Pain.
Not just an ache. A giant rusted nail hammered, piercing his bone marrow from the inside.
Luka stared at his right forearm. The white ulna bone fracture tore through his triceps muscle fibers. The solid object protruded by force, piercing the skin and tearing his protective leather sleeve until it ripped apart. Fresh blood spurted out in rhythm, beating in sync with his heart pumping blood fast. Thick red fluid soaked his linen shirt, dripping heavily onto the stone mud dirt.
Oesteria's freezing air infiltrated the gaping wound, touching the torn flesh edges. The cold sting burned his arm.
Luka's breath stopped. His lungs paralyzed, enduring the shockwave that shattered his senses. His vision spun wildly. The rusted copper sky and black pine trees melted into a filthy color vortex. He could not even produce a groan. His vocal cords locked tight. His hand hung in the wrong direction. Defective.
Above him, a giant shadow blocked the Red Ring's light.
Shattered Amalgam.
The meat lump from the pile of living corpses roared. The foul stench of carcass and black slime struck Luka's face. The monster's giant arm raised high again piercing the fog. Preparing to drop a final blow. Crushing his skull into bone fragments.
"My Lord!"
Two hands yanked his left shoulder collar. Rough. Highly forceful.
Luka's body dragged backward across the hard dirt. He launched backward. His broken right arm swung sickeningly lacking control. Agony exploded a second time, tearing his remaining sanity. He coughed, vomiting blood clots onto the pine needle pile.
The giant blow missed.
The monster's arm crushed the dirt where Luka's head was a second ago. Limestone shattered scattering. Its fragments shot scratching Luka's cheek skin. The vibrating dirt crawled to his spine.
Luka forced his eyelids open. His vision twitched.
Rhea stood right in front of him. The maid's gray wool dress fluttered rough slashed by the blizzard. Her hands were no longer empty. From behind her slender hip, the woman drew a long dagger. Its bronze hilt reflected the dim light. Its steel blade thin, curving sharp.
The maid positioned her body as a sole shield.
Luka ground his teeth. Blood dripped from between his lips. "Run..." His voice was ruined. His throat full of blood fluid.
Rhea did not turn her head. Her body posture lowered. Her stance locked onto the frozen dirt. Devoid of a kitchen worker's panic. Only sharp combat precision and cold distance calculation.
The Amalgam pulled its arm from the dirt crater. Dozens of pale faces melting on its shoulders shrieked in anger. The pupilless eyes darted. Losing the first prey made the monster's cannibal instinct more feral. The defective meat lump crawled forward. Three small arms protruded from its gut, trying to grip Rhea's ankles.
Rhea moved.
Not running backward. She shot forward, meeting the monster.
The maid's body ducked extremely low, evading the sweep of the first three small arms. Her dagger swung from below upward. A precise slash, severing the veins on the monster's defective wrists. Black blood spurted, dirtying the snow dirt.
The Amalgam roared. Its main giant arm swept horizontally at human chest height, aiming for Rhea's ribs.
Rhea vaulted into the air. Her left foot kicked a black pine trunk, using it as a foothold to jump spinning above the lethal sweep. Her dagger tip flashed again, tearing the gray skin on the monster's shoulder. Black slime spurted out.
Luka pressed the frozen dirt with his left palm. He forced his knees to bear weight. He had to rise.
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His joints trembled. His left ribs, ruined from the previous blow, pierced his lung tissues. His thigh muscles lost strength. He fell back, kissing the forest filth.
His flesh rejected commands. This disgraceful weakness slapped his pride. He was a prince. He was the rightful throne bearer of this kingdom. He should be standing with a sword in hand, chopping enemy necks to protect his people. Yet, here he crawled. Drenched in blood, filth, and pity. Watching a maid swing small iron risking her life to prolong his breath.
The royal sword techniques he prided himself on shattered to pieces with just one rough blow. His grand posture broken by wild brutality that cared not for noble titles.
