Chapter 94 - Recognition, SC (Patreon)

The hound paid the vampire audience no mind, knowing that the sanctity of its fight was protected.

Sunday knew that too. There would be no help this time. No using the vampires as living shields. No ghouls to slow the beast down with their sacrifice.

He briefly considered using the same strategy as before and ramming his arm down its throat to melt it from the inside, but something told him those teeth wouldn’t just wound his soul or scrape his flesh.

The monster lunged yet again, maw at the ready, and with it came half a dozen ghostly heads made of dark smoke. They crashed into Essence Wards or fizzled out as Sunday dodged the few that slipped past. He managed to deflect the hound, leaving a trail of blood in the wake of its momentum by dragging his blade through the side of its maw, along the iron armor, and catching a hind leg.

As it turned to bite at him again, he used his free hand as God, or whatever forces played the tune of his blasphemous existence, had intended. The slap once again made a cloud of dog-shaped smoke leave the hound’s body and Sunday noted how its limbs shook from weakness as that happened. It was a momentary thing, lasting for less than a second. As if he had stolen a moment of time from the beast, depriving it of its faculties and its strength.

He had no time to do much with it though. The dark cloud morphed into a copy of the beast and lunged at him, crashing into yet another Essence Ward, before flowing freely into the hound’s body. For all their faults, the Arcanum had done him right with the Essence Ward.

The spell’s strength and size depended on the essence Sunday put into it, and was almost free to manipulate as he wished. No delays, no weird hand sighs, no waiting for the shield to form.

The fight quickly turned into an exhausting dance that slowly weakened the berserk essence fueling Sunday’s movements and strength. Without it, he would lose the Phantasmal Fall’s ability to make itself real. It was unclear whether another moth would continue the buff, or three was his limit. Using them at once seemed to do him much good, but it had also robbed him of his mind.

He didn’t want that. That wasn’t his strength. Perhaps it had been his buried potential, unlocked through the strange dealings of the Berserk Moon. Perhaps something else. Something borrowed. Like his Talents.

Sunday once again vaulted over the hound, casting Phantasmal Fall on himself for just a moment.

There was another side to the spell that he had neglected. He didn’t know if it would work and if he had the essence for it. Using the spell on himself was cheaper than using it on his enemy. Or at least he thought so. It was too risky for now.

After another dodge that turned into Sunday rolling backward, he found himself in the open air, before the vampire estate’s gates, with the hound hot on his trail. Few of the vampires cheered as if watching a performance, and Sunday almost turned to memorize their faces. He couldn’t spare the attention though.

The beast came again and this time Sunday fell upward, allowing himself to float into the night sky. It was a dangerous gamble. He barely missed the jaws that clacked shut below him and swung with a weak slap that missed.

Another bout of laughter permeated his head. Mocking. Arrogant.

Sunday let himself rise about ten feet in the air. Then plunged down, heeding the call of gravity. The vampire sword was held in one hand and the other stretched to the side, awaiting the Fearful to grace it with its presence. The hound jumped to meet him.

The spear appeared.

Just for a moment, he saw that there was fear in its eyes. No. That’s insane. The hound knows no fear!

Sunday twisted and fell to the right to dodge the jaws while stabbing the sword in its neck. It sank deep, crushing the shadowy shield as if it wasn’t there. It had worked against the vampires but had nothing on the true silver weapons.

The hound lunged as Sunday hit the ground heavily and rolled to the side. He rose to his knees just in time to raise the spear clutched in his hand and the hound spun to meet it with its armored torso, rather than with flesh.

He saw it again. The glint of something almost human. The terror beneath the savagery.

He knew that look. He had seen it before on the dirty streets of his home, in the broken mirror when Old Rud had thrown fits of alcoholic rage, or in those desperate enough to kill for a piece of bread.

Fear.

He was certain the hound was afraid of something.

Was it the spear? Or him? It cared not for the swords preventing it from shifting through the darkness, nor did it care about the wounds they had left all this time. But the spear? Was that the true nature of the spell and why it bore that name? Did it feel its enemies with fear?

Sunday decided to test it out. The hound used its whole body to push the spear to the side as if its chestguard was a shield. Then both it and the darkness tried to get a hold of Sunday. He conjured an Essence Ward and let himself fall up again, spinning simultaneously and bringing the spear's bottom half toward the hound's throat. He aimed for the skull this time, changing the angle.

The Fearful Skewer was sharp on both sides. More of a toothpick for giants than anything. Sunday willed it to grow too, and the spear reluctantly pulled some more essence. It lengthened and surprised the hound, taking away any chances it had to dodge.

The spear tip found its mark. Sunday held on to dear life as the hound skewered itself. The Fearful went through the bottom of its jaws, near the throat, and to the top of the skull. There was a tinge of resistance as it met bones, making the spear sink into the ground.

The hound gave out a mournful sound that was a mix of a yelp and a snarl. It gurgled on the blood that pooled in its mouth and its eyes started letting out dark smoke. The darkness around it reacted too. It once again became more than half a dozen heads that lunged at Sunday who clutched at the spear.

