Chapter LVII: Purging the Corruption II

Demonic Wildlands

Month of the Tortoise 33, 172 ,328 DE

As I pass through the hatch headfirst, the heavy stench of Chaos corrupted blood fills my nostrils. I jam my right-hand knife, Tama, into a gap in the hatch coaming and use it as pivot. Twisting in midair, I hammer both heels into the face of one of the corrupted males.

Bastard! What are you doing with me!?

Shut up and be useful! My black rage, which has not faded, drives my thoughts into Tama. I pull the dagger from the crack in the coaming and start falling to the floor.

The corrupted male flies into another corrupted male behind him, and they both tumble to the ground.

A corrupted female at the back of the group points a Yuan Qi rifle at me. As she pulls the trigger, I wrap a shield of Trinity around my left-hand knife and put in the line of fire for the bullet.

Boom! Clang. Clink. Clink. Clink.

Bouncing off the Trinity around my knife, the bullet ricochets around the corridor and punches another hole in the corpse of a corrupted male on the floor of the corridor.

Before I hit the floor, a third corrupted male, stabs at me with a boarding pike. Blocking the pike, I twist my knife and catch the pike's blade between my knife's long S-shaped guard and its blade.

As the weight of knives and myself drag the boarding pike down, a look of surprise paints the corrupted male's face. The instant the balls of my feet touch the ground, I hammer a kick into the corrupted male's balls. The force of the impact lifts the male into the air and sends him flying into the corridor wall.

The female with the Yuan Qi rifle brings the barrel down to point at me once more. I wrap Trinity around both my knives, creating shields larger than their blades. I wait for the corrupted female to pull the trigger, but for a second, she simply stares at me intently over the sights.

I take use the pause to examine the female's tattered and torn uniform. The cut resembles military uniforms from the Dunkle Sonne Empire and some of the smaller kingdoms around it, but its brown and drab green color do not match the uniform colors of any empire or kingdom I am aware of. The insignia sewn to the left and right breasts of the uniform are as unfamiliar as the colors.

The corrupted male I kicked in the balls feeble rocks from side, while trying to get his feet under him. The corrupted male, which was knocked down by the one I kicked in the head, shoves the other, unconscious, male off of him. As he rises to his feet, he takes in the scene in the tight corridor, and his eyes settle on the short sword, which he dropped on the floor.

From the hatchway above, the soft sounds of Vorn loading new bullets into his oversize revolver reach my ears. While keeping the corrupted female in my line of sight, I tilt my head back and let my eyes drift toward the ceiling. For an instant the corrupted female's stare follows my feint, and I spring toward the corrupted male, who is back on his feet.

Boom! Clang. Clink. Clink.

The corrupted female's finger jerks on the trigger. The bullet bounces off my right-hand knife and ricochets down the corridor.

Before the corrupted male's eyes fully focus on me, I am on top of him. He grabs at my arm, and I bury my left-hand blade in his thickly-muscled forearm.

"AAAARRRRR!" Rage and hate fill the corrupted male's scream as much as pain.

Thump.

Boom-Boom-Boom.

As Vorn's three bullets punch thumb-sized holes in the corrupted female's chest and leave fist-sized holes in her back, she staggers backward.

I slice my knife through the corrupted males forearm splitting it in half from five centimeters below the elbow to the fingers. While the male gapes at his ruined arm too shocked to manage to scream, I hammer the point of my other knife through the underside of his jaw and into his brain.

Boom.

The head of the corrupted male, which I kicked in the balls, explodes

I do not see any sign of the second corrupted female that was here. The hatch opened into the T intersection of a lateral corridor behind the bridge and a corridor running the length of the airship, and other than corpses, the unconscious corrupted male is the only crew-member in sight.

Vorn looks around. "This thing is as quiet as a tomb. What now?"

Layers on layers of scents hang in the air. They have mingled together to the point, where in my human form, I have trouble telling them apart.

While tying up the unconscious corrupted male, I look down the corridors. "There were at least forty or more corrupted humans hand on this airship, but only the scents of nineteen are recent. Try the bridge first."

Moving to one end of the lateral corridor, Vorn opens one of the bridge hatches. While he stands there for several long seconds the stench of rotting, corrupted flesh wafts from he open hatch. Another scent underlies, one both living and Chaos corrupted.

Vorn releases a disgusted grunt. "You had better take look at this."

With the survivor securely bound, I pick up my knives and join Vorn at the hatch. Five corpses lie on the bridge floor, and a plant-like lump of flesh, with four vine-like limbs and fern-like growths on its top, sits on the captain's command chair. It might be more accurate to say it grows from the command chair; root-like tendrils punch through the leather covered cushions and dig into the chair's metal frame. The thing is the source of the Chaos corrupted living scent of. Despite its appearance, it does not smell like a plant; it smells like an animal, a human animal.

"What is that thing?"

