Chapter 11: The Soldier's Shame
Scene 1: The Gate of Carnage
The patrol captain's grip tightened on his reins. "Drunk again at dawn, Hank?"
But the butcher's trembling hands held no liquor stench—only the metallic tang of blood. When Hank raised his face, the captain's jest died in his throat.
"Monsters..." Hank's fingernails dug crescent moons into the captain's forearm. "Horns... claws... not human..."
A blue eyeball rolled from Hank's grasp onto sunbaked earth—the same cerulean hue the village women had cooed over when Hank's son was born. The captain's boot crunched over it as he mounted his steed.
"Gather the able-bodied!" he roared at the barracks. "Evacuate the market square first! You four—" he pointed at skeptics, "—go verify the gates. The rest, split between the lumber mill and granary!"
His gloves still bore traces of vitreous humor. He scrubbed them against the saddle until the leather squeaked.
Scene 2: The Convent's Crucible
Nora straightened from the irrigation ditch, mud-caked hands shielding her eyes against the galloping dust cloud. The skeletal soldier reined his mount so hard it reared.
"Demons at the gates!" He hauled her onto the saddle before she could protest. "Sister Raynia needs every—"
The chapel's great bell tolled before he finished. Raynia stood in the belfry, her frail frame wielding the bronze clapper like Thor's hammer. The soldier gaped as soundwaves rippled his tunic.
"Armory inventory!" Raynia tossed Nora a rusted key. "Bring the incendiary vials from the reliquary!" To the trembling novices: "Recite Psalm 47 backwards. Loudly."
A novice whispered, "But Sister, that's heret—"
"Demons loathe bad poetry more than holy water." Raynia hefted her wrought-iron crucifix, its base sharpened to a spearpoint. "Tasiya's in the eastern woods. Tell her we need that overpriced toy of her father's."
Scene 3: The Bloodied Epiphany
Tasiya's trap-digging halted mid-shovel. The earth itself seemed to vibrate with the chapel's distress code—three long, two short, the pattern old Raynia had drilled into every child during fire drills.
She was halfway down the mountain when a breathless novice intercepted her. "They're calling them monsters but—"
"Demons." Tasiya adjusted the hulking weapon across her shoulders. Its coolant vents hummed against her spine. "Father's letters mentioned sulfur-based lifeforms."
The battlefield stench confirmed it before she saw the carnage: hydrogen sulfide mixed with burnt hair. Raynia's brigade had formed a shrinking circle near the gates, their crucifixes snapping against chitinous hides.
Tasiya swung the weapon's barrel wide. A gamma-ray burst sheared through three winged horrors mid-leap. Their disintegrating carcasses left afterimages on her retinas.
Not a scam. She chambered another round, the power core's whine harmonizing with Raynia's war chant. That senile old man actually bought alien tech.
Chapter 12: The Cost of Resolve
Scene 1: Stalemate at the Gates
Tasiya's gamma-cannon lay dormant in the mud, its coolant vents clogged with gelatinous demon residue. The initial energy surge had vaporized an entire wave, but now the weapon resembled more an overpriced paperweight than a divine instrument.
"Focus on their cardiac cores!" Raynia barked, her iron crucifix impaling three gelatinous forms in one thrust. The demons dissolved into viscous puddles that clung to the nuns' habits like tar.
A middle-aged sister tore off her saturated outer robe, revealing decades-old whip scars across her shoulders. "Sister Raynia, we can't keep—"
"Hold the line!" Raynia's command cut through the squelching carnage. Her peripheral vision tracked Tasiya's evolving technique—the girl's initial robotic thrusts smoothing into precise strikes that bisected demonic nuclei with surgical accuracy.
Not enough. The abbess noted the shrinking defensive perimeter. If the mountain won't intervene...
Scene 2: The Prisoner's Calculus
In the subterranean cell, Sykes paced before Nathaniel's lounging form. "This is your chance! Save them and claim her gratitude!"
Nathaniel examined his manicure. "Why would I devalue my currency? Desperation seasons the soul."
"But our territory—"
"Your territory," the silver-haired demon corrected. "I merely vacation here."
As Sykes stormed out,maid A observed her master's reflection in a blood-filled goblet. "She might resent your inaction."
"Resentment requires emotional investment." Nathaniel swirled the crimson liquid. "Let Sykes play the hero. His eventual failure will make my intervention... poetic."
Scene 3: The Breaking Point
Tasiya's blade skidded off a demon's gelatinous hide, black sludge coating her calloused palms. Nearby, a novice's entrails splattered across half-harvested wheat—the demons meticulously sorting through organs like gemologists appraising diamonds.
"Retreat formation!" Raynia's war cry morphed into a coughing fit as demonic residue clogged her lungs. The surviving nuns scrambled into a ragged column, their progress marked by viscous footprints.
Sykes chose his entrance with theatrical flair—bat-like wings shredding through the sulfurous fog. "A contract, Lady Tasiya! Your heart upon death for salvation now!"
Before Tasiya could respond, Raynia's cleaver embedded itself between Sykes' talons. "Try soliciting in my chapel, worm. I'll show you real damnation."
The demon gaped at the vibrating blade handle. His reconnaissance reports never mentioned the abbess possessing strength to dent hell-forged steel.
