CRUCIFY THE SMILE
Chapter Nine: The Mother's Wrath
The hunters shifted back.
All of them. Trembling. Shivering. Fear hung in the air like smoke after a funeral pyre.
Doman's eyes shook. His missing fingers throbbed beneath their bandages. Zale cursed under his breath—low, fast, desperate, the words tumbling over each other like rats fleeing a fire.
"No." Doman's voice cracked. "Droller. How can you? You killed someone just to show us—"
"Shut up."
Droller's voice was calm. Quiet. The tone of a man correcting a child who'd spoken out of turn. He didn't raise it. Didn't need to.
Doman's jaw clenched. His hands balled into fists. His whole body trembled—not just from fear now, but from something else. Rage. Boiling up from his chest, flooding his veins, clouding his vision.
"You." His voice dropped low. Guttural. Animal. "You will pay. You will pay."
He dove from his mount.
His soul weapon manifested mid-air—a blade of crackling red energy, humming with stored power, lighting up the darkness like a wounded star. He raised it high, both hands on the hilt, ready to bring it down on Droller's head.
Shrek!
Blood splattered across the forest floor.
Doman's head was pinned to a tree.
A black-yellow arrow had pierced straight through his skull—entered through the left eye, exited through the back, burying itself deep into the bark with a wet, sucking sound. His body hung there for a moment, twitching, legs kicking at nothing, before going limp.
Then his head began to melt.
Yellow liquid dripped down the tree trunk. Sizzling. Smoking. Eating into the bark like acid poured on flesh. The smell was sweet and rotten at the same time—candied death.
A woman smiled from a branch high above.
She squatted there, balanced on her heels, a bow still raised in her hands. Her eyes were cold. Her lips were curved. Her yellow-black arrows gleamed in the dim light.
The other hunters stared at Doman's melting head.
"Holy shit!"
"No. No. NO!"
Zale stumbled backward. His feet slipped on the wet earth. He caught himself against a tree, breathing hard, eyes wide as dinner plates, pupils dilated with terror.
Droller smiled.
A beast soul weapon appeared in his hand—a hammer made of bone, white as snow, carved with symbols that seemed to move when you weren't looking directly at them. The symbols writhed. Shifted. Breathed.
He stepped forward. His boots left deep prints in the soil. Each step was slow. Deliberate. Inevitable.
"Summon your soul weapons now," he said. "Or your life."
The hunters didn't hesitate.
Soul weapons bloomed in their hands—swords and axes, spears and daggers, light flickering across their desperate faces. Some weapons were small. Some were large. All of them shook in trembling grips.
"I will. I will," one of them stammered. A woman. Young. Her voice was high and thin.
Droller looked at all their faces. One by one. Slow. Deliberate. He lingered on the trembling ones, the ones whose weapons shook in their hands, the ones who were already dead and just didn't know it yet.
"Good," he muttered.
He turned his head slightly. Looked toward the trees on his left. The shadows between the trunks.
"Slaughter them all."
Hunters dove from the branches.
They came from everywhere—from the trees, from the bushes, from behind rocks, from beneath the earth itself. Droller's gang, hidden and waiting. Their weapons gleamed. Their eyes were empty. Their faces were masks of killing calm.
"What the—"
Heads fell.
Bodies dropped.
Blood sprayed across the forest floor, painting the moss red, soaking into the soil, feeding the roots of the giant trees.
Kael looked around.
Screams echoed through the trees—high and thin, cut off mid-cry. Footsteps pounded the earth. Getting closer. Coming this way. The sound of men and women running for their lives.
His eyes scanned the darkness. The shadows between the trunks. The spaces where the light didn't reach.
Then he saw it.
A cave. Hidden behind a curtain of hanging vines and twisted roots. The entrance was small. Easy to miss. Easy to hide.
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"Follow me," he said.
He ran.
Calvin's face was tense. His jaw was clenched so tight his teeth ached. His hands were shaking. But he didn't argue. He didn't ask questions. He just ran after Kael, boots slapping the soft earth, breath coming in short, sharp gasps, heart hammering against his ribs like a fist on a door.
They slipped through the vines.
Into the cave.
Darkness swallowed them whole.
Water dripped from the ceiling.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound echoed off stone walls, bounced back at them from shadows they couldn't see, couldn't measure, couldn't understand. The air was cold and damp and smelled like old bones and older secrets.
Kael stopped. Listened.
Calvin stood behind him, chest heaving, hands on his knees, sucking air like a drowning man.
"You've got to lower your voice." Kael's whisper was barely a breath. "We don't know what's in here."
Calvin nodded. Swallowed. His throat clicked.
He straightened up. Looked around.
The cave was larger than he'd expected. Much larger. The ceiling was lost in darkness—no, not lost. Hidden. Stalactites hung like teeth from above, dripping water that had fallen for centuries. Puddles pooled on the floor, shallow and black and perfectly still.
