66. Tribulation

  She’d reacted too late. Serac managed to partially deflect the attack, but failed to block with the meat of PULVERIZER. The [Accursed]’s sword then struck a glancing blow against the fleshy part of her arm.

  [54!]

  The damage in itself was far from the biggest problem. For the first time since the fight had started, Serac had suffered an unmitigated attack. And in her [Overburdened] state, she was too fragile to win the ensuing Poise check.

  She fell to her knees, Poise-broken. Then, she could only watch as the soldier raised its sword once more, this time to deal a certain killing blow.

  “Oh no, you don’t!”

  Zacko leapt into the frame, [Lance]-first. The timely intervention forced the sword swing off-course. Not only that, but it also proved powerful enough to crush the would-be executioner into powder, all with one kick.

  Way to go, Zacko! I owe you one… again. For the moment, Serac could only offer her silent gratitude. Her savior, however, looked puzzled rather than triumphant.

  “That’s… weird,” Zacko muttered, examining the powdery remains of his fallen foe. “I swear, this thing was dead before I landed my kick…”

  With her Poise coming back, Serac managed to frown in confusion. She wasn’t quite sure what Zacko meant, but there was something odd about the way this soldier ‘died’. For one thing, it hadn’t morphed into a cloud of Souldust. Instead, all of it had turned to pale-gray powder, which then fell to the floor under the effects of gravity.

  Before the Wayfarers could make heads or tails of the mystery, they were interrupted by another attack. Another reanimated statue, this time of the Pishacha variety.

  The Footman swung a Huskbound fist at Zacko’s head. The NINEFOLD master deftly ducked under it before countering with a palmed [Fan]. Once again, the statue crumbled and fell as dust—Bone rather than Soul.

  Then a third statue came in—another [Accursed] soldier who tried to cut down Zacko even before he’d reset his stance. Serac got her chance to return the favor, hitting the would-be ambusher with an unimbued bullet (two) right between the eyes. She knew she could damage the ghost-based Aberrant, as her [Enlisted] status and the [Ossify] cloud had again combined to infuse all of her bullets with Infernal energy.

  In this case, however, the damage type conversion turned out to be irrelevant. For the soldier went limp even before the bullet had made contact. Upon impact, the soulless statue went the way of the others before it, breaking apart into fine pale-gray powder.

  Now that Serac had experienced it herself, she knew exactly what Zacko had meant. Whatever force had reanimated the statues also deserted them the moment before the Wayfarer’s counterattacks could connect—leaving them as empty vessels that shattered at the slightest provocation.

  Serac gasped with realization.

  “The Bone Lord is here!” she exclaimed, eyes darting wildly as she scanned for the next threat. “He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere. Transferring himself from Husk to Husk.”

  “Well shit. That ain’t good.”

  ‘Ain’t good’ didn’t quite cut it. The Bone Lord’s latest trick had downright devastating implications for the Wayfarers’ race against the [Ossify] clock. Serac began moving again, with the pale-gray bar weighing heavier on her mind than the green.

  As she brushed past another statue, it too tried to land a sneak attack. She was ready for it, spinning to meet it with REVOLVER, fired from the hip (three). Once again, the statue collapsed without a fight, with its ‘occupant’ having no doubt fled to another receptacle. A few steps behind her, another Husk met the same fate by Zacko’s fist.

  “Uh, Serac? Quick sidebar? Should we maybe come up with a plan?”

  Serac ignored him and picked up the pace, wading into a sea of frozen combatants. There must’ve been upwards of a hundred statues still left over from the earlier brawl. Clearly, the clock would run out on the Wayfarers long before they destroyed every last vessel the Bone Lord could cycle through.

  Another ambush, this time coming in from her left—PULVERIZER—side. Serac met this half-hearted gambit with extreme prejudice, barely batting an eye as she swept REVOLVER across her chest and fired from the opposite shoulder (four).

  “Yo, Serac! Are we just gonna”—Zacko interrupted himself to deal with an ambush of his own—“keep doing this? My [Ossify] bar’s about to fill up any minute now, and I’m sure you’re no better off!”

  Serac ignored him. Not because she disagreed with his points. Not because she was out of ideas herself. But simply because she was too angry to speak coherently.

  Apparently, though, she wasn’t too angry to shout her guts out at the object of her rage.

  “Hey! Come out and show yourself, you… you Bone Bum!”

  Two more statues came for Serac, even as she unleashed her latest masterpiece of a nickname. She dispatched them with the remaining bullets in the cylinder (five, six), then reached for a fresh set of rounds. The action had been timed to perfection.

