Chapter 206: You Are Killed

For the first three minutes, the Enforcers formed a wall of steel and flame. Most of them were nearing peak Fury Forge, the best the Guild could send for the previous task of exterminating a few malignant parasites… if only they knew how large this nest would be, they would have brought thousands of enforcers and called upon the lords in the upper districts.

They had killed thousands of the spawns already, had cut them down in swathes, had burned them to ash until the ash was so deep it rose past their ankles.

And still, it was not enough.

Yuta knew it was coming; he was at the forefront, fighting like a demon. A Mist Phantom was many times stronger than a Fury Forge because their Lumina had flooded past their Lumina Vein and was beginning to transform their flesh to store Lumina inside it.

He no longer depended solely on his pools, but could call upon power from his flesh, of course, that also had a limit, but he could fight for hours. They slowly retreated while they fought; the sound of battle had drawn the attention of residents around, and panic was beginning to spread.

Yuta purposely stopped the retreat, knowing that if they moved back past a certain point, they would no longer have a chokepoint that would funnel all of these creatures towards them head-on, and they would be surrounded.

All the enforcers here were well trained, and so they realized that if they moved back, they were only signing their death warrant, and the only possibility of survival was to stand their ground and fight for as long as necessary.

Standing at the front, his blade began to chip as he sliced through bones and flesh, and when the first cut that tore a gash in his face, nearly taking one of his eyes, Yuta knew that the breaking point had arrived, and something broke inside him when the first of his enforcers died… Ilsa.

She was young, barely twenty-three, her talent still new enough that she spoke of it with wonder. She had been assigned to Yuta’s squad six months ago, fresh from the training halls, eager and bright. She had asked him once, in the quiet after a patrol, what it felt like to kill something that did not want to die.

It was a strange fucking question, but the world of Siphon was filled with mysteries, and the young enforcers were always curious, and Yuta knew not to stifle that curiosity.

He had told her she would find out soon enough.

A spawn came over the line, its body flattened like a tapeworm, with its limbs stretched into hooks that caught on her armor.

It wrapped around her legs before she could bring her sword down, and then it pulled with surprising force, causing her to fall, and they fell upon her.

Ilsa had time for one scream, and the sound was haunting since it did not sound like a soldier, but like a young girl, which she was.

The scream went on and on, high and thin, cutting through the chaos like a blade.

Her talent was flame manipulation, and she tried to explode, but the pain of being eaten alive was more than she could handle.

“Hold!” Yuta’s voice was raw. “Hold the line!”

They held, by the blood of the fallen gods, they held, but they needed thousands of men, not the number standing here.

Yuta knew the next enforcer to fall… Maric.

He had been with Yuta for twenty years and had stood beside him in the desert, on the coast, in the mountain passes.

Maric was a wall of a man, his talent making his skin harder than steel, and his fists capable of shattering stone. He had never taken a wound that did not heal.

Ilsa had screamed for too long, and Yuta knew that Maric had been seen flirting with her. Without caring for the shield wall, he had plunged into the chaotic press of bodies, and no matter if he shattered ten of these abominations to ash, a hundred more were waiting for him.

“Damned beasts, you think you can take me on? Bring it! Bring it!”

The spawns took him in pieces.

They came at him from all sides, and his fists killed them by the dozen, their bodies bursting into ash that coated his arms, his chest, his face.

But there were too many. They climbed his legs, his back, his shoulders. They found the gaps in his talent, the places where his skin was just skin, and they opened him.

He did not scream. Maric had always been a tough bastard and had never been one to express his pain in what he considered a cowardly manner.

But Yuta heard him call out a single word, not a prayer, not a plea, just a name. His wife’s name.

As it turned out, at the end of his life, Maric did not remember the hot girl he was cheating with, and even though he had died to save her, his last words were for his wife.

Maric had been an essential part of their defenses, and now that he was gone, the shield wall began to collapse.

Yuta strained himself; both of his pools were now empty as he swung his blade in wide arcs. Surely, this flood would come to an end soon. How many bodies could be inside that damned nest?!

As he was deliberating this matter, the woman fighting valiantly by his side, Selene, died with her daggers in her hands.

To protect his side to keep him safe as he slaughtered, she made sure that nothing came near him.

She was the best close-quarters fighter Yuta had ever trained, a whirlwind of steel and grace who had killed thirty-seven spawns before they brought her down.

They brought her down with their bodies.

A wave of them crashed into her from the side. They did not need to attack; just pressing against her with their weight and their numbers was enough to drive her to her knees.

She kept fighting, her daggers rose and fell, rose and fell, each stroke killing one, two, three. The ash was up to her waist, and still she fought.

For a while, it was as if even on her knees she could fight forever, but they took her arms first.

Yuta saw it happen, and he roared in rage and pain. The spawns gripped her wrists, her elbows, and her shoulders, and pulled in different directions.

There was a sound like a wet cloth tearing, and even in the chaos of the battle, Yuta saw her daggers on the ground, and her hands were still holding them.

He did not know who was laughing at that sight, a laughter that sounded like cries, but the sound awfully sounded like his own.

She did not scream; it was as if she was in shock. She looked at Yuta across the chaos, and her lips moved, and he knew what she was saying, “Go… Go… Go…. Leave us and run.”

Yuta smiled at her, knowing she had to understand that he could not leave.

A spawn crawled onto her chest, a particularly small one, barely bigger than a child, yet its limbs were too long, and its red eyes too bright.

It opened its mouth, and there were too many teeth, and it began to eat her face.

Selene’s eyes stayed on Yuta’s until the end. They did not close; they could not, not when the creature ripped out her eyelids, then she was buried under claws and teeth.

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