Chapter 450: Hollow Vein XIV
The ground became slick with blood, but Asher’s pace never broke. He cut one zealot down, turned, and cut another. His scythe moved with clean precision, never wasted, never rushed. Every swing was final.
The zealots kept coming. They screamed as they rushed him, voices cracking with the Herald’s words. Their bodies moved like puppets, jerking in strange angles, but their blades still sought his flesh. One struck from behind; Asher stepped aside without looking, his scythe flashing back to split the mask and the head beneath. Another tried to grab his arm; he twisted, pulled the zealot forward, and crushed his throat with a simple strike of the haft.
They piled forward without end, but he waded through them as if walking a steady path. Their hooks tore at his cloak, their knives scraped sparks against his weapon, but none slowed him.
Soon, dozens lay broken in the dirt, their blood soaking into the pale soil around the bone tower. The zealots that remained hesitated, their chant breaking apart. Their masks tilted toward the Herald above, waiting for command.
The Herald raised one hand.
The whisper cut through the air again—louder this time, sharp enough to make the ground tremble. The zealots convulsed. Their spines cracked, jaws opened too wide, and cords of black sinew burst from their throats. The cords lashed together, dragging the bodies into each other. Flesh tore, bone split, and in moments the mob had become one writhing mass of bodies, arms, and faces all fused together, screaming as one.
It lurched toward Asher, dozens of knives and hooks jutting from its twisting limbs.
The Herald pointed down from the tower.
The abomination charged.
The abomination thundered across the ground, its many legs clawing at the dirt, arms flailing with blades still gripped in dead hands. Faces stretched across its surface screamed in broken voices, some begging, others laughing, all bound together in agony.
Asher didn’t step back. He planted his feet, the scythe angled low, bloodlight glimmering faintly along its curve. The thing’s shadow fell over him as it leapt, a mountain of flesh and steel crashing forward.
He moved.
The scythe carved an arc too sharp for the eye to follow. Its edge split through the first cluster of limbs, severing three arms and half a torso in one clean sweep. The mass shrieked as black ichor sprayed, burning the dirt where it landed.
The creature struck the ground, shaking the camp. Blades lashed for Asher from all sides—he slipped between them with minimal motion, cloak snapping with each step. A hook slashed down; he caught it with the haft, twisted, and dragged the entire limb out of the abomination before severing it at the root.
The zealot-mass reeled but did not fall. New arms tore free from its body, stretching toward him. Asher turned his scythe once, then stepped forward. Each strike stripped more flesh away, peeling the mob apart piece by piece. Still it pressed in, shrieking, trying to crush him under sheer weight.
He shifted his stance. The chain-sickle snapped from his hand, coiling around a knot of fused spines. With a single pull, he ripped the section free, tearing half the creature’s upper bulk away in a spray of gore. The scythe followed, severing what remained.
The abomination collapsed in a twitching heap, still screaming with a dozen mouths. Asher walked through it, cutting until no piece larger than a man remained. Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of ichor steaming on the soil.
Above, the Herald had not moved. Its whispering never ceased.
Asher lifted his gaze to the tower. His cloak was torn, his boots blackened with blood, but his pace did not falter as he began walking toward the base of the bone structure.
The zealots had been a tide.
The abomination, a wall.
Now only the voice remained.
And Asher would silence it.
The closer Asher came, the louder the whisper became—not with volume, but with weight. Each word slithered into his mind, pressing behind his eyes like claws trying to pry them open. His vision wavered for a heartbeat. The ground seemed to swell, the tower looming taller, the sky itself bending toward the Herald’s voice.
He cut through it with will alone. His stride never slowed.
At the tower’s base, fresh corpses hung from the ribs—men, women, even children. Their chests were split open, ribs spread like wings, black cords of sinew stitched through their hearts. Their mouths moved faintly, still echoing the Herald’s chant in broken whispers.
Asher raised the scythe. One swing severed the cords, another toppled the bodies. They fell silent as they struck the dirt.
The Herald paused in its endless murmur. Slowly, it leaned forward from its place atop the tower, the bone mask tilting down to meet him. The voice shifted—no longer whispering to the zealots, but speaking directly to him.
"Vessel. You carry the wound already. You cannot cut what you were made to hold."
Asher rested the scythe across his shoulder. His expression did not change. "You mistake me for something weaker."
The Herald’s hand rose. The tower shuddered in response. The ribs creaked and split wider, ichor spilling down their lengths as if the whole structure were alive. From the cracks, more sinew poured, weaving into shapes—long, jagged limbs, faces half-formed and screaming, weapons fused from bone and flesh.
The tower itself was becoming the Herald’s weapon.
Asher stepped forward into its shadow.
The Overseer had opened a door.
The Herald had carried its voice.
Now both would end the same way—
cut down and silenced.
The tower groaned, limbs lashing downward. Asher raised his scythe and met them head-on.
The first limb struck like a falling mountain, bone shards bristling from its length. Asher’s scythe carved upward in a ruthless arc, the blade singing through sinew and marrow. The severed mass thrashed as it fell, ichor splattering the stones in smoking puddles. Another limb crashed down from the opposite side, twisting with a whip-like crack. Asher pivoted low, sliding across the wet floor, and let the weapon whistle through the air above him before springing upright into a vertical slash. The scythe split the malformed arm down its center, cleaving it into two shrieking halves.