There once was a pathetic bunch, you see…
“I DON’T WANT TO d*e YET!!!” The man’s voice turned hoarse and wild, his warped form shooting out countless black threads that wrapped around him like some kind of creepy cocoon.
As the black goo enveloped him, his body started Stretch Armstrong-ing into all kinds of absurd shapes – like Play-Doh in the hands of a clumsy toddler. His whole molecular structure seemed to be getting shattered and重塑ed!
The black goo gave him a radical body makeover – pitch-black skin studded with vicious spikes, muscles swelling to tree-trunk proportions. But alas, his puny little legs refused to match the monstrous upper body, raising questions about structural integrity. His face? Let’s just say Picasso would be proud of this Cubist masterpiece.
This hulking two-meter-tall dark monster grabbed Tillysha’s hand. From the once-human abomination came raspy croaks through its zipper-like mouth, still shrieking for help like a drowning rat.
“I don’t wanna d*e…”
“So…”
“You d*e instead!”
With that, the monster yanked Tillysha out of a crevice and hurled her onto the ground with all the gentleness of a cement truck. Its spiky arms pinned her down while drool as thick as motor oil dribbled onto her hair.
Then came the pièce de résistance – its monstrous mouth filled with two rows of backward-facing fangs lunged toward Tillysha’s snowy neck.
“CRACK CRACK!” The monster’s fangs clattered against something harder than expected. Tiny cracks appeared on Tillysha’s armguard, but she was far from done. Using her legs like pistons, she shoved the monster off, ramming a mud blade into its mouth before booting it away.
Realizing it had bitten into nothing but dirt, the monster spat out the mud and resumed its four-legged charge like an enraged bull.
Tillysha cartwheeled backward, drew her bow, and let loose an arrow shimmering with celestial radiance. The monster was blasted into a nearby brick wall with a satisfying kaboom, reducing it to rubble.
Yimi, who was busy shepherding the wounded to safety, paused mid-step upon hearing the commotion. Her heart skipped a beat until she saw Tillysha gracefully emerging unscathed from the dust cloud.
“Such crude behavior toward a lady is most unmannerly,” Tillysha quipped, her bow hand resting casually on her hip as she surveyed the monster clawing its way out of the debris.
A disguised demon? But wait, demons shouldn’t even exist here. And besides, that human aura she sensed earlier was unmistakably real. Wasn’t he just an ordinary human moments ago?
Tillysha activated her Divine Analysis Technique. The creature – with its bulky upper torso and stumpy legs – displayed the same ‘?’ race identifier as the masked people who had blocked her path earlier.
Another unidentified being from another world? What is going on here??
“ROAR!” The monster crouched menacingly, its stomach oozing black pus. Clearly, Tillysha’s previous celestial arrow had found its mark and dealt some serious damage.
Whatever this thing was, there was no trace of humanity left in its eyes. Just swirling maelstroms of pure negativity.
Without hesitation, Tillysha drew her bow again. This time, no mercy. The light arrow pierced the monster’s vulnerable neck with pinpoint accuracy.
With a few raspy gasps, the monster twitched a few times and collapsed into a pool of black goo. Its neck vulnerability suggested this thing wasn’t just some random stitched-together abomination. It had vital organs like a regular humanoid.
“You were supposed to be saving people, weren’t you?” Yimi walked over.
Tillysha merely pointed at the fallen monster.
“So this was the person begging for help earlier?” Yimi mused. “And those things destroying the city…”
Their musings were interrupted by the thunderous collapse of nearby buildings and distant screams.
“Help! HELP!!”
Both ladies turned toward the source. A limping guard in armor hobbled toward them, one arm missing, dragging himself along with sheer willpower. bl**d trailed behind him like breadcrumbs.
“heehee…” A giggling sound erupted from behind him. A wild-haired woman with purplish skin followed, step by slow step.
Her unkempt hair obscured her face, though her bl**d-stained robes suggested some serious combat had taken place.
“Help! You there, you with the bow! HELP! These heretics have gone mad!” The guard’s face lit up at the sight of Tillysha, though it was more grotesque than radiant.
Wait. Wasn’t this one of the henchmen of that city guard captain from yesterday?
Karma’s a b*tch, ain’t she? This same guy who used to lord over commoners and terrorize the streets now limped around like a wounded animal.
Still, business is business.
This woman wasn’t human. And neither was the town’s misfortune coincidental.
Tillysha aimed her arrow ahead of the woman.
