivable delay if not for the fact that he’s been crucial to their survival in turn.

Many-Grasping, in sharp contrast, has barely interacted with the space at all. On occasion, she digs into her many bags, pieces of flesh with too much depth to them opening up to grant her nuggets of crimson and indigo to consume, and once she has, the space bows before her, refusing to harm her. Whether it’s an active choice from whatever almost-mind rules this space or an instinctive reaction, like the twitching of a corpse, Shin Ren isn’t sure, but it’s clear that it’s not unlimited. She travels through the spaces they navigate as if being welcomed, but on occasion even the special permissions granted by her role and diet seem to run dry.

Shin Ren finishes burning clean the chamber ahead, allowing air to trickle back in from other parts of the maze. A thin sheeting of flames covers each of the entrances to the space, burning away the contaminants that flood every inch of the place but allowing breathable air to slowly return to the chamber. Only when he’s certain that he’s provided enough of a quarantine zone does he nod at the figures behind him, letting them into the space. 

He closes the flames behind them, and promptly collapses.

Taran crouches by his side, bringing bandages from out of a storage ring and handing them over. Shin Ren nods, accepting gratefully but saving his breath. 

Unless they have to, neither of his companions have uttered a word. He’s replied in kind.

This place does not seem to enjoy the sounds of the living. 

Carefully, he wraps the bandages around his ribs, around the gash torn through his bicep, assisting his robes in absorbing the blood and stitching things back together. Medicinal plants, Qi and array formations scripted into the bandages activate as soon as he finishes the bandaging, letting healing energies flow into his body and assist it in converting Qi to a tool to repair the damage. 

Not a day has passed where they aren’t attacked. 

At first he thought the place as dead as its surface, inhabited by outsiders wishing to benefit from it or harvest its resources but otherwise relatively inert. Journeying beneath the surface disabused him of that notion. In the darkness of the Blacksteel corridors, the right-angled labyrinths and strangely organic caverns and tunnels, there is movement. There is hunger. Above all else, there is violence. Sometimes there are sections that seem incomplete, open to the sands of powdered bone and metals outside, and from these dunes beneath the earth come shriveled corpses, wraiths of torn armor and bloodied bone, fragments of things that came before and the things born from their violent ends. They learn to move past these places quickly, for the more of the sickly things they defeat, the stronger the ones that emerge behind, as if drawn to the violence, magnetized to it by what they are.

A desert the size of a continent feeds its hungry ghosts and hateful Echoes into the open wounds of this black maze, and the more attention they draw, the more of their kind flood the tunnels. 

At other turns, the tunnels themselves seem to oppose them. Except… that’s not quite it. Shin Ren doesn’t sense hatred, doesn’t feel anything so sane as a desire to repel intruders. The things of skittering metal, revolving mechanisms and burning gunpowder seem to almost welcome them, moving into battle with something like eagerness rather than determination.

They are made to kill, made of killing, and the opportunity to do more echoes through them, reciprocated by those trying to move deeper. 

He hands back the bandages, ignoring the look that the Corpse Aflame is giving him, the hunger inherent to her gaze. Despite the establishment of the true balance within himself, of the Domain he’s carved of all his Souls at once, there’s a struggle ongoing within. There’s so little social or sane down in these depths that the Smiling Noble has had to step back, the glut of concepts and Qi he/it absorbed from the soldiers and the Breach absent here. There is no justice here, though there’s enough purity of purpose that Shin Ren’s own cultivation hasn’t suffered in its ability to digest this space. 

On the other hand, the Corpse Aflame is glutted. 

This is a place born of Ruin, of Death, of War. She eats well, and the longer they remain, the more she pulls on his circulation.

Even a few months ago, that would have been the end of his equilibrium, forcing him to burn through her reserves and his own to maintain his state. Now, with his internal pantheon in alignment, it acts as an engine for the others, digesting the power around them and returning a portion to their wider system. Still, it’s uncomfortable, even as he feels his cultivation base and Qi increasing no matter how much he spends.

