Rise of the Faceless Demon

The Oesterian fog parted roughly.

The giant meat lump charged forward. The stone mud dirt vibrated beneath the stomp of its defective legs. Dozens of pale faces melting atop the monster's shoulders screamed in unison. A deafening wail. Black slime spewed from their torn mouths, dripping and soaking the lump's body. The sound of broken bones forced to move merged with the storm wind's roar, creating a terror that crushed all courage.

Its target was locked clear.

Rhea. The woman stood petrified between two black pine trunks. Her gray wool dress fluttered hard, blown by the wind. Her eyes stared straight at the rolling death, lacking any intent to shift aside. Her posture froze, displaying the silhouette of helpless prey surrendering her life to fate.

"Move!" Luka's voice broke.

The cold air slit his throat. His boots kicked the petrified needle pile. He shot forward, charging the carcass-scented fog.

The hunger at the pit of his gut evaporated, replaced by a boiling heat thrust from his solar plexus. Memory fragments embedded back inside his head. The transverse scar on his left palm throbbed hard, reminding him of the blood he once spilled. He was a protector. He had spilled blood to stop a dagger aiming for his father. He refused to let his loyal maid be torn apart by a monster born from the depravity of the tyrant sitting on his throne.

The Amalgam was ten paces away from Rhea.

Three human arms fused into one giant limb raised high into the air. Its muscles coiled tight, dripping black slime. The thick fleshy limb swung horizontally, sweeping the air and preparing to crush the maid's frail body into a mush of blood and meat.

Luka slammed his body forward, cutting the attack path.

He pivoted his right heel on the frozen dirt, halting his sprint momentum with brutal force. His boots dug a small trench on the ice. His spine pulled straight up. His shoulders pulled firm. The rusted sword in his hand raised vertically, parallel to his jawline.

The Royal Eisenhart defensive stance. The steel wall position of a palace knight refusing to retreat a single inch to protect what lay behind him.

The feral instinct at the base of his gut screamed. His filthy nerves demanded something else.

Duck. Drop the body to the mud bottom. Evade the impact. Sever its leg veins from below.

His flesh recognized the survival pattern of a street animal. Yet, his brain refused to bow. He would not crawl eating filth before his own people. A Reinhardt bloodline bearer stood as a shield, not as a fleeing sewer rat. Luka fought his own body, forcing his erosion-ruined muscles to maintain that grand posture.

The Amalgam's giant limb struck the sword blade.

Clang!

The clash produced a shockwave sweeping the fog around them.

The rusted old iron shrieked loud. Fine cracks crawled straight at the base of its hilt. The monster's destructive force far exceeded the endurance of a war-leftover metal scrap.

The impact weight crawled greedy to Luka's wrist. His arm bones crunched hard enduring the force. His triceps tore on the inside, unable to muffle a destructive force equal to a steel carriage crash. Luka's boots pushed backward, scratching the frozen dirt for three paces. His lungs narrowed, running out of air.

The Amalgam did not stop.

The giant meat lump pulled its arm back, then twisted its defective body. The pale faces atop its shoulders roared overlapping. One face missing a lower jaw spewed black bile straight at Luka's face.

Luka tilted his neck. The sulfur-scented hot fluid missed, striking the leather shoulder of his coat. The thick leather hissed. Melting in an instant. Burning his left shoulder surface to a blister. Luka fought a groan. His teeth clashed.

He pressed his sword hilt. Taking a step forward. He had to kill this monster before the creature realized Rhea's presence behind him again.

Luka slashed. A straight swing aiming for a gap between the pile of crying faces.

His slash lagged. The dissonance inside his veins betrayed him again. His mind demanded a royal precision sword swing, yet his street muscle memory fought the pull. Creating a highly fatal split-second pause.

The Amalgam responded to the gap. Two small arms protruding from its gut moved crossing, catching Luka's rusted sword blade with bare hands. The filthy fingers gripped the iron. Black blood dripped from the cuts on the monster's palms, but Luka's weapon locked tight. Unable to be pulled or pushed.

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In that exact second, the monster's giant limb swung again from a blind spot. Striking Luka's left ribs dead center.

Crash.

The sound of breaking bones echoed in the Forbidden Forest.

Luka's body launched into the air. Flying striking the fog. His back slammed hard against a black pine tree. The petrified trunk did not bend a fraction. Reflecting the entire destructive force back into Luka's internal organs.

He fell face-first onto the sea of rust needles.

Thick blood flooded his mouth. He coughed, vomiting the red fluid onto the frozen dirt. Agony tore the left side of his chest. His lungs failed to expand full. Several of his ribs snapped inside, pressing his respiratory tissues with the threat of internal leakage.

"My Lord!"

Rhea's voice sounded trembling from a distance. Full of fear.