“TWANG!” The glowing arrow embedded itself in front of the woman’s feet. It paused briefly, seemingly unaware or simply unbothered, then continued pursuing the guard.
Tillysha frowned. Warnings be damned – it was time to get serious.
The second arrow zipped through the air…
And pierced the woman clean through the back. Streams of black pus poured out of the wound and her lips.
The woman finally stopped, slowly turning toward Tillysha. For a moment, Tillysha braced herself for an attack.
But instead, the woman simply tilted her head up.
Tillysha’s breath caught in her throat. Her bow lowered ever so slowly.
From the body language, this should’ve been a young woman in her prime. But her face… oh, her poor face…
Several vicious scar lines marred her visage, deep enough to render the features nearly unrecognizable. The left eye was missing entirely, leaving behind an empty, haunting pit. Her cheeks were covered in whip marks and slashes, swelling grotesquely.
Even Yimi took a step back at the sight. Some things just weren’t meant to be seen.
But Tillysha couldn’t look away. Through her special vision, she saw what used to be – a face so beautiful it brought both blessings and curses.
To protect herself and her loved ones, she destroyed that very beauty…
“You little witch, not even willing to give me a cheap thrill, eh? Fine then! You clearly hate your own face, let me help you out!”
With righteous indignation, the honorable guard captain and his men held her face down in corrosive acid, ensuring her face was ruined forever.
In a single night, the ravishing beauty became a faceless hag, forced to roam the streets in disgrace. Mocked by townsfolk, abandoned by her husband, tormented by guards…
The mutilated face stared at Tillysha, mouth trembling as if trying to say something.
Not curses. Not venting. No, Tillysha felt something else – a repeated triple-question.
Why? Why do the wicked go unpunished while the good suffer? Why has she wronged anyone? Why can these so-called righteous people freely destroy others’ lives?
Why does she have to lose everything, even this hard-won chance for vengeance?
Revenge. Pure unadulterated vengeance was the only thing keeping her going after all was lost.
Tillysha didn’t know why she could understand the woman’s feelings so clearly. But knowing this, she couldn’t bring herself to raise her bow again.
“??” Yimi shot her a confused look.
The woman laughed, a sound both chilling and heart-wrenching. As the last chance for vengeance slipped away, her body softened with the loss of strength, collapsing to her knees. Her wild hair cascaded onto the ground.
Tillysha remained silent, letting her bow hang loose.
“Ha, ha! You defiant heretic, huh?!” Once assured the woman was dead, the limping guard regained his composure. Surveying his broken self, rage quickly replaced fear. He hobbled over, using his splintered spear to savagely beat the corpse.
“You rotten witch! Daring to hurt me?! Your worthless life doesn’t even compare to one hair on my body!”
“AAAAAAH!!” His bloody face made him look all the more terrifying as he shrieked.
Even Yimi winced as the corpse was brutally mutilated.
But in his celebratory rage, the guard forgot something crucial – he was down to one leg now. Without his makeshift crutch, he stumbled right into the pool of black pus left by the woman.
“AAAAAHH!!!” The toxic pus seeped into his wounds, spreading rapidly through his veins. He started frothing at the mouth before collapsing, dead within seconds.
This wasn’t some mere venom. Whatever it was, it could k*ll a person within seconds of entering the bloodstream.
The dying guard’s contorted face said it all – no sympathy from Tillysha.
“Perhaps…” Tillysha murmured to herself. “Perhaps there are no heretics. Just a bunch of desperate people.”
She thought back to the Corpse Rot Flower outside the city, and the words spoken by Caleburn.
The flower thrived on despair and resentment, growing stronger with each ounce of negative emotion. But it didn’t sprout out of nowhere. Without the necessary nourishment, it would never have taken root in these lands.
The true culprit wasn’t the flower. It was these people – these greedy, heartless people.
Which is why Caleburn said the flower’s appearance was natural. The uprising couldn’t threaten the nobility, which meant they could oppress the common folk with no restraints. The Corpse Rot Flower became the only force capable of challenging the nobles’ rule.
In a way, its existence prevented the nobles from becoming even more tyrannical. Every act of oppression led to more resistance, and the flower was that resistance, even if unintentional.
Tillysha thought she finally understood what Caleburn meant by ‘natural law’.
Why had these realizations come to her so suddenly? As if they’d been lurking in the shadows of her mind, waiting for the right moment to emerge.
Looking at her hands, she felt a fleeting sense of déjà vu, as if similar events had unfolded right before her eyes…
