Vigilance, focus and will. Music amping higher. Rhythm in the slaughter.
These sinners were as skilled as the last, their numbers in the dozens, but the advantage in numbers often came with the false sense of security, a diffusion of responsibility. They might have had a better chance if they'd gone at her one after the other instead of surrounding her. Although the former strategy would have made no difference. Zaphrriyah left the room pooling in blood. Chamber after chamber. There was no end to the bloodshed. The killing a song she listened to on repeat, her every move on beat with the rhythm, slaughtering through the entire club.
The chamber she entered was a bar. There were only three sinners here. She took the first one by surprise with one swift stroke of her blade, but the other two behind the counter were ready for her. One threw a bottle from over the counter as the other hopped over with a metal bat in hand. Zaphrriyah dodged the projectile easily as well as the bat swing, countering with a decisive hooking stab that was deflected in the nick of time by the other sinner who had brought her own pair of knives. The first sinner swung her bat fiercely, the angle of attack backed by her sister who cut off all possible positions Zaphrriyah could have taken to dodge with rising and descending strikes, aimed not directly at her, but on either side of her where she could possibly evade to. She took the blow to her arms, saving the edge of her blade and attempted to riposte, but having landed a hit only hastened the sinner's second swing, leaving no window for countering. Meanwhile, the other sinner transitioned into the offensive, pressuring Zaphrriyah to focus her blades on her while her sister brandished her bat, landing even more hits across Zaphrriyah's body.
Zaphrriyah blunted the edge of one blade with a coat of blood and met the sinner's bat on her next swing, but the force of her swing and its accumulated momentum was too much to deflect and blocking it costed Zaphrriyah negligence on the other sinner, who landed a deep cut into her shoulder. Although the wound soon healed, another followed from her second dagger, this one stabbing deep into Zaphrriyah’s oblique. She struck back with her own blade, but the sinner nimbly withdrew and went out of reach while her furious sister landed another hit after swatting Zaphrriyah's blade aside. All these blunt force blows were doing more damage to her than any flesh wounds, rupturing blood vessels and crushing fiber bundles. Even though those would eventually heal too, the process hindered movement and was different from flesh wounds, leaving her open to more blows.
Their technique and the way they fought together in such perfect synergy was admirable. Zaphrriyah found herself enjoying this fight. She wanted to learn their moves, their rhythm and pace, and she wanted to match it perfectly, to dodge their every strike and hit back hard and fast at every chance she had. But for that to happen, she had to be better. Until then, she fought back the only way she knew how. Bloody dirty.
She completely ignored the batter, turning her whole focus to the other sinner, pouncing on her through brute force of speed, ignoring how her daggers punctured into her body, forcing the sinner to the ground where she mauled the sinner with her own blades, desecrating the sinner into an unrecognizable mess of bloody gore. The sinner's sister was horrified at this profanity, but no matter how hard she struck, Zaphrriyah did not stop until she was finished with her sister.
The witch grabbed her bat mid-swing from behind her head. The sinner tried to pull away, but the witch's clasp was firm. Furious at what the witch had done to her sister, the sinner kicked and punched the witch with all her strength, but the witch felt no pain. She slowly got up to her feet, blood dripping down her front as she turned around. And then the witch stabbed her blade into her throat, slicing all the way down to the pelvis, splitting open the sinner's ribcage and spilling her guts to the ground.
Zaphrriyah pulled the sinner's blades out from her body one after the other. Faint breaths. Blurring sight. She collapsed to her knees and sputtered a liver's worth of blood. The dark fabric of her shawl swiveled in crimson over her back, but it still took nearly a minute before she found the strength to move, and even then, she staggered as she tried to get back up, supporting herself against the counter as she traipsed forward.
