Chapter 256 - Full of Heart (Patreon)

Talia blinked as she took in her surroundings, which reminded her of nothing so much as the Farindale Forest where she’d been remade into a revenant. The atmosphere was oppressively bleak, and the very air smelled of death. She wasn’t the best with energy recognition or control – not like Zeke, who seemed to have a sixth sense for it – but even she could tell that the air would be deadly to anyone without a significant pool of vitality from which to draw as well as a solid foundation of endurance. Some like Zeke would probably be fine, but a weakling like Abby would soon succumb to the deadly energy.

Tucker would probably have a potion to protect him.

Talia studied the nearby trees, which were short, gnarled things with pitch black bark and white leaves. Moonlight filtered through the branches, casting everything in a silvery light that became even more oppressive because of the drifting fog that lay over the entire area. Scraggly bushes sprouted here and there, but none of them bore the green coloring she so often associated with living things. Instead, the leaves were shades of blue, purple, or white, which gave the landscape a deathly cast.

And Talia felt more at home than she had since being yanked out of the void and forced into her new life as a revenant. It was almost as if the whole area had been tailor made for people like her, which probably should have put her guard up. After all, she had fought enough of the unthinking undead to know that they were still dangerous to someone like her. And given that she was now on a higher plane, the dangers should be magnified. However, instead of feeling dangerous, Talia felt nothing more than deep relaxation and belonging.

She forced a sigh as she thought back to the meeting she’d just had. Oberon was a curious little man – a dwarf, according to his own words – and a being of such vibrant life energy that Talia’s skin had crawled just by virtue of being in his presence. And that was with neither of them being physically present. If she’d stood in his actual presence, Talia felt that she wouldn’t survive for more than a second or two.

But once she got over that discomfort, the meeting had been very informative, not least because she had learned how the Framework’s status sheet had changed. She had also gotten a class. {Nirjiv Panja}, the name of which meant “unliving claw” in some forgotten language from Earth’s history, had increased the tiers of all her physical stats by at least one. Some, like agility and dexterity, had received multiple tiers’ worth of enhancement.

However, the biggest surprise was that the name of her race had changed once again. This time, instead of being a simple awakened revenant, her race had become Nachzehrer. Oberon had explained its origins as well, telling her that it was a classification of undead associated with matricide. On Earth, it was mere folklore, but for Talia, it had become her reality.

She found the racial designation to be appropriate. After all, she was responsible for the deaths of both of her parents. With her father, she’d lived while he died; it didn’t matter that she had nothing to do with that choice. Not really. She bore no responsibility, but she was the cause.

And as for her mother? That she had ripped the woman’s head off filled her with pride and satisfaction. Often, Talia thought of herself as a monster. And she was. But her nature couldn’t even begin to compare with what Constance had become. Either way, she didn’t regret any of it. Not her father’s death, and certainly not her mother’s. By the end, they’d both been strangers.

To distract herself from those thoughts, she called up her new status:

She had been quite alarmed when she saw how much her stats had deflated, but Oberon had explained that the tier of her attributes was what really mattered. He’d promised that it would be a net gain in terms of combat power, even if the numbers were far lower. And once Talia gathered her wits, she could feel that it was the truth. She felt stronger, faster, and more coordinated than she ever had before. And that was without the benefit of Zeke’s [Avatar of the Beast] or her own [Alacrity of Undeath].

That thought brought to mind another of Oberon’s predictions – that some of her skills might have been altered by her class choice. However, a quick inspection told her that that was not the case. Apparently, her skills and class were focused enough that the Framework didn’t see the need to make any changes, which she found oddly comforting and wholly unsurprising. After all, her skills had all been transformed when she’d become a revenant; further changes were unnecessary.

Even so, Talia felt better than she had since her transformation, especially in her new, curiously attuned environment. In fact, she was so engrossed in basking in the welcoming, comforting atmosphere that she didn’t even hear the horses bearing down on her until she felt pain lance through her chest. As something pierced through her torso, her entire body felt as if it was burning from the inside out.

“Ha! Begone, foul creature! Return to the pits of hell!” came a clear-toned shout. Talia paid it no mind as the impact from the attack sent her flying through the air only to collide with one of the gnarled trees. With instincts born from a thousand battles, she activated her skills, one by one.

