129: Messy

Whether it was the noise from the fighting- particularly Claire’s attacks that sent echoes of thunder rolling over the fields, or the presence of fresh meat sitting just outside the wall, they were attracting attention.

A lot of it.

By the time Nima hit third level and pushed herself back to her knees after shaking off the complete incapacitation that followed, she could look up and see over a dozen Fodders rampaging towards them, with plenty more coming in behind. That was good, however. It meant more level progression for them, but more importantly, for Eris.

Nima really did want to look inwards and study her new skills, but there would be time for that later. Based on some of the exclaims from her fellow party members in the Hope squad, they seemed to be excited about new options they received. However, since they were under strict order to not attempt to use them, Nima found no reason to even see what was available. It would only eat at her curiosity when she needed to focus.

Especially now, since it had started to rain about two minutes ago. It hadn’t been happening long enough for the farmland to become mud, but that didn’t mean that wetness and moisture wasn’t seeping all under Nima’s armour. Damp soil thunked as Nima braced the butt of her spear into the dirt to help her stand faster, flicking an eye outwards to let mana coalesce.

What looked like a chicken that had elongated to become over four feet tall while gaining no width in the process, slammed chest-first into a materialization of arcane metal that appeared in the air and punched through it as easily as if the monster were made of tissues. The momentum kept it going slightly, slumping limp about a foot of the way down the haft of the floating, glowing spear. The body was flung off as the spear darted out to catch the claw strike of a wolf-thing lunging towards Jasmine. It seemed as though Nima wasn’t the only one paying attention, though.

While her distant spear punched a hole right through one of the elbows of a six-jointed wolf foreleg, a much healthier-looking misty wolf had leapt onto the back of the creature with claws that tore through flesh as if it weren’t even there. Not even a single eye-blink later, though, a flash occupied Nima’s vision along with a sparkling ‘CRACK’ that shattered over the field. The next instant, the upper part of the monster’s body was missing in a blackened, erupted husk while a cloud of mist quickly dissipated.

“Claire!” came the whine.

“You’re supposed to keep it back to protect us, not up with them!” Claire called back towards the annoyed Shaman.

“There’s nothing back here! Everything dies before it can get to us!”

The growling snarl that came from further forward sent a chill down Nima’s spine.

“And we’ll keep it that way.”

Jasmine swung one axe out to bury it in the face of a misshapen creature that lunged at her. Even without the deadly-sharp blade that could very well have the potential to cut through most anything because of Eris’s abilities, Nima had no doubt that Jasmine’s strike would have still split the monster right down the middle. That was the force put behind the attack- so much that even ten feet back, Nima was still hit by the splatter. The other axe wasn’t in Jasmine’s hand- because it had been thrown a few moments earlier and was still embedded in one of three necks of the corpse of a nearby used-to-be-a-cow. That didn’t stop Jasmine from throwing that hand forward and punching a horse with nine legs so hard that she blew a crater through the face. 

Somehow, the thing kept snarling at Jasmine, but stopped shortly thereafter. That was likely due to Nima dropping her spear, lifting Jasmine’s axe and throwing it with unnatural precision right into the center of its broken head. Sure, Nima could have used her Arcane Assault spear that had now fizzled when Nima let go of her weapon, but this way had other benefits. Namely, the fact that Jasmine could now wrench the axe from the body and have both her weapons ready while she charged down a monstrous sow.

From a number of feet behind her, she could hear idle chatter from the support squad.

“So much for being the backup. Not a single thing’s gotten by.”

“Yeah, well it helps when everything goes down in one hit and doesn’t have a chance to fight back.”

“Gods, what I’d do for a set of equipment like that…”

“Can we at least take out some of the DT’s, just so we aren’t standing here doing nothing? I mean, we’ve got Eris’s marks, too, so our level progression helps just as much as theirs.”

“DT’s are already being taken care of by the defenders on the wall,” one of them stated. “Nothing but Fodders are even getting within a thousand feet. And we may be Wonders right now, but this is mostly for those rookies to get some levels under their belts with us as the safety net. If they really wanted to maximize Eris’s progression, they’d have sent us to a different section of the wall and had us slaughtering there.”

Nima drove the tip of her spear through something that looked like a face, but it wasn’t really possible to tell with most of these creatures. However, it looked important, and when a foot of shaft topped with a steel blade slid through with almost no resistance, the beast crumbled. It was one of the few that actually tried to slip past Jasmine and Alexandra. Those two were more than capable of withstanding the onslaught. Their weapons were carving off chunks so effortlessly that it may very well have been easier for those two to kill than to breathe. Even if they hadn’t been slicing through foes before any of them could try and strike at them, Nima knew the armour, when faced against these foes, may very well have been impenetrable.

It was, in a word, unreasonable. Nima could watch one of the twisted monsters- one that somehow seemed to have both too many limbs and far too few to hold up the swollen body. As it dragged itself through the rain-slicked farmland, one single limb flicked out and tossed aside a six-foot hay bale like it were nothing more than a hollow birch tree costume. Not the strongest of creatures when compared to some of the higher-end students at Marrix or almost any graduated martial combatant, but still far greater than what any of the Hope squad should be able to manage.

