The Infinite Bk. 05 Ch. 11

"The fire warms the hearth of home..." Once she found him, she'd never let him go again, never be without his touch. "The wind blows the seeds of spring..." Would he accept her as she now was, having become a feaster of human flesh? "The memories sink into the fertile loam..." Of course, he would accept her. How could he not? They were soul mates, destined to be together forever. "And the rain will guide you back to me." Her thoughts were interrupted by her rumbling stomach. She needed to feed again. Maybe she would be satisfied if she consumed everyone in the Knight's Sheath. "Soon, darling, soon I will find you. But for now, I have business to attend to."

She set off, running across rooftops towards the Knight's Sheath. When she arrived, all was quiet and dark, but she could sense countless beating hearts inside, all waiting to be swallowed. The question was how to get in. The doors would all be locked, but her bedroom window wouldn't. She launched herself towards the Knight's Sheath and latched onto the wall beside her room, then opened the window and crawled inside. Crouched in the window, the air smelled pungent to her, filled with thick incense and perfume. It stopped her from smelling the person in her bed and distracted her from the sound of her heartbeat.

"Hey, Bella, eat this." Alexis released her arrow, sending it drilling through the side of Bella's head and skewering her brain. She turned to Alexis and emitted a bloodcurdling shriek, then dodged as Alexis came at her with a sword. "She's here! Everyone move!"

Bella burst into the hallway as every door opened, revealing countless knights with their weapons drawn. Holy light flooded the building, not enough to wound Bella, but enough to sear her night vision. Regardless, Bella ripped the arrow from her head and charged, attacking the knights with her own blades. The knights with warrior and monk magic faced her first, augmenting their abilities to counter her own, yet they were knocked over like bowling pins as she ran them over. The less fortunate lost blood, limbs, and even their lives.

Three arrows planted themselves in Bella's back from Alexis, but she shrugged them off and turned the corner. "Madam Cyrilo, where are you?" she sang with a demented laugh. She arrived in the parlor, where all the furniture had been removed, and Lucius was waiting.

"Bella, please don't make me do this," he said, brandishing a sword.

"And what can you possibly do against me?"

"I can distract you. Now!"

Lucius then ducked behind the bar just as Bella was struck by a wave of magical sound. She turned around, spotting Daniel onstage and playing his guitar, now laden with enhancement gems. However, instead of a typical song, it was a searing riff, focused into a linear attack and hitting her like a tsunami. The sound waves assaulted her superhuman hearing, and the mana scrambled her thoughts, robbing her ability to think.

As Daniel kept her occupied, the knights swarmed down into the parlor and surrounded her. They threw harpoons at her like a whale, each tethered with a chain and lodging themselves deep in her flesh. The knights pulled hard on the chains, restricting her movements and pinning her.

Next, Madam Cyrilo and several mages stepped forward and blasted her with jets of fire from multiple directions. The building had been enchanted with resistance to fire and magic, so there was no chance of it going up in flames, but the same couldn't be said for Bella, who was screaming in agony as they burned her alive. All they had to do now was deliver the finishing blow. Daniel paused his music, and the mages halted their magic for just a moment, and Aithorn pounced, wielding his lightning-wrapped spear to end her life. At that moment, Bella retaliated.

A tremor moved through her charred body, all her muscles suddenly swelling and ejecting the harpoons as though spitting them out. She caught the shaft of Aithorn's spear, her blackened hand already regrowing new skin, then jumped up and kicked him in the chest with enough force to send him flying. Her movements were so fast that not even his elf eyes could catch them. She then hurled the spear at Daniel, stabbing him in the shoulder and taking him out of commission.

Lying on his back, impaled, Daniel groaned and cursed in pain. "Where's the fucking holy hand grenade when you need it?!"

Bella stood up and released a mad cackle as her body regenerated with frightening speed. Standing naked, she held out her arms and hopped like a boxer. "Come on, boys! Who thinks they're man enough to satisfy me?! I'll take you all on, no charge!"

Lucius attacked her from behind, aiming for the back of her neck, but to his horror, Bella's head spun around three rotations, and she caught his sword with her teeth. Her body twisted around to match her head, and she used the rotational momentum to build up speed and kick him in the chest, sending him flying just as she did Aithorn.

All of the knights charged Bella as one, swinging their weapons, and so did they meet their end. Bella rushed through the crowd, hacking and slashing with her blades, carving the men down. Holmes went at her with a fencing thrust of his saber, and with a mad grin, Bella took the attack head-on, letting the blade pierce her eye and burst out of the back of her skull. Holmes stared in horror, with Bella staring right back and grinning.

"What a surprise, Holmes. For once, you're not slacking on the job."

She swung her leg and sliced off his arm with the talon on her foot. As she wrenched his sword out of her brain, a knight attacked her with a hammer and smashed her across the face. She took the blow without even staggering, then turned to him with her jaw bone nearly ripped from her skull. She reaffixed her jaw into position, only to then unhinge it like a snake, widening her mouth enough to take a massive bite out of his skull. Having lost his face and half of his brain, he fell to the floor, dead like countless others.

