Chapter 32: 32: Mask Off

Rosa

CW: More gore than usual

 

My form melted partially into smoke, bringing with it relief from my wounds. I stitched the hole up and stood, turning to look at the Mageblade Butcher. All around us, his allies looked on, not yet realising the danger they were in.

Thirty metres back, our friends were pushing for us—A vain and pointless attempt to help us despite the undead blocking their path.

It’s not like we actually needed help anyway. Not now that I’d been pushed over the edge.

I would not let them take Amelia. This game was her life currently, and there were no others like it. None with the same level of social fidelity that the NPCs here had. I would not let them force her to log out, and I was done hiding who I truly was from my new friends. I just hoped they were still my friends when I was done…

“That,” I said in a deafening whisper that rolled out over the battlefield despite the quiet volume. “Was a mistake.”

My body shifted, smoke wisping off me in waves that fell like the waves of a wedding dress to drape the ground. My tail vanished, my ears receded back into human ones, and I grew by several inches.

There, in front of everyone, teeth bared in challenge, I became the Witch of Chains.

The look of horror on the Mageblade’s face was delectable. My infernal stomach rumbled as I tasted his fear. It was made so much sweeter by the personal nature of his fear. I could taste the horror of realisation on my tongue. Divine.

I laughed.

“Goodness, your fear is delicious,” I smiled, my voice still carrying out over a battlefield that was growing increasingly still. “I might become addicted to the taste of it if I’m not careful.”

“Y-you’re not… you’re meant to be…” he stammered, backpedalling away from me.

“A player?” I asked, finishing his sentence for him. “I never claimed to be anything other than a player. If everyone believed otherwise… Well, it is their fault.”

I enjoyed the distinct flavour of his terror for another moment, and then I moved. One instant I was having a conversation with him, and the next I drove claws of smoke and shadow up under his ribcage. He screamed, and when I pulled, the game tore him out of his avatar to spare him the trauma of being disembowelled.

His allies, frozen until that moment, finally began to move. Orders were shouted. Spells were readied and pointed in my direction. So what did I do?

I raised my hand, still dripping with gore, and I buffed myself with everything in my repertoire.

Immense power lit me up inside and out. My reflexes, speed, and agility went stratospheric. My magical stats blew past even that threshold, and my ghostly abilities expanded with my senses.

There was potential here on the battlefield. All the corpses, all the zombies, and even the spirits of those not blessed with the gift of resurrection, they could be used. My decree washed over it all and spun a new purpose out of the raw material.

Black, twitching forms rose up out of the ground in a mirror of the earlier undead summoning, except this time each monster was made of pure smoke. The figures writhed and twitched as though they were in the most awful of agonies, even if deep down they were nothing more than an extension of my will. There was nothing even close to free will in any of them. They were machines with one very clear purpose—Kill every single person on this battlefield who aligned themselves with the Empire of Pagutum.

My minions screamed as one and attacked. Pagutum players gathered into bands in an attempt to stave off the swarm that’d sprung up amongst their ranks, while the regular military formed tight formations.

Despite the Empire’s troops being extremely disciplined, they died in droves. Where the zombies were feral and enraged, the shadows were utterly mindless, but cunning in their execution of my decree. Whenever the two clashed, they merged into a whirlwind of claws and snarling rage, until one came out on top. Whenever my shadows won, the loser would rise again to join my army.

Before I summoned my weapons, I looked down at Ame where she was still on the ground. “Are you okay, my love?”

“God, your Witch transformation is so fucking hot,” she replied, even as she grimaced through the pain of her wounds. Rolling my eyes, I offered her my hand, now free from gore after turning my hand to smoke for a moment.

She took it, and as she did so I healed her back to full. “Ame, are you confident with large calibre pistols?”

“Uh, sure?” she replied, tilting her head in question.

Rather than explain, I pulled more of my smoke together and formed them into pistols. “These will amplify your spells when you cast through them.”

“Damn, that’s cool,” she said, taking the offered weapons. “A little too goth for my tastes, though. Who needs that many spikes on their guns anyway?”

“Quit nitpicking and start shooting,” I smiled, brushing some hair out of her face with a careful touch. I was taller than her like this, and it was an interesting perspective.

Ame threw me a wink and hefted the temporary weapons. “Sure thing, Smokes.”