Chapter 13: The Banquet of Revelations
Scene 1: Demon's Delicacy
The hierarchy of demonic sustenance unfolded in Tasiya's mind like a grotesque menu:
Children - Their cardiac auricles thrummed with untarnished vitality (girls' ventricles particularly plump)
Connoisseur's Choice - Custom orders ranging from poets' arrhythmic hearts to gamblers' adrenaline-charged myocardium
Clerical Special - The rarest vintage, requiring decades of spiritual distillation
Seketh's gaze lingered on Raynia's scapular-cross pendant. The abbess' sternum housed a heart that could fuel a lesser demon for centuries—if only he could bypass her sanctified sternum.
"Perhaps we could—"
Raynia's polearm kissed his jugular, its blade humming with ultraviolet sanctification. "Your negligence invited this plague," she hissed. "Now clean your mess before I serve your spleen to the altar boys."
The demon lord fled toward the gates, his wing membranes fluttering like dishonorably discharged banners.
Scene 2: Carnage Calculus
Tasiya wiped gore from her father's gamma-blade. The weapon's crystalline edge dimmed—its alien power core drained after the initial discharge.
Improvisation required. She threaded iron chains through the crossguard, creating a makeshift flail. The first swing decimated seven gelatinous horrors, their semi-solid remains splattering novice nuns like blasphemous baptism.
"Focus on weak points!" Vincent shouted from the ramparts. Workers lowered wheat-straw nets soaked in deuterium-enriched holy water—his lab's latest experiment in agricultural warfare.
A young archer vomited as his arrow pierced a child-shaped demon. Tasiya confiscated his quiver. "Their mimicry is imperfect," she noted, nocking three arrows. "Notice the clavicular asymmetry."
The projectiles struck true, their silver tips igniting upon contact with sulfurous blood.
Scene 3: The Blood Paradox
Nathaniel's fingers danced around Tasiya's wound like moths avoiding flame. His bandaging technique—honed through six centuries of avoiding direct carnage—left the injury immaculately dressed.
"Phobia?" Tasiya smirked, crunching rosemary-infused hardtack.
"Allergy," he corrected, securing the gauze with surgical precision. "Hemoglobin triggers my...ah...digestive paradox."
The revelation clicked into Tasiya's mental dossier:
Wings retracted under illusion runes ✔️
Avoidance of crimson liquids ✔️
Knowledge of ultraviolet sterilization ✔️
She leaned closer, her breath stirring his silver bangs. "Let's revisit your origin story, Mr. Solar Allergy."
Chapter 14: Threads of Twilight
Scene 1: The Dance of Wounds
Sunset bled through the barred windows, gilding Nathaniel's alabaster lashes with molten gold. His fingers moved with monastic precision as he bandaged Tasiya's palm—each fold of gauze a calculated concession to mortal fragility.
"Sykes isn't my subordinate," he said, securing the final knot beneath layered linen. "Merely an… admirer of hierarchy."
Tasiya flexed her hand, marveling at the absence of pressure points. The demon's suturing rivaled battlefield medics. "Hierarchies collapse when the strong grow bored." She tore into the roasted lamb leg with feral grace, juices staining her knuckles. "You'll fly away when this gets tedious, won't you?"
Nathaniel watched grease glisten on her lips. "Flight requires purpose."
Their silent duel of implications hung suspended until Tasiya tossed the bone aside. "Tell me about tonight's odds."
"Demons prefer theatrical timing." He traced a crack in the stone floor—a mimicry of human fidgeting. "But your father's toys might disappoint them."
Scene 2: The Baptism of Rust
The armory's carcass greeted Tasiya with oxidized blades and mouse-chewed hilts. She pried a serrated dagger from its wall mount, its edge dulled by decades of pious neglect.
"Still playing scout?" Nathaniel leaned against the doorway, backlit by dying light.
Tasiya hurled the dagger. It embedded itself inches from his boot. "Follow me again, and I'll test if demons bleed."
His chuckle followed her to the stables. "Blood's overrated. Try sulfur."
By the time she reached the gates, twilight had painted the carnage in grotesque watercolors—corpses bloated with gases, their skin glistening like overripe plums. Raynia sat cross-legged atop the battlements, chewing lamb with sacramental solemnity.
"Sykes' scouts detected no reinforcements." The abbess spat gristle into the wind. "Your father's barricade is theater for the masses."
Tasiya studied the horizon where wheat fields met encroaching shadows. "Then we'll rewrite the script."
Scene 3: The Unholy Confessional
Raynia's calloused palm swallowed the waterskin. "Your mother wore sunlight like armor. The Church called it heresy."
Tasiya's black habit billowed—a storm cloud tethered to flesh. "Her sin was surviving their narrative."
"Daisy chose survival for you." The abbess crushed the empty skin. "The Holy Maiden title was chains. Your birth shattered them."
A magpie alighted on a nearby corpse, pecking at gelatinous eyes. Tasiya's fingers found the gamma-cannon's activation rune beneath her sleeve. "And now?"
"Now you wield better chains." Raynia rose, her silhouette devouring the last light. "Go arm the farmers with scythes. Demons hate improvisation."