Chapter 393: CHPT 393: I'll Hit you Where it Hurts, You'll Howl where it's Heard.....
"The Armaments. Tell me where they are, Claude."
The Armaments.....
The Demonic Armaments. The fragment of immortal corruption left in a dead HellBreeder's wake. Used to latch onto and take control of whatever sentient life was drawn to it's corrosive darkness.
The Armaments.....
Demonic bloodlines spanning back centuries. Entire hideous lifetimes and experiences all condensed into a hand-- a tail or even a sharpened appendage.
Demonic Armaments. The very things Claude and Gil extinguished and used for a boost of HellSlaying power.
There were no more Armaments.
Claude's mouth ran dry as he stood strapped to the pole at his back. The Elven murderer inches from his face. So close he could smell the rotting hand that stuck to his face like a mask. A mask with a glowing black rune burned into it's flesh. Everything about him was dark and twisted beyond belief. And now that darkness was aimed at him.
Ready to grow tenfold upon the realization that the Armaments were no more.
There was a time when Claude considered himself optimistic. After becoming a Lupine, that optimism was torn to shreds like a homeless man on a Full Moon.
In short, safety was never a possibility in such a place-- much less survival. He was a hostage afterall. But, his spirits had darkened after hearing the question once more. It was his bargaining chip-- a reason for the Elven murderer to keep him alive. If he realized Claude suddenly had no information-- no details to offer him, then his life was no more.
Ursula's life was no more.
Frosty as well....
"Did the moon make you lose your ability to speak? I asked a question, answer it." He said in the same dead tone, only his body was the exact opposite.
CRACK!
In a blur of movement, something smashed into Claude's jaw hard enough to stun him. Only after he smelled his own blood on the Elf's knuckles did he realize that he was punched. Frosty began to shake as frothy saliva dripped from his tusked fangs.
"Easy buddy...." He spoke through the pack link.
[75% HP Remaining (611/815)]
In the silence that followed, he shook his head and fought to find calm as he spit out a tooth. A low growl escaped his lips. His body felt like it was splitting as Gil and the Phantom Wolves stirred.
"Stay." He told them before facing the Elf, "I-- I don't know what you're talking ab--"
CRACK!
[45% HP Remaining (366/715)]
Another blindingly fast punch. Claude roared, failing to contain his anger as his body partially transformed at blinding speeds and he strained against his bindings to reach the lanky Elf. Behind the Elf, Frosty snarled as the Cyclops workers swarmed him in an attempt to restrain him as he grew slowly. Claude fought fiercely to calm him.
Somewhere in the distance, Cyrene cackled with excitement. Even further beyond, Wolves howled, and other creatures bayed along with them. Seemingly responding to he and Frosty's roars.
For a moment, the Elf looked around with the same dead eyes. Only now, a small bit of life brightened them from behind his gory mask.
"You're one of the most interesting guard dogs I've ever seen. A Druids guardian. A Shifter that runs his own pack and can morph his form faster than any Silver Cursed on a Full Moon. You're not an animal-- something else entirely. I'm sure the Druid see's you that way..... when he's not drunk out of his mind. You may have started as a guard dog. But I feel like you've become synonymous with an apprentice, Claude." The Elf spoke. And for the first time, Claude felt like he could hear the faintest French accent in his voice.
A chill suddenly ran down his spine at the realization.
"...How do you know my name?" He asked the Elf.
He expected another hit, but the Elf simply regarded him flatly for a moment before replying, "How do you think I found your obsessed Detective?"
In Claude's mind he'd just confirmed his earlier suspicions, "You were at the University of the Phoenix on the night of the Full Moon."
"What a night it was." The Elf said flatly, "And what a night tonight will be if you don't tell me where the Armaments are."
"....I don-"
CrACK!...CRACKCRACK!
[25% HP Remaining (178/715)]
Another series of blows connected with his midsection. Each hit cracked a rib and pulled a bone-curdling roar from his damaged throat.
His cries were echoed by Cyrene and the creatures in the distance once more.
Silence followed once more. His head hung in the silence like a dead weight. Frosty snarled and snapped at the Cyclops' surrounding him while Ursula tossed and turned in her seemingly impenetrable hibernation-esque slumber.
Blood spilled from his mouth and nose, dripping down onto his furred chest and bruised ribs. The Elf must've hit harder than he thought, because every few seconds, he found his vision changing entirely. One moment he'd be staring at the floor, then the next he'd be standing over an ocean as black as night. His green eyes glowed like stars in it's reflective surface.
"The hell..." He mumbled in a daze.
[Skill Merging: 100%]
[Skill Merge Recognized: (Beast Trait LV2) - (Wild Boost LV1))
[New Skill Merged!]
[(Beast Boost LV2) Unlocked]
"Nice timing...." Claude thought to himself as he spit up more blood.
In the distance, he could hear Frosty's roars. And the Demons who craved for their despair. But his eyes stayed on the reflective black sea beneath his bound feet.
"bOY...iF yOU...rrrrr....If YoU DIE hErrrRE, i WiLl KiLllll Youuuu aGaIN iNnn thE AftERlIFeee...grr."
".....Fuck you." Claude growled as he stared into the water's reflection of him. He could no longer tell if the eyes were his own....
"YeSSsss....thAT'S gOod.....rrrrr.....keEP fIgHtInG... aND iF yOu fInD sLEEP oNcE mORE...poWeR AwAIts yOU.....bUt iT won'T be FrrEEEe....rrrrr...YoU kNOW whAT yOU musSSst...dO!"
Before Claude could ask anything, Fenrir's godly presence faded like a traveling gust of wind. And it was just him looking into the water's once more.
