71 (II)
Terror
The Deathless grunted. “Yeah. Suppose that's true. Speaking of—I see two guards out front. Vultegs. How many we got on the inside?”
“Not many. Fourteen a few minutes ago. Eight now. Quite a few Masters, though. I think it would be best to avoid most of them and just eliminate the target using your wall-cutting trick. I think I can distract them long enough for that to work.”
And Shiv noted another difference in the way they proceeded. He was completely fine with just waltzing in and tearing people apart. Dehumanization was exactly the right term. The moment he started really fighting someone, it was to the bone, and they stopped being people to him. Pulling them apart became a thing of reward and self-gratification. Meanwhile, Uva was objective-focused. As always.
“Yeah,” Shiv thought more to himself than Uva. “I probably could use a bit more mission focus sometimes.”
“It helps when you’re not operating on your own,” Uva said. “A team always centered me. So. I can help center you.”
Shiv cut into the side of the building with a smile. He watched Uva’s mana strands strike at his enemies with a smile. And he launched a bone drill through the unprepared Psychomancer’s head with a smile.
Scream and cries for reinforcements sounded—but Shiv triggered his Chrono-Anchored Strike and blinked across the district. He drove his blade into Moravega’s chest. Meanwhile, he listened to the chaos erupting in the distance, and he found himself slightly contemplative.
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“I think I’m going to take things a bit slower when I can,” Shiv said.
“Hm? What do you mean?” Uva asked.
“Stealth. I like it. I like focusing on it a lot. I like walking unseen and watching people. And I like the fact it gives the chance to maybe spare more people if I want to. If I behaved the way I usually did before, I suspect that would have been a bloodbath. Choice is power. And power gives you options.” Shiv grunted a laugh. “Those guards owe you their lives, Uva. You got me in a rare introspective mood.”
She gave a soft chuckle. “You often get into thinking moods, Shiv. Mainly for cooking. You’re not truly a mindless brute.”
Shiv considered that. Artistry had a way of demanding someone to understand themselves better. Maybe he wasn’t so simple. Maybe he was just behind when it came to developing certain thoughts. He spent most of his life struggling to survive and desperately facing monsters in hopes of getting a Path, after all. There wasn’t much use for philosophy and introspection in those cases.
“Let’s do this even more quietly, then,” Shiv said. “Your way. Subtle. It’ll be good practice for me and neater for us. And it’ll give me some time to think about deeper personal stuff.” His words made Uva laugh. “What?”
“What do you think Adam would have said to your statement just now?” she asked.
Shiv paused to consider that. Then, he mentally did the Young Lord’s voice. “‘Of course you would treat someone else’s death as philosophical lubricant, you bastard cockroach!’”
The Umbral chortled in his mind. “Ah. Not exactly like him, but the spirit… The spirit is there. I’m going to send him your impression. I think he'll appreciate it. Even if he will pretend to be outraged.”
A moment later, both Shiv and Uva held back their mirth as the Young Lord began cursing at them. “I was trying to focus on writing a letter to the Inquisitor, can you two mock me some other time? Don’t you have some serial killings to perform?”
“Did a few already,” Shiv said. “Killing a bunch of people in horrible ways got me thinking of you.”
“Shiv. I do not appreciate that statement, and I wish to remind you that I have a particular vambrace right now that might advise more caution on your part.”
“Aw, Adam,” Shiv crooned mockingly. “We were just thinking about how good and decent you are. And a bit soft and fragile, but mostly good and decent.”
“He’s mostly being honest,” Uva said, telling Adam Shiv’s true feelings.
The Young Lord just sighed. “Well, I appreciate the clarity. I am well aware of my position as the team’s moral core.”
“Right, well, on that note: Who’s next on the murder list, Uva?” Shiv asked.
“What a wonderful way to change the topic,” Adam said with a sigh.
“I would go for the other two Master-Tier Psychomancers if I could,” Uva began. “But they’re always covering for each other, and they’re also with the Gate Lord. Best not to risk having him discover my presence until things are far too late.”
“I think we might be able to take them now,” Shiv said. “Me against the Gate Lord. You against the mind mages. With a good ambush—”
“Shiv. What happened to take it slow and with more control?”
“Ah. Got carried away. I was kind of thinking whether Confriga’s creepy sword could kill me and spike my Toughness again. It’s going to be hard to level that without a really hard-hitting opponent. Dying’s getting harder, too.”