If he let go, the spell would disappear.

Two Essence Wards seemed to be his limit and they only stopped a few of the incoming ghostly maws. They sank into his body and he felt his soul burn in pain, but something inside of him resisted the damage. As if his soul-space had grown strong enough to take the attack and not suffer. The pain, however, was worse than anything his undead flesh could experience.

Fucking mutt! Die already!

It didn’t.

As the heads dissipated one by one a front leg finally found Sunday and swiped at him, sending him tumbling to the side. The force was like being hit by a car, but lesser than other times it had struck like that. Not that it mattered. The weight alone was enough to overwhelm him in his current state. He felt the berserk essence rush to heal all the sustained damage, leaving him feeling exhausted and… normal.

For the first time since rebirthing, he felt human.

Weak. Tired. As if he had worked for two days and two nights straight. The ground before him was like the sweetest bed, welcoming him to shut his eyes and doze off.

A derisive snort shook him. It made his eyes shoot open.

Nothing happened for another moment as a weakness yet again crawled to the forefront.

Then, came the buzzing.

The dreadful static that had come in his waking nightmares. The thing that scared him more than the hounds and more than the attacks upon his soul.

No! I’m winning! Fuck you!

The buzzing got worse. The world stilled and for a second Sunday saw all he had achieved and all his relationships disappear. It’s what would happen if he was taken away now. He would have to start anew!

The Hunter wouldn’t allow it. There was no hiding from Him. It was a waste!

He blinked.

The hound was suddenly almost upon him. The Fearful was gone, but the damage it had done was still healing. Sunday could see the handles of the two swords and as if possessed he focused on them.

He needed just a moment. Phantasmal Fall activated making the hound trip just as it jumped to land on top of him.

Sunday pushed away from the ground and used his whole weight for some momentum to slap it. The first rang true, sending the black smoke away from the hound’s body. And then again. And again. It bled darkness as if he was dusting a rug over the railing. He didn’t stop until the darkness attacked him.

An Essence Ward was there to stop the charge of the ghostly copy of the beast.

With a final urge of anger Sunday’s hand wrapped around the handle of Jishu’s sword. He pulled it out and with one smooth movement struck the neck of the dazed beast. All of his frustration with his Talents, with the situation, and with himself, went into that singular strike.

The sword was halfway through when the word buzzed again and Sunday found himself standing on the snowy plain. Hills and mountains could be seen through the cold blizzard surrounding him, and battering at the trees.

It didn’t reach him though. There was a static around him as if his very presence was making the world glitch. Like he was wrong. A hint of redness bled around. Yet another hue of it. This one was unlike the Berserk Moon or the Mesmer Steel. It was more like the eyes he had seen in the reflections of water barrels or the bottles of booze and windows.

“Once again, saved,” a grating voice said. Sunday turned. It didn’t come from the lodge hidden up ahead but from the edge of the ridge behind him. The large Hunter was there, shrouded from his sight. Just a ghastly form that rivaled the goliath in size. It seemed almost like all the gloom and darkness was coming out of Him, and the blizzard was just a result of His mood.

“I won,” Sunday said. He was surprised at the firmness of his voice and his confidence. He hadn’t seen the head roll down, but he knew he would’ve cut it.

There was a faraway chuckle, and the Hunter frowned. It was difficult to see his face, but the world they were in reflected that. It was colder now, despite the strange phenomenon protecting Sunday.

“Not alone.”

The anger boiled over again. “You give your mutts the same advantages! I don’t even know what to do with those shit talents forced upon me! And do you think I asked for you to stalk me? To fight fucking Gods? For any of this? My life was just about to get good!”

“Your life ended by your foolishness. You were the choice of another. I don’t accept the unworthy. I don’t accept the weak. The gifts you bear are above you.”

“Or maybe you’re just trying to help those sickos you claim I have the power to kill. Maybe you’re sabotaging this whole thing,” Sunday muttered.

The storm exploded. The world was winds and ice and the aura surrounding Sunday countered it all, buzzing like a billion bees at once, the static of an old TV, and the tearing of the fabric of it all.

Then came a calm dark night. The snowflakes fell easy and calm.

It had been but a moment of anger. A slight leak of the Hunter’s temper. Perhaps just a show.

Sunday wondered if he was going to die now. The hounds were one thing. What stood before him was a different story altogether. Perhaps a God. Perhaps something else.

“To offend me so is foolish. Chaos protects you, and His mocking smile roams your mind. Even so, I could end your pitiful existence without a jury or trial. Do not be blinded by what is unearned. I do not recognize you as worthy.”

“If you’re going to kill me, kill me.”

There was a tense moment of silence during which Sunday deeply regretted his words.

“You won,” the Hunter said emotionlessly. “For now.”

Then he was gone and with him, the hundreds of pairs of eyes that Sunday hadn’t noticed before. As they fled, he felt relief that made him kneel in the snow. The aura around him weakened and the world buzzed again.

The last thing he heard before he was back in front of the audience of vampires and Mera, was the voice of the narrator. The words were a sweet lullaby that escorted him into sleep.