Chapter 105: 105 – Ritualistic Sacrifice

The difference was that she knew when to use such a stance - the Warrior’s stubby legs top-heavy build naturally rendered its lower half a target. Even still, it wasn’t stupid. It knew its weakness was being targeted, even if its intent to pound her into the ground with a downward piledriver punch was broadcast clear to see by the upward movement of its arms.

It wasn’t its fault that Zelsys knew to step aside just as it began to swing downward, then used its arms as a ramp to get at its head and rip it from its neck. Not wanting to take the risk, she plunged her arm down the neckhole, taunting.

 “Tough on the outside, soft on the outside,” she taunted as she ripped through the membrane of its organ-sack. “Perfect for a Heartbreaker like me.”

A grip on its heart, a crushing squeeze, a quick yank. She dispatched the last Warrior before it could hatch, kicking it inside its cocoon until her steel-toed boot punctured the carapace and then plunging her arm into the hole to crush this one’s heart as well.

To her surprise when she at last looked around the now-silent hive, she realized there was a Doorman directly opposite the one she’d killed. It stood motionless, ignorant to the slaughter within the walls of its own hive - was it ignorant, or aware of its helplessness?

It didn’t matter. Zelsys took the time to climb its back and dig her hands into the pit in which its head sat, yanking on it until the creature retreated far enough to create a gap she could squeeze through. At that moment, she ripped its head off and tossed it aside, then returned to investigating the hive. It didn’t matter if the insect’s body remained alive for a while longer.

There was functionally nothing of interest within the hive instead, but what was of interest was what hid beyond its exit. Zelsys had assumed that both of the side paths somehow connected, but that turned out to not be the case - when she squeezed her way past the still-living, headless Doorman, she was met with a short stretch of the chamber’s full width that ended in a dead end that held the Lightning Butcher. 

Before this wall, a perfectly rectangular pillar protruded from the floor to waist height. The Lightning Butcher was embedded into a slot in its top, and it had a hole surrounded by a glyph on the side that faced the hive’s exit. Similar pillars stood to the central one’s left and right, each of their tops shaped into a basin whose bottom held a glyph and a hole. Even the wall wasn’t a solid piece, but rather as if the panels of the floor had risen up as pillars to form a wall.

Zelsys tried just approaching her weapon and pulling it free, but unsurprisingly, it wasn’t that simple. The glyph on the pillar’s front lit up to her approach, and Fog poured from the hole, forming text in the same segments as before.

The butchering blade hungers,

 like its prey.

 

Feed it till it’s sated,

or nurture it to strength.

 

The lifeblood of insects feeds,

the lifeblood of its master nurtures.

 

Choose one or both, but be warned:

 

Greater growth necessitates more time.

The butcher would await in the chamber ahead.

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When it mentioned the lifeblood of insects, the left basin’s glyph lit up. At the mention of her lifeblood, the right one did. Cryptic as it was, she reached an assumed conclusion quickly. 

First, she returned to the hive, pushing back on the headless Doorman until it stepped back a little further.

Second, she ripped out the mandibles of two drones to replace those she’d used and to have a backup. 

Third, she hoisted one of the drones whose stomach was still intact and carried it to the left basin, cutting open its stomach so that the protein slurry within would pour into it. As the contents of the drone’s gut vanished into the hole at the bottom of the basin, the glyph progressively lit up, until with the last drops the glyph had lit up fully and the drainage hole suddenly closed shut from within.

She was very much confident in her ability to fare without her cleaver for one more chamber, but before she went as far as bleeding herself to try and fulfill the secondary criterion, Zelsys wished to try a more creative solution. 

A lungful of Fog, exhaled into the right basin. Silvery wisps of her exhalation slowly drifted into the basin, then were sucked in when the first one reached the bottom. 

To her joy, it worked. 

To her disappointment, it only worked partially.

The glyph lit up, yes - but only halfway. Another exhalation wouldn’t budge it, even when some of the Fog entered the hole. The dungeon wouldn’t let her leave here entirely unscathed, it seemed. A small cut on her arm, nowhere near deep enough to hit a vein - a small stream of blood, directly into the hole. It poured, and poured, and poured, the glyph slowly lighting up. 

It took her nearly a full minute of bleeding before the glyph fully lit up and the drainage hole shut, and the moment it did, she retracted her arm and turned it wound side up. Her arm was ice-cold and she felt a tangible loss of strength, but it was done. 

The Lightning Butcher slid into its slot down to the hilt and the central pillar once more spewed fog as the side pillars slowly descended into the floor. 

Power demands sacrifice, 

and self-sacrifice is greatest of all.

 

May you have the strength

 to see the fruits of this sacrifice.

The pillars vanished, covered over by new panels that slid into place to cover them.

Zelsys felt her strength slowly returning already, and a wrenching hunger rising in her stomach to match. Her instincts told her to eat, told her to go to the protein slurry basins.

Somehow, she knew she needn’t even touch the vile substance to extract sustenance from it.

Somehow, she knew to plunge her bare arm into it and simply will her body to take from it what it needs, just as she’d done back in the bunker.

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