Chapter 99: Curse of Ambrogio

The crowd cheered as the world spun, and abruptly, an unnatural arctic chill gripped Rachel’s heart. The powerful lower deities faded away with Conner’s testing grin, wishing her good luck. In the next second, all Rachel’s tilting ears could hear was the ominous cracking of the icy earth and howling wind that swept across a frozen wasteland.

Dionysus’ voice was distant, more felt than heard while introducing the contest. "Welcome to Nylthera, a place of living hell for the kulina, which our brave combatant has a striking resemblance to! Hehe. Observe the artwork of the cruel dyalitha wolves. What a nightmare this must be for a bunny...or hare."

Nia remained silent within her mind, conserving her strength while assessing the dangers with her own ears. Rachel’s stiffened with her tail as a distant, shrill howl carried along the gusts, pressing her skirt and military uniform against her body.

"I don’t like being in the open, Major, the mature bunny whispered. If this is their home turf, then we’re at a severe disadvantage. Their senses are adapted to this environment. If... Are they still alive?"

Rachel didn’t respond, feeling the strings of misfortune that wove throughout the land, taking her to one of the large, jagged ice spikes that peppered the landscape, providing many refractions in the light snowfall.

Running her hand along the crystal, she looked into the wide eyes of an anthropomorphic visage of a rabbit-person trapped inside the humming sheets; it was cold to the touch but not enough to freeze, like the rest of their frigid environment.

I think they are, she responded, feeling something else laced in the gale sweeping the land that slightly cut past her natural environmental resistances. A closer look at the trapped bunny narrowed her vision, focusing on the sickle driven through the kulina’s chest, burning with emerald flames.

"If what Dionysus said is true," Nia strategized, "then we should expect them to have control over this ice, the undead, and have enhanced attributes. If they hunt creatures with sharp hearing, then they’d have adapted to it. Ack—the bastard. He chose this overcast place to rob us of the moon."

A thoughtful twist lifted Rachel’s mouth as she bent down on one knee, head tilting to scan the jagged ice, only lightly layered by the snowfall, and her gaze lifted to the overcast skies. Slowly rising to her feet again, Nia’s square heels finding traction against the rough surface, she breathed in deeply to taste the air.

Don’t be so sure, Nia... I am not a kulina rabbit, nor a type of prey that hides. Walking further into the open, her illuminated, clover-like eyes took in her stage. I hunt in the light of the moon, not in the shadows, and you’re not factoring in an important detail, Nia.

Her smirk lifted to the heavens, the cloud cover starting to shift in a slow circle as Dionysus’ commentary momentarily cut out. A pained chuckle came from Nia as she asked why Rachel had chosen these creatures, despite all her senses telling her she would die in this wasteland.

Instincts flaring, Rachel’s feet left the ice as she performed an aerial evade, yet she couldn’t escape; a sickly-green blur ripped through her side. It carried forward to lodge into an ice wall, revealing a sleek sickle bathed in her white blood, slowly tinting red.

The Unique Moons aren’t so easily hampered by weather.

[Curse of Ambrogio: Active]

Rachel didn’t feel the pain as she landed, Dionysus snarling as the sky parted.

"My older sister’s hand? Agh! I am not amused! How can your sense of misfortune be this keen?! Not even Theodon, Atë, Oizys, and Tyche combined could possibly have orchestrated this! Of all the Unique Moons possible near this world, you tempt me with the Blood Moon that answers the call of this challenge?"

[Divine Ultima Regeneration X - Selene draws the user’s spirit into Hades. So long as the user’s spirit remains with her, the user’s body will continue to regenerate endlessly from a single cell that survives.]

[Divine Creature of the Endless Hunt X - The user is capable of personifying the Goddess of the Hunt, Artemis, as her greatest hunter.]

[Divine Silver Vulnerability X - Wounds caused by silver will not recover.]

[Divine Sunlight Vulnerability X - Cursed by the god Apollo, any cell touched by sunlight will be utterly destroyed.]

As her spirit left her body, a link between Hades and her actual body was created; those who joined in Ambrogio’s curse had their spirits ripped away to the underworld, severing emotion from thought.

She turned to find a phantom-like wolf looming over her, rising out of the ground like a ghost; she hadn’t heard him until his weapon was buried into her stomach. Yet, the sinister beast was the one to retreat, leaving his sickle in her belly as she activated one of her many Sub-Feats in [Divine Creature of the Endless Hunt]—Rachel’s extending claws reached for his throat, laced with tainted blood.

Taking a moment to recover, she examined herself, impaled by a sickle. Globs of her thick blood dripped from the slash in her side, tinting the white landscape a bright cherry hue. It was so unlike her typical silvery-white.

The energy that filled her wasn’t cruel or heated but cold, calculating, and serene. A dot appeared in the sky, cutting through the snowy heavens as the point split in two and moved in parallel, creating a sphere that met at its northern tip. Bloody wine poured out when they joined together, filling the sphere in a sloshing flood of bright, rippling light.

A gentle woman’s voice pricked Rachel’s soul, somber yet tranquil, and accepting of her sorrow. "You come and go in waves, leaving me in your wake...swallowing everything. When the curtains call the time, my darling, will we both be satisfied? Love...the death of peace of mind."

A crimson veil washed over the arctic hellscape, revealing thousands of frozen kulina, all tortured in their prisons; Rachel could feel the cry for balance in vengeance. The agitated dyalitha’s ears twitched while observing the extremely rare celestial phenomena. The Blood Moon cast all who saw it in an unsettling serenity of inevitability.