Chapter 31: Come Sing for Mama
"So what's next?" Tor asked Luna as he rose, smoothing invisible creases from his sleeves with quiet precision.
"Now?" Luna looked up at him, the corner of her mouth lifting. "We wait. It's their move."
Lightning Delights breathed around them.
When their voices dipped into seriousness earlier, the inn had fallen into a hush so complete it felt intentional. No laughter beyond the walls. No mugs clinking. Even the wind had withdrawn its fingers from the eaves. The moment their tone softened, the world resumed. Noise returned in cautious increments, like someone slowly turning a valve.
The inn listened.
Tor noticed.
He did not comment.
Outside the village walls, the night stretched thin and cold.
Four figures tore across the terrain, boots barely touching ground. Trees blurred. Shrubs flattened in their wake. Dust lifted and never quite settled.
Their militia uniforms were stiff with dried blood. Not all of it theirs.
"Hey," the lead runner growled, breath steady despite the speed. "That old man is too damn persistent."
The second, a broad-shouldered figure carrying a heavy sack as if it were filled with feathers, exhaled through his nose. "HQ said it was clean-up. Gang leftovers. Maybe a phoenix sighting if we were unlucky." He adjusted the sack casually. Something inside shifted. "Instead we get that fossil and the little bitch carving holes through our perimeter."
Behind them, a hooded figure spoke, voice low and thoughtful. "Con, we lost the Blood Ape. And an elder. Under our banner." A beat. "That's not clean-up."
The leader spat into the wind. It never hit the ground. "If this turns out to be nothing, I'll burn that old man alive. And if I'm still irritated after, I'll level the village."
They crested the final ridge.
The village lay below, quiet under the moon.
No smoke. No ruin. No cratered streets.
The walls were intact.
The vice slowed first. "HQ said there'd be nothing left after that level of destruction."
The leader's eyes narrowed.
Ten figures stood along the wall.
Eight cloaked.
Two in militia uniform.
Still.
Watching.
"There's something wrong with the air," the leader said softly. "Spread. Gather information. Sunrise report."
The eight cloaked figures dispersed without sound. They did not jump.
They thinned.
Then they were elsewhere.
The leader and vice remained atop the wall, surveying.
"The Soul Clan will sniff it out," the vice muttered. "Creepy bastards are good at that."
Below, in a narrow alley near Lightning Delights, two cloaked figures stood over a body.
The corpse was gray.
Empty.
One of the Soul Clan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Blood smeared but did not drip. It clung, reluctant to fall.
"Nobody knows anything," he muttered. "I even ate a few to be sure." He nudged the body with his boot. It folded like damp paper. "You think if I ate one of those special auras we felt coming in, I'd make elder?"
The second, Yink, chuckled. The sound dragged. "Even if you were an ancestral mage, you probably wouldn't."
"Huh? Since when do you—"
"I'm super interested too."
The voice came from nowhere.
Light.
Mocking.
The alley was empty.
Then it wasn't.
A masked figure stepped from shadow like it had been holding her shape in reserve. Fortress elite garb. Dark. Functional. Clean.
"Hey, girl," the first hissed, tension leaking into his stance. "This isn't the time."
The masked guard tilted her head.
The air tightened.
Not visibly.
Not dramatically.
But the alley grew smaller.
Walls felt closer.
"What's the rush?" she asked. "Since you're here, you might as well leave your delicious souls behind."
Yink's tongue ran across his teeth. "Spatial fortress elite." His pupils thinned. "Bad luck."
The other grinned. "My uncle ate one of yours once. Said it was worth five hundred regular souls. Had to split it with the chief and his brothers." His eyes crawled across her form. "How many are you worth?"
She laughed.
Low.
Cold.
"Hm. Still telling that story? The one where you joined thieves to corner one of ours, and we erased hundreds of you for it?"
Her hand moved lazily.
A great sword manifested in her grip.
It did not blaze.
It did not hum.
It simply existed.
She rested it against her shoulder.
"Underlings," she said. "Good. Come sing for mama."
The first lunged.
No roar.
No warning.
One moment he was mid-stride.
The next—
She was behind him.
A halberd replaced the great sword in her hands mid-motion.
Upward arc.
Steel met spine.
Resistance.
Then release.
The blade carved from inner thigh through rib, through jaw, exiting crown.
Blood erupted in a hot vertical sheet.
It struck brick.
It struck her sleeve.
It struck the air and hung there for a fraction too long before gravity remembered itself.
She had already thrown the halberd.
It spun once.
Yink's head burst as metal punched through it, pinning skull to brick with a thick crack. Matter slid down the wall.
Silence.
"Only people without information talk so much," she said, turning.
Behind her,
The split body twitched.
Not violently.
Subtly.
Fingers curled.
The two halves pulled toward each other.
Muscle fibres extended first.
Not smooth.
They snapped outward like hooked threads seeking anchor.
