When Umbra finally reached the source of the corruption that her spear had been quietly guiding her toward for the better part of the afternoon, she was forced to slow her steps, not out of fear but out of a dawning realization that what awaited her was far more entrenched than she had initially calculated. The air itself seemed heavier in this part of the forest, thick with the coppery scent of blood and the sour undertone of rot, and the trees stood farther apart here, as though even nature had recoiled from what had taken root among them. She had expected resistance, certainly, and perhaps even a nest of sorts, but what she found instead suggested something far more organized and disturbingly efficient.
If anything, the sight before her confirmed a suspicion she had been reluctant to entertain, namely that the Witch of the Void had arrived on Earth well before Umbra herself had descended to intervene. There was no other explanation for the scale of the operation unfolding in the clearing, nor for the grotesque maturity of the thing that anchored it. This was not the frantic, chaotic spawning of a desperate villain scrambling to defend her territory; it was the steady, methodical expansion of a foothold that had already been secured.
At the center of the clearing lay the broodmother.
Even before she fully processed its shape, Umbra recognized the role it played. The evidence was everywhere, scattered across the churned mud and tangled roots in the form of half-formed carcasses and freshly birthed horrors dragging themselves upright for the first time. From this single abomination had come bonestealers with their jagged limbs and hollowed eyes, flesh tearers with layered maws and twitching claws, and corpsestalkers whose pale skull-faces she now knew all too well. None of them, taken individually, posed a significant threat to her. Their strength was modest, their coordination imperfect, and their instincts still raw. But there were hundreds of them moving through the trees and crouched in the undergrowth, their numbers compensating for what they lacked in power. A few dozen unfortunate humans, combined with countless animals drawn from the surrounding wilderness, had clearly been harvested and perverted into this burgeoning army, their original forms reduced to little more than raw material.
Umbra stood at the edge of the clearing and surveyed the scene with a cool, analytical gaze, yet beneath that discipline something else stirred, something she despised acknowledging even to herself. Her mouth began to water.
It was a humiliating response, and one she had long ago come to associate with the so-called benefits of her curse. Whatever transformation had bound her to her current state had stripped away any pretense of omnivorous comfort. She was a carnivore now in the most literal and uncompromising sense. She could tolerate the faint presence of herbs or spices clinging to meat, if they were subtle enough not to overwhelm her senses, but anything more complex would revolt her stomach and leave her retching. Bread, fruit, sweets, all of it had become alien to her, as though she were trying to consume painted wood rather than food.
Monsters, however, were another matter.
When opportunity allowed, she found that their flesh satisfied her in a way that ordinary prey could not, perhaps because they were themselves warped and unnatural, and therefore closer to her own cursed existence. She loathed this aspect of herself with a quiet but persistent shame, yet she had come to terms with it in a practical sense. So long as her hunger never turned toward the innocent, so long as she never allowed that gnawing instinct to blur the line between predator and protector, she would not condemn herself for what she craved. After all, no one faults the lion for bringing down its kill; it is the nature of the beast, not a moral failing.
Still, she would not indulge that hunger now.
The Witch remained at large, and discipline demanded priority. She could feast later, once the source of this infestation had been eradicated and the forest no longer groaned under the weight of new abominations clawing their way into existence.
Her gaze returned to the broodmother itself, and even with her considerable experience in confronting horrors, she felt a flicker of grim acknowledgement at its sheer scale. If it were capable of standing upright, it would have towered over her, though its body was so grotesquely distended that true posture seemed impossible. It sprawled across the clearing like some obscene parody of maternity, easily a dozen times her width, its bulk supported by stunted, pillar-like limbs that trembled under its own mass. Its skin was thick and black, resembling aged leather stretched too tightly over an overfilled frame, and it glistened with a sheen that suggested both resilience and decay. Across its surface were scattered swollen cysts, pale and translucent, within which shadowy shapes twitched and shifted as though eager for release.
The most revolting feature, however, was its abdomen. Its gravid stomach had been split open by a long, vertical gash that ran from ribcage to pelvis, the edges of the wound perpetually wet and ragged, yet never healing. From this tear, at regular intervals of only a few minutes, another creature would emerge, slick with fluid and blinking blindly at the world for the first time. The newborn monster would stumble free, its form still soft and pliable, only to begin hardening and reshaping itself almost immediately as unseen forces accelerated its incubation. Even as one dragged itself away, the torn cavity would convulse and swell again, already preparing to expel the next.
