Chapter 100: Book 2 Chapter 7 - Curb Stomp Exorcism

Zoe’s Black Star chain — ebon dark and gleaming under the fluorescent light — crashed down on the baleful demonic core. For a split second, the dark orb resisted the blow before it bowed and shattered into splinters of obsidian. Zoe grinned scarred lips as the splinters bounced off her mirror-coated skin and flecked out into the stinking men's bathroom.

A system prompt chimed out inside her mind.

[You have started the exorcism of the One-Eyed Crow]

[Destroy the remaining demonic cores before the countdown expires. If any cores remain at the end of the countdown, the One-Eyed Crow will respawn]

[Cores remaining: 9/10]

[Time remaining: 9 minutes, 59 seconds]

Zoe sent out a pulse of Aura. It made her dizzy to use her Willpower in such an aggressive way and to scan the environment. She felt nothing… no.. there. Beyond the fragments... She lashed out again, shattering the walls of the stalls with her chain and breaking the toilets.

Blood flowed out from the cracked and scattered porcelain. Feathers floated on the spreading pool of ichor. Something coiled in the corner of her eye, but when Zoe turned, she saw only shadows flickering beneath the harsh tungsten lights. She wasn’t detecting a core, but merely the presence of the demon itself.

“Bella, Anton,” she spoke into the chrome eye floating nearby as Anton’s technique relayed her words. “We need to find the remaining cores. There’s nine of them.”

“Zoe…” Oriz’s words were weak even though the relay. "The cores are inside the demonic subjects of the One-Eyed Crow. I sense two more inside the building, but the others are approaching us now.”

“They have guns, Zoe,” Anton added. “And you’re the only one who’s bulletproof.”

Oriz coughed through the silver eye.

“I can’t fight… I’m sorry.”

Zoe grinned.

“You two find the other cores, I’ll deal with the intruders.”

###

The cloud of shadowy crows swirled and fluttered and formed into a tall man. He wore camouflage and a crow feather cape. A large serpent skull adorned his head and hid his face in impenetrable shadow.

Roman.

Tall and powerful as any general. His men nodded to him as he walked past them, boots crunching over the snow, and they moved toward the gas station. Past the pumps. All six men fired up like any hooligans. Three with pistols, two with hatchets, and Roman standing tall and powerful as he pulled a crude hammer from within his robe. Little more than a thigh-bone leather-wrapped handle.

It was heavy, and it spread power through his arm like a signed baseball bat. With this in one hand and the demonic Skein burning through his veins, he could do anything.

“Are we ready?” he hissed to his men.

They nodded. The five of them wearing hunting fatigues and the bones, feathers, and hides of the beasts they had killed in the name of the One-Eyed Crow. They were hunters. Berzerkers. Warriors of the New World.

Nothing could stand in their way.

Roman smiled behind his shadows and he walked, head high, through the invisible barrier surrounding the gas station. Inside the dome of the One-Eyed Crow, he could breathe easier, like coming down from a mountain. Everything was richer in the presence of his beautiful mother. The air tasted sweeter.

Sliding doors, crumpled, broken, opened for him.

And there she stood. A woman draped in mirror with a scarred grin on her face and a chain wrapped around one hand.

“Which one of you shot me?” she said.

Roman didn’t care for her bravado. This was not the first time someone stood before with the brazen confidence of the System’s powers. Everyone thought they were special, that they were the chosen one, the main character of the new world. Roman licked his fangs, it always pleased him to humble and break prey before feeding them to the all-powerful One-Eyed Crow.

“Kill her,” he said laconically. “And make it hurt.”

He felt the grins on his men’s faces as they aimed, and fired.

###

The gunshots rang out like deafening thunder in the close quarters of the gas station entrance. Three bullets struck Zoe’s mirrored skin. She gritted her teeth against the pinching pressure, at the drop in her Skein, but she didn’t falter.

Mirrored force struck back. Three lances of energy knocked the pistols from the bastard’s hands. The guns clattered across the linoleum floor. Looks of stupidity and shock crossed the faces of the hunters. They wore camouflage, and bones, like some redneck barbarians, but without their guns, they looked more like middle management than any real threat.

Zoe’s rage burned. How dare people like this try to kill her…

No.