Still, when it shoved every single ounce of what was surely a multi-thousand-pound body into a single strike against Alexandra, the Knight simply held up her shield.

Alexandra didn’t visibly shudder or flex in the slightest- not a single part of her body flinching under the impact. Not even while her armoured boots were shoved down into the soil so far that she was buried to her waist.

Nima took a mental note. Just because they may have the resilience or Physical Defense to withstand the attack didn’t mean that energy didn’t transfer. She supposed that this armour could make it so that she could take a strike right from a cyclops without blinking. But it wouldn’t stop her from getting flung across the room.

Even half-buried, Alexandra was able to clumsily strike out with her sword, obviously caught off-guard by the fact she was submerged to her waist. The blade didn’t hit anywhere vital, but a huge gash appeared on one of the primary legs supporting the body and made the mass topple forward.

Onto Alexandra.

Nima directed the new Arcane Assault spear she manifested to slip through the air towards the monster. Before that though, a purple-ish mist slammed into its back like a crossbow bolt, but never left a wound. It seeped right through the skin, making each and every single vein turn black and bulging so fast that it seemed like every drop of blood in the creature’s body had turned into tar in a single heartbeat.

It also let Nima see the horrific patchwork that was the monster’s circulatory system hidden beneath the skin. Black, poisoned veins crossed into and over and under and wrapped around and knotted and tangled all with one another to look like a horrific bowl of noodles. It shouldn’t have been possible for any living creature to remain living when it had that mess under their skin, but neither should they have been able to survive with much of the other mutations that wrought their bodies.

Every previous lesson on Hollow biology outlined that toxins and poisons were less effective on the abominations, because of how horrifically malformed their insides already were. Apparently, ‘less effective’ didn’t mean much when Eris’s items were taken into account, since Meghan’s spell forced buckets of chunky black blood to fall out of the three different mouths covering the face. That flow didn’t stop as the monster, collapsed directly on top of Alexandra and completely hiding the Knight from view, continued to vomit up the liquified remains of its insides like a bucket of slop thrown from a window.

It was probably already dead when Nima’s magically-summoned spear impaled it through the back of its head. That just made it slump down sooner.

Still, Nima shouted.

“Support squad, cover!”

Thankfully, she heard the as-of-yet-inactive backup surge forward as she herself sprinted up right where the huge, swollen body was laying. It had to be the size of four horses taped together, and all of it was sitting on the nail it turned Alexandra into. She didn’t try to help push it off the woman though. Jasmine had that part handled- having immediately turned, screamed, dropped her axes, and started grabbing under the sides to try and roll the creature over. Nima simply ran past that situation to take the new front position with her small shield raised and spear poised to strike while another bladed point hovered over her shoulder.

Unfortunately, the number of enemies was starting to grow a lot more concerning. 

Nima couldn’t look back to see how Jasmine was faring with the un-burying of Alexandra, but based on the grunts of frustration, it didn’t sound great. Her spectral spear impaled one monstrosity all the way through and buried itself in another one, cutting two down before they could cause any harm. A third was felled by the physical spear in her grip, and a fourth that was clawing at her shield started hacking up a disgusting quantity of lumpy, toxic blood all over Nima as Meghan’s spell withered away its life. 

The fourth that lunged at her from an off-angle exploded in a shower of blood, chunks and matted fur that also splattered all over her. Thankfully, however, the flash of Claire’s lightning arced from those remains to three other advancing monsters to drop them in their tracks. The next ones were dropped by a flurry of attacks from the support squad. Fire spells, arrows, and even what looked like one of the arms from one of the nearby corpses that had been flung out as an impromptu projectile. When the melee combatants took over and made a wall to give Nima some breathing room, she was able to take a moment and stick the point of her spear in the dirt.

That let Nima quickly drag a gauntleted hand over her face to wipe away the bloody mess, while also looking to see how Jasmine was faring. The answer? Not great.

The Berserker would have had more than strength to roll the corpse off of Alexandra, but that wasn’t the issue. The problem was the corpse slawing off in Jasmine’s grip. Every attempt to move the body just made the flesh tear and melt into a bloody soup. Hence, Jasmine resorted less to rolling the body and instead digging through it to reach Alexandra.

When a hand reached up through the mess from the other side, Jasmine grabbed hold and pulled. 

For what came next, Nima started to wish that she was looking away instead. After all, Alexandra being lifted up through the toxic, poisoned, black-and-chunky bloody mess of the corpse was quite far from ‘clean’. Nima pulled her spear back from the dirt to help distract herself from the display. She could see Claire turn away and gag. Meghan smiled.

“Badass…”

“Defenders, cover them! Hope squad and support squad, initiate retreat!”

The captain’s voice shouted out from atop the wall. Meghan narrowed her eyes and glanced up. “But we’re fine! Alex is fine, right?”

Alexandra’s response was bending over, pulling off her helmet to show a face covered in black blood, then vomiting into the mess she was pulled from.

“The order is to retreat!” The captain shouted again. Meghan shrugged. 