Umbra watched the process unfold and felt a cold certainty settle over her.
The corpsestalkers she had fought earlier, the ones whose skull-faces had glinted wetly in the rain, might have been less than an hour old when they crossed her path. They had not been seasoned hunters but fresh spawn, still clumsy in their coordination and reliant on crude tactics. That explained their imperfections, their hesitation, the almost desperate way one had used its companion’s body as a projectile.
This infestation was young, but it was growing at an alarming pace.
And if she did not sever it at the source, the forest would not remain the Witch’s only foothold for long.
Umbra did not allow herself the luxury of staring at the broodmother for long, because she knew that the longer she stood there observing, the more monsters would claw their way into existence behind that obscene curtain of torn flesh. With a low growl that rumbled somewhere deep in her chest, she reached down to her belt and seized the radio, her gauntleted fingers smearing it faintly with grime and dark residue from the battlefield she had just crossed. For a brief moment she simply held it there, steadying her breathing, forcing her voice into something controlled rather than feral.
She clicked it on, the small device crackling faintly with static before the channel opened.
“Found a source of monsters,” she rasped, her voice roughened not only by exertion but by the faint, ever-present strain of her curse. “Evacuate Mount Kaukau and the surrounding area. Her spawn already has a foothold here.”
There was no embellishment in her tone, no room for doubt or dramatic flair. She did not need to describe what she was looking at; the urgency in her voice was more than sufficient. After she released the transmit button, the forest seemed to lean in around her, as though even the wind were waiting to hear the reply. In the distance, something shrieked—a newly birthed creature testing lungs that had not existed five minutes prior.
A full minute passed before the response came through, and though it was not long by ordinary standards, it felt stretched thin by tension.
“Copy that,” came the reply at last, clipped but not panicked. “We’ll evacuate everyone we can immediately.”
Umbra exhaled slowly through her nose as she lowered the radio, though the motion did nothing to ease the tightness coiling in her chest. An evacuation of Mount Kaukau and the surrounding districts would not go unnoticed. Sirens would wail, emergency broadcasts would interrupt mundane routines, and before long the people of Wellington would realize that something was deeply, catastrophically wrong. Rumors would spread faster than official explanations, and fear would bloom like wildfire through dry grass.
It was a shame, in a distant and abstract way. Panic had a way of leaving scars that lingered long after the physical threat had been dealt with. Trust in institutions would fray, conspiracy theories would flourish, and the quiet comfort of normal life would fracture under the strain of uncertainty.
But Umbra did not care about that, not in this moment.
Let them panic, she thought grimly, so long as they were alive to do so. Fear could be soothed later. Trauma could be addressed. Buildings could be rebuilt. The dead, however, remained dead, and she had seen far too many lives extinguished because someone had hesitated in order to preserve appearances.
She sucked in a sharp breath that tasted of rot and rain and iron, then clipped the radio back to her side with a decisive motion. Her hands shifted almost automatically to her weapons, fingers tightening around the familiar weight of her spear and the reassuring solidity of her shield. The leather grip creaked faintly under the pressure of her grasp, and she welcomed the sensation, grounding herself in something tangible and immediate.
Ahead of her, the broodmother convulsed again, its swollen abdomen rippling as another shape forced its way toward the open gash. Smaller monsters skittered around its bulk like parasites orbiting a greater host, their movements erratic yet purposeful, as though some instinct urged them to defend the grotesque engine of their own creation.
Umbra did not give them time to organize.
With a sudden surge of motion that shattered the fragile stillness of the clearing, she launched herself forward, her boots tearing through the mud and her armour catching the dim light as she accelerated. There was no hesitation in her charge, no attempt at stealth or subtlety, because this was no longer a hunt but an execution.