  “You know, it’s really pathetic how you call yourself a king”—Serac took her time to reload, savoring the weight of every cartridge as she seated them in their respective chambers—“when you’re clearly nothing but a hypocrite. Lead your army from the front, you say? Then do nothing but hover in the sky while your minions did all the work. Nominate yourself as the champion, you say? Then go right back to hiding behind your soldiers!”

  Serac was done reloading. She was also done with stumbling about and searching for shadows—like the Bone Lord would’ve wanted. Instead, she stood stock-still in the middle of the arena, with both her eyes and her gun pointed in one direction and one direction only.

  “Come out and face me, coward. And let me show you what it means to be a real king!”

  “Silence!”

  Serac’s own take on a mid-fight taunt had its intended effect. The Husk directly in front of her suddenly moved, though with a much more dramatic flair than its fellows. For one brief moment, the vessel laid its ‘contents’ bare, taking on the onyx silhouette of a three-horned Rakshasa.

  It lasted only but a Ksana, but it was enough time for the Bone Lord to throw out his own empowered attack: a giant flying fist that sizzled with a hateful, black aura.

  It lasted only but a Ksana, but Serac seized the opportunity with extreme prejudice. She twisted away from the incoming projectile and fired her counter at the same time, mid-spin.

  [Chamber One: BLOOD FOR BLOOD]

  Combining evasion with attack. The Serac of even a few days ago wouldn’t have dared to so recklessly disregard the principles of marksmanship. But the Serac of this Ksana was just angry and confident enough to try anything.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  [DASHANAN Status Effect: BLEED]

  [Wayfarer Status Effect: BLEED]

  [TRIBULATION active (x5): current buff at 25%]

  From experience, Serac already knew that, at her current max HP of just a shade under a thousand, [Bleed] ticked at five points per second. With [Lesser Regen] counteracting it at only one point per second, she had 30—exactly 30 seconds until she bled to death. And this was assuming A) she didn’t take any more damage, and B) the [Ossify] clock didn’t run out on her first, both of which seemed rather unlikely from where she stood.

  But she also hoped—no, counted on—her opponent being on an even shorter fuse.

  “No… this can’t be!” A resonant yet pathetic lament shook the air, all but proving the wisdom of Serac’s gamble. “What did you do?”

  One of the Husks in Serac’s vicinity came back to life, once more taking on the appearance of a three-horned Rakshasa. This time, however, the transformation was of a more permanent nature, as the Bone Lord sought to end the fight on his terms.

  Now that the enemy had shown himself in earnest, it also gave Serac the chance to check his status via Pathsight. The health bar was back, and as ridiculously oversized as ever. But after everything that had happened, it was down to its last tenth—and shrinking rapidly.

  I knew it! Serac smirked to herself. The higher your max HP, the bigger your [Bleed] tick. Mr Skelly boasts a massive health pool to use his RELIQUARY magic, but that also means he’ll bleed out faster than anyone!

  The confirmation of what she already knew didn’t faze Serac. What was strange, however, was that the Bone Lord himself had reacted with obvious surprise. He’s the freaking Realm Immortal; shouldn’t he know the ins and outs of the afterlife and how his own magic fits in the picture?

  And yet… perhaps it was only logical for a king who habitually hid behind his subjects—who’d never before shed his own blood—to have no knowledge of what it meant to [Bleed].

  “I’ll have your head for this!”

  The holes in his knowledge notwithstanding, the false king wasn’t yet ready to surrender. He wound back a skeletal arm, ready to uncoil another of his Infernal missiles.

  But before he could, he was interrupted by the onrushing figure of another bare-fisted fighter. Zacko leapt towards the Bone Lord, forcing him to check his attack and… hide again. The onyx presence deserted the Husk, upon which the latter crumbled under Zacko’s feet.

  “Nice one!” Serac gave her partner a thumb-up. “Just one more push, Zacko, and we’ve got this!”

  Just one more push. But the same could be said for the enemy, and they all knew it.

  What would Mr Skelly do in this situation? How would a cowardly pretender make sure he’d have the last laugh? The answer came to Serac in an instant, then speculation became reality an instant later.

  RELIQUARY whorled anew with raging flames of black-and-white. It was the Bone Lord’s last hurrah, and he marked the occasion in the way he knew best—by relying on his minions.

  All Husks on the floor—hitherto frozen—stirred and raised their weapons in unison. Every single one, whether of Pishacha or Accursed origin, now sizzled and crackled with an onyx aura—as though each and every last one now channeled a Realm Immortal’s fighting spirit.

  But Serac knew that couldn’t be true. The Bone Lord simply didn’t have enough HP left to cast such a large-scale spell. No, the flames were only for show. A scare tactic to distract the Wayfarers from the boss’s true location.

  Well, if the Bone Lord wanted to scare her so much, Serac was more than happy to let him.