“I’m dropping out of this conversation,” Adam grumbled. “Uva, release me. Shiv, don’t just bloody start a fight with the Gate Lord and send this whole thing sideways.”
Shiv grunted. Uva grunted—mimicking him. Adam disconnected.
“What was that?” Shiv asked.
“You,” she said. “I’m considering what it would be like if I just aggressively attacked everything until all my problems were dead or I was.”
“I recommend not staying dead. Works wonders for me.”
“Ah. I’ll have to keep that in mind. For now, let’s talk about our next batch of prey: Bureaucrats.”
Shiv paused. "What?"
"Administrators too," Uva said casually.
"Why are we murdering pencil pushers and non-martials?"
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
"For one, they're easy prey, and secondly, well, secondly, they're integral to running this gate. Does Confriga strike you as someone who has the temperament to run a government?"
Shiv paused. "Not quite." And he was beginning to see what she meant. "So, you're asking me to actually kill the people keeping this place functional?"
“Yes. And for the fact that the worst people in Compact are the ones that authorize the slave trading and conduct the deals. They’re a level removed, but their cruel hand is still heavy on the page. They are an integral part of this, even if we cannot see them. They are the ones that sell the weak, that enforce the present architecture. That makes them no different from enemy combatants.”
And Shiv noted another difference in their murder morality. He wasn’t very comfortable killing the outright weak. Something about that seemed a bit unfair to him. They had to be openly cruel like Oldsmith to really make him want to kill them. Uva, meanwhile, decided on these targets purely based on pragmatic reasons.
“Okay,” Shiv said. “I’ll do them in quietly. But there’s one more group I want to add.” He then shared a memory with Uva. And she quickly realized what he wanted. Back when he pretended to be a slave, hiding using his Perfect Semblance to get smuggled into the Jealousy's den, there was the slaver that transported him. And then there was a Vulteg overseer.
"Ah, yes, she should be included among the bureaucrats," Uva agreed. There was a slight sneer of disgust in her voice. “These deaths, I think we can both look forward to. Give me a while. Let me see if I can find her after filtering through a few memories."
While Uva searched, Shiv proceeded to his first batch of targets. He moved carefully and silently through offices and homes. Gravitic Wrestler wasn’t just a good skill for strength, but it also made him borderline weightless when he wanted to. As such, he was rarely heard as well. He got to the bureaucrats and administrators as they slept in their beds, worked at their desks, and some were merely enjoying a spot of subpar dinner while screaming at a slave. Most times, his Silhouette was the last thing they saw. He made sure their deaths were quick as well. No sense gutting a non-combatant. No skills to be gained there, nor experience.
Uva, meanwhile, was absolutely clinical and indifferent, and the clarity between their modes of murder became truly obvious. Shiv was like a roaring flame. He spread about and if you touched him, he would burn you badly and not stop until you put him out. And he took pride in that. Uva was a blizzard. There was rarely enjoyment or that much emotion at all when it came to killing or breaking people. She simply thought someone needed to die and proceeded to plot the act. And Uva often got so focused on the details that family and other things like that became just variables to her.
She did pause once when they discovered a bureaucrat snoring beside his infant daughter.
That one they both decided to spare. Uva for mostly personal reasons, and Shiv because he would actually feel bad and end up bringing the baby back to the anchor.
“I can only imagine what Adam might say then,” Uva muttered.
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After they got done slaughtering their way through the city’s most important logistical personnel, Uva managed to find the slave overseer. And by that point, Adam also contacted them. "Shiv, Can Hu has something. It seems to have located the main structures storing most of the slaves. Some of the slaves are personally owned, but this gate has some kind of large public slave program. It's like transportation, but free use slavery for most people staying here."
"Free use slavery," Shiv muttered.
"Yes, it's one of the major appeals. If you're important enough to live inside this gate, or you're with Compact, you get a free slave assigned to you. They'll do all your cooking, cleaning, even some midwife work." Adam shuddered. "Slave. I can't believe it's a Path. I can only imagine what that’s like. Not being able to have combat skills… Gah.”
"Almost anything that shapes someone's identity can be a Path," Uva said darkly. "Most Umbrals a few generations ago followed the Path of the Slave or Sacrifice. The vampires were very clear about what we were meant to be used for."
Both Shiv and Adam briefly fell silent.
"I think I'm going to visit the vampires when I have time. After all this is done," Shiv commented. “That’ll be a guilt-free slaughter.”
