Episode 27 - Lusca Rise

The assassins felt relief wash over them.
The monster had finally fallen.

The creature they had genuinely feared might be immortal — might be something no human force could ever bring down — had fallen.

Any ordinary person would have erupted in cheers. But they were assassins.
They swallowed every feeling deep inside and simply reached for each other's hands, nodding in silence.

Veilslayer, for his part, had sunk to the ground where he stood, dragging air into his lungs.
The pain from wounds across his body — numbed until now by the heat of the fight — was making itself known at last.

"Ngh...! It's over. We won't need to look over our shoulders anymore..."

To think that the unfinished business with Vesren had finally — finally — been settled. Something in him eased.
And now their hold on this city would only grow more—

No.
It was too soon to relax.
Think about how he had always operated.

Even after confirming a kill, he had never passed a fresh corpse without driving a blade into it two, three times to be certain.

He swallowed once, steadied himself, picked up both glass daggers, and walked toward the body.

It couldn't be alive.

He had driven a blade precisely into the carotid — the vital point — twisted it, torn the vessel completely, triggered catastrophic blood loss.
Before that, the creature had already bled enough to stain the ground red from a dozen other wounds.

There was no getting up from that.

"Still — one final confirmation..."

He said it calmly, and his hand was already moving with practiced skill, driving the dagger down toward the throat.

The moment it sank in, the first thing Veilslayer registered was wrongness.

"Wait — what is...?"

There was no sensation of bone or joint where the blade should have caught.
Only the loose, crumbling texture of dead flesh coming through the handle.

"......!"

And no blood.
Even a fresh corpse — even a body that had just died — should bleed when the throat was pierced.
But nothing was coming from the wound. Nothing at all.

"Everyone — scatter! This thing is still—!"

In that instant.

The corpse began to split apart with a dry, crumbling sound — and from the cracks, something sharp erupted in every direction at tremendous speed.

"......!!"

He abandoned the dagger and threw himself back — but something had already driven into his abdomen.

"Wh — what is this—?!"

Tentacles. Adult-wrist thickness, covered in hexagonal scales of a dark, iridescent blue.

Along the upper edge, small hooked teeth jutted in a single row. Along the underside, two columns of grotesque suckers ran the length of each one.

"What — what is happening — what are we even fighting?!"

He coughed blood as he shouted.

He forced himself to look around. Most of his assassins were writhing — tentacles coiled around arms, legs, torsos, or driven straight through them.

"I — I have to get this out—!"

If this continued, he would die.
The instant that certainty hit him, Veilslayer brought the remaining dagger down on the tentacle without hesitation.

It cut — surprisingly easily, with a clean, dull sound. He pulled back fast, relieved.

His people registered the same thing almost immediately — the tentacles weren't hard to sever — and began cutting themselves free, falling back to regroup.

"Kgh—!"

He grabbed the severed stub still buried in his abdomen and wrenched it out, dropping it on the ground.

He turned it over. The tip was covered in bone shaped like a scorpion's tail — leaner, more vicious.

"What is this abomination—!"

He was barely catching his breath when the severed piece on the ground began to twitch.
He drove the dagger into it in alarm, splitting it in two — but the twitching didn't stop.

"Don't tell me — everyone! Get those severed pieces away from you! Now!"

He kicked the two writhing halves as far as he could and turned back toward the body — or what had been the body.
From the crumbled remains of the monster he thought he had killed, something new was being born.

Hexagonal blue scales covering every inch of the frame.
Grotesque tentacle clusters writhing from the back and both forearms.
Five tentacles hanging from below the abdomen, partially veiling the front — and Kaftin was rolling his neck, fixing his gaze on Veilslayer.

"Hey there—..."
"You—!"
"Heheheh... dying really is hard work, isn't it? Don't you think?"
"What in hell's name is that?! What is wrong with your body?!"
"Heh — I don't owe you an explanation that far...!"
"Ngh—!"

Veilslayer hadn't noticed — but Kaftin was running extremely close to the edge himself.

Under normal circumstances, deploying the Behemoth Form would have nearly drained his biological energy entirely.
He had tried to extend it by force with the drink he'd consumed.

Then the vital strike had landed immediately after — and he had scrapped that plan on the spot, reaching for the last resort he had wanted, above everything else, to avoid using.

Lusca Form.
Unlike the Behemoth Form, built for close-quarters ground combat, this one was designed for sustained underwater attrition and disruption.

The biological energy he had barely secured from the drink had been burned through the forced form change — which meant he had ten minutes to work with. Generous estimate.

If this wasn't finished in that window, the transformation would collapse completely, and this time there would be nothing left. He would drop into something close to suspended animation.

