219 - Vs. Semzar Pt. 5 - Wandrei Faust [Cherno] (Patreon)

At first, it seemed as if she was punching into thin air from several meters away, but as she reared her fist back, a row of fanged mouths opened down the length of her arm. In perfect concert with the punch, great black tendrils erupted from these maws, and Semzar’s entropy surged — the impact was more than twice the strength of a Yellow Atropal. His vastly superior reaction speed and physicality, driven by muscle memory and instinct not his own, allowed his body to counterattack instantly — whilst Semzar himself was still reeling from the impact, despite the fact he had not actually weathered a strike himself. As he set loose a barrage of lightning-fast punches, she was already gone, and that damnable raven had returned, resuming its tirade.

It mockingly danced between his punches, moving in an erratic manner only ever so vaguely connected to the flapping of its wings.

“ANCIENT ARMS OF ANATHEMA-FIRE I UNEARTHED FROM AN AGE LONG PAST AND WITH THEM PUT TO THE TORCH ALL THE WORKS OF THOSE WHO WRONGED ME. ON A QUEST OF TWO MONTHS AND THREE DAYS I DEVASTATED THE DOMED VILLAS OF XIAOSHENG AND SCATTERED ANATHEMA AND NERVE POISON OVER THEM I TURNED THE NOBLES WHO LIVED WITHIN TO SHADOWS UPON THE STONE AND OPENED THE BELLIES AND SEVERED THE LIMBS OF ALL WHO SERVED THEM. THEIR WALLS I CAST DOWN AND LET THE BEASTS OF THE WASTE FEED UPON THEIR FLESH.”

Spinning in place, now utterly disoriented, Semzar released a guttural scream of frustration as he hunted for Blackhand. He glimpsed her shape — at last! But he was merely reacting, and he had glimpsed her in the midst of executing on a premeditated attack. Before he could even chamber a punch, let alone release it, a singular tendril with a mace-like head whipped around him and buried itself into his left side. An explosion of fire and razors followed, tearing away a vast swath of his wards. The shockwave smashed into his barrier from the inside, and the pure kinetic force, having caught him off-guard, sent him tumbling head-over-heels. Swarming pyroclast followed in his wake, sticking to him and shredding away. Semzar had no choice but to shroud himself in fire, burning an enormous deal of thauma just to cleanse the lingering deathsmoke from himself.

But it never stopped.

She continued her onslaught without relent, and in turn, so did her familiar continue its tirade. It just… It just went on. And on. And on. And on, fading into background noise. In the brief moments of mental clarity, the tirade somehow pushed itself into the empty space. Atrocity after atrocity. A life of endless murder and conquest. Within the last minute, the raven had recounted the merciless extermination of six mafia families, each larger than the Hashem Family by an order of magnitude.

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Time after time she lashed at Semzar, dumping atrocious sums in mescalt ammunition into his Barrier all the while lashing at him and herding him around the ballroom. Finally, she spent the final bullet in the clip on a Six Trees Killer, timing it such that it would go first before a nearby burster detonated as the real attack. The moment she pulled the trigger, Krahe had already conjured a clip of dregshot alternated with mescalt, and was moving to slam it into place. The grenade approached the space above Semzar’s head, the new clip pushed the old one out, and a rapid sequence of events of took place. First, he dropped his Barrier. Second, a bright red flash issued from his hand. Third, a shockwave of swirling scarlet force burst out of his being, spreading out in a spherical shape. It cracked the floor tiles, swept up a violent gust of wind, and flung furniture across the room as if it were weightless — and much in the same way, Krahe’s Bursters were flung aside as well.

Krahe hoped it was a one-time consumable, but also knew it was unlikely. Were that the case, the form factor would have betrayed it. If she was unlucky, the ring could just do that on-demand. She theorized that the ring either guzzled thauma to recharge, or at least had a cooldown between uses. That could not be confirmed, so she would just have to continue as she had with the ring in mind as yet another factor. Semzar had so graciously brought out one tool after the next, it was only right for her to do the same. 

She shot the Pattner at her left arm, the empowered talisman plastering across her blackened muscle. In a mere moment, with a single mighty eruption of power from the Implosion Furnace, mass of red-black pyroclast enveloped her left arm and solidified into the form of a monstrous appendage.

“Wandrei faust!”

GRUDGE-FILLED GRASP

DEATH BORNE UPON CLAWS OF HATE

BLACK HAND OF DESOLATION: WANDREI FAUST

The monstrous claw ripped free, careening headlong towards its prey with the command to reach optimal standoff range outside his Barrier’s effective angle before firing. As it flew, Krahe wasted no time and unleashed a prolonged burst of Cinder Gatling beams, taking the opportunity to tear away at the mafioso’s wards. It took him a second and a half of their angry strobing to get his barrier back up, and by then, his Wards’ reactive flaring had grown feeble indeed. His Wards now had a gaping hole in the right side of his chest, about 20cm across. Wandrei Faust, having reached overhead, flared with its theurgic fury and spewed forth a screech of yellow killing light. Despite all expectations, he ate nearly the full brunt of it, the flesh scoured from his side so far one could see his organs. Clutching his side, Semzar leapt backwards with a howl of pain. An angry fist scattered the nearly-spent Wandrei Faust into a puff of glassy ash.

That injury, despite its grisly nature, was not a disabling one. It presented an ideal weak point to aim for, but the baneworm shifted his tendrils and used them to restrain his meatsuit’s organs at the expense of his left arm, which lost much volume. That loss of volume and pure physical power didn’t impact the performance of his ranged attacks — if anything it made them harder to deal with because it altered their timing somewhat.