“Fine, fine…”

The squads moved backwards in a rudimentary formation, though Nima saw the elongated limbs of Rebecca quickly run back and start digging through the bloody mess that buried Alexandra. Nima was confused for a moment, until Rebecca’s claws eventually came free with a long, straight bone. Nope- it was too sharp to be a bone. It was Alexandra’s sword, having been left behind. The Shifter, hunching over at a height even taller than Jasmine, flicked her pointed face over to let Nima see the way that her mouth and nose grew out in a pseudo-muzzle. One large hand held tightly onto the handle of the sword, and the other reached out to snag both of Jasmine’s axes that had been dropped in favour of rescuing her teammate.

Thankfully, the weapons weren’t needed since the ranged defenders on the wall officially started firing down a few seconds earlier. It didn’t matter that they didn’t have Eris’s weapons- there were enough of them with a high enough average level to turn a field of Fodder into a field of bodies in moments. It meant there was no opposition as the large gates swung open silently to let the squads through, then closed just as quickly.

“Halt!” shouted the captain, and everyone stopped. There was a motion from her hand, followed immediately by- well, Nima couldn’t really see what happened next since a blast of water almost knocked her off her feet. It was shockingly cold, a huge surprise, and rather unpleasant. Though, it did immediately scour her face clean from the smattering of gore and washed the blood-paint from the front of her armour.

Actually, that made sense. The water was instant, rapid, bulk cleaning- even if a few people in the squads were sent sprawling to the floor from the blast. Alexandra managed to withstand the force of it, which was good since she had been front and center and took the full brunt of it.

Then the Cleansing Stones came in.

There were several attendants, each with their own stone, and they were very astute in their passes to clean every drip of gore that clung to the filthy Knight. Alexandra was cleaned in record time, then pulled aside while the cleaners moved to everyone else. Dirt and blood disintegrated with a tingle off of Nima, though her eyes were affixed firmly onto Alexandra and some attendant shining a runic light directly into the Knight’s eyes.

“How do you feel? Any dizziness? Numbness in your limbs?”

“N-no.”

“Count backwards from seventeen, adding one every three numbers.”

“Uhh, what?”

“Count, Qualley.”

“Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, fifteen, fourteen-”

The captain moved on from where the attendant was handling Alexandra.

“Kerrot, get rid of all your Rage.”

“Already did, ma’am.”

“Count backwards from twenty-nine, skipping any even numbers.”

“Twenty-nine, twenty-seven, twenty-five…”

“Good, keep going.”

The captain then moved to stand in front of Nima. The Spellblade spoke first.

“You’re forcing us to engage our minds and think, since cognitive dysfunction is one of the first signs of Hollow corruption.”

“Correct,” the captain nodded. “You’re fine. Reik, say every third letter of the alphabet, starting from F.”

The Shifter was rapidly shrinking, with the hunch in her back lessening. Despite the bestial traits of her face lessening back to her normal, human features, Jasmine’s roommate had clearly narrowed eyes.

“The fuck? Uhh… F, I, L, O-”

“Good,” the captain backed off. “No obvious signs of corruption from those that came in contact. How are the items? Any Hollow deterioration?”

Rebecca stopped counting letters and held up the simple-looking-but-overwhelmingly-powerful sword. Her eyes narrowed.

“Uhh, yeah. Not much, but there’s some scarring. It’s just like what had been theorized.”

Nima looked down at her breastplate, where it had been splattered with poisoned blood. The metal, which had been gleaming, was scuffed like sandpaper had been taken to it. Not any significant damage- and completely inconsequential to the function of the item, but also a bit worrying since Eris’s items were supposed to be nigh-indestructible. For visible cosmetic flaws to appear after barely thirty seconds of exposure to the blood…

The captain summed it up.

“The Hollow has an uncanny ability to deteriorate magical items with extended exposure. There were two theorized options on how that would function with Kadell’s items. Either they were too durable to sustain any noteworthy damage, or the deterioration of the Hollow would increase with the potency of the magic presented. It seems clear that as powerful as Kadell’s items are, it will most definitely not last forever against the Hollow. Repairs will be necessary, and frequent.”

“Does that mean Eris is gonna be moved to the base camps on the frontlines so she can keep our gear functional?”

“They have the auto-mending enchantment,” Jasmine muttered. That made Claire nod.

“Right, forgot. So, you’re saying frequent breaks to let our equipment fix itself?”

The captain nodded. “It will also give us time to debrief. Hope squad, return to the armoury, take off the equipment, then we shall speak in the command tent. We’ll make an official report on your level progression and new abilities.”

“What about the rest of us, ma’am?”

Naomi stepped forward, holding her halberd at attention. The captain narrowed her eyes.

“You all are Wonders, so you can provide level progression for Kadell. You will go beyond the gate again and continue slaying Fodders. Ten minutes, or until a cause to retreat.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Many of the support squad replied in unison. 

“Now,” the captain began, but Nima cut her off.

“You never introduced yourself to us, nor did anyone inform us who you were. We still don’t know your name, Miss Captain Lady.”

She sighed.

“Captain Malora, level sixteen Sharpshooter. Now follow me. We have skills to discuss.”