“Dork,” I muttered, and dropped my crescent pendulums into my hands.

My first target was that Steel Giants tank that’d been teaming up with the Butcher. He wasn’t far away, busy holding the line with his guildmates. Not for long. My form scattered into wisps of smoke.

I re-integrated a few metres away from them and whipped my chains out in a long overarm swing. Shouts of alarm went up throughout their group, but it wasn’t nearly fast enough to save the healers inside their ranks.

The massive axe blade on the end of my chain came crashing down from above, cleaving one healer in two. The force of the blow threw me high into the air, and I used that momentum to rip the pendulum free with a twist. My second blade flickered out while I was still airborne, decapitating the second healer in a violent spray of blood.

Landing with both feet planted on the tank’s shoulders, I rode him to the ground. His friends tried to help him, their blows coming in from all directions. Flickering in and out of smoke form, I negated most of their damage.

Flicking my hand upward, I launched a pendulum up into the air, then whipped it back down at inhuman speeds. The axe blade descended almost instantly and embedded itself in the tank’s helmet by a good six inches. He was most definitely dead, but now the damn thing was stuck. I could have reformed it, but then I had an idea.

Cartwheeling backwards out of their formation, I yanked on the chain attached to the body and swung it around my head. When I was happy with the momentum it’d gained, I slung it back into their ranks like a man-shaped cannonball.

A twist and flick of my wrist wrenched the blade free of the helmet, and just like that I was back in blurring, blade dancing action. I twirled and leapt like an olympic athlete, swinging my heavy chains around with an accuracy that provoked terror in the players I was slaughtering.

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In a display of useless heroics, half a dozen melee brawler classes charged me, swords swinging. Like a dark bolt of lightning, I shifted into smoke and appeared amongst them. Surprised, they had very little time to react as I raised my arms high above my head. I held them there for a moment, a gladiator calling to the crowd while black mist flowed to the ground. It coiled and twisted through the slush until it arrived beneath the all-too-slow Pagutum players.

With the finality of a guillotine’s blade, I wrenched my hands down and spikes of writhing black smoke shot up, impaling their targets and raising them high into the air. 

A crescendo of fear rose up at the sight of my newly sprouted Wallachian forest and like a wave it impotently washed over me, unable to move me.

For the first time ever, though, I wasn’t intoxicated by the bloodshed. I didn’t find any pleasure in ripping heads off of shoulders with the twist of my chains. Their terror fuelled my spells, it enhanced my strength and it was prolonging my rampage, but it wasn’t… intoxicating, like it was before.

I wasn’t at all interested in sowing fear among their ranks, other than the advantages it gave me in combat. Amelia’s kind, loving affection was so much more potent on my tongue. Why bother with making my enemies fear me when such nectar existed in the safety of my lover’s arms?

It was, however, still very satisfying to tear these crusader-cosplaying wannabe racist cunts into chunks of meat.

“Come, missionaries of Pagutum and the Church,” I giggled, baring my teeth. “Let us see how your great second coming of Christ helps you when I wrap you in spiked chains and squeeze. Let us see how he delivers you into wealth and status when I flick dropped items into my inventory to sell later. Show me the power of your so-called patriotism!”

Like the reaper herself, I spun on my heel and brought my chains in from either side to engulf their group. Then I pulled and twisted, ripping through bodies like soaked cardboard. The two dozen or so players left died in a single second, ripped apart at the waist. Gore sprayed in every direction, coating the field like ash from a volcano.

I dodged the spray by phasing into smoke, then back again. That was only the vanguard of the Steel Giants guild finished with, though. More of their number were coming, and at their side were the rest of the Fear Gang.

Squaring my shoulders, I faced them. Even by the odds I was normally used to operating against, there were a few too many of their higher level players than I was comfortable contending with. Did I retreat, or did I stand and try to fight them? I had many new abilities in my repertoire now—Surely some would make a difference. Really, though, my hesitance was due to the fact that I had an audience of people who now knew who I was. What would they think after the last display of power, and what would they think if I carved these people up with the same level of brutality? Even Ame was looking around at the carnage in awe, her shadow guns hanging limp in her hands.

A thump started me from my thoughts, and I found Tami the lightning angel standing beside me. Funny how everyone called her an angel when her forehead sported long horns of petrified wood. Lightning danced over her form, through the feathers of her wings, and between the horns themselves.