Sighing, he sits upright, cycling through his meridians and feeling his Cores sharing in the process, refining and sharing himself with himself. The thing that stalked them through the last tunnel, a serpentine thing of feline angles and gunbarrels for eyes, bullets for teeth, magazines and triggers and complex gyros in place of flesh and bone, lies still, but it cost.

He is new to the Warrior Realm, but the space around them is rapidly helping him firm up his foundation. It feels almost insulting, the idea that a place like this is good luck, that someone could benefit from it more than it would cost. 

The disgust swirls like tar, consumed by his Heart Demons but ultimately weighing on all three of them. 

He turns to his travelling companions, signaling for their attention. Taran comes out of one of his fugues, the colors of his eyes returning back to a single shade, and Many-Grasping looks up from where she was praying, turning from the small shrine of lead and brass that grew from the wall in front of her.

“How much further?” he asks. “It’s only getting more dangerous the deeper we go, and we don’t have forever. As much as I can tell you’re both benefitting, there are things aplenty that demand our attention.”

Taran smiles, a bit sheepish but also a bit cocky in his demeanor. “We’re not exactly slowing things down, Prince. It’s been a while since I last checked in with the boss upstairs, and while I’m sure Fisher is taking good care of our friends, I’d definitely rather come back at a less tenuous time.”

Many-Grasping shakes her head, touching a hand to her throat to indicate a desire to speak. The corpse-cultivator seems more comfortable interpreting her, but Shin Ren strains his focus anyways, carefully tracking the way she uses that multi-faceted Intent she communicates with.

“Close. The spaces change, going further to delay us. We’re advancing faster than this place is, but it has gotten more active.”

Or something like that. He knows he has the general gist of what’s being said, but it’s like there’s more under the surface he’s only just glimpsing. Still, he nods. 

“Then we keep moving,” he says, standing back up. “I’m bandaged. We won’t be saving any more Qi by waiting here than by leaving. I say we skip our next rest cycle, if you can keep moving, Many-Grasping.”

She nods, hands gravitating towards one of the pouches of skin and muscle she wears, rich with the flesh of her benefactor. She’s the weakest of the group by far, but Shin Ren hasn’t missed how her presence blends into the space around them, nor how much it has grown since they arrived. He knows that Beasts cultivate differently, and while Beastkin she may be, Many-Grasping has embraced those aspects of her growth far more than most would be able to. While her cultivation is thus harder to grasp by conventional metrics, the Corpse Aflame has started to notice her more often, and the thing that draws that one’s attention above all else is capacity for harm.

In a straight fight, he knows he could annihilate her, even with whatever unique abilities she’s gained from her rather unique diet. Here, surrounded by a shadow-fragment of her God and lover, he’s not so sure that her growing presence doesn’t herald a lot more issues.

But they’re all on the same side, of course. So it’s a good thing. 

Heh. He feels the thought come and go, and reflects on whether or not that’s how the Smiling Noble feels whenever he looks into Shin Ren’s mind.

“I am growing used to it. I can push this place, have it bend us on our way.” Again, he’s pretty sure he misses a lot of the nuance, but he nods anyways, confident that he’s gotten the broad strokes.

“Then please, do so. If we’re close, we’re better served with a sprint than a walk. If the center of this place is anything like the rest of it, or more, I’d rather not let it prepare anything more for our arrival, or try to keep bleeding us.”

Taran nods, his eyes once again ever-shifting, and Shin Ren wonders how many of the voices behind those colors he can trust, and how many stand beside him only so long as the Bull commands it. Many-Grasping doesn’t bother with a similar acknowledgement, turning instead and simply walking towards one of the exits. 

As their guide stalks forward into the dark again, Shin Ren stops quarantining the space, re-absorbing his Flames and following behind. Taran, as ever, takes up the rearguard position, eyes suited to seeing through the dark and comfortable with the concepts of this place ever-guiding them.

Shin Ren walks through hell, and is fed by it. 

He can think of few worse fates. He can think of few better options.

They trek into the dark, and the dark rises to meet them, running on guncylinder joints and filled with Death and Ruin, old and new.