How dare people like this kill her! How dare they!

Wicked laughter spilled from her scarred lips as she moved. Her aura told her that these goons' levels were only in the teens. The one with the mask of fang and shadows gave off a threatening presence, but she couldn’t tell if that was the thighbone he gripped like a club. More evidence of Trinch.

She would need to question him about that.

But for now…

The Might in her legs sprung her forward like a cannonball. Her shoulder struck the jaw of a goon and sent him flying into the wall. He hit with a sick crunch. She was already spinning, her chain flung out and coiled around the neck of another. Shoulders heaved. The chain tightened, snapping the man’s neck as she hauled him over her head like a flail. He gurgled as she drove him down into the floor hard enough to snap his spine.

Cold death energy flowed through her. Exhilarated, she looked around. Who was next?

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A double-bitted axe struck her in the back of her head.

Foolish of her, to fight like a maniac instead of the measured steps of the Grasping Vine. But she didn’t care…

The axe bounced from her mirrored skin and struck the goon in the face. He fell to his knees, sobbing, choking around the blood pouring into his mouth. His hands slack by his side as the axe hung in place.

Three down, three to go.

One dove for his gun, but a chrome eye flashed in his face. Distracted, he clawed at the glowing orb as Zoe leaped up and came down on his back. Bone crunched beneath her mirrored feet, and then the reflected force shot out. The man screamed beneath her as his legs went limp. Flames wrapped around his fist, spiteful things, and he tried to twist and strike at her with his technique.

She kicked his face hard enough to remove his lower jaw. His eyes rolled back, and he slumped into a puddle of his blood.

Cold thrill through her veins… the hunger crowing… more, more, more!

Bullets cracked against her armor.

[Skein 92/246]

[Skein 71/246]

[Skein 50/246]

Reflected force riddled the shooter with holes. He sagged, cringing around his wounds, Zoe’s chain lashed out and cracked his temple.

And then there was one.

The boss — how could he be anything else with his fanged mask and raven cloak? — growled at her. He tapped his thighbone cudgel against the ground.

“You killed my men.”

“They’re not all dead.”

“The One-Eyed Crow acknowledges your strength. It is not too late for you to join us.”

[Demonic cores remaining: 8/10]

Bella and Anton had found another core.

“Looks like it ’s too late,” Zoe grinned. “You should have run away.”

Despite the shadows hiding his face, Zoe detected a scowl.

“We don’t need to be enemies,” two voices, overlapping. “You culled the weak, together we can —”

Zoe’s chain lashed out and coiled around the thighbone. She heaved, but the demonic cultist evaporated into a flock of screeching crows. Her chain sagged to the ground as the crows flew through the gas station toward the kitchens.

Anton and Bella.

Zoe sprinted after. She slipped in blood in her haste and smashed through the door frame as she slid to a halt in the dining area. Empty, but the clashing of weapons sounded from within the kitchen. Zoe charged to help but stopped short as Bella flew out through the swinging kitchen doors. The blonde woman rolled head over heels and stopped, gasping, as she clutched at a broken arm.

Zoe hissed.

Hunger.

Rage.

Anton backed out of the doors, chrome eyes orbiting. He ducked under the thighbone and it crashed into a table like a meteor. The wooden surface folded beneath the heavy blow. Zoe flung her chain out in a spearlike strike, and Anton leaped out of the way.

The cultists split into crows. Her chain struck down a bird, but there were too many. When he reformed on the other side of the room, he sagged, clutching at a wound on his thigh.

They could harm him when he was in his crow form…

But he was laughing.

“Such cute little tricks. You think you’re the only ones who have gained power from the burning of the world?”

He raised a hand, and a scroll appeared. Parchment-like yellowed skin. Burning ink scrawled down its length as it unfurled toward the floor.

“Face the true might of the One-Eyed Crow!”

The ceiling shuddered. The floor buckled. The walls groaned.

His strength burned against Zoe’s aura. Smoke billowed out from the shadowy mask. The snake skull clicked shut, and a sibilant hissing shook the air.

His posture shifted, and he vanished. Zoe blinked as he appeared in front of her. Thighbone swinging.

She blocked with the Grasping Vine.

Bone struck her forearm and her mirrored skin cracked and the technique cancelled. She flew into the wall. Breath exploded from her lungs.