This is wrong, Calvin thought.
He ran his hands through his hair. Gripped the roots. Pressed his back against a smooth giant rock—ten meters tall, at least, its surface cool and flat against his spine. He closed his eyes. Breathed.
Then he felt it.
A movement.
Subtle. Slow. Like breathing. Like the rise and fall of a chest.
Calvin turned his head.
What the—
He looked at the rock.
It wasn't a rock.
It was an armadillo.
Massive. Ancient. Rolled into a tight ball, its armor plates locked together like a puzzle of bone and keratin, each plate scarred with the marks of battles fought long before Calvin was born. Its body rose and fell with slow, deep breaths.
Asleep.
Two smaller balls rested beside it. Pups. Rolled up tight just like their mother, their tiny armor plates catching the dim light, their small bodies twitching in their sleep.
Calvin stared.
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Oh my."
His voice came out as a whisper—half terrified, half delighted. He stared at the pups. At their small, curled bodies. At the way their noses twitched. At the way their feet kicked gently, dreaming of whatever armadillos dreamed.
"So cute."
He took a step closer.
Boom!
The ground shook.
Calvin stumbled. His feet went out from under him. He was falling—arms flailing, mouth open, terror flooding his veins.
Kael moved fast.
Lowered his shoulder. Caught Calvin mid-fall. Lowered him to the ground. Silent. Controlled. His hands were steady. His face was blank.
Calvin lay there, breathing hard, staring up at the darkness above. His chest heaved. His eyes were wide.
Kael looked down at him.
"Such good hearts aren't for Mystical Eraland."
His voice was flat. No judgment. No cruelty. Just fact.
He looked at the sleeping pups. Their small bodies rose and fell with each breath. So vulnerable. So trusting. So useful.
He reached out.
His fingers hovered over their curled forms.
Then he sighed.
He pulled his hand back.
Not yet.
Kael looked at Calvin—still breathing, still alive, still human.
"I need to avoid suspicion," he muttered.
He grabbed Calvin under the arms and dragged him out of the cave. Through the vines. Across the forest floor. His boots left tracks in the soft earth, deep and deliberate.
He found a patch of tall grass near a fallen log. Covered Calvin's body. Made him invisible to anyone passing by.
He squatted beside the pups.
Looked at them.
"Seems you guys might be of help to me," he muttered. His voice was low. Quiet. Almost gentle. "At least I'll be helping the dead get their revenge."
He found an old flat board nearby—rotten at the edges, left behind by some previous hunter, or maybe brought here by the armadillo itself. He slid it under the pups. Carefully. Gently. Like a father lifting his children from a burning bed.
Then he raised the board.
And walked out of the cave.
"Please. PLEASE."
A female hunter knelt in the mud.
Her hands were raised. Her soul weapon—a high mythic rank blade, gleaming with blue light—lay on the ground before her, discarded like garbage. Her face was wet with tears. Her voice was raw.
"I will do anything if you want. Anything."
Droller stared at her.
Zale stood nearby, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. He was one of the last two. The others had all been slaughtered. Bodies lay scattered across the clearing, twisted and broken, blood soaking into the soil.
"What?" Zale's voice cracked. "Kill me. KILL ME, dumbass!"
Droller turned his head slowly. Looked at Zale.
"Hmmm."
He raised his hammer.
Boom!
The hammer swung.
A hole opened in Zale's chest—huge, gaping, big enough to see through. Blood sprayed from his back in a wide arc. His body stood there for a moment, frozen, as if refusing to accept what had happened. Then it crumpled to the ground.
"Arrghhh!"
The female hunter screamed. Her hands flew to her face. Her body shook with sobs.
She scrambled for her soul weapon. Grabbed it. Held it up like a shield, like a prayer, like a child holding a stuffed animal against the dark.
"This is high mythic rank!" Her voice was shrill. Desperate. Broken. "Please! Pity me! Pity me! It can pierce through metal armor. I swear I would become your slave. I would pay you any amount of money. Any amount!"
Droller stared at her.
He smiled.
He squatted down. Brought his face level with hers. His eyes were empty. His breath was warm on her cheeks.
"But how can I trust you?" His voice was soft. Almost gentle. Like a father comforting a frightened child. "And besides... I would be doing you a good favor."
He tilted his head.
"After all, you would be better off dead than—"
Boom!
Thwaaack!
Rumble!
The ground shook.
Blood sprayed.
A giant ball came rolling through the clearing—massive, armored, moving faster than anything that size had a right to move. It hit Droller and the female hunter before either of them could react.
They were ground to powder.
Droller's armor. His body. His hammer. All of it crushed beneath the rolling mass. The female hunter's scream lasted less than a second. Then silence.