Guided by the priestess of a dead god, guarded by a legion of ghosts, Shin Ren meets the dark with the [Domain Of The Divine, Burning Court], and judges it all as fuel for his growing, hungering FLAME.

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The world above the dirt is bright.

Outside of one’s grave, torn from stasis and the quiet of corpses, it’s disorienting, blinding, loud. She feels it in the ever-thunder of guns, in the pitch-dark of marching feet, in the too-sharp sights that spiral through the air on wings of Wraithfire and grave-wax.

And she pulls the trigger.

Out in the ever-flashing smoke of the battlefield, a many-headed titan with three faces laughs in the face of devastation, wreathed in Echo-smoke and Flame-That-Was, a thousand-thousand immolations and detonations and quiet endings all reflected in his impossibly fast movements and artful patterns of destruction. Amongst the outer perimeter of Godsfall, the dirt is churned endlessly, Dirt-Turners from beneath the surface brought up to unmake it by their faith in Bishops that need explain nothing to them. From the still soil come graves, in such a number and such proximity that boots of metal, clad to exoskeletons and the corpses they drive, fall into them by the dozens. Whorls of color, monochrome and impossibly potent, burn an aurora into the sky as the intricate magics of a phylactery-saint make the world into forms more pleasing to her. Atop a throne of gold and skulls, a skeleton plays with a coin, endlessly twirling it between fleshless knuckles, and with every change and turn, new transactions make and unmake the battlefield.

And she pulls the trigger.

She sits on her hillside, moving two bodies at once, reinforcing arrays left and right. Day by day, the landscape is altered by her will, runes and spell-craft transforming the flow of the Qi around her and drinking deep of the Death marching towards her. Her Beasts run wild, ambush predators in their element, and her single active Gu eats well, consuming all it faces, pulled back only by her commands and the presence of stronger enemies. 

Li Shu’s puppets maintain supply lines, striking surgically into enemy lines. Jin’s smoke surrounds their position, eager to whisper of any incoming dangers from enemy or ally. 

And she pulls the trigger.

Each Death adds a flower to her azaleas, shaped like the ending she’s crafted. Every failed attack on her position, every successful tactic that’s forced her to relocate, every spell she’s had to evade or counter, all tell her more about spellcraft than theory could, teaching her what works, stress-testing her every rune and tearing apart the smallest flaw. 

She pulls the trigger, and a grave-worm falls from the sky, torn apart from where it ate its way across the sky. She pulls the trigger, and a towering construct of metal and bone sparks and spasms, tearing itself apart from the agony of the thing she plants in its form and which blooms into Pain. She pulls the trigger, and a line of machine-corpses tear each other apart, or come unmade in a blast of force, or are consumed to fuel a grander spell carved into the bullet she sends. 

As she forms new hex-hounds, as she guides a reptile colossus faster than sound and the Beetle that commands it, as she re-shapes the runes and arrays of defence and offence and vigilance and more, she pulls the trigger.

It hurts, every time. 

It’s almost more familiar that way.

It’s all… comfortable.

She suffers. She fights. She improves. 

Different than before, but the foundation is the same. Pain, learning, and challenge. Destruction into Change, all looped back into her.

The colors of Black and Blue and Red and Gold leak from every gunshot, the colors of Dao flavoring the Pain she sends thundering out into the world. 

It feels like home, in a way that hurts to think about. 

So she keeps pulling the trigger, because no matter how blinding, how agonizing, how heart-breaking, every bullet shot, every agony scored, every experience suffered, brings her one step closer to being strong enough to be herself.

Raika murders in a war of her own making, and is fed by it.

It is the most disgusting thing she has ever done. She can think of no greater success possible.

It has to happen. It was the only way it would listen.

It’s a special kind of hell, to ask and be given what one asked for. A special kind of suffering, to gain from the destruction of others.

The alternative is to wait. To let things sit still until they curdle, and rot, and fall to nothing and it’s too late. 

So the war approaches, and she pulls the trigger.

And every time, she becomes a little more Hers.

And a black flower, shaped of a dagger that is shaped of her END creeps a little bit closer.