Mechanical eyes whirring, the doctor cried out for mercy before gazing about in confused horror as his world began to spin, mouth gaping wide in a desperate reflex for air that would never come again as his head pirouetted through the air in a spray of blood, his body slumping to the ground.
The last sound the doctor would ever hear was the crack of his own rib cage being burst open, contents devoured, the doctor silently screaming in his mind as he gazed upon the hideous creature moving so fluidly upon his massive spider’s frame, legs pivoting and weaving as gracefully as any velimobile, the spider’s abdomen fused to the upper thorax of an inconceivably fast mantis that had cleaved the doctor’s head off before the man’s mechanical eyes could even register the movement, still-whirring optics getting a final close-up shot of those deadly serrated forelimbs, well capable of scoring steel and cleaving through flesh and bone like warm butter, just as the doctor had designed him.
Then all faded to blackness forever more.
And the Arcadian Horror once known as Johnathan Farreach clicked his mandibles in fierce satisfaction, tasting the doctor’s dying wail with his mind.
And his hunt had just begun.
Congratulations! You have surprised Dominion Trooper! Backstab deals Fatal Wound! Dominion Trooper is cleaved completely in half, terrifying all his friends. Ruthless! Double experience earned!
John ignored the mocking voice in his mind, clearer now than it had ever been before he had embraced the horrific madness that was his vengeance, reveling in sheer bloodlust and savagery, the horror of his own hideous existence, embracing it all like a gleeful dark dream where he could vent all his bitter black fury, savoring each and every death he could bring to his foes.
You have critically struck Dominion Trooper! Experience earned!
You have successfully backstabbed Dominion Trooper! Disembowelment Mastery achieved! Experience earned!
Congratulations! Stealth is now Rank 2! +5 bonus to Stealth with Dimensional Shift!
You have successfully surprised Dominion Trooper. Decapitation Critical Strike successfully executed!
Clamping down on his hot savagery, he knew it was important to make clever use of the powers he had acquired, using Dream Shift to phase his body a hairsbreadth free of Jordia whenever the increasingly panicked troops, frantic with the growing number of mutilated bodies they had stumbled across, scouted his way. And the moment he judged his prey within range, he made quick use of Blink Step from the shelter of tiny groves that seemed to be sprouting up all over the compound to skip past enemy lines, then twist around and strike his opponents before they even knew what was happening.
But then he saw it, and all thoughts of embracing the path of the ambush predator, stealthily stalking his prey, vanished in sudden blinding rage.
You have suffered 50 damage from blaster fire that has penetrated your defenses! 16 Health instantly healed!
Consumed by blinding fury, he raced for the line of panicked Dominion soldiers clustered about a shrieking Highlord Rojan, hissing to feel momentary pain for all that his shimmering chitin-like armor had deflected most of the energy beams being shot his way as he weaved and dodged with his eight scuttling arachnoid legs.
The fierce burst of joy he felt at seeing the terrified countenance of a wide-eyed Rojan was sweet beyond words. But the blinding pain that lanced through him as the suddenly sneering Rojan lashed out with his mind was beyond excruciating.
Or would have been, if John had not been forced to endure the hideous, indescribable agony of every inch of his body bathed in eternal flame from the time his own father and brother had cleaved off his head and put him in a pain vat til the moment he fully embraced the most horrific of destinies.
An act of betrayal he could never forget, and would never forgive.
Ego Whip strikes for 80 Health, 40 Stamina & 40 Psion! Save versus agony & crippling despair made!
You have achieved the perk: Greater Pain Tolerance! Your time surviving the horrors of the pain vats means you will never sleep easy again, but pain will neither stun you nor cause disorientation, and you have +4 to save against all secondary Psionic effects!
You have successfully Castled! Should have thought of that when you first began your killing spree!
“I have struck that foul abomination low!” Crooned Rojan. “He fell into our trap perfectly. Now finish him off before those damned Farreachs arrive! All glory will be ours, and the courts will then look favorably up my claim!”