The fight in the fog grew more feral.
Rhea danced between the swings of dead arms. Her movements efficient. Lacking wasted steps. Her bronze dagger kept dripping thick black blood. She slashed the monster's thigh, evaded to the side, then stabbed the eye of one pale face on the Amalgam's shoulder.
Yet, human speed possessed limits.
The Amalgam twisted its lump body. Frustrated unable to catch its prey. Dozens of pale faces opened their mouths in unison.
They wept.
The cry was not just a sound. The groans of men, women, and babies forced to merge broke into a piercing shriek ruining balance. The soundwave crashed into the air, striking the inside of the head. A choir of suffering paralyzing joints and muscles.
Rhea's steps faltered.
The maid lost her tempo. Her ears hummed loud. Her right shoulder dropped one inch. Her stance wavered on the frozen mud dirt. A gap opened wide on her defense side.
The Amalgam responded to the gap. Its killing instinct smelled prey. Its giant arm limb struck from the side at full speed.
Not a slash. A solid punch.
The fist of rotting meat pile crashed into Rhea's left ribs.
Crash!
The blunt impact sound stopped Luka's heartbeat.
Rhea's body launched into the air. Flying helpless piercing the rust-scented fog. Striking a large limestone boulder a dozen paces from the starting point.
The stone cracked.
The maid's body slumped falling onto the frozen dirt. Thudding hard lacking resistance force. Her bronze dagger slipped, thrown vanishing into the pine needle pile.
Rhea did not move. Her gray wool dress tore severe on the side. Fresh blood seeped fast. A deep red color stained the white ice dirt below her. Her head drooped broken to one side. Her pale face touched the filthy mud. Her eyes shut tight. Silent.
Luka's world froze.
The blizzard sound vanished. The deafening cries from the monster's defective faces faded into an empty hum in his ears.
The only object caught by his eyes was the shadow of Rhea's lifeless sprawled body. His only protector. The only human in this dying world who cared for him. The only memory fragment constantly reminding him of his true name, fell ruined before his eyes.
The Amalgam dripped black slime. The creature ignored Luka. Its attention fully focused on the scent of fresh blood from the woman's body before the limestone. The monster dragged its meat lump. Approaching.
The giant mouth in the monster's gut opened wide. Its lower jaw stretched until the surrounding skin tore. Broken teeth prepared to swallow its prey whole.
"Don't." Luka's voice was merely a hiss of air from a blood-filled throat.
Before, when his uncle's sword severed his father's neck, he fled piercing the dark forest. Now, this foul-smelling monster lowered its head, preparing to chew his maid into meat chunks.
Luka crawled.
His left fingernails dug into the hard dirt, pulling his body weight forward. His chest scraped against the ice stone, carving dirt stains and wounds on his stomach skin. His broken right arm dragged behind. The white bone tip scraped against sharp gravel, leaving a thick red line trail on the frozen mud. Every drag tore the remaining hanging veins.
His jaw hardened. His molars ground, enduring wrath.
He was a king. Kings did not crawl. Kings slaughtered their enemies.
Luka's chest heated up.
Not the heat from normal blood flow. The point at his solar plexus boiled sharply. The soldier's heart he digested days ago, the soul remnants he robbed, all churned ferally. He refused to be a defective carcass. If his body skeleton lacked the strength to lift a sword, he would use his monster flesh.
His inner space thrashed. The blood puddle inside the Slaughterhouse in his head spun, forming a vortex.
The heat crawled wildly to his right shoulder, invading his ruined arm. The blood vessels around his ulna bone fracture swelled, expanding like parasite roots. Red muscles crawled out from the gaping wound, twitching and spreading wildly. The veins bound the bone fracture, pulling it back together in a force defying natural laws. His flesh boiled. Copper-scented steam billowed from his arm, turning the wound into a thick muscle lump.
At the edge of his vision, the Amalgam dripped thick slime, preparing to close its jaw right above Rhea's head.