Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Punishment

"What's going on in there?"

Chris glanced at the section of the laboratory that the kind mage and his knight had gone into, taking note of how the entire place was shaking violently. Thunderous explosions echoed from inside and occasionally tremors would send the poor mages off balance.

"The lord and his knight are fighting the multi-mage…and it seems one of her experimental subjects." Lindley looked up calmly and explained. Chris glared at him, still not trusting the necromancer. The emaciated man had been collecting research data and storing them somewhere while burning most of it.

According to him, most of the data was useless because they recorded failures and hypotheses that had already been proven to be wrong.

"We should hurry," Lance said as he fried another one of the specimens with his lightning magic. "Then we will go assist Klein and Stella."

"Really? Are you sure we can?" Wilson sounded bitter as he killed another couple of lab specimens with his wind blades. "From the level of spells the both of them are casting in there, I don't think we'll be able to intervene. If anything, we'll only be a burden."

"But there must be something we can do…" Rose protested weakly. She had been stationed at the door as a sentry, watching out for enemies. The rest of them glanced at her bleakly, but didn't reply.

They all knew Wilson was right.

Then Rose gasped.

"Watch out! There's a bunch of enemies coming! One of the chimera squadrons have broken through the cordon of undead and is heading here! There are at least twenty of them!"

At her voice, Chris and the others stopped their macabre work and quickly rushed toward the door. Howling hybrids and crying chimeras galloped toward them, former humans twisted into hideous parodies of their previous shapes, with all manners of sick appendages grafted onto them. Many of them still possessed human faces, which were contorted in perpetual agony.

They were clearly begging for death…for release.

"Looks like we have a job to do then," Chris remarked and held up a hand. Flames ignited to life in his palm and he hurled a fireball at the horde. One of the creatures wailed and went down, its body combusting.

However, the rest continued to plunge onward, heedless of their comrade's demise.

"They'll be here in thirty seconds," Wilson warned while flinging a bunch of wind blades at the enemy. "I don't know if we can hold them back."

"That bitch Miranda must be calling them to reinforce her position." Lance then grinned grimly before throwing his hand out and delivering a blast of lightning. "That means Klein and Stella must be giving her a lot of trouble."

"Then we must hold them here no matter what." Rose placed her palms against the ground and conjured a wall of wood. Vines and plants sprouted from the ground, entangling the chimeras and tripping them up.

Unfortunately, the relentless abominations tore through her barrier of wood within a few seconds and continued hurtling forward. Rose continued to tie them up, one at a time, so that her teammates could concentrate fire upon the restrained target.

But there was far too many of them.

"Seems like you need help."

Lindley strolled forward. Chris glanced at him and clicked his tongue in annoyance, but didn't say anything. The rest remained silent, feeling uneasy at the necromancer's presence, but they knew they couldn't spurn his assistance.

"Forgive my impoliteness, but necessity dictates as such."

Raising his hands, Lindley reanimated the corpses of the lab specimens that the four mages had butchered earlier (or three, since Rose didn't participate in the massacre). At least those who still had their heads intact. In their haste, the mages weren't very thorough in their slaughter.

Scorched bodies rose from the gurneys, tearing free of their straps with moans. Lumbering forward, they moved past the mages and collided with the incoming wave of chimeras. A charging tide of abominations crashed against a wall of dead flesh, but while the chimeras wouldn't be stopped, their momentum was considerably slowed.

Seeing the opportunity, Chris whooped.

"Hell, yeah! Let's kill them all! Don't let even a single one of them get past here!"

"Yeah. We'll leave Miranda to Klein and Stella. She will pay for her atrocities."

Clenching his fists, Wilson made the vow before unleashing another storm of wind scythes into the writhing mass of flesh and muscle.

"Ugh!? How?!"

Miranda's question was cut off when I struck her again, my fist smashing into her face and crunching bone. She tried to fire off a fireball, but I deflected it with the chains before whirling around and kicking her so hard she flew across the room once more.

Blood splattered the ground as she clutched her midriff and coughed. She looked up, her eyes wide. Desperately, she threw out a hand and unleashed a web of lightning, but I caught it with the chains and neutralized the deadly electricity.

"No…! How are you so…so strong? Since when were you so physically powerful?"

Miranda conjured a barrier of wind, but the moment my chain-wrapped arm punched through it, the spell was automatically dispelled. My fist continued hurtling forward and slammed into her shoulder while she attempted to duck, spinning her to the ground. As she writhed below, I kicked her and she flew like a ball.

"So?"

"Ugh! This is impossible! Mages aren't supposed to be physically strong…!"

"Why not? All you need to do is a bit of muscle training."

It also helped that I was a vampire and hence had altered and enhanced physiology that allowed me to be stronger and faster than normal humans, but I wasn't stupid enough to tell Miranda that. The less she knew, the better for me.

Good thing I kept my vampire abilities and physiology a secret. That was why I had only been using magic this entire time. I knew Miranda was watching from somewhere, and so I decided to conceal several trump cards. If Miranda didn't know about my vampire strength and speed, then she wouldn't prepare a countermeasure against them.