His eyes widened, seeing the scorch marks upon his enemy’s carapace heal before his eyes, snarling as he lashed out with his Ego Whip a second time, a look of confusion wiping a way his snarl as his attack seemed to skitter off obsidian walls of the mind.
Ego Whip fails to penetrate your mental wards!
Congratulations! Castling is now Rank 3!
You have regenerated 16 Health. 98 Damage remaining.
You have regenerated 16 Health. 82 Damage remaining.
Rojan suddenly lurched back with a startled cry when his enemy vanished, just as the Trooper’s combined blaster fire tore through the ground the horror had occupied only moments before.
The overcast night sky rang with screams as Rojan quickly spun around, blinking away the spray of blood as his momentarily confused and now utterly demoralized soldiers were butchered before his eyes, the serrated mantis limbs ripping through quality Dominion armor as if it were no more than casing for the hot steaming sausage of blood and entrails suddenly bursting forth upon a screaming Rojan’s lap.
The Highlrod howled, lashing out desperately with his mind to strike at a Horror that seemed suddenly impervious to his attacks.
Before crying out in agonized shock as slivers of icy hate tore through his mind.
Castling successfully wards Ego Whip! Attacker at -3 Due to Terror debuff!
Your foe’s Indomitable Will has been weakened by Terror debuff! -2 Penalty to enemy’s resolve.
Your Mindblade has additional +3 to Pierce Indomitable Will. You have completely cleaved through your foe’s defenses! 60 Health / 30 Psion / 30 Fatigue damage inflicted! Your Foe is Stunned!
Congratulations! Mindblade is now Rank 3!
Rojan groaned, cradling his throbbing head as men screamed and died around him, crying out as stray blaster fire tore off his left hand, leaving a seared stump in its place. He began to keen and sob, clutching the seared stump of his limb before screaming as agony unlike anything he had ever experienced tore through him. Vicious, jagged knife-like pincers inserted themselves into his lower abdomen, just above his crotch.
Rojan gazed in horror at the compound eyes gazing into his own, shocked to find he could taste the mind burrowing into his soul.
“Explain your place in all this.”
Rojan moaned as agony coursed through him with every twitch of his foe’s terrible limbs buried deep within his body.
“Explain, or I will tear my limbs free right now, and you will explosively rupture, just like all your friends.”
“Mercy!” Rojan sobbed.
“Talk!”
“You… you’re him, aren’t you? Symbiote 271. You have gone mad like the others. Your father and brother swore they had to put you down!”
“Why are they speaking to you? You were seeking to claim this territory as your own!”
If possible, Rojan’s eyes widened further. “Oh, Phoebe’s mercy, you’re that boy I fought. You must be! You had never looked so human, before. I thought you must be a plant. None of the other boys survived this long without transformation!”
His eyes bulged as the mantis limbs lodged in his intestines twitched.
“Mercy! Please! I’ll answer all your questions! The Farreach clan overstepped, so I was arguing with the courts for administrative rights to the experiments!” He flashed a desperate smile. “I was going to be far gentler with your model. Far, far gentler! Only pleasure, never pain. Maidens and victuals by the pound for every Plague Queen you killed.”
He licked panicked l
ips, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as painful spasms wracked through him. “The infestations are getting worse. More are coming through the gates we lost control of! But no matter how desperate our situation, I would use no mind control, no torments, no pain vats upon you, I swear it! Please, you must believe me. I have only the best interests at heart for all the symbiote models in this facility!”
He gave a hideous gasp, blood spurting from his mouth as the mantis limbs buried in his flesh slowly, so terribly slowly, began to pull him apart.
“What is your role in all this?” Words speared the Highlord’s mind even as mandibles clacked by his ear.
“I am Highlord Farreach’s second. His second! The Michaelmas clones were to be my assistants. Mine, not his! Then that bastard maneuvered behind my back and had me kicked out of my own facility. A facility I had invested a century of my life into building and maintaining. How dare he. How dare he!”
“You were in my mind.”