[Skein 12/246]

She hit the ground.

The cultist charged. Too fast. Bone club overhead and coming down like an executioner’s axe. Zoe pushed off the ground and launched herself away just in time.

She couldn’t afford to take a hit like that, but where had this strength come from? It wasn’t just the bone. It was as though…

He was burning Skein.

But surely he would burn himself out soon? She just had to avoid it, and so she moved, leaping away as the cultists charged her. Smoke filled the room. She flung out her chain, but he evaporated away into crows and darkness. Rasping wing beats surrounded her. In the dim light of the smoke-filled room, it was impossible to see.

“Zoe!”

Bella cried out as she held her sword high. Caustic aura rippled out. Crows screeched in agony as they through the rippling heat.

The cultist formed behind Bella.

“In the name of the One-Eyed Crow!”

His club swung down to her head. The bone crashed through Bella’s skull like an eggshell and the blonde woman slumped. Zoe screamed and launched herself forward. Her chain lashed out, but the cultist deflected it with his club as his laughter hissed out. Anton leaped away, but the club caught his chest and shattered bones.

Where was he getting all this Skein?

“Zoe,” Oriz’s voice weak through Anton’s dying technique. “The demon feeds him Skein. He can burn as much as --”

The silver eye popped.

Hungry mouths split the floor tiles. They moved toward the corpses of Zoe’s friends. Chewing. Gnashing. Desecrating.

Zoe’s heart pounded in her chest.

Wrath.

Ruin.

Zoe bent and lifted the runeblade.

[Do you wish to bond —]

[Yes]

Razor-tipped roots thrust up through her skin. She growled against the pain as the runeblade fed upon her. The cultist dissolved into crows. Vanished into the smoke. Appeared on the far side of the room with his hands raised. Darkness, and blood, crystalized between his palms as he summoned a cruel technique.

Zoe’s chain wrapped around the handle of the blade, and she swung it over her head. The sword whipped out, and the cultists gasped as it sliced through his neck. He grasped the blade, burning skein as his blood flowed out. Zoe reeled him closer like a fishing line.

He dissolved into crows, but they were limp, wobbling in the air, flopping on the ground. She summoned the aura of the sword and their feathers burned.

The man reappeared, and Zoe walked over to him. The shadows behind his mask were gone. She stared down into a face. A normal face. Anybody from anywhere. She lifted a foot. He screamed.

She stomped.

Nose, face, and skull shattered beneath her heel. Zoe stepped out from the mess, walked a couple of paces, and a demonic presence throbbed. It lay inside the man’s chest, below his heart.

[Demonic cores remaining: 8/10]

[Time remaining: 6 minutes, 12 seconds]

Just a few minutes had passed, but everything had gone wrong. The smoke stung her eyes, and she gasped at the pain ringing through from the bastard’s blows. When was the last time she felt so close to death?

The sword crawled into her hands as she wept, as she staggered through the smoke toward where Oriz lay behind the counter. Her master looked up with yellowed eyes. The pain of knowledge in that gaze. Zoe gripped the runeblade as its slithering roots scraped her bones.

Yes, it hissed. You are the true wielder. Together we shall destroy —

“Shut up,” she mumbled.

“What will you do?” Oriz asked clearly.

Zoe dropped to her knees. She couldn’t think about it -- Anton fell -- Bella slumped -- friends falling through her mind like a cut elevator down a shaft. She closed her eyes in anticipation of the crash. Head hung low, chin against her chest, her tears dripped to the linoleum floor.

“I…”

A feeble hand rested on her knee.

“You saved us from the dungeon, Zoe” said Oris. “Don’t forget --’

“But now they’re dead,” Zoe clenched a hand over her breast. “It feels wrong. I know I can go back and save them… Their deaths feel wrong.”

“What will you change?”

“I don’t know how to beat someone who can burn more Skein than I have.”

“You either fight smarter, fight harder, or you fight dirty. You only have a few minutes, listen closely…”

###

[Fools Rush In]

The white flames of oblivion exploded out. Zoe closed her eyes. The pain of her flesh consumed the pain of her soul. The flames rose until they scorched the emptiness of space.

Until there was nothing to burn.

This time, she would protect her friends.