Trapped On A Death World - Chapter 38

My blade sang while I cut through bone flesh and visceral. Blood and guts piled on the ground to my knees while I cut a path. These goblings were sturdier than the ones above. Most were mad and ran from something far down the hall. They crawled up the stairs but there was no room.

Ping!

Executioner Proficiency lvl10 Skill with killing in large numbers.

Perks: Ravager: +1% xp per kill +1% xp per kills/sec

Unarmed and naked they climbed the stairs in droves to escape something behind them. A presence crept from behind them hungry and dark. It wasn’t the darkness of demons, nature, or space. This was the darkness of death what some called the old ocean. Whatever caused their panic run radiated the scent of that old sea.

Blood caked on the bottom of my boots while the Mind Flayers flew behind me. They avoided the worst of the carnage while we darklings were made to trudge through it. Another fight was coming, and I was itching for it. Killing unarmed goblings was boring.

I took a step and slashed my sword. Each slash cut without any special technique. Diabla was a big, sharp, and heavy sword and that was more than enough to split bones. Killing twenty goblings with a single swing wasn’t difficult. They were full sized but still weak.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I turned back to see dozens of undead bats feeding on the gore left in our wake. The longer I starred at the undead the more certain I became that they were designed. Why make them?

A fireball hovered above my hands at a thought. Blue flames spiraled about inches from my black scaled flesh. With a flick of my wrist the concentrated ball of heat flew up the stairs and struck the largest group of bats. Heat and shards of bone exploded.

The surviving undead stared at me in apathy. In them I saw no fury. I should have known the undead had no attachment to each other. Behind us was the gateway to hell All we had to do was survive the trials ahead of us and Gwen could be saved. Then we’d leave this place bust out of the wards and leave Dol high and dry. The thought left a bad taste in my mouth.

We crossed through the room at the bottom of the stairs. The stench grew worse. We came upon what I could only describe as a bed of womb goblings. Hundred upon hundred of the creatures were stitched together. Tubes high over the ceiling spewed out a foul-smelling concentration of nutrients, while goblings crawled from bloated wombs.

Deep inside, I felt it would have been easier if Dol wasn’t a gobbling. If he was some sort of shapeshifter doing this it would be easier to accept. This heresy against his own people bothered me. I couldn’t see myself doing this to my fellow darklings. I was a system AI and a former human, but I couldn’t do this to darklings. This was done to food.

It hit me then. I wanted to laugh. For so long it bothered me but now I saw it clearly. This wasn’t a city, and it wasn’t a research lab. We were on a chicken farm.

More of them lined the walls leading deeper into the cave system. I heard the clattering of many legs and saw something in the distance. My eyes pierced the darkness and the creature stood up from its sitting position. Six goblings tried to run past the creature only for it to snatch two up. It brought one of the goblings to its maw and bit the green boy in half.

I heard laughing. It was the womb goblings. They were giggling. One took hold of its own offspring and began eating it. The others soon joined in while the infant screamed. More laughter filled the room while the goblings fed.

A hand touched mine and I nearly leapt from my skin. Doppel’s hand held mine tightly while we walked through this hell pit. There were so many of them devouring each other. Tubes containing nutrients poured their content on top of corpses.

There were more than goblings down here. Ratlings fat as ticks held themselves under the tubes until they were too bloated to move. They fed upon the dead mothers and consumed lame children.

I wanted to drown this place in blood and leave no survivors. There was an aching in my chest that demanded action. Dol had to die, this tower had to fall, and everything needed to burn. Sam stirred distracted from his huddling in the dark.

“There is a light in this place. I want it.” Sam’s voice came in distant. I’d never used his power to this day. I was scared that I couldn’t control it or Diabla wouldn’t survive it.

“You shouldn’t have come down here.” A voice said. It carried over the sounds of cannibalism and slaughter. “Come now don’t be rude. Please come here, I could use the company.” A high-pitched voice countered.

Who are you stranger?” Rudalpho asked.

“My name is Amo,” his voice suddenly went high pitched. “My friends call me Nah, if I had any friends. But that’s ok I’ve learned to make my own friends. They are bats.” The creature said before it stumbled out of the darkness.