The Highlord whimpered and groaned, feeling the weight of the terrible accusation, knowing the horrific agony just a single wrench away.
“We were all involved. All of us! Inquisitor Mordillin insisted! We had to make sure the nest was cleared. Lilith is the first of a new generation of Plague Queens to have force-evolved herself into a deadlier form. If she actually manages to colonize Jordia with X-Class Plague Queens using the offspring of Faerie-tainted natives, then the Southern Continent will be lost!”
“Lilith is dead—”
Rojan jerked a nod. “And we are grateful, truly grateful for the abominations you have killed. But that was only one of many Plague Queen colonies. There are others. So many nests are now infesting the South! But let me free, and I will explain to the others that you have fully evolved yourself, and that your control is absolute! You are exactly what we were looking for, 271. Do you understand? An X-Class Symbiote able to take on all our foes and keep our home safe!”
“—And so are you.”
Rojan gurgled a final hideous shriek when the Midnight Mantis abruptly ripped his limbs free of the Highlord's flesh, blood and entrails raining down upon the savaged remains of the Dominion soldiers as the transformed Blood Knight consumed his nemesis, body and soul.
Highlord Rojan has suffered Catastrophic Damage! Highlord Rojan is no more! Experience earned! 1 Additional Potency Point earned! You have seized your foe’s unlimited potential and claimed it for yourself!
Congratulations! Your fierce resolve has pulled you through the horrors of decapitation and transformation into the darkest of nightmares. You managed to endure a pain vat without going hopelessly insane! Not even well-trained Highlords will find your mind an easy prize to claim. Your Willpower has been permanently increased by 2!
For long moments the grounds around him were quiet, the distant shouts of panicked men no more relevant than the soft rustle of grass against the corpses now littering the field.
The executioner of near two dozen foes spent long moments focusing his seething rage into a coherent plan of action, and by the time a wandering patrol stumbled across the hideous sight of so much violent death, he was already gone.
Hungry eyes gazed past stained-glass panes to eye the luxurious bedroom that had been home to warm memories, hope for the future, and in the end, sharpest betrayal.
Yet not a window pane was jostled as the owner of that gaze slipped into the room, squeezing past all barriers using paths only those able to slip between neighboring dimensions could hope to find, and Johnathan Everwood was once more in the quarters wherein he had tasted love for the first and last time that he had truly been himself, and not a symbiote from before whose memories he’d stolen, ultimately no more real than his own vivid dreams.
And for all that he had been transformed into a Faerie-touched horror out of darkest nightmare, the tears streaming down his cheeks as his painfully exquisite nose caught Emily’s scent upon bedding they had crumpled in their shared passion were as human as human could be.
And of the equipment chest he had last packed while filled with hope and excitement for a future he would share with his lover and friends… his precious tools of war were exactly where he had left them. It was fortunate indeed that tears would mar Elementium not at all as he kitted up once more, hyper-acute senses the only assurance of privacy he needed as he finished donning his priceless artifacts, struck by an idea as chilling as it was audacious as he gazed upon the mirror-bright finish of Elementium armor that would ward all laser fire.
But before he could put that dark plan into effect, he would need one more soul.
With a final sad glance at the beautiful room haunted by memories of Emily and the monster who had once been his best friend, John left the way he had come, slipping through darkest night to obtain what he needed before setting up camp in the gymnasium.
And that's where he caught the whiff of blood with his hyper-acute Hunter's Sense, nose like a bloodhound’s, leading him unerringly to a terrible secret that changed absolutely everything, gazing into glassy eyes hauntingly familiar, wiping off the last of the dirt from features that had been hastily buried in the gardens just beyond the training salon.
The wounds made it clear this had been a violent death, and the attacker had struck his victim from behind. John squeezed back a bittersweet tear, feeling a sudden surge of deepest regret. If only he had trusted that inner voice. If only they had all left when they had the chance.
He gave an angry shake of his head, heading back to the gymnasium. None of that mattered, now.