“Yes," Adam said. "I think I will perhaps take another trip down the Abyss once everything at home is settled…”
"I will not need leisure time to do this," Uva replied. "It is my professional duty to kill Bloodspawn. But I'm glad the great heroes of Weave are so determined to join me in my task."
Adam hummed. "Think nothing of it, Sister. After all, what are friends for?"
The public-use slave quarters were located in the four corners of the gate. Each of the buildings housed a good twenty thousand slaves. But these were only the organic slaves. They were packed tight together in rooms that could be barely called dormitories. They were fed gruel. They were monitored by dimensionals and hired slavers. And they were assigned duties every day by a personal overseer.
The one Shiv had encountered wasn't even that high up the command chain, he realized.
Still, she needed to die. And so did every other slave hand there was. But that's why the plan changed. As he observed them, Uva's thoughts began to brew. "I don't think we should kill them yet. Not so hastily. This needs to be more effective.”
Shiv was silent for a moment, watching as a man continued whipping a weary slave. She had tried to get up earlier, but exhaustion, malnutrition, and an accumulation of what seemed to be bodily injuries brought her down. And now, a slaver was trying to whip her back to a point of standing. A slaver Shiv recognized. “I broke that asshole's wrist about a week back, when he was escorting me and a group of others to see the Jealousy. Sarah was in that group. He also wanted to molest us.”
Uva hummed. Then she reached into the man's mind with a mana string, and Shiv felt her slowly and brutally strip away most of his personality. The man clutched his head and dropped to the ground. He started screaming. He slapped his ears and clawed at his eyes, and Shiv felt her destroy everything that made him him.
Shiv broke the slaver’s wrist; Uva broke all there was to break inside the man and more. Soon he stopped kicking, and the slave turned to see the man drooling on the ground, an empty husk.
Shiv watched the scene from afar, and slowly a large smile spread across his face. "Uva, when I see you in person later, I think I’m going to have to kiss you for that.”
She let out a breathy laugh. "Ah. What reaction might I get from you if I hollow out even more slavers?”
Between them, a flood of disgust came. Adam let out a sigh. "You both have deep, deep issues, and are sick, sick people. But yes, I agree with the Sister. If you're just going to murder some overseers and slave hands indiscriminately, they will likely take it out on the slaves. They will assume that the Corpse Shedder is here to protect them—or among the slaves. And we will find several slaves nailed to the walls or some other horrendous thing next time we come here."
A splash of memories followed, and Shiv realized Adam was speaking from experience from what he read in an Academy textbook. "Considering how they're treating these slaves and, frankly, how casually they're wasting their lives, I would not be surprised if Gate Lord Confriga made them march out into the freezing cold until one of us decided to make a heroic rescue. Or until we were forced to watch them all die."
Shiv frowned. "I lost my cover against the Jealousy for doing something like that.”
"System wants strife," Adam said. "We can use our power to change situations, but aside from that, it always gives us a reason to break and kill. However, you should come back. Can Hu has additional details on where the automata slaves are stored."
The Deathless let out a breath as he watched the slave look down at the slaver’s body. Additional guards came by to regard the slaver's body, but after a while, they just dragged the corpse off like it was a piece of garbage and threw the slave back into a cell.
“Yeah,” Shiv grumbled to himself. “Your way might just be right, Uva. Plenty of bastards in here, but they’re also dime a dozen. We could be slaughtering hordes of these guys and get nowhere. We need a strategy. Not only for utterly wiping out all the guards, but also what to do with the slaves. Not sure what I was going to do on my own the first time.”
“Probably leave a large mess, kill many people, die quite a few times, and see a good number of slaves dead as collateral damage as well,” Uva summarized as accurately as she could. “But you would have tried to save them. That I do know. Some of them did live and escape, considering those you saved from the Jealousy. You have the capability to break the enemy now. Just let me give you the precision and support you need to make the process a clean one.”
Something about that was strangely heartening for Shiv. “You know something, Uva? I’m pretty glad we came out tonight to kill some people.”
“Me too. We should do this again.”
Adam’s annoyance pulsed through them once more. “Uva, for bloody—why did you reach into my mind again? Just to let me hear your burgeoning desires to murder more people? Stop it. Just stop. Please.”
Uva laughed. Shiv laughed. Adam groaned. And a few more administrators went missing before Shiv made it back to base.
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