"You say you don't know what the Armaments are, correct?!" The Elf yelled out to him. For the first time, his voice wasn't lifelessly monotone. The familiar French accent remained.
Claude's head raised. The black sea seemed to stretch forever. In the distance, he could see the Elf standing beneath a raging storm. The clouds black and dripping as if they were pumped full of oil that bubbled as bolts of lightning fell and crashed into the waters. The lightning was a dead blue. And every strike ignited the clouds, causing a series of strobe-light images to play as something slithered through the oily sky-muck. It was scaled-- lined with cords of muscle, and it seemed to have no end.
"I'll show you an Armament then. I'll show you something you'll remember." The Elf spoke again as something growled in the distance beside him. His words fell on deaf ears as Claude continued to watch the shifting sky.
Claude's heart froze. He could've sworn he was looking at a Sky Serpent. And then, his vision switched. He was back in the Canyon. Frosty was as feral as ever. Ursula was shaking in her sleep. The Demons that infested the area like roaches screeched and cried with delight.
His vision switched twice more before he realized what he was doing.
"[Aether Sense... It seems to be activating on it's own in response to the Elf.]"
"It's just like she said..."
Just like the Elven woman said. And just like Cyrene had said on her way out Claude realized as the Elven Murderer approached with a horrifying monstrosity at his back.
One he immediately recognized from it's unique hybrid features. Features that were both Gnoll and PitWolf.
It was the very Gnoll he had fought no more than two weeks ago and almost lost to.
It loomed over the Elven Murderer like a guard dog on steroids. The eyes he once stabbed out of existence with his spears were now replaced by a dozen individual eyes. They rolled and roamed about from it's sunken sockets in the most grotesque manner. Grotesque. Greedy. The Gnoll exuded such properties in droves. Even the holes and wounds punched into it's hide were filled and covered by the parts of other canine monsters to the point where it just looked like an amalgamation of bits and pieces.
He almost missed the Demonic Armament connected to it's left arm. Black and slimy. It pulsed and writhed as it molded to the shape of the Gnoll's hand with red veins bulging. Just like the Satyr.
"You remember this one? He remembers you, Claude. He remembers how you took his pack and left him wounded and blind very well.... when I brought him back, it was the first memory I was able to pull from him. You move like a Druid when the time calls for it, don't you?"
"[Necromancy. I knew those Runes looked familiar..... but it's different.]" Arne mumbled.
Claude stayed quiet.
"I know you know where the Armaments are Claude." The Elven murderer said in his familiar dead tone as he approached Claude.
The Gnoll began looking around the room. Frosty's endless snarls seemed to catch it's attention, causing it to let out a dull and lifeless growl as it faced him. Death's Ambience slithered into his sensitive ears.....
Claude shook. He fought against the binds like they were eating at his skin. His muscles flexed hard enough to burst from his skin as he forced a transformation to take him over. Seemingly all of the wild beyond the canyon began to roar and howl like another Full Moon had hit in the middle of the day. Birds screeched from the skies. Wolves howled. Big cats snarled and screamed. Reptilian beasts beneath the sands rumbled the earth.
"No...No.....No....No..." He growled in a panic as smoke poured from the tattooing on his palm and a line of green fire split his chest. He was slowly becoming a ticking time bomb of beasts. All predicated on the Gnolls next moves.
The Elf nodded as if he knew Claude knew. He was unfazed...uncaring.
When he stood in front of him, he froze for a moment before looking up into his eyes. Claude kept his gaze on Frosty as his world twisted from the natural to the Aether.
"Don't you FUCKING TOUCH HIM! I swear to every god known-- if you touch him I will kill you TEN TIMES OVER! STOP!" Claude snarled at the PitGnoll, his voice rising and morphing as he transformed. Not skillfully but forcefully. A slow and gruesome transformation with loud cracks and pops that didn't faze him and his already broken body in the slightest.
The Elf watched him with careless eyes.
"Claude. You will tell me where the Armaments are now-- or I will let him satiate his need for revenge while you watch."
"No!"
The Elf grabbed his face, "You will watch...."
"No! STOP!!"
"SHOW HIM!" The Elf snapped.
The Gnoll closed in on the cage.
Claude's heartbeat hit hard enough to shake him. His vision went as red as blood. His muscles bulged with the invasion of wild magic and Lupine power spurred on by urgency. The weight of the events. The helplessness. The urge to maintain responsibility. To save his final remnants of family.
In the seemingly final moments, he did all that he could. He mirrored the beasts beyond who roared and cried from outside the canyon. He roared as if the sound could become a physical assault that would disintegrate the Demons where they stood. He roared and let his hatred for his circumstances carry the sound to levels unheard by man. He roared in anger for his shortcomings and at the idea of losing his revenge. His family. He roared, for help.
And then--
CRACK!
[10% HP Remaining (71/715)]
Unconsciousness welcomed him once more.
DING!
[Acquired Skill Unlocked: (Sonic Howl LV1)]
As he faded, he couldn't help but notice the floor was shaking-- the Demons holding their heads in pain. And a certain dark and beautifully melodic tune was suddenly heard in the distance. Growing ever so slightly.....
"Help him....."
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_Avatar0FFury_ Yoooo so sorry for my lil 3 day absence. Busy with college stuff and personal matters. But f it we ball. Let me know what you think and thanks for reading. Also thanks so much for the powerstones Sonuis, Frenandoi, alex99, shazac, Bop_, shadowwolf1928, OSIRIS, train_master, Ominous_Reader, Black_Rabbit_4378, NLinCH, Fenris712, TheLucidParagon, Bonb_Crusher, and kynigos1!
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