All that mattered was savoring the terror in his enemies’ eyes when he got his revenge.
27
Panicked eyes belonging to a man kitted in Dominion polymer armor, save for a helmet made of high-quality spring steel, gazed into John’s own.
“Please, don’t do this. I don’t want to fight you!” The terrified man begged, trembling hands holding buckler and blade.
John’s smile was feral, the idealistic young man who had tried so hard never to harm a human soul long since devoured by the predator within. “Then you will die.”
The panicked man’s bright silver eyes widened. “No, you stupid fuck. I don’t want to be here, I never wanted any of this. Why can’t you understand that? This was just a job. Just a job!” He howled in fear and desperation as he charged, finally using his saber in the way John already knew all Southern Dominion soldiers were taught, as John had learned from a beautiful woman who had struck a chord in his soul before she died screaming, disemboweled by their enemies.
The memory of her hope-filled smile filled John with caustic fury.
Blink Step successfully activated!
Faerie Magic skill modifier in effect. You have successfully modified Blink Step for the 30th time!
You have critically hit your opponent!
Congratulations! Faerie Magic is now Rank 3!
Congratulations! You have Mastered the technique ‘step and pivot.’ Now you can automatically orient yourself in any direction whenever you use Blink Step!
The soldier’s eyes widened in sudden confusion as the world around him began to spin wildly, sailing across the room as John’s Zwerchhau blow cleaved his foe’s head free in a shower of blood, John having turned with his blink, pivoting and lashing out in a single movement he had already practiced upon the dozens of armor-covered training dummies still on display through the grand gymnasium, all of them warped by cratering blows or other signs of massive structural damage, most with helmets ruptured, heads outright cleaved in twain.
And the noise had been noticeable, as the dead bodies strewn about did attest, John ruthless and practical enough to use the ring of tungsten blade against steel helm to summon his foes, either in small groups or one by one, so he could put his skills to deadly effect, honing them against living targets before he took out the biggest fish in the pond.
John’s gaze brightened as three armed men suddenly burst into the gymnasium, gazing with horror at the canvas of blood and gore before them. He fl
ashed a fierce smile as widened eyes locked onto him, giving them time only to yell for backup before he struck.
By the time yet another outside patrol had raced to the gymnasium, the perpetrator of the monstrous acts within was gone as if he had never been, the men crying out at the sight of three freshly decapitated corpses still squirting blood from severed arteries, having lost their still blinking heads only seconds ago.
“Father, are you sure no fool has disturbed the clone vats? Something is wrong. I can taste it!”
The loud crack of fist against jaw echoed through the well-appointed central study the three remaining Highlords were taking their leisure in, though save for an angry glare quickly averted, Mitch did nothing in response to his father’s backhand blow.
His father’s cold eyes pinned Mitch where he sat. “The inquisitor has made his position clear. Silence unless you are spoken to, Michaelmas. You’ve known this rule for a very long time. Now apologize immediately.”
“Please forgive my many failures, Lord Inquisitor.” Mitch bowed his head to the man dressed in shimmering black body armor with Psiblade and force-shield both at his hip.
The dead-eyed man flashed a patronizing smile. “It is quite alright, lad. I do understand how times like these can make one… excitable. Now, let us review the facts, shall we? We all saw you cleave Symbiote 271’s head free of his treacherous little body the instant aberrations were detected in his sleep. A wise and prudent move, for all that we know no true negotiation can take place within the Realm of Dreams. Thus, by law, all rights to these territories now pass on to your clan alone, Highlord Farreach, with Symbiote 271’s death. He was useful in wresting the issue of joint ownership free of the courts, at least.”
He chuckled softly. “Moderately skilled fencer as he might have been, the thought that your Johnathan could possibly come back from the dead like some sort of ghost is nothing short of absurd.”
Mitch jerked a nod. “I pray you are right, Lord Inquisitor Mordillin. Still, it is undeniable that some threat lurks in the shadows, as the horrific deaths we have seen firsthand do attribute.”
Queen Killer Page 38