First came [Alacrity of Undeath], which flooded her body with increased agility and dexterity. As she picked herself up off the ground, her limbs vibrated with unspent need and hungry energy. Next came [Chill of Undeath], and white energy swirled around her claws. Finally, she embraced [Plague Strike]; it added a green liquid to the maelstrom around her hands.

By the time she’d climbed back to her feet, a figure was bearing down on her. He was clad in gleaming silver armor trimmed in gold, and his features were hidden by a full-visored helmet. He charged forward, a blue cape streamed out behind him as he lowered a lance in her direction. On his other arm was a white shield.

But none of that was what she really noticed. Instead, her attention was on the beast that was his mount. With four legs ending in hooves, a curiously long face, and a beautiful white coat, Talia recognized it as a horse. She had never seen one in real life – they didn’t exist in the Radiant Isles – but she’d seen plenty of images painted by the former denizens of Earth. None of those paintings could even begin to compare with what she saw bearing down on her.

For one, the creature was huge, and its entire body was rippling with muscles. For another, it was absolutely beautiful. But that impression wasn’t surprising; Talia had always found the stories featuring horses particularly intriguing, and when she was younger, she’d often dreamed of finding one in the wild. So, it was inevitable that she would become enamored with her first real encounter with one of the majestic animals.

“Have at thee!” screamed the knight, breaking Talia out of her reverie.

She dodged the oncoming lance, diving to the side as the horse thundered past her. She rolled gracefully to her feet just in time to see the knight come around. He flipped up his visor, revealing chiseled features and golden locks of curled hair. He reminded her of a pale, blonde version of Carlos, though that impression was less about his actual visage and more the feeling she got when she looked at him.

“Accept your fate, vile monster!” he snarled. “I shall cleanse your blight from –”

Talia was already tired of the knight’s haughty pronouncements, so she tuned him out. Then, harnessing her impressive agility, she darted forward, covering the ground between them in the blink of an eye. When she drew close, she leapt into the air, and as her momentum carried her past the startled knight, her claws flashed at the only exposed skin she could find.

Suddenly, his face erupted in vivid red blood that highlighted the drab beauty of the world around her. Talia landed a dozen feet past him, turning her descent into a roll that ended with her facing the backside of the horse. She was ready to meet his next attack head-on, but she needn’t have worried because the knight was busy screaming in agony as he clutched his face.

All haughtiness was gone, and his curious speech patterns had devolved into something close to what Talia considered normal.

“What the…you…you undead bitch! What did…aghh!”

“That would be the rot,” Talia muttered. Her skills weren’t just limited to the effects of her claws. Instead, her lethality was inextricably tied to decay and death. That was on display as black rot spread across the once handsome knight’s face. At that, she shook her head, saying, “Pity.”

Agitated by her rider’s antics, the mare stamped and snorted, but she remained in place as the knight composed himself. Once he dropped his hands, his face was completely ruined, with flaps of decayed skin falling from the wicked wounds inflicted by Talia’s claws. When he’d mastered himself, what was left of the man’s face scrunched in concentration, and a second later, he glowed with bright, white light that seemed to push away the swirling mists. When the light faded, the rot was gone. The wounds remained, but they were clean of any disease or decay.

“You’ll pay for that, monster,” he growled. Then, he kicked his horse into another charge, lowering his lance. Talia crouched, ready to spring to the side. However, she never got the chance because the knight suddenly teleported to within a couple of feet, ramming his lance into her chest once again. This time, though, it pierced her through, erupting out of her back.

But Talia felt no scorching pain, this time. Clearly, the man had used a skill with the first charge, then a different one with the second. The first had been similar to her own [Plague Strike], adding that fiery damage instead of disease to the attack. The second, however, had been tied to movement, and it had increased the momentum of the lance by a large degree. The result was that she was now impaled on the weapon.

That was okay, though. When Talia had been transformed into a revenant, her body had lost many of its human vulnerabilities. As a result, getting stabbed through the chest wasn’t all that different from getting stabbed anywhere else. It might have even been better, considering that all her limbs still worked.

