The mont the beam of mud-thick blood splintered the floor beside him, Gael already felt a headache coming on.
Not from fear, but from pure, distilled irritation.
He angled his head up, staring through drifting smoke and moon-powdered dust at the two silhouettes perched atop the overhead pipe.
“You’re late again,” he called up. “We’ve already done your job for you, so—”
“What did you do to her?” the man snapped, cutting him off. “Trying to harvest her organs? Is being parasitized by a Myrmur not enough already for you?”
Gael raised a brow. “Harvest her… organs? Nah. No point harvesting organs from a frail, sickly lady. And even if I were harvesting her organs, I sure wouldn’t be doing it in this stank-ass factory—”
“Sure you weren’t.” The man’s glare tightened. “Because a Raven would never do sothing that vile, right?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but the Hunter raised his gauntlet and fired again, spewing a pillar of muddy blood down with the force of a collapsing ceiling.
“Move aside,” Maeve grumbled.
Gael had just enough ti to register her voice before she snapped her umbrella open and planted herself between him and the incoming barrage. The blood struck the reinforced canopy and bounced off in clumps, hardening within seconds into jagged, clay-colored mud around them.
When the barrage ended, the entire area around the umbrella looked like a sculpture of sharp, grotesque stalagmites.
“Interesting,” Gael mused, poking one of the mud stalagmites from behind her. “Excellent arm strength as well. Wonderful form. Please don’t use it when you’re beating up.”
Maeve scowled. “Not the ti, Gael—”
The man dropped, dashing straight down at Maeve. His gauntlet punch t her umbrella head-on, and the shockwave—surprisingly powerful—sent both Hunters flying backwards. Maeve skidded across a conveyor belt while the man flew towards the skeletal fra of a stamping press, causing the already unsteady machine to groan and buckle.
Gael watched them both take a second to recover, and then the fight scattered across the factory.
Maeve darted between machines, her figure a blur as she used her blood cannons to propel herself across gaps and platforms. The Hunter pursued with equal montum, firing more mud-blood volleys with his gauntlet that burst against walls and machinery. Each spray hardened instantly, forming jagged mud outcroppings and barricades he used to vault higher, redirect his montum, or funnel Maeve into dangerous angles.
A sculptor. How quaint.
Gael focused on the man’s head for a second, letting the status interface shimr into place.
[Identification Complete]
[Na: J̵i̷n̶ ̶I̸r̵o̶n̵m̸o̸o̴r̸ ̷/̴ ̸V̶i̵v̵i̴e̶n̶n̷e̸ ̵T̶h̶o̶r̵n̴e̵b̶e̸d̵]
[Grade: F-Rank Blight-Class]
[Advanced Class: Potter Wasp]
[Passive Mutation: Claymaker Eyes]
[Brief Description: In addition to being able to detect Nightspawn, both the Hunter and Host will be able to pinpoint the exact structural weaknesses of any living being they look at]
[Swarmblood Art: Purging Mudblood / Mudblood Covenant]
[Purging Mudblood Brief Description: The Hunter can concentrate bioarcanic essence into their blood, making it extrely toxic to organic materials. Furthermore, they can harden and neutralize their blood into safe, inert mud]
[Mudblood Covenant Brief Description: The Host can transfer their blood to the Hunter. Furthermore, while transferring blood, the Host will slowly heal the Hunter]
[Aura: ~2,200 BeS / ~1,900 BeS]
[Strength: ~5 / 4, Speed: ~6 / 3, Toughness: ~7 / 3, Dexterity: ~7 / 3, Perceptivity: ~6 / 4]
Gael rocked back on his heels.
So this is what a properly trained Exorcist Hunter looks like.
He’s strong enough to keep up with Maeve, huh?
Maeve slashed through one of the mud pillars the man raised to block her path, spinning on the heel of her boot as she launched another blood cannon to reposition herself. The man countered by slamming his gauntlet into the ground, causing a burst of hardened mud to erupt upward like jagged teeth.
It was—Gael begrudgingly admitted—good technique. And it looked cool too. The gauntlet must be the Hunter’s designated weapon, much like Maeve’s was her umbrella.
But strong and quick as the Hunter may be, there was one thing this pair didn’t have that Gael and Maeve had.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
He humd cheerily and looked up again. The golden-haired, fair-skinned Host was still crouched on the pipe, knuckles white around her rifle. Even from here, he could see her legs trembling. She looked one brief misstep away from plumting straight down, and if that were to happen, it was likely she’d have no way to stop herself from turning into paste on the ground.
Maeve did say most Exorcist Hosts only fight Myrmur Hosts, but Myrmur Hosts are typically as sick and weak as they can be, so she’s probably not that strong.
I, on the other hand…
Another explosion of muddy blood detonated across the factory line. Maeve leapt clear of the blasts, flipping atop a mangled assembly arm with her umbrella drawn like a lance. The man rippled blood through his gauntlet again, hardening mud beneath his feet to stabilize himself before firing another chain of blood cannons.
Gael barely spared them another glance as he pald a small scalpel from his coat and flicked it lazily over his shoulder. The tiny thing spun end over end across the factory, glinting briefly before striking an old brass button on a distant control console.
The effect was imdiate.
Machines that’d slumbered for years roared awake like insulted giants. Conveyor belts groaned and shuddered to life, chains overhead jerked and clattered, and rusted stamping presses twitched and slamd down with teeth-rattling force. The entire factory shook on its foundations as if Ironwych itself were coughing, making both Maeve and the Hunter stagger with the sudden motion. Mud pillars splintered. The assembly arm Maeve had been balanced on lurched sideways, and she was forced to leap, boots skidding across a rattling catwalk.