Luka looked up slow. His vision shook. The red fog before him spun. There, the Amalgam twisted its body again. The pupilless eyes on its pale faces locked onto Rhea's figure. The monster lost interest in Luka who had fallen ruined. The scent of clean flesh from the maid was far more enticing to its cannibal instinct.

The Amalgam crawled forward. Ignoring Luka's rusted sword now fallen embedded in the mud. The giant mouth in the monster's gut opened wide, revealing rows of filthy serrated teeth, preparing to swallow the maid whole.

Luka's breath creaked. Fresh blood dripped from his chin.

No. He would not allow it.

He forced his palms to press the dirt. Forcing his knees to stand supporting his ruined body weight. The veins on his neck bulged hard, throbbing pumping the remnants of pure wrath into all his vessels. He was no coward tyrant like Ulric hiding behind palace walls while letting his people be slaughtered.

Luka sprinted limping. He picked up his rusted sword from the dirt. His own blood soaked the weapon's hilt, gluing it to his leather glove.

The Amalgam was five paces away from Rhea. Its defective arms raised high, fusing into one giant mace of rotting flesh. Preparing to drop a crushing blow toward the maid slumped kneeling on the dirt.

Luka charged from the side. He threw his body right in front of Rhea, covering the woman with his back. Lacking time to evade. Lacking time to thrust or find a gap. He had to endure the blow's destructive force in full.

He gripped the sword hilt with both hands. Raising it horizontal high above his head. A total blockade position. Locking his shoulder and elbow joints to receive the blow from above lacking any intent to shift.

The monster's giant limb dropped downward with horrific speed. Cleaving the wind.

Striking the rusted sword body.

CRACK!

Not the sound of breaking iron.

Luka felt his world explode into white fragments.

A human skeleton could not withstand the destructive force of the monster's arm. A weight heavy as a cliff boulder struck his defense. The sword metal held, yet his weapon instead distributed that entire brutal pressure straight to Luka's right arm.

The ulna bone in his right forearm curved outward. His flesh compressed. His joints were forced to endure a weight crushing reason, then snapped in an instant.

The cracking sound deafened the ears. Wet and hard. Echoing and defeating the storm's roar.

The sharp white bone fracture tip tore his triceps muscle tissue from the inside, piercing his pale skin. Protruding out, it tore the leather sleeve wrapping his arm. Fresh blood spurted heavily from the wide gaping wound, soaking Luka's face, neck, and chest. The scent of pure copper filled the air.

The resulting agony shattered his entire nervous system in a flash.

Luka released no scream. His lungs paralyzed, enduring the shock. His eyes lost focus, staring blankly into the darkness. His right arm folded backward at a highly wrong angle. Unnatural. It hung horrifically, supported only by the remnants of torn muscle and skin. Blood flowed heavily from his bone fracture.

The rusted sword slipped from his grip. Falling embedded into the frozen dirt.

The remaining impact launched Luka's body backward. Striking Rhea. Both rolled falling onto the sharp needle pile.

Luka lay sprawled on his back. His chest heaved in a dying rhythm. Blood pooled fast beneath his ruined right arm, staining the black dirt into a deep crimson. The broken bone piercing his flesh throbbed every time his heart pumped the remaining blood. His vision darkened. The rusted dawn above him faded into black dots. He was severely cornered. Death stood right in front of his nose, ready to stomp his neck.

The Amalgam roared in victory. Its giant arm raised high again piercing the fog, preparing to deliver a finishing blow to crush the human skull below.

Beneath the fog's shadow, right beside Luka's helpless sprawled body enduring massive bleeding.

Rhea sat kneeling. Dust and forest filth stained her clean dress. The woman looked down, seeing the white bone piercing her master's arm flesh. Her eyes recorded the fresh blood flowing heavy, seeping greedy into the starving Oesterian dirt.

The maid's pale face displayed not a single speck of fear.

Beyond Luka's remaining vision beginning to blur and lose consciousness, Rhea's lip line curved upward. Stretching high. A cynical smile carved clear on her face. Her gray eyes radiated the satisfaction of a cold-blooded craftsman. She enjoyed this sight. The broken bone, the torn flesh, and the pride crushed with pure brutality. All of this was the forging process she awaited. The prince had to be ruined into the most pathetic dust fragments, before he could be rebuilt into a flawless killer weapon.

The smile vanished in a matter of seconds. Wiped clean lacking a trace, covered by a mask of panic.

Rhea twisted her body. Her face changed in a flash radiating extreme hysteria. She crawled approaching Luka's head, embracing the man's shoulders with trembling hands, positioning herself as the sole remaining support in the middle of a hell she orchestrated herself.

"My Lord!" Rhea screamed, her voice breaking slit by cries. "Hold on!”

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