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By the edge of the bar was a convex glass wall overlooking a large clearing in the thick of the city over five floors below. It was a garden in full bloom, green with leaves and grass mottled with bright, violet-indigo flowers in its shrubs and trees that seemed to glow in the night, untouched by any city light. Zaphrriyah couldn't believe what she was seeing. There were no flowers in the abyss, and the only plants that could grow were the Pines of the Woods, and those were ancient, not mere flora like these. Yet, they were beautiful. Unbelievably so, unlike anything she had ever seen. At the end of the glamorous garden was a temple, its base domed and wide while its pagoda heights loomed over the rest of the garden. Its tiered roofs were unlit by lanterns, it had no windows and no openings, and the entire temple was a single color, a pale, tainted white, like bare bone.
She smashed through the glass and jumped down. Winds blew brisk against her, billowing through her hair and shawl. She landed lithely on her feet in the lush grass. The air here was wet, nothing like the dry cold Zaphrriyah was used to. It was an unusual sensation, but a pleasant one, invigorating even. She leisurely made her way across the garden. There were steppingstones that laid a path from a ground level entrance a while from where Zaphrriyah had dropped down. Her path converged to the winding stones, but she ignored it, preferring the crisp, soft feeling of the grass beneath her feet. The flowering trees shed their violet blossoms in the breeze. Zaphrriyah caught one. It smelled sweet, like nectar and something incomparable to any other fragrance she knew.
'There are no flowers in the abyss, Zaphrriyah. The King of Shadows made sure of that. There are no stars and there are no moons in the sky either. There is only darkness.'
"But isn't the darkness your domain, sister?"
'Yes, but not this. This is the abyss. The void. The desolate dark. Oblivion. My darkness is the gentle night, and it is the only thing between us and utter desolation. Do you know what that means, Zaphrriyah?'
"No."
'It means nothing. No voice. No thought. No feelings. It is the Blackwater, only much, much worse. The very essence that makes you, Zaphrriyah, will be irretrievably gone. Your soul, your spirit and every last drop of your will, gone, taken, erased and dissipated into the abyss. You cease to exist. That is the worst fate any living creature could possibly have. And that is why you must kill the King of Shadows. For us. For your sisters. For you. For your future.'
Zaphrriyah sliced the flower apart and dashed into a sprint for the temple.
Nothing more than tricks and illusions.
The temple had no gates. Where they should have been, between the pillars and at the top of the stairs was a seamless wall, its face engraved with intricate depictions of warriors, beasts and the glorious battle among them. Zaphrriyah slowed to a walk when she reached the top of the stairs. She inspected the engraving, and just when she was about to brute force through the wall, the linings in the engraving slithered to life, unwinding and glowing as though the little warriors and beasts were each alive and aware of her presence, spreading apart and filling up the entire wall. Then the warriors truly came to life, springing out from the wall in a burst of shambling bone and light, surrounding her with their weapons crossed over their chests. Before Zaphrriyah could decide whether to waste her strength on golems, the floor beneath her suddenly shifted, dragging her expeditiously into the temple. The shift was so fluid Zaphrriyah didn't even feel it, and looking down, she could only notice ripples in the ivory floor as she was carried inside. She stood steady, vigilantly assessing her overwhelming surroundings as she was rapidly transported. Music, lights and cheers rung throughout the temple like bells. The hall was grand and long, hosting countless sinners in its high, tiered seating. The speed of the shifting floor soon brought her to the end of the great hall, which opened up to an even larger chamber that blinded her upon entry by its brilliant magnitude.
It was an amphitheater. An arena. Zaphrriyah scarce had time to fully take in the scene when she was alerted of an opponent. He was standing a respectful six paces away, his sword drawn in challenge, his buckler at his side. He wore a small cloak that seemed to be woven from grey feathers. He wore a mask, simple and white with two dark holes for eyes. Immediately after Zaphrriyah acknowledged his challenge by readying her blades, he attacked, leaping into the air and chucking his buckler at her. Zaphrriyah dodged, but the buckler wouldn't have hit her regardless, bouncing off the ground in front of her before disappearing as the warrior caught it midair and landed behind her. She spun around and struck, but her blades were deflected off against his buckler, leaving her open for a counter. Yet, it came too slow. Zaphrriyah evaded the warrior's counter that came as a swift, three-step swing of his short sword, dashing behind him after his final strike, hacking into his back. And that was the end of him.