She shot Gael a murderous glare from across the chaos.
“What?” He spread his arms and laughed. “If we’re going to fight for no good reason, we might as well make it a fun one!”
Steam hissed from ancient vents. Chains rattled overhead like tal snakes waking up. The noise was imnse, a cathedral of clamor, and amidst it all, he tilted his head back up at the pipe.
The Host clung to the shuddering railings like a leaf in a storm. Every jolt made her knees buckle, and it was obvious she was trying not to look down at the yawning drop beneath her.
Excellent. He wanted her rattled. Timid fighters were like patients in denial—they’d only talk if he ripped off the bandages and showed them the wound.
The girl’s eyes t his for a heartbeat. Then she flinched and turned, scrambling along the pipe as she tried to run.
“Not so fast, miss!” he cackled.
He planted his cane, then launched himself up the nearest conveyor belt that sloped like a twisted ramp toward the higher level. tal rattled under him as he sprinted across moving belts, springboarded off a swinging chain, and grabbed onto a higher catwalk as it jolted forward.
“The Hunter fights the Myrmur, and the Host fights the Host!” he shouted. “Sa applies when Exorcist pairs fight, right? Co back here, miss! Let’s fight, since that’s what you two seem to want so goddamn much!”
True to every ugly stereotype about Exorcist Hosts, the girl let out a frightened yelp and ran faster. She jumped clumsily from the pipe to a rust-flecked platform, nearly missing the edge. From there she stumbled onto the top of a sealed cauldron, then flailed onto another hanging walkway, using her rifle more like a balancing pole than a weapon. Every landing was just a bit too heavy, every step just a bit too loud. She moved like soone who’d spent most of her life standing behind soone stronger while channeling blood, not soone who’d ever had to put a Myrmur down herself.
She’s a backliner through and through, he thought.
Behind him, another detonation of mudblood rattled the rafters.
“Get away from her!” the Hunter roared.
Gael glanced down briefly. The man had turned his back on Maeve entirely, gauntlet raised towards Gael.
Impressively loyal. Also impressively stupid. Maeve imdiately slamd into the man’s side like a fireball with frills, driving her umbrella tip-first into his ribs and sending them rocketing into another distant machine.
He’s strong, but he lacks practical combat experience.
Who the fuck just turns his back to Maeve in the middle of a fight?
Gael laughed and vaulted onto another rising platform, trusting Maeve to handle it.
He finally swung onto the topmost platform, intercepting the Host with a laugh. The girl skidded to a halt, breaths shaking, before lifting her rifle and squeezing her eyes shut.
The rifle cracked. He lifted the front of his chitin-plated coat and blocked the bullet with a sharp tallic tang, and then tapped his little finger to his palm.
“Don’t kill her,” he murmured.
The three hungry flowers on his glove blood violently, lunging forward and ripping apart everything between them: the railings, the support pillars, overhead beams, and rust-clotted grates. Bolts scread. Steel groaned and peeled away as the platform under her collapsed, and she was one heartbeat away from dropping when he stepped forward and caught her wrist.
Her montum nearly dragged him over the edge with her, but he dug his heels against the groaning platform, muscles locking as he held her over the massive cauldron far below. Thick, sluggish magma was beginning to churn in the cauldron, and orange light flickered across her terrified face.
“Let’s not do anything dramatic,” he said cheerily. “You there, Hunter! Drop your fucking gauntlet or I’ll drop your partner!”
Far below, the man—having barely recovered from the last hit Maeve drove into him—looked up and froze when he saw Gael holding the girl over molten death.
Obviously, Gael wasn’t going to drop her, but the man didn’t know that. He only glowered at Gael like he was the living devil.
“You fiend,” he spat. “Just like every other Raven—”
But his back was turned from Maeve once again, allowing him to fire a high-pressure blood cannon into his back and throwing him into the bottom of Gael’s cauldron. He crashed face-first into the tal—limp as a broken marionette—then slumped to the floor without so much as a groan.
Maeve limped out from behind cover, favoring one leg, and lifted her umbrella with a weary thumbs-up.
“Got him,” she wheezed.
“Jin!” the girl in Gael’s hand cried, writhing desperately. “You better—”
He reached into his coat with his free hand, found a slim glass syringe by touch, and flicked it neatly into her wrist. The needle pricked her skin with a soft click, and the sedative worked its magic. Within seconds, the girl’s frantic struggling slowed. Her grip slackened. Her eyes rolled back as unconsciousness swallowed her.
“... Finally,” he muttered.
Unfortunately, they were supposed to have run away from the factory a solid five minutes ago. Now, in the outer corridors, voices shouted as the Steelborn guards sward the building.
“Dearest wife!” he shouted, leaning over the rails to look at Maeve. “Grab whatever Blight-Class at you can, then carry the man and the Host on your back! We’re going straight back to the forge!”
Maeve nodded, breathless but determined. anwhile, Gael slung the unconscious girl on his back, readying to leave—and that was when he saw it.
A mark on the girl’s wrist, half-obscured by gri and the angle of her sleeve.
Eight legs and a cross on the abdon…
The Mark of the Spiders, huh?
He had questions he wanted to ask the two of them, but that could wait.
Not getting caught was first priority.
User Comments
0 comments from readers