Bella leaped to the side, dodging a sword slash from Aithorn. He chased after her with a fluid sequence of slashes and thrusts, sending black blood flowing from countless wounds, only to immediately heal. Aithorn was barely keeping up with her, finding his elven speed soon surpassed by Bella's fiendish agility. Though not a trained warrior, her evasive abilities rapidly improved, with each injury Aithorn inflicted smaller than the one before. It wasn't long before she retaliated with her blades, bringing them to a stalemate.

"Sophia! Give me a buff!" Alexis shouted as she jumped into the fray, her blue battle dress billowing.

Sophia, busy tending to the wounded, aimed her hand at Alexis. "Blessing of Advanced Thought!" she cast, augmenting Alexis's reflexes. While healing the fallen knights, one blessing was all she could provide, but it would have to be enough.

Alexis attacked Bella from the opposite side of Aithorn, the two warriors trying to crush her. She and Noah had fought Valia like this in the academy, but things were very different now. For one thing, though Valia was sparring with them as a teacher at the time, Alexis could sense nothing but madness and bloodlust coming from Bella. Her desire to kill was a palpable force, and every time Alexis looked into Bella's eyes, she felt like an icy hand was around her throat. And while Valia's movements were honed from centuries of training, Bella's were purely instinctive and primal. She could not be compared to a mere wild animal, but rather a predator far superior to the species of elf and human. Her moves, while feral, were performed with such speed and power that they negated the effectiveness of actual skill.

Their attacks failed to inflict meaningful damage, while she grew more powerful with each passing second. She blocked and countered with the blades on her arms and the talons on her feet, jumping and twisting with seemingly limitless flexibility. Aithorn was just barely holding her back, and if not for Sophia's blessing, Alexis would have already died. As Bella's attacks grew in deadliness, so did her killing field expand, with Aithorn and Alexis having to step back to escape her sharp acrobatics.

"Sir Aithorn!" a knight shouted as he tossed the elf his spear.

"Dragon Impaler!" he cast the moment he caught it.

With lightning radiating from the blade, he spun the spear in his grip, creating a deadly drill of pure energy. He lunged forward, aiming for Bella's heart, but she stepped to the side to dodge it and reached towards his face with her forearm blade. It stopped just an inch from his eye, halted by Alexis stabbing Bella through the arm. Alexis released a cry of fury and wrapped the edge in mana, then pushed her sword forward towards Bella and opened her arm like she was pulling a zipper. Her blade slipped free at the shoulder, and she sliced through Bella's neck.

Bella staggered, and for one brief moment, it appeared she had been decapitated as her head fell back and exposed the severed muscles, arteries, and windpipe. However, the spine remained intact, and Bella suddenly lurched forward towards Alexis, swinging her partially-severed head like a flail. Their foreheads collided, and Alexis was knocked to the ground, left unconscious.

Bella then lunged for Aithorn and sprayed him with blood from her neck. Aithorn raised his hand to shield his face, and Bella drove one of her blades through his palm, burying the tip in his shoulder. Bella then kicked him off her blade and took a moment to reattach her head and ensure it was straight.

Now given room to maneuver, Bella once more attacked the knights. With her long rabbit legs, she could bounce back and forth and side to side rapidly, leaving the knights swinging at blurs before being cut down. That stopped when a chain of water wrapped around Bella's ankle, then swung her around and smashed her into the wall.

"Thunder Needle!" Cyrilo cast, holding the end of the water chain in one hand and her grimoire in the other. Over her head, javelins made of lighting appeared out of thin air, and with a flick of her finger, she sent them shooting at Bella and turned her into a pin cushion. Upon contact, each needle unleashed a powerful electric charge, frying Bella's impaled organs and making her scream. "Holy Radiance!" A beam of divine energy shone from above Cyrilo's head and assailed Bella, sending black smoke billowing as her body burned in ways the fire blasts from earlier couldn't achieve. "I didn't want to do this, Bella, but you've left me no choice. I'm going to make sure you pay for your sins!"

"My sins are yours to carry!" Bella howled before launching herself at Cyrilo.

Bella was intercepted in midair by Aithorn, wielding his spear with only one arm and striking her in the side with his Dragon Impaler. He sawed her in half at the midsection, but before he could even consider victory, tendrils shot from both halves of her body and pulled her back together. Though her body remained charred from Cyrilo's holy spell, she landed gracefully, back in one piece.

"What kind of monster has this girl become?!" Aithorn asked in shock.

Strength, speed, regeneration, endurance; even among the elite Profane, Bella had become exceptional. It wasn't just the large amount of venom she ingested; no, that would have meant certain death for anyone else. The true reason why the venom had bonded with her was because of her madness. The liquid evil responded to negative feelings, and her twisted mind was a great dark abyss where its wicked power could grow and thrive. The flames of insanity burned hot, and the power of the Profane was the hammer and anvil that forged her into an unmatched weapon.