  [Wayfarer Status Effect: FEAR]

  [TRIBULATION active (x6): current buff at 30% (maximum)]

  With the seconds draining away from her hourglass, Serac Edin shed every foreign presence from her mind, body, and soul.

  No crown. No Circlet. No voice. Only her. Only the truest, freest version of her self.

  And that truest and freest Serac was also something of a coward. She was, after all, a Penitent lifer on top of being a hell bumpkin. For so much of her life, she’d known nothing of the world outside her jail cell. Nothing of what life could offer—other than its trials and tribulations.

  The Furnace, the Clockwork, the Bed of Thorns. Aviary, Pulverizer, and even the Hanging Fruit. She’d seen, done, and survived them all.

  For a veteran of torture like her, a handful of status effects was nothing. So what if she was [Enlisted], [Anchored], [Overburdened], [Ossified], [Bleeding], and [Fearful] besides? She’d seen, done, and survived much worse. And she had every intention—every ambition—to see, do, and survive much worse still.

  Her Path led only upwards, up and away from the lowly pits of hell. But first, she had a little Immortal problem to take care of.

  What would Mr Skelly do in this situation? How would a cowardly pretender make sure he had a clean line of sight on an unsuspecting Wayfarer?

  The answer had been self-evident from the start. Serac pointed her gaze and her gun in the same direction—towards the far side of the room where an ‘Archer’ hid amongst a gaggle of much larger bodies. The Archer already had his arrow nocked and ready to loose, but the moment their eyes (and eye sockets) met, he froze in shock.

  That was all the delay a gunslinger needed. The distance far exceeded REVOLVER’s effective range, and the Serac of even a few seconds ago wouldn’t have dared to reach beyond her grasp. But the Serac of this Ksana was just true and free enough to try anything.

  [353!]

  An unimbued bullet, buffed by the totality of Serac’s trials and tribulations. It was far from the biggest hit she’d ever produced, but the gods damn it if it wasn’t the most important one. Not only did it cause the Bone Lord to drop his weapon, it also sent him into a final, panicked tailspin.

  The illusive flames all around the arena extinguished themselves at once. The Bone Lord had gone into hiding again, yet surely, he was now mere seconds away from bleeding out completely. And for one moment, Serac allowed herself to relax.

  By all appearances, the job was done. She’d cornered the false king like he was a frightened animal. There was no hope for him. Nowhere for him to run to, or—

  Serac spun in a wild panic of her own, having come to a horrible realization.

  In the heat of battle, she’d forgotten all about it. There was one last place for the Bone Lord to seek refuge. Somewhere the Wayfarers couldn’t—wouldn’t—touch him. From which he could reset the encounter and undo all of the Wayfarers’ work.

  A vessel with a beating heart, with its own fresh supply of Flesh, Blood, and Bone. A living, breathing sanctuary called—

  “Dashi!”

  Serac screamed and reached out to no avail. She was still stuck in the middle of the arena, and besides, Dashi himself was…

  … Nowhere to be seen.

  The platform that housed the skeletal throne was now completely empty. No sign of a sleeping boy. Was it too late? Did the Bone Lord reclaim his favorite vessel and whisk him away to some unseen corner of the Ossuary?

  “I’ve got him, Serac!”

  Serac’s gaze shot towards the sound of Zacko’s voice. The Manusya now stood by the wall, directly underneath the throne. With one arm, he waved enthusiastically at Serac. With the other, he cradled Dashi, who’d woken up from his nap and now stared between the two Wayfarers with round, bewildered eyes.

  Relief flooded Serac’s chest, and tears blurred her vision. She immediately bit down on a sob and sucked back a sniffle, then bounded towards the wall where Zacko stood.

  The job wasn’t done. For she’d seen a third figure amidst the confusion, lying prone at Zacko’s feet.

  It was the Bone Lord himself—or his [Bleeding], fading spirit that had failed to latch onto a vessel. It took the form of a crumbling Rakshasa skeleton, so ancient and so worn as to have lost the shine to its onyx color. And as Serac stepped near with a heavy thud, the third horn in the middle of its head broke off, falling away like a pretender’s false crown.

  With the last of his strength, the Bone Lord looked up at Serac. His whole skull trembled, and the dying embers within his orbital sockets flickered precariously as he took in the fullness of the soul that had defeated him—and as he stared down the open barrel of a six-shooter.

  Then, with the last of his strength, the Bone Lord curled his rows of missing onyx teeth into an unmistakable smile.

  “It is you, isn’t it?” His dying voice was but the faint clatter of withered bones. “If I’d recognized you sooner, I might have… made some changes to my ‘plan’. Perhaps I’ll yet have my chance to make amends. I’ve waited this long—what’s another Kalpa or two? Go well, Wayfarer. Hell could never contain the likes of you.”

  Serac squeezed the trigger.

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