She was much more like a fae, or even something older. Similar to me, actually. We both had an aesthetic that spoke to the ancient gods, the ones whom the abrahamic religions had pilfered their beliefs from. Religions such as the one that many across the divide of this battle worshipped.

“You look fucking awesome,” Tami told me, somewhat undercutting my edgy thoughts of old gods and ancient religious violence. “Can’t believe the tiny timid fox girl who’s feral for a bowl of ramen would turn out to be the infamous Witch of Chains. Well, actually now that I say it out loud, it’s kinda poetic. Anyway, are we going to smash these fools?”

Chuckling ruefully, I nodded and crossed the few metres between us. “Yes, but first let me enchant your gauntlets. I want to see what happens when you hit them with lightning while my buffs are active.”

“Oh, oh hell yes,” she whispered, her excitement reaching levels that almost made her vibrate with anticipation. “I’ve seen what that girl of yours can do with your buffs. I am so ready for this.”

Mentally opening my spell book, I selected two instant rituals. The first was one that drastically enhanced her stamina pool, and the second was one that amplified her elemental damage output.

“Hit them with something ranged,” I said, taking a step back as the rituals took effect on her mechanical gauntlets.

Tami didn’t need to be told twice. She pulled her fist back, the action taking far too long for it to be just the wind up to a punch. It sizzled and crackled, energy snapping out to strike her armour, her wide-spread wings, and the ground. Then, like a cannon going off, her fist flew forwards.

Grape-shot made of pure lightning travelled over the field of battle in an instant, carving a furrow off death through the enemy ranks. The cone wasn’t particularly wide, but what it did hit was turned to absolute pulp.

“Fucking hell,” Ame blurted, and I glanced over at her with a grin.

“I want to go and punch them up close with this,” Tami said, staring at her gently smoking fist in wonder. The whole conversation was so… alien to me. It was the violence of battle, but it was… fun?

I must have muttered something to that effect out loud, because Tami gave me a confused look. “Well, duh. It’s a game, we play it for fun? Which, speaking of fun, I’m going to go and punch them now.”

Fun, huh? Fun like… oh, goodness. Now that was an idea.

“Would you allow me to shift into a form that can latch onto your back?” I asked quickly, already melting into smoke. “Then I can help with the initial punch.”

She nodded enthusiastically, so I morphed my form into that of a pair of massive black smoke wings, which attached themselves to her back. “I should be able to relay buffs directly into yo—”

Ame interrupted me with a gasp of excitement. “Oh, I can help too! I have—” she paused, rummaging through her bandolier for a spell canister while summoning Jazz out of her inventory. “—This! If I line up behind you both and we count it down, I can hit you with an impulse shot. It’s normally a knock back, but if you want to go flying…”

“It’s voltron time!” Tami exclaimed happily, and positioned herself like an olympic sprinter ready to race. Oh god, Tami was a dork. “You count us down, Amelia!”

This was absolutely insane. This was crazy. It was like Tami had infected us with some sort of virus that drove us to try ever more wild ways to bring destruction onto our enemies.

“On go!” Ame called gleefully, while my ride rippled with electrical power. I spread my chains out wide, so that they would be carried out and along with us. “Three, two, one… go!”

Tami and I flickered like some sort of glitch in an older digital system. One second we were a bundle of unstable potential motion, and the next, we cracked the world. Beyond the veil of the game’s reality, a cluster of balance SAI howled in frustration, while a singular mental health expert clapped her hands and danced with glee.

On the more mundane level of our simulation, my vision was nothing but a blur of dust, smoke, and debris. Wind howled, and my ears sang the song of an explosion experienced up close and personal. I didn’t even have ears right then, and they were still screeching. Fucking hell.

Everything between our start position and our end position was dead. There was nothing left. Even the snow had been stripped from the ground by our passing. The ground itself had a tear several dozen metres deep over the direct line of our passage.

And the final point, the absolute cherry on top of our stunt, was the notification hanging in my vision.

[Warning. A balancing patch has been released for the Shadesborn race.

Shadesborn will no longer be able to create ancillary inanimate objects without first creating a body.

Shadesborn will no longer be able to cast regular spells without a mortal form.]

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