It was a colossal skeleton with pale ghostly fire in its eye sockets. The creature used glowing umbilical cords to tie rotten muscle to itself. Scraps of old grey skin clung to the rotten meat coating its body. There was a face made of many faces stacked together. When it opened its mouth, black liquid poured out.

Nah lvl50 Living Graveyard

Rank: Mad Plebe

What did that mean? I didn’t know if it was stronger or weaker than a normal Plebe. Tyrannus wasted no time. The world swirled as a machinegun rounds of telekinesis displaced the air. The creature suddenly glowed blue before vanishing.

Amon lvl100 Jester Specter

Rank: Mad Plebe

“If not for me you’d have died long ago.” Amon said. I swung forward Armageddon’s Chainsaw buzzing. Two rotten hands caught Diabla’s blade.

“What are you talking about? If not for me, you’d never fight.” Nah said. I turned up the heat. The rotten flesh on his hands started burning. He let go a shrieked. A telekinetic bullet struck Nah in the side of the head throwing the living graveyard to the ground.

I slashed Diabla down to finish the job with flames. Before the blue flame could do their job, the creature leapt up and cackled. It threw itself into motion and waved its arms. A volley of black crossbow bolts fired. Everyone scattered while the bolts struck. Rocks and unlucky womb goblings took the bolts. They seemed to sigh as they were released from this life.

Aura Rush burst around me, and I crossed the distance in an instant. The creature managed to survive a direct hit. Old muscles melted off and its ghostly eyes lit up. A saber appeared in the undead’s hand and its movements changed. Our blows met each other, and sparks flew as I matched the creature’s speed.

“You have too many holes in your stance and you overextend yourself.” He slashed a line across my arm and seemed to appear to my side. The blade shot forward turned to slip between human ribs. Aura Rush increased to 80%. The stab aimed between my ribs slowed to a crawl while I moved my blade to counter it.

Sparks showered over the bodies of womb goblings. If our swords were to stay crossed for even a moment Armageddon’s chainsaw would rip through his blade. “My turn.” Nah said. The saber vanished and I blocked the incoming bolts. “No fair swords shouldn’t be able to handle my rot.” I took a hand off my blade and turned the back of it to Nah.

I let my Aura Rush drop back to a comfortable 20% and drove my blade forward. Amon swapped with Nah and blocked with the saber. The specter’s eyes widened when I revealed my hand. “Fireball,” I detonated it point blank.

“Why did you switch, you know I’m weak against fire?” The halos lining Diabla’s blade quickly lit up. “Get me out of here already.” Spectral light took the creature away before I could deal a killing blow. It appeared further away.

Amon slammed his rotten skeletal hand against a large gate. “Through this door lies what remains of Dol’s lover. If you can get past her then I’m sure you can find what you seek.” A hail of telekinetic machinegun blasts tore through spectral light before the creature vanished. This time it didn’t appear in this room.

I stumbled a bit before leaning against a wall. My stomach rumbled and I felt lightheaded. Using Aura Rush at 80% had been a bit much.

My head turned towards the sounds of whimpering. A succulent scent opened the flood gates making my mouth water. One of the surviving womb goblings gripped a shoulder wound. Despite her best-efforts blood leaked down her arm. She began hyperventilating at my approached.

I was hungry in a very real way. Using aura was exhausting and even my stamina wasn’t infinite. It had been a while since I’d eaten anything. I leaned down and licked her arm. Wiggling green tentacles worked on her head while I lapped up the gobling’s arm. Then, I took a bite.

Out the corner of my eye the other darklings had already began digging into a few of the newborn goblings. Tyrannus lazily sucked the brain’s out of a womb gobbling and Rudalpho picked at his. “They really are too full of hormones for my taste. Their brains are practically swimming in endorphins.” Rudalpho said.

About half an hour later I held an enlarged pelvis in my hand. It reminded me of a pretzel. To my teeth it might as well have been one. The only part of the three womb goblings I hadn’t eaten were the feet. After the meal, I was feeling full and ready to fight. Another bite of the pelvis caused a cracking in my mouth. I pulled a tooth out and tossed it on the ground. Already, I felt another one growing in its place.