"Well then — let's begin the final round you were hoping wouldn't come!"
"Ngh—!"

Veilslayer was already past the point of being able to fight.

Several ribs broken — breathing was a struggle. A hole punched through his abdomen by a tentacle.
If he didn't stop the bleeding immediately, his body — middle-aged now, no longer young — would give out.

There was only one answer left.

"Everyone — scatter! We're pulling out!"
"By your command—!"
"And where do you think you're going!"

They were running — and something wrapped around their ankles.
It seized them and yanked them hard to the ground.

"Wagh?!"
"What — what is that?!"

Scrambling to look down, they found it: the severed tentacle pieces they had cut away earlier had transformed completely into something like snakes, coiled around their ankles.

Suckers latched to nearby roots and trunks, they held the assassins in place, cutting off any escape.

"Get off — get off me!"
"Disgusting things—!"

Kaftin fixed his unnatural grin on Veilslayer and came in a straight line.

He would have preferred to take his time — working through the subordinates one by one — but time was not something he had.

"Hey — Veilslayer! What's the rush?! Leave your eyes behind before you go!"
"Gnnh—!"

Kaftin extended his arm — and the thin tentacles writhing along the forearm stretched out and shot toward Veilslayer's eyes.

"GYAAAAAAH—!"
"Heheheh—!"

He almost had him — and then two assassins appeared, throwing themselves between Veilslayer and the tentacles.

"We'll hold him—!"
"—You two—!"
"Go, Veilslayer! We've got—!"

The next instant.
Kaftin fired the thick tentacle clusters from his back — driving two into each of the assassins' torsos.

"Since you're asking so nicely — happy to oblige...!"
"Ngh — go! Go now!"
"......!"

Eyes still locked on Veilslayer's retreating back — Kaftin put everything into the tentacles and tore both assassins apart at the midsection, alive.

Over their screaming, he reached for Veilslayer again — the tentacles from his back surging forward in a violent rush.

No more delays.
He was going to kill him.
He needed those eyes — to lay at his master's grave.

"Veilslayer—!!"
"......!"

Veilslayer felt him closing in, spun, and slashed.
If he could cut down enough of the incoming tentacles to buy a moment, he still had a chance.

But what he saw was twelve tentacles — a full cluster — driving toward him with no gaps wide enough for one or two sword strokes to clear.

"Damn it—!"
"Heh—!"

With a sickening sound, Veilslayer's body was run through and lifted into the air.

"Hey there — quite a view up here."
"...Kgh... kill me. Get it done."
"...Heheheh..."

Slowly, one thick tentacle coiled around his throat.

Angling it so the barbed edge pressed against the skin — it began to tighten.

"......!"
"You fought well. I'll give you that... it cost me the chance to take you apart slowly and enjoy it. So..."
"...Damned monster... I'll be waiting for you on the other side...!"
"Heheh... now that's something to look forward to. But before that — you'll be meeting my master first."
"......!"

Before the words had faded, the tentacle clenched — and tore Veilslayer's head from his shoulders.

Kaftin caught it as it fell, and laughed — a long, unhinged laugh — with a smile full of something that looked almost like satisfaction.

"...Oh, I forgot to mention. I don't believe in the afterlife."

*

Two days later.
A priest approached the Four Gang Lords, who were still lying low in the temple's treatment rooms even after their injuries had been seen to.

"Ah... everyone. I'm afraid you need to come outside for a moment."
"What is it."

Athunga tilted his head. The priest's lips moved, struggling to find the words, and his eyes slid away.

"P-please. There's something you need to see..."
"What on earth could possibly—"

Suspicious, Athunga pushed open the temple's front door and looked out onto the main road.
The Four Gang Lords went still.

"This is—..."
"That man—!"

Starting with Veilslayer — torso only — and continuing with the torn and dismembered bodies of assassins, each impaled on an iron spike, displayed at regular intervals along the main road in front of the temple.

As if that weren't enough, written across the paving stones in blood, in letters large enough to read from a distance:

'Four fingers left.'

Fingers.
Did he even know that the Four Gang Lords and Count Carloz used God Hand as their private term for themselves?

Athunga ground his teeth and let the man's face settle in his mind.
The bounty. The bounty on his head needed to go up.

High enough that every strong mercenary and hero wandering these lands would go blind with greed and come running.

No matter what he was, he had to have a weakness.
Sooner or later, enough of those attacks would find it, and he would fall.

And even if he didn't fall outright — catching him depleted was a clean enough kill.

"We're raising the bounty. Any objections?"

Gabelth and Bizeth said nothing, which was answer enough.

"How much are you thinking? It'd have to be something serious to—"
"Eighty gold."
"......!"

—To be continued—