"Oh. See? What did I tell you? Flood a room with water, and the rats will hide where it is most elevated."
–A voice ca from the other side of the wall. At first the man believed he was hearing things. That was until cracks ford, creating the clear silhouette of a human. Then, the piece toppled inwards, and when it shattered, the room instantly fell silent.
"Everyone… Take your arms!" He called.
His n grabbed their tools. Others prepared lightweight explosives, whilst so brought out purses in preparation to pay off the intruder.
However, his blood ran like ice. His confidence waned. Sothing behind that wall urged him to lower his head.
Dread filled his heart. The air chilled to where one could see their own breaths, even though the figure had done nothing to alter the vault's temperature. Slowly, the black-cloaked figure squeezed through, wearing a graceful smile that seed to conceal her true intentions.
She arrived alone, but the Vampire could tell there were another two figures waiting on the other side. One of which instinctively caused him to shudder, and the other to accept that his life was no longer his.
A Moon. The latter was a Moon.
But the forr caused his blood to curdle, far more than whenever he was in the presence of a great Third Generation Vampire like Mary D' Grace.
And this person, a Black Wing, ant only one thing.
"… T-The Head… Gods… It's not an Atelier…"
"I-It's just one Black Wing…"
"I… I knew we shouldn't have… L-Look… at the feathers…"
Despair clogged their throats. They could not even speak without chocking. A hand shakily pointed at the feathers along Chiara's chest, causing the woman to slowly nod her head.
"S-Seven feathers…"
"What the fuck does that an…?"
Seven… seven…"
"Aye, what the fuck does seven feathers an!?"
"We're dead… We're – WE'RE DEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAD!"
One of the n, who clearly know who Chiara was, dashed past her. He had lost all hope. If he was to die, then he'd at least die trying to escape. Chiara didn't seem too concerned about him, and she simply stood there, smiling.
The mont the man stuck his head through the gap –
*Bang!*
*Ka-Chank*
–His body fell like a puppet that had its strings severed.
The Moon montarially revealed themselves. In her hand was a mace that was missing one of its spikes. Smoke bellowed from the hole, and she thodically replaced it with a new spine.
"It appears that the Shotgun Mace is too sensitive. I'll have to refer to the Artificers. How inconvenient."
"Could be worse. Good catch, mouse trap~" Chiara stuck out a thumbs up. "But it's a sha. He seed to know a whole lot about the feathers. Kind of rare outside of our circles. Hey, you. Lady."
Her eyes addressed the barely living mage.
"Question. Why not call it a square? A Square has a bigger surface area, doesn't it?"
"… I'm… Sorry…?"
"Oh, so polite! There there~" She crouched down to her level, placing a hand onto her cheek.
White particles lifted from her body. For a mont, a look of peace overca the girl's face, only for it to immadtely twist in pain.
"Legs…! Argh…"
"I should've removed the weight off first, huh? Ahhh! I was wondering how I'd test Mother's new tools!"
She raised a hand into the air and made a crushing gesture.
Suddenly, a shockwave pulsed from her body, and the stone that was crushing the girl was reduced to a fine mist.
"Non-biological targeting works! Good info for Mother, yes." Satisfied, she stood up, but did not heal the girl again. "Crimmy! I have work for you!"
"Tsk." A second figure entered the room.
The leader of this Syndicate instantly flattened himself to the ground.
This lady's presence alone had caused his body to submit against his will.
"H-Honored… An Honored…?"
A rock smashed into his face. He did not even attempt to stop the bleeding, nor collect his teeth. His body interpreted it as a punishnt for daring to question this being.
"An Honored One? Compared to us? You're lucky I don't skin you alive and shape you into a boat. See how long you'll last out there in the sea exposed to the salty air." The Sanguine Dove – Crimmy – took great offense to being compared to an Honored One.
Her eyes were peeled, and she did not blink as she bored into the soul of the man, as though he was nothing but an insignificant grain of sand.
"A Seventh Generation Vampire should know their place. How about I gut you now and wear you like the girl who tried to sneak in sleeping pills into a Healer's drink. I could use a scarf."