As Umbra closed the final stretch of distance between herself and the broodmother, the ground trembling faintly beneath her accelerating stride, she drew her divine spear back with the clear and focused intention of driving it straight through the creature’s swollen mass. The weapon hummed faintly in her grip, resonating with restrained power, its edge shimmering with a light that did not belong to this corrupted forest. For a fleeting moment she believed she had the advantage, that the grotesque bulk before her would be too slow, too cumbersome to properly defend itself.
She was wrong.
With a speed that completely betrayed its size, the broodmother’s massive limb lashed out in a wide, brutal arc. The motion was so sudden that even Umbra’s sharpened instincts barely registered it in time for her to brace. The impact struck her like a battering ram, the force reverberating through her shield and into her bones, and in the next instant she found herself torn from her charge and hurled bodily into the churned grass and mud beyond the clearing. The world spun violently as she hit the ground, armour grinding against stone and root, the breath forced from her lungs in a harsh exhale.
She had scarcely begun to recover when the swarm descended.
From all sides, shapes lunged toward her fallen form, some roughly human in outline and others disturbingly animalistic, their bodies stitched together from fur, flesh, and bone in grotesque combinations. Dozens of them piled onto her at once, their combined weight driving her further into the mud as jagged claws and blunt teeth scraped furiously against her armour. The sound was a maddening chorus of screeches and scraping metal, punctuated by the dull thud of bodies colliding with her shield.
Umbra ground her teeth together in frustration as she felt mud smear against her cheek and something sharp rake across the exposed skin of her jaw. She cursed, not for the first time, her decision to forgo a helmet in favour of greater visibility. The armour covering the rest of her body held firm against the assault, but her face remained vulnerable, and several creatures took immediate advantage of that fact. Thin lines of pain flared across her cheek and brow as claws scored her skin, though the wounds were shallow and quickly slowed by the unnatural resilience of her flesh.
Still, the situation was untenable.
She attempted to push herself upright, muscles straining beneath the crush of writhing bodies, only to be slammed back down as a larger creature hurled itself against her chest. More claws scraped at her armour, some finding the seams, though none penetrated deeply enough to matter. Mud seeped into every crevice, and the metallic tang of blood, some hers, mostly theirs, thickened the air around her.
Realizing she could not effectively wield her spear while pinned, Umbra made a swift decision and released it, letting the weapon fall from her grasp. Instead, she extended her clawed hand, the cursed appendage lengthening and hardening as she channelled her strength into it. With a savage sweep of her arm, she slashed outward in a wide arc, and the effect was immediate and devastating. Torsos separated from legs in a single fluid motion, the strike cleaving through malformed ribs and spines as though they were little more than damp parchment. Bodies toppled away from her in pieces, and she followed with another brutal swipe, tearing smaller creatures free and casting them aside in mangled heaps.
A humanoid monstrosity, its skull partially exposed beneath stretched skin, lunged toward the fallen spear, perhaps guided by some crude instinct to disarm her. The moment its twisted fingers brushed the haft, however, it recoiled with a piercing howl. Smoke rose faintly from where its flesh had made contact, and it staggered back, clutching its blistered hand. The monstrous did not deal well with the holy, and even in their frenzy they could not ignore the searing purity that radiated from her weapon.
Umbra continued carving space around herself, each swipe of her claw reducing the writhing mass atop her until the press of bodies lessened and she could finally draw a full breath. The tide did not break all at once, but it thinned enough for her to seize the opening she needed. With a powerful twist of her torso, she rolled onto one knee, shoving aside the remaining creatures with a violent surge of strength.
Her hand shot out to reclaim her spear, fingers closing around the familiar grip as she planted one boot firmly into the ground. She shifted into a low crouch, muscles coiling beneath her armour, and in the next heartbeat she drove her strength downward and launched herself straight up into the air. Mud and broken bodies scattered beneath her as she ascended, rising above the swarm in a vertical burst that carried her out of their immediate reach and granted her a brief, precious moment to reassess the battlefield from above.
Then she descended.
For a heartbeat she hung suspended against the grey Wellington sky, armour glinting faintly through the drifting mist, and then she came down like a lithe comet returning to earth, one leg extended and her body aligned with ruthless precision. She struck the writhing mass of monsters with crushing force, her boot driving several of them flat into the mud as the impact rippled outward through the swarm. The ground shuddered beneath the collision, and the creatures nearest her were thrown off balance, their shrieks blending into a chaotic chorus of panic and rage.