The knight let out a whoop of success that was soon cut off when Talia grabbed hold of the lance and started dragging herself forward. He could have just dropped the weapon, but in his panic, he never thought to do so. Soon, he was in reach. Talia reached out and ripped into his armor like a dervish of sharp claws and rot-infused energy. The first couple of swipes produced no results, but within a second, the gleaming armor had begun to rust. That rust became decay, and before long, Talia’s claws burst through to rip into the knight’s heaving chest.

That’s when he tried to drop the lance, but it did no good. Talia held on, steadily digging into the man’s chest until, at last, she found his beating heart. He tried to activate a skill, but Talia cut him off by leaning in and biting his face.

Predictably, he screamed.

Even more predictably, Talia refused to stop.

Before long, she wrapped her fingers around the knight’s warm heart and ripped it free of his chest. Only then did she let go. His grip had long since released the lance, so when she let go, she fell away and to the ground. The lance jostled agonizingly inside her, but it wasn’t enough to overcome her natural pain tolerance.

The heartless knight hung on for almost a minute after that, but inevitably, his life petered out and he collapsed forward, his vivid red blood marring the mare’s beautiful white coat. As soon as the knight died, the panicked horse bolted, fading into the mist after only a few seconds.

Talia forced another sigh of regret before beginning the arduous task of removing the lance from her torso. Grasping the tapered end, she forced it back until, at last, she was free of the impalement. Then, without further ado, she tore into the pilfered heart, blood gushing down her cheek as she embraced [Focused Reformation]. In seconds, her wound healed, and she felt perfectly fine. Except that she now had a hole in her leather armor that exposed a good deal of her chest.

She blushed, her cheeks taking on a green tinge as she wished Zeke was around. Not because she wanted him to see anything. No. Because of his spatial storage and his ability to pull equipment out of nothing.

“That was impressive,” came a rasping voice from Talia’s left. She whipped around to see a pale figure with pointed ears and enlarged incisors. The woman – and those curves couldn’t have been owned by anyone else – gave a chuckle. “It’s nice to see one of those idiots get their due, even if it was only a novice.”

“W-what?” Talia asked, surprised and already embracing [Flood of Death]. She didn’t know if this woman was an enemy or a friend, but she was definitely dangerous.

“The Knights of Adontis,” the woman went on, stepping closer. She started to circle, and Talia whirled with her. “You have a curious smell about you. Almost like one of the living, but…not. Where did you come from, girl?”

“Uh…”

“Oh, I see,” the woman said, stopping. She tapped her lip, then repeated, “I see.”

“Who are you? What are you talking about?” demanded Talia, her claws dripping with green energy.

“Oh, put your skills away,” she said. “You are in no danger.”

“I will be the judge of that,” Talia stated, wishing her emotions were still muted. However, after having just eaten a heart, the floodgates were open.

“You are freshly ascended, are you not? That is what I felt,” the woman stated.

Talia didn’t answer. Instead, her eyes darted all around as she felt more people approach. However, the newcomers weren’t more knights, but rather a group of undead. At first, Talia flinched and readied herself for combat; she’d fought zombies enough to recognize one. But then she saw the light of sapience in their eyes. They weren’t unthinking monsters. Instead, they were like her.

“I invite you to come with us,” the woman said. “I offer safety, which is in short supply for people like us.”

“And if I refuse?” she asked.

“Then we leave you out here where you can fend for yourself,” the other woman said. “We’re here to help. But I will warn you that the Knights of Adontis often send their recruits into the outskirts of our territory on what they consider holy crusades. So, if you remain on your own, that novice you just fought will be the least of your worries. The actual lands of the living will be even more dangerous.”

Talia was torn. On the one hand, the promised safety was attractive. However, her natural paranoia, which had been bolstered by living in a world where she was seen as a monster, told her to go off on her own. However, Oberon had explained that her friends were scattered across the world, so if she refused the woman’s offer of help, then Talia would truly be on her own.

And after finally finding – or being found by – people who were like her, she was suddenly beset by a desire to belong. So, she asked, “Where will we go? And what is your name?”

“So, you’ll come with us?” the woman asked.

Talia nodded.

The woman smiled, saying, “That is a good decision. As to your questions, my name is Adriel. And we are currently in the Kingdom of El’Kireth.  We will be headed to the capitol, the cradle of undeath. Darukar.”