The ball rolled to a stop.
It unfurled.
The armadillo rose to its full height—towering, ancient, its eyes burning with rage. It looked at the dead pups on the forest floor. Looked at the humans standing over them.
It roared.
The sound shook the trees. Shook the ground. Shook the air itself.
"What the—"
"Oh, shit! No way!"
"WHAT IS THAT?"
Droller's gang scattered. Some tried to attack—summoned their strongest soul weapons, threw themselves at the beast with everything they had, screaming war cries that died in their throats.
The armadillo didn't even seem to notice.
Its claws slashed. Hunters fell mid-flight, their bodies torn open, their blood raining down like water. The armadillo moved through them like a thresher through wheat.
It dug into the earth. Crushed bodies beneath its weight. Turned men and women into paste, into memory, into nothing.
It ran.
Its iron nails slapped a hunter's head clean off his shoulders. The body kept running for three steps before collapsing. The head rolled to a stop against a tree, eyes still blinking.
"No! No! Stay away! STAY AWAY!"
Only one remained.
The woman with the bow.
She stood her ground. Her face was pale. Her hands were steady. She released arrow after arrow—black-yellow streaks of light that pierced the armadillo's armor, buried deep into its flesh, drew black blood from ancient wounds.
Little scratches.
The armadillo raged.
It dove.
It stomped.
Thwack.
The woman disappeared beneath its foot.
The armadillo curled back into a ball and rolled—chasing the last of the hunters, crushing them one by one, until the forest fell silent.
Kael stared from above.
His dragon mount hovered fifty meters in the air. The wind whipped his hair across his face. His boots dangled over empty space. His hands were steady on the dragon's scales.
He had dropped the pups from this height.
Watched them fall.
Watched their bodies break.
Watched the mother find them.
And then watched her rage.
"Wow."
Crucify's voice stirred in his skull. Giggling. High and sweet and wrong. A child watching ants burn under a magnifying glass.
"You are indeed a master manipulator."
"Shut up," Kael thought.
He guided the dragon down.
The beast landed on the forest floor. Kael jumped off. His boots hit the soil. The dragon flickered and dissolved—desummoned, returned to whatever pocket dimension it called home.
He stared at the squashed humans.
Bodies everywhere. Broken. Crushed. Torn apart. Some were recognizable. Most weren't. The clearing looked like a butcher's floor after a long day.
Most of the weapons were destroyed—shattered, cracked, ground into the earth. But two remained.
A hammer made of bone. White as snow. Carved with symbols that seemed to move in the corner of his eye.
A bow and arrows. Yellow-black. Gleaming with dried blood. The bowstring still hummed with residual energy.
Kael walked toward them.
He knelt down.
Sighed.
"Intelligence is indeed better than—"
His screen bloomed.
[Note: Soul weapon transfusion is incredibly painful due to low mutated biogenes.]
[Click CONTINUE to proceed.]
Kael stared at it.
His jaw tightened.
"Continue," he thought.
He clenched the hammer.
For a second, there was silence. Just the wind. Just the drip of water from somewhere deep in the forest. Just the sound of his own heartbeat.
Then the armor glowed.
His hand vibrated. Shook. Swelled. His fingers doubled in size, then tripled, then expanded until the skin stretched tight across the bone, until the knuckles disappeared, until his hand looked like something from a nightmare.
Energy pulsed through his arm—hot, electric, hungry. It burned. It buzzed. It sang.
His brain screamed.
He absorbed the hammer.
"Arrrghhh!"
His body vibrated. His teeth clenched. His eyes rolled back. His spine arched. His muscles spasmed.
His other hand stretched out—on its own, without his control, as if pulled by invisible strings—and the beast soul bow and arrows magneted to it. The weapon slammed into his palm. The energy hit him like a truck made of lightning.
Two soul weapons.
Absorbing at the same time.
"Yay! YAY! Two soul weapons!"
Crucify's voice was ecstatic. High-pitched. Giggling. Clapping in his skull.
Kael's eyes trembled violently. His pupils shrank. Then expanded. Then split—for just a moment, just a fraction of a second, he saw double. Two worlds. Two skies. Two of everything.
His skin cracked.
Black lines appeared on his neck—thin, branching, like veins made of shadow, like roots spreading through soil. They spread up his jaw. Across his cheek. Toward his eye.
"Arrrghhh!"
The sound shot out of him—not a scream, not a roar, something between. Something that didn't belong to a human throat.
[Low Epic - Bone Hammer Beast Soul Gained.]
[High Mythic - Bee Stinger Beast Bow and Arrow Gained.]
His screen flickered.
Then went dark.
Kael fell limp.
His eyes closed.
His body collapsed into the mud.
Silence.
The wind moved drunk through the trees.
Somewhere far away, a white owl screamed.
End of Chapter Nine.