"A Chaos corrupted human. In one of Old Man Jones' books, I read about similar effects."

Vorn gapes at me. "That's a human?"

"Turn into a fluffy red pussy cast. You can smell it for yourself."

"Go fuck a dog. How do we kill it?"

I shrug. "I doesn't look like it can leave the command chair. Stack a bunch of cannot shells here. Blow up the ship. Let it burn."

Leaving the bridge, we search the rest of the deck. Other than the galley, this deck has only crew quarters. We find no other humans, living or dead. The galley spans the back of the airship, in the way the bridge spans the front. A hatch in the floor of the T intersection leads down to the next deck. Based on the height of the gondola section, the War Knife should have three deck total.

When I open the hatch, smoky air drifts out. The stench of burnt flesh mixes with stench of Chaos corruption and blood. Other than the scent of the second corrupted female, I smell twelve more corrupted humans, but I do not think any are alive. A dead animal smells different that a living one, and all the new human scents have the odor of death mixed in with them.

"One living human. Twelve dead."

Looking at me, Vorn slightly raises his eyebrows. "The corrupted woman from this deck?"

I nod my head. "Yeah. That female. But I can't tell if she's still on the gun deck or moved down to the next deck."

Moving around the hatch opening, I scan as much of the gun deck as I can. Other than broken shards of metal and fragment of wooden boards, the only thing I see are a couple burnt and broken corpses. After closing my eyes and listening for a minute, I hear nothing that would indicate a live human.

Dropping through the hatch, I this the floor on the gun deck and spring to the side. Not sensing any attacks, I spin around and scan wreckage scattered around the mostly open gun deck.

The broadside cannons appear more or less undamaged. However, nothing but shards of metal remain where the bow and stern cannons once stood. In several locations, cannon shell lay scattered next to overturned ammo carts. The burned and perforated bodies of ten males and two females lie in bloody heaps near the broadside cannons. Meat scraps and bone shards mixed among the ruins of the bow and stern cannons should be their crews, but none of them have an intact corpse.

Thud!

After seven or eight seconds, Vorn drops through the and looks around. Other than a slight frown, he shows no reaction to the carnage surrounding him.

A hatch near the middle of the deck leads to the bottom deck. Opening it, heavy wind brings the scents of several dozen people to my nose, and one is fresh. The second corrupted human female should be down there. Strapped down barrels and crates fill the hold, but the corrupted female is not in my line of sight.

I drop through the hatch and see the female standing next to an open cargo hatch two meters on a side. She wears the same uniform as the other corrupted human, and her shoulder-length red hair blows in the wind from the open hatch. As me feet hit the deck plating, I lose sight of her again. Moving quickly past the tied down crates, I stop when I have her in sight once more.

The corrupted female looks over her shoulder, and her face reveals a shocked expression. After a few seconds, she, once more, looks back out the hatch, and the knuckles of her hand holding onto the hatch coaming turn white.

She feels like her Cultivation should be in the upper stages of the Foundation Establishment realm. She might be in the Core Formation realm, but even if she is, that is no longer enough to be a threat to me.

"Corrupted bitch! Jump or get your knees."

The corrupted female turns toward me, but she stands with her heels hanging out the hatch. Her scent carries the odor of fear. "Who are you?"

I display a predatory smile. "A predator and your prey."

The corrupted female grab the butt of a Yuan Qi revolver holstered on her left hip. Before she has it out of the holster, I have already crossed more than half the distance between us. As the barrel of the revolver come into line me, the corrupted female's finger tenses. I duck so low my knuckles slam into the deck plating.

Boom-Boom.

The corrupted female's quickly snapped shots pass over my head. Even if Yuan Qi guns do not use fire-powder explosions to fire their bullets, the more powerful ones still have heavy recoils. The corrupted female struggles to pull the muzzle down before I reach her.

Boom.

The Trinity wrapped around my left-hand blade deflects the bullet.

We are stronger that those bullets. Do you think we need your protection? Tama's acidic disdain fills her thoughts.

You're too skinny to make a good shield.

Bastard cur! You make me fat!

My right-hand knife, Tama, slices through the revolver, and the corrupted female springs to the side of the open hatch. While backpedaling, she move her hands through a martial technique that looks more like a spell to my eyes. As a read seal, with a faint polychromatic tinge to it, forms in the air in front of her, she thrusts her hand at me in a motion like a palm strike.

I expand the Trinity around my knives into a much larger double-layered, overlapping shield of Trinity.

That is Chaos tainted. As Tia's thoughts form in my Mind, a green-tinged silver disc of Od expands from my left-hand knife. On contact with the disc, the seal bursts into streamers of Power that sear hold in the wood crates and leave glowing hot-spots on the metal decking and outer bulkhead.

Tia! Kill her!

As I slash at the corrupted female with my right-hand blade, a bead of light-absorbing black power coats its edge.