Siren's Elegy Volume 1: Orphans of Ashen Earth

Chapter 63: Metamorphosis

October 11, 4021 13:50 [Lahab Mutajamid Desert]

An arm fell to the earth. Unnoticed by most as chaos reached a fever pitch, it unsettled the sand unceremoniously as it landed.

Embedded deep within the soft granules, it lay crossed over the arm of another—one as pale as snow.

Steel, blood, and sand—the world as Akula knew it disappeared. It was all he could see—all he could sense…all he could feel. Especially the blood.

An ocean of it, buried just beneath the sand, called to him. He could see the trails of red, wispy tendrils snaking about the air. The sheer number of them assaulted his senses.

He ignored the screams of agony spilling from the mouth of Orpheus as the Herald clutched his bleeding stump of a shoulder.

“Oh, shut up. Now we're both missing an arm,” Akula mumbled, barely unintelligible as he tried to seal his wounds.

He had severed Orpheus’ arm in a state of partial delusion. How he had managed to do so eluded him. His mind was fragmented, struggling to discern reality from illusion. He had lost too much blood.

“You—what are you? A daemon?” Orpheus spoke with labored breath. He tore a piece of cloth from his person, fastening a makeshift tourniquet around his stump with his good arm and his teeth to stem the bleeding.

Akula stumbled to his feet, a wild look in his eyes. The pain was almost blinding. He could barely muster the strength to stand up, let alone concentrate on what was being said to him. And yet, he wore a devilish grin.

It called out to him even stronger now, the blood. Its allure was like nothing he had ever experienced before. Drowning his senses in a raging torrent, the voices of the damned rang in his ears. He could feel their presence, gnarled fingers clawing at his mind.

“Free us from this wretched plane! How many more must die to satiate your hunger, accursed one?!” The voices said.

“You've doomed us!” More chimed in.

Akula shook his head, unsure of whether the voices in his head were real or he was merely experiencing more delusions.

I should replenish my stores. He thought, starting to siphon blood from his surroundings and redirecting it into his body. He closed his eyes casting his Shakti like a net over the area.

Orpheus’ eyes widened; a shiver ran down his spine. Something was amiss with this Homunculus. The Homunculi as a collective were already unnatural enough—the result of Man's hubris; an attempt to play God—but Akula presented a different case altogether. Something had changed in the moments preceding his imminent death; his aura had warped and twisted, becoming frenzied and ferocious. His presence now was unnerving.

Sweat beaded along Orpheus’ brow. The hairs on his neck stood on end as he started to back away. The thing that stood before him was not the same as the person he had fought moments ago. He was lost to something more sinister; a slave to carnage.

Millions of blood strands rose from the ground. They left the corpses of the fallen, emerging from the depths of the desert.

Soldiers below paused momentarily to gawk as the strands converged above the Agrius. They coiled and banded together, hardening to form crystalline weapons of brilliant ruby. Akula opened his eyes, his irises a violent shade of scarlet.

Orpheus quickly rolled over the edge of the Agrius. Though he sensed a greater threat from Akula than before, caution as opposed to fear drove him to retreat momentarily. The skies were lost to the enemy.

Blades, arrows, and lances of red followed Akula as he leapt from ship to ship, annihilating the Triumvirate’s air fleet. Their Cataclysms lurched and heaved as they spiraled downward, raining large fragments of shrapnel and debris, upon the fighters below.