He only just noticed it now, but the frilly skirt the Sanguine Dove wore was oddly vascular, as though it were alive.
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His skull cracked as he compressed his head against the stone, and the blades that had avoided his vital organs were now scissoring away at his flesh. Yet the pain was infinitely more tolerable than being scrutinized by this being.
"Sooo, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted – ahem – Gravity Core modules! Isn't it amazing!? I hold the power to manipulate gravity in the palm of my hands~!" Chiara humd delightedly.
Sohow, this only further twisted the knife of despair in the hearts of the Syndicate mbers.
"But is it 'module' or 'Module' with a capital M? Mother didn't specify if it's a coined term or a generic na. Hey, mister." She approached one of the kneeling n and lood over him.
Her face darkened. From below, she looked like a crow ready to pluck the life out of a worm.
"Spare… Spare…"
"Wrong answer~"
The hand that was just at her side suddenly appeared beside her cheek. The man's eyes seed to ask: "When did they get there?" A crushing, pulsing sensation filled his mind. At first it was a searing pain.
In one micro instant he experienced more pain than he did in his entire life.
Then, it llowed into bliss monts before his field of view compressed into a singular spot.
And his life faded to black. The last thing he heard was the grueso pop of his head exploding like a crushed pogranate.
Blood splattered across the vault. Miraculously, Chiara was the only one who was not stained with blood, despite being the closest.
"Mister. You know, I used to call my father mister too. No papa. No daddy. His na may as well be mister. See, thing is, mister is an applicable na. Such an easy label to slap onto the face of soone – anyone – and suddenly, there is a hierarchy. When you hear mister, do you imagine a child? Adults like to use 'Sir', or 'Madam'. Well, as I was saying, mister father used to sing songs. It went like this."
She raised her hand again, and she groped the air.
An invisible pulse escaped her grip. Heads began to pop one by one. First it was a look of utter despair, which transford into bliss as their heads swelled.
"Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop… pop. Mister loved spacing the beats using the tune of a cracked cranium. But there were never enough heads to use for encores."
She giggled, displaying imnse, finely tuned control over the Gravity Core module.
"Aaaaah… But, I'm not a fan of the dissonance. So little screaming, and each head makes a different sound. So visceral too. But, mama taught well~ Ahaha! Spherism art, chunky remains as the dium. Abstract by the."
The way the blood, pieces of the skull, and organs splatted created a polka dot pattern along the vault's walls.
"Big bro would hate if he saw this~ Must not have been much of it in his world! I wonder if Res is a connoisseur of the Viscera art movent?"
Before she could dabble any deeper into this thought, she tapped an invisible lightbulb on her head and smiled like a child.
"Oh! Right! Mother wanted results! Hmm! It's a success. The Gravity Core module has || Singularity || and || Anchored ||. Quasi-Beholder Skills. Or would they be called Gift Skills? So many questions. Oh well. Mother always has an answer that doesn't involve losing my tongue like with Mister or being slapped like Ex-mother! Hey, Crimmy, did I stutter once today?"
"You did fine." Crimmy comnded. "What's not fine is that you only left two. This girl, and this bag of at."
Indeed. Only the woman with the mangled arm and the leader of the Syndicate were spared.
"But, it'll be more than enough. He's likely the leader anyway."
"T-That… isn't true… I-I am…" The woman uttered a lie.
Crimmy glanced over at Chiara.
"Should I use [Blood Lettering] to extract the truth of her sins?"
"No need! You didn't hear it, did you?" Charin giggled, unzipping her coat, revealing the heavily insulated layer within.
It was made almost entirely of black and golden feathers.
"It hasn't rustled."
Corrupted Items were unique because they could not be replicated. However, items made from the material of a Corrupted could contain their unique properties. For example, the coats of the Black Wings were made using a combination of Quality IX Cloth and the feathers of the One Thousand Eyed Bird. This granted them both excellent DEF stats, as well as high resistance to the Judgent Affinity.
Furthermore, it gave them a weaker version of Frost's Coat of Prejudice, which ant they could gauge whether soone was lying or not through their apparel's feathers.
But just to make sure, Crimmy closed the space between her and the woman in an instant. Then, she began to bleed her over a blank book.
