Fifty-Seven

Wounds stitched themselves back together as fresh flesh covered the myriad of injuries as the Regrowth rune filled his vision. Shocked disbelief hammered through him as he heard the voice of a dead woman. A new arm ripped its way out of her ravaged torso just as a pair of familiar black axes came flying to slap into her palms.

Tears in reality ruptured all around her again, but this time not a single wound opened on her as she lunged forward, axes scything forward. Arms fell to the ground as the Void Walker elder failed to defend themselves, then their head a moment later went sailing away.

The masked champion turned to look at him and he could see it. The stance, the violence, the runes floating around her. It had to be her, no matter what his brain told him. He could feel it in his heart, the way she stood there above her fallen foe, arrogance and pride incarnate.

"You have some explaining to do," Alice's voice came muffled from behind the mask as she nodded toward the dead elder at his feet.

"Alice?" The word was strangled leaving his lips as he blinked away his confusion, trying to force his brain to work. Shocked numbness had deadened him though, that his mentor was alive and here. More than the ambush around them, her being here unmoored him, leaving him stunned.

"Reunions later. Get moving towards the suites. Daniur can't fully exert herself if she worries about you dying in the backlash," Benny's voice filled his ear, startling him out of his stupor. He looked back toward where their suite was just as Diur arrived, looking a bit winded but otherwise unharmed. The blood dripping from her sword seemed to imply that someone wasn't as lucky.

"Let's go kids," Alice said as she shot by him. Diur looked at him with wide shocked eyes that were full of questions that he didn't have the answers for.

"How?" Diur whispered as they started to follow in the wake of Alice's trail of death. Kon had seen her fight before, her brutal overwhelming strength on Crucible had been how they had survived. It had been a primal type of fighting, where she stood and traded blow for blow with the assurance she'd come out on top every time.

Now she flowed like water and struck like lightning. Her movements were a masterwork of death, her skill refined to a polish as she increased her speed as they entered the stadium, an unstoppable tide that no cultivator could stand against.

Kon's mind kept functioning at some level. He noticed the battlelines with the Purifying Flame and Void Walkers against everyone else. They fought in unison, using their superior techniques and surprise to overwhelm the more numerous rogue cultivators. They turned as one group to face Alice, their bodies wreathed in aura as they walked forward with warrior's arrogance.

And Alice ran them over. A relentless, unending one woman tide of violence. Bodies were tossed to the side as they followed Benny's call. A sword ruptured through Alice's back, her hot blood splashing across Kon's face. She didn't slow, cutting down the offending cultivator and pushing forward even as the wound healed nearly instantly.

The few survivors of Alice's rampage staggered and came at them but Kon and Diur were trained and experienced, cutting down the few who made it to them with ease. Blood and bone clung to the round head of his mace while Diur's robes were coated in gore as she slashed apart those who came at them.

They turned the corner that led directly to their suite and Kon froze as he stared at the killing zone Benny had made. He'd known that the old man had quietly laid out defenses around their new living quarters, but he hadn't realized how extreme they'd been.

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Some type of explosive had been used, the blast marks across the ceiling and chunks of stone that had been ripped free were obvious enough. It was hard to see the rest of the hall as it had been painted in dripping red. He couldn't figure out how many cultivators had been in the hall when the explosives had gone off but the remnants in the hall appeared to be at least a score of them.

"Benny does say be prepared," Kon muttered before they waded through the blood. Diur muttered something but their feet splashing wetly covered it as they reached the doorway. The door was splintered, broken in half with one part held by a single hinge. Alice pushed through and into the room, Kon right on her hip as another shocking sight greeted him.

Turja stood in the middle of the room with a mangled cultivator in her arms in a perversion of a lover's embrace. She suckled at where shoulder met neck, blood coating her face as she looked up to stare them down. Her normally black eyes were blood red as her mouth pulled free with a wet smack as she looked them over.

"Benny. Is she with you?" Turja asked slurringly, not appearing to be phased at all by Alice staring at her.

"She's one of mine. Get back to your meal, you old hag," Benny said as he walked out of an emergency tunnel that he had cut into a wall. He was wearing his armor without his helm, a monstrous rifle cradled in his arm. Kon looked it over and realized it was the ballistic rifle he and Diur had trained with on the unnamed moon.

"As you wish," Turja murmured as she sank her head back into the dying cultivator's neck, slurping noises filling the room a moment later. Kon stared at his mentor and the unsurprised look on his face as he looked over Alice. He knew. He knew she was alive and hadn't told him.

"Benny. This is Alice. Who's supposed to be dead," Kon bit out, heat filling his voice as he stared at Benny. The old man looked at them for a second before dismissing them.

"Did I forget to tell you about that? Daniur has been taking care of her. Now everyone get close, this will be a strain to protect." He stopped and looked up towards the ceiling before clearing his throat.

"Everyone is secure, Daniur. Go wild," Benny said as he reached over toward them. Truth made its presence known as Benny coughed and cleared his throat before speaking.

"This room is protected," Benny said. For a moment it felt normal, but then an extra pressure was applied. Years of ravaged age disappeared for a moment on Benny's face, pleasure washing over him. The room grew dense with more power than Kon had ever felt. Then it was gone, Benny standing there a little paler, with a thin sheen of sweat on his face.

Kon waited, looking around the room for something to happen. A legendary B-Grade was supposed to be going wild above them but he didn't feel anything. There was no apocalyptic feeling of dread. Kon looked over to Benny who was staring at him with a little smile on his face.

The ground began to shake. Soft at first but with gathering strength until the stone floor rippled in waves. Stone walls shattered and turned to dust as streaks of light pierced through the cracks, blinding in their intensity. A howl started, wild winds whipped through the stadium, chunks of broken masonry picked up and tossed like it was made of feathers. Rain beat down upon them with bullet like power that drilled through the surrounding area.

Everywhere except the room. The ceiling stood safe along with some of the walls, but most of the suite broke apart like kindling. All around them the iron-gray sky was revealed, lighting forking through it so bright it was like day. Golden motes of light floated down, all that remained of the cage they'd tried to suppress Daniur Stormblade inside.

Far above dark figures danced inside of the strom. Fire and crackling space attacked the storm, disintegrating wide swathes of the storm. In the center of the storm, wrapped around in a lighting armor with black clouds forming a crown around her head, Daniur held a sword pointed at the cluster of figures fighting their way through the turbulent air.

A bolt of lighting as thick as a tree launched itself from her blade, crossing the distance instantly. Two of the figures disappeared, burnt out of existence in the space of a heartbeat. Pillars of fire seared the air, the heat felt even hundreds of feet away. Rain lashed them, steam erupted, and they were whittled away to nothing before they got close to Daniur. She swiped her sword crisply and a blade of black wind split apart another of the cultivators, body parts falling to the world.

"Do you understand now? The difference between you and I?" Daniur's mocking voice boomed across the world. There might have been an answer, but Kon couldn't hear them as Daniur's will flexed, reality warping around her as the world became a storm.

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