Umbra did not allow the momentum to fade. Even as she landed, she pivoted sharply on her planted foot and whipped her shield outward in a wide, sweeping motion, the reinforced rim smashing into the cluster to her left. Several monsters were sent tumbling through the air like broken marionettes, their malformed limbs flailing as they collided with tree trunks and the churned earth beyond. Without pause she followed through with her spear, the holy weapon carving a brutal arc before her, its radiant edge slicing through flesh and bone with horrifying efficiency. Each swing reaped a grim harvest, bodies parting cleanly and collapsing in heaps, their dark blood hissing faintly where it touched the sanctified metal.
There was a terrible grace to the way she moved, a fluidity born not of elegance but of relentless practice. Dozens fell in mere seconds, and though the spectacle might have seemed effortless to an observer, it was the culmination of years spent hunting creatures just like these, learning the angles of their attacks and the fragile seams in their anatomy. Her experience did not make the work pleasant, but it made it decisive.
Within moments, the thickest press of the swarm had been cut down, leaving only a scattered ring of survivors clinging close to the broodmother’s grotesque bulk, as though proximity to their origin might offer protection. Umbra advanced a step, intending to finish them, when something at the edge of her vision drew her attention.
Several dozen metres away from the heart of the conflict, movement flickered between the trees. She caught the glimpse of a tangle of elongated, spiderlike legs scuttling rapidly across the forest floor, carrying what appeared to be a limp, flaccid body suspended beneath it. For the briefest instant she could not determine whether the shape being carried was a victim stolen from some nearby street or the unfinished form of a new monstrosity still soft from birth. The questions flared in her mind, sharp and urgent, but she forced herself to set them aside. There would be time to hunt down the remnants and uncover the truth, provided she survived the present battle.
The broodmother, perhaps sensing her momentary distraction, raised one of its thick, pillar-like limbs again, the massive appendage casting a shadow over her as it swung downward with punishing speed. This time, however, Umbra was ready. She shifted her stance and darted to the side, angling her shield deliberately so that the brunt of the impact would glance rather than strike head-on. Even so, when the limb collided with her defence, the force travelled through her arm and into her frame like a shockwave. She was thrown sideways a full metre, boots skidding through mud, her bones rattling painfully as she struggled to keep her footing. The effort failed, and she toppled onto her side, armour clanging against stone.
A grotesque sound bubbled from the broodmother’s torn abdomen, something disturbingly close to a chuckle, though it carried none of the warmth of genuine amusement. It lifted its limb again and slammed it into the ground beside its bloated form, sending a spray of mud and shattered roots hurtling toward Umbra. She raised her shield in time to block the worst of it, but before she could regain her balance another strike came, catching her at an awkward angle and driving her back yet again.
Frustration began to coil hotly in the pit of her stomach, rising alongside the metallic taste of blood at the back of her throat. She ground her teeth together and released a low, monstrous growl that vibrated through her chest, an echo of the curse that defined her existence. Every instinct urged her to charge recklessly, to close the distance and tear into the creature until nothing remained but ruined flesh.
She forced herself to stop.
Blind fury would accomplish nothing but exhaustion, and exhaustion would give the Witch more time to consolidate her hold on this city. Umbra inhaled deeply through her nose, the air thick with rot and rain, and exhaled slowly, deliberately, until the red haze receded from her vision. The broodmother was undeniably strong and disturbingly fast for something so massive, but it was also anchored to the earth by its own grotesque bulk. It could lash out with frightening power, yet it could not pursue.
Umbra, on the other hand, could adapt.
She did not possess many ranged options, but she possessed one that mattered.
Pushing herself back onto her feet, she planted them firmly despite the sucking mud and drew her spear back over her shoulder, shifting her grip until it resembled that of a javelin poised for competition rather than a knight’s lance. The weapon hummed more intensely in her grasp, as though eager to be unleashed. She took careful aim at the creature’s exposed core, the vertical gash in its abdomen that pulsed obscenely with each new contraction.
Then, with a sharp exhale and a full rotation of her torso, she hurled the spear straight toward the heart of the beast.