Bone ends scraped along stone before aligning. The sound was dry. Grinding.
Blood did not reverse.
It crawled.
Drawn back in strands.
The air filled with a sound.
Close.
Wet.
Not a scream.
More like dozens of breaths forced through broken throats at once.
The torso jerked as ribs knit.
Skin crawled over exposed tissue like something reluctant to close.
The body stood.
Whole.
Slightly misaligned.
"Ah," he rasped. "Bad luck."
Across the alley, Yink's body convulsed.
The halberd remained embedded in the wall, skull pinned.
From the torn neck below, flesh swelled upward.
A spine pushed out first.
Then meat formed around it, building a column.
A new skull pressed outward, stretching skin thin before it snapped into shape. Eyes opened before eyelids finished forming.
Yink inhaled.
The breath hit raw lungs.
He coughed blood.
"I used five souls for that," he snarled. "I want hers."
The guard had stopped walking.
The great sword rested against her shoulder again.
Her breathing had changed.
Barely.
But changed.
"Repulsive rats," she said. "Our young lord warned you not to eat another meal. Or he'd make all fifty of you and your chief his dinner."
Yink's new lips peeled back. "Come sing for mama."
He moved first.
Faster now.
The alley warped slightly as he closed distance.
She met him halfway.
The great sword descended.
It did not glide clean.
It tore.
Steel crushed clavicle before splitting it. The impact forced a shock through the alley wall. Brick fractured in branching lines.
Yink's torso separated again.
This time the blade did not exit smoothly. It dragged through bone.
Blood sprayed across her mask.
Hot.
Thick.
Real.
The second Soul Clan member attacked from behind.
A hooked blade raked across her side.
Cloth parted.
Skin parted.
Blood flowed instantly.
Not dramatic.
Just steady.
She pivoted through it.
Her elbow crushed his nose inward.
Cartilage collapsed.
She drove the sword horizontally.
It entered his abdomen.
Stopped.
Pushed further.
The resistance was tangible.
Then the steel exited through his back in a wet burst.
She kicked him off the blade.
Both bodies hit the ground.
The alley was breathing now.
Dust rising.
Brick shedding powder.
A nearby window cracked from displaced pressure.
Yink reformed faster this time.
Fury sharpened him.
The flesh came together with less hesitation.
But when he stood, his left shoulder sagged a fraction too low.
The guard noticed.
Did not comment.
Her next swing severed his arm at the elbow.
The limb hit stone and continued clawing.
She crushed it under her boot.
Behind her, the other Soul Clan member's spine locked back into place with an audible snap. He screamed this time.
Short.
Cut off as his jaw reset mid-cry.
They came at her together.
The alley erupted properly now.
Steel struck stone.
Each impact left shallow gouges in brick.
Her blade flickered once.
Just once.
Yink lunged high.
She blocked.
The impact jarred her wrists.
A tremor ran up her forearms.
She stepped back half a pace instead of none.
The other caught her thigh with a shallow slice.
Blood slicked her boot.
Footing shifted.
Yink's fingers elongated mid-swing, claws carving furrows into the wall where her head had been.
She retaliated with a downward chop.
It split him again.
This time diagonally.
The alley wall behind him cratered from displaced force.
His halves hit separately.
They began to pull together slower.
The wet breathing sound returned.
More strained.
The second Soul Clan member slammed into her side.
They crashed through a stack of crates.
Wood splintered.
She rolled.
Came up on one knee.
Her breathing was audible now.
Not labored.
But present.
The spatial distortion around her blade was thinner.
Tighter to the steel.
She cut his leg off at mid-thigh.
He fell.
Regeneration began.
Bone protruded.
Muscle lashed outward to meet itself.
He grabbed her ankle mid-reform.
His grip was strong.
She stabbed down through his forearm.
Pinned it to stone.
Yink reassembled enough to lunge again.
His movements were slightly delayed.
Fractional.
But real.
She stepped aside.
Barely.
His claw sliced through fabric and scored her ribs.
She exhaled sharply.
The great sword rose.
Fell.
Took his head again.
This time she did not pause.
She drove the blade through his chest before the neck could rebuild.
Pinned him flat.
The ground cracked beneath the force.
The second Soul Clan member tore his arm free from the pinned forearm, reforming even as he charged.
She ripped her blade out of Yink and pivoted.
Steel met flesh.
Again.
Again.
Each strike slower by a hair.
Each regeneration slightly less precise.
Blood coated the alley floor.
Boots slid.
Breathing filled the tight space.
No one spoke.
Yink's reform took longer now.
His new head emerged uneven.
One eye slightly lower.
He snarled anyway.
She advanced.
No flourish.
No grand aura.
Just steel and exhaustion.
The alley could not contain it anymore.
Cracks spread up both walls.
Dust fell like fine ash.
The eruption was not explosive.
It was sustained.
Grinding.
Attrition.
And neither side was finished yet.