And now that subterfuge was paying dividends.

Scrambling away, blood dripping from her broken nose, mouth that revealed missing teeth, and wounds, Miranda threw several more spells at me. Even though I dispelled them with the chains, I was starting to find them annoying.

Time to finish them off once and for all.

Drawing Blood Angel, I severed the chains holding me, cutting myself loose. As the heavy metal fell to my feet, I immediately felt the flow of mana resume throughout my body. Rolling my head about, I grinned.

"Finally."

"You…since when did you become a swordsman?"

Miranda pointed at me accusingly. Lightning exploded from the tip of her finger and lanced toward me, but I cleaved the bolt apart with Blood Angel. Then I kicked up one loop of chains that I had cut away with Blood Angel and whipped it toward her.

My movement was too fast for the mage to dodge. She cried as she was lashed by the chains and sent crashing onto the ground. Not only that, the chains wrapped around her body, entwining over her torso tightly.

"This…this…!"

Miranda scrambled to pull the chains loose, but in her panic her movements were clumsy. She saw me approaching and her eyes widened. She hastily tried to cast a spell, only to realize that her magic had been sealed.

"No! The Chains of Void…!"

"How ironic…you never thought that your own magic-sealing weapon can be used against you too, right? You, renowned as the greatest mage in all of Havan?"

"As long as I can get free…!" Miranda grabbed at the chains and pulled, her fingers scrabbling against the obsidian surface.

"Do you think I'll just stand here and watch you take them off?"

A single stroke of my sword and Miranda's left arm flew off. She screamed in agony as blood spurted out from her stump and writhed on the ground, the chains on her body forgotten.

"Ah…ah…"

"You know, earlier you said something amusing." I knew I shouldn't gloat but I couldn't help it. Fine, I was an immature, petty bastard. I mean, that came with wanting revenge, so it was to be expected. "What was it? That with my magical power sealed, I'm nothing more than a mere human? That I'm trash or worse than trash?"

I cut off both of her legs with a single stroke of Blood Angel, causing her to scream.

"Now look at you. What are you, now that you don't have your magic? You're even worse than I am. So…if you are worse than worse than trash, then…what are you? Shit?"

"Fuck you!" Miranda spat, curling into a fetal position as she tried to clutch at her stumps with her remaining hand. She raised her head and yelled furiously. "Subject 702! Are you still not done yet!? Come help me!"

Then her eyes widened when she saw the fate of her precious specimen.

Stella was weaving nimbly around the abomination. She had finally gotten the measure of the monster's speed and power, and was adjusting her movements to compensate. Whirling around after the grotesque monstrosity pounded the ground in an attempt to pulverize her, she swung her sword and cut off the muscular appendage in a single stroke.

"UOOOOOH!"

The creature wailed and staggered back, swinging its other arm while noxious fluids pumped out of the gigantic stump that Stella had left it. The red-haired knight ducked, then jumped over the massive limb before slashing with her sword. The crimson blade cut deeply, severing tendons, and the appendage flopped uselessly on the ground.

The monster snarled and twisted about, but Stella was already gone. Bounding upward, she landed on the massive, muscular limb. Running along the now useless appendage, she leaped up and landed on what seemed to be the head of the monster. Plunging her sword into the crown of the bloated abomination, she then sprinted over the bulbous torso and dragged her crimson blade across the entire length of the creature.

Then she flipped away once she reached the far end, cartwheeling in midair to land gracefully on her feet. She flicked the vile fluids off her sword before turning around to regard it.

For a moment, the abomination didn't move. It groaned, and then finally twitched. The thick red line that Stella left across its body split open and organs spilled out. With a final moan, Specimen 702 toppled over and convulsed, its death throes knocking several shelves and equipment over.

"No way…impossible! How did a single vampire defeat my most powerful chimera? This is not possible!"

Miranda screamed and struggled to scamper away. But with only one hand left, she couldn't get far. I stomped on that remaining hand, causing her to scream. She continued to bleed out and was getting weaker.

"Oh, don't worry, I won't let you die. Not yet." I leaned over and used my sword to cut strips of fabric from her dress to bind her wounds to stop her bleeding. Then I readjusted the small length of Chains of Void, tying her arm to her body and binding her tightly.

"You…you will spare me?" Miranda asked in disbelief. I could hear the hope in her voice. Yeah, I understood what she was thinking. As long as she was still alive, there would always be hope, the possibility that she could make a comeback and take her revenge. She would wait for me to make a single slipup, escape, get her wounds heal, and then return to avenge this disgrace that I meted out on her.

"Of course." I pushed my glasses up my nose and smiled. "Since you love experiments so much, I was wondering…what if I perform an experiment on you? Maybe you will appreciate the experience of being a specimen yourself."

"No…no…!" Miranda spluttered, her hope replaced by despair. "No! You can't do this!"

"Huh? So you can experiment on others, but other people can't experiment on you? What sort of logic is that?" Shaking my head, I kicked her. Her head snapped back from the impact and she groaned.

"Why…why didn't you just…kill me?"

"You don't fear death," I replied with a smirk. "You welcome it. Your punishment must be more severe."

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