Written along the book were various cris she had committed.
"Oooh! Is that another one of Mother's tech's too!?"
"First Generation Blood Arts, again."
"Like Jury's Mantle of Sin! I'll leave it to you to collect the wounds~ I wanna see if there's any stragglers! I need to express myself, because I've never felt so happy to be part of Mother's story!"
"Would the Eye approve of your 'art'?" Crimmy exhaled.
"It has personality. Is that not enough?" The Moon said, not knowing the first thing about art.
"As long as the dium isn't innocent people, then they won't bat an eye!" Chiara tapped at the bars, terrifying the children and won. "Hmm. I guess people can't appreciate true art nowadays."
"Depends on how fucked up it is."
"Art should push boundaries! Make you feel uncomfortable, rather than comfort! Partly why I miss CogitO's chains, and the friend they called my Tulpa."
"If the deed is done, then can we begin the recovery process? The Black Wings are eager for the coronation ceremony." The Moon spoke with a tinge of enthusiasm.
"Coronation? Who's being crowned? Mother?"
"Wrong word. It's a celebration."
"Don't we get that a lot?" Crimmy grumbled.
"Apparently, Dr. Ignis has reached a Skill Mastery." The Moon entered the room, freeing the slaves. She gave the children small, tentative headpats – the sa kind Frost had given her at one point in her life. She added: "She wishes to perform the first live sensory organ transplant with the Symbiotic Eye. It will mark her as a legitimate Beholder, if successful."
"Ooooh! With no Gift!? Well, let's hurry it up then! Dr. ignis is my idol! Have you seen the macabre art she does! With the giant skeletal titan!?"
"Yes yes. I heard about that." Crimmy sighed. "She broke through the walls of Scarlet Logic as a giant skeleton."
"So cool! Are you done yet?"
"Give a second. Hm. Huh? Oh… Ohohoh… Oooooh, fuck." Crimmy stumbled upon sothing written in the book.
The others gathered close, ignoring the Syndicate Leader whose skull continued to ground itself to dust against the ground. So long as Crimmy was here, he could not move an inch, as his blood would not allow him to.
"Larin-Fucking-Empire. Heavily implicated. Doesn't show the full picture of their involvent, but…"
Crimmy snapped the book shut and strapped it by her hip. Then, she brushed a thumb along the woman's brow, wiping off her sweat.
"Frost is going to love this. Send in your report. The Tear Retrievers will assist in the clean up. Right. Locomoto."
"… Can you not call by my na, please?" The Moon blushed beneath her mask. "I prefer Loco. Loco the moto, wielder of extraordinary weapons, and explorer of uncharted–"
"Could you escort Chiara here? I'm afraid her Raven friends aren't going to be enough to lead her out."
"… As requested…" Locomoto paused briefly before rapidly muttering sothing under her breath as quickly as humanly possible: "Explorer of uncharted worlds, destroyer of evil, provider of good. Consider it done."
Clearly, no one was in the right state of mind here. It seed that everyone who were part of the Head had an issue with their heads. At least Crimmy believed this to be the case. Then again, if they were good at their jobs, then there was no issue in this.
That being said, she turned to the leader of the Syndicate and kicked him onto his back.
"So, mister. Seventh Generation Vampire. I think Nosferatu will want a word with you first before we hand you over to the Amalgam. Don't worry, sit. As long as you're willing to talk…"
She rested an elbow on the handle of one of the swords. Then, she cut herself and allowed her blood to mix with his. His mind beca oddly sharpened, and the pain that had beco dull over ti –
"A… Ah… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
"It's ok, sir. If you can still scream, then you must really value your life. That's all that matters."
a – The pain beca unbearable. It was though the swords in his body were branding him from the inside. It burned. He yeanred to rip the blades free, but his hands refused to move.
He could only lay there and suffer, all the while a beautiful, white-haired Healer smirked down at him like an Angel gazing down at a demon who was condemned to hell.
"Mary D' Grace, was it. Your Queen. Or Princess? Frost is due for Emvita soon. As the Head. We've had a lot of foreign interference in the Nex galopolis. It might be ti to make an example out of one of your kind."
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