Bella then zoomed around the room, snapping up severed limbs and ripping chunks out of knights, both dead and alive. Every mouthful of flesh and gulp of blood accelerated her healing and grew new flesh. She was only stopped when she lunged for Sophia, who blinded her with a flash of light. Her burned eyes distracted Bella, and Sophia grabbed her arm. She remembered everything Noah had told her about the human body, the diagrams he had drawn for her showing the muscles, veins, and ligaments, and channeled her power into Bella, sending it along the organic threads like electricity down a wire.

"In Lumendori's name, I cleanse your spirit!" Sophia shouted as Bella's arm exploded in her grip, reduced to liquified tissue that immediately turned to ash.

Bella staggered back, unsteady on her feet, with blood pouring from the stump of her arm and no sign of it stopping.

"Everyone, attack now!" Aithorn roared as he slashed Bella with his spear.

She jumped away before he could strike again, but Alexis, once more standing, slashed her across the back. As she stumbled forward, a knight smashed her in the top of the head with a hammer. Frigga zoomed past her and slashed the back of her leg, bringing her down onto one knee, then Cyrilo lassoed her around the neck with another chain of water and pulled her head back. Lucius, wheezing with bloody coughs from his broken ribs, grabbed Bella's remaining arm to keep her from attacking. With Bella pinned down, spears and swords pierced her chest from several knights, and both Alexis and Aithorn closed in to deliver the finishing blow.

Before their attacks could land, Bella took a deep breath, drawing in so much air that her ribs dislocated and her chest expanded like a frog's throat. She then released it all in a banshee-like shriek, her voice attacking with an oscillating sharpness that brought grown men and women to their knees, some even vomiting as their inner ears were utterly overwhelmed. The liquid lasso around her neck broke as Cyrilo's spell came undone, and she needn't even bother wrenching her arm free from Lucius's grip. He had already let go to cover his ears.

Bella could have gone on the offensive, especially when everyone was left paralyzed by her scream, but her arm had yet to regrow or even stop bleeding. She decided to fall back and recover her strength. With a mighty pulse of her legs, she launched herself out the window and sprinted to the nearest large street. However, she immediately realized she wasn't alone.

"Hello, Bella." The clouds parted, and the moon shined upon Elyot, his cloak flowing in the breeze.

Bella laughed. "Lew-Lew! It's been a while!"

"Indeed it has. The years have changed you, and not for the better."

"On the contrary, I've never felt better. All that time you wasted pouring over books, all those nights you ignored me for your pursuit of power, and now I've become stronger than you could ever hope to be. I will live forever, the embodiment of beauty and power, while you'll just get older and weaker. Now I'm the one smiling, while you have a frown. Still upset that I broke your heart?"

"No, because I broke your heart first. Like you said, I put my research and passions above all else, even you. I loved you, just not nearly enough. I don't blame you for leaving."

"Is this you trying to take the high road? Preferring to shoulder the blame rather than telling me how you really feel? You've learned new magic, but you haven't changed. You couldn't satisfy me, satisfy the cravings of my heart and my flesh."

"And Noah can?"

"Don't you dare speak my darling's name! What, you think that because he's gone, you have another shot? A chance to make things right and be the man you couldn't be before?"

"Your darling left you, and because of him, you've turned into this. I'm not here because I want you back. I'm here to honor the good woman I once knew, and to destroy the monster before me that besmirches her name."

"A lot of good people died while you were out here, brooding."

"I wasn't brooding; I was waiting. Whenever you get overwhelmed, you run just like a frightened rabbit. I knew once things stopped being fun, you'd come out here, where it's calm and beautiful. Besides, unlike warriors who only need enough room to swing their swords, I fight better in an open area." He held out his hand, conjuring a staff tipped with a large gem, while in his other hand, he held a grimoire with a similar gem on the cover. "I offer this parting gift: a serene death by someone who cares about you."

"I remember you once told me that you weren't afraid of death as long as I was holding your hand. I still have one arm, so I'll make your dream come true!"

Bella lunged towards Elyot, but before she could spill his blood, he flipped the staff around his fingers with both gems coming alight. An eruption of fire surged from the ground before him, aimed at Bella like a claymore. She endured the flames and continued forward, but as she broke through the wall of fire, she faced a sphere of radiant gas. Before she could process its purpose, the sphere popped like a balloon, and Bella was struck by a barrage of wind blades, cutting her flesh like razors.

She looked around and spotted Elyot running down the street. She tackled him and drove her blade through his chest, only to realize he was actually a puppet made of water. The water attacked and latched to her body, wrapping around her and smoothing her. As a high-level fiend, mere drowning wasn't enough to kill her, but with her head sealed in an orb of water, her senses of sight, sound, and smell were compromised. Behind her, Elyot struck the ground with his staff and summoned several golden magic circles around Bella. Beams of holy energy were fired like lasers, and, caught in the refracting glimmer of the water, the light was diffused and shone on Bella from every possible angle.

The water darkened as the light charred her flesh, but she wasn't ready to lie down and die. A fin extended from her back like a shark, breaking free of the water membrane. It grew down her spine and opened like a book, exposing her fleshless back to the air. Bella shed her skin like a snake and escaped the water prison through that opening. She was left without an inch of flesh covering her bloody muscles, but she was now free.

"Where are you, Lew-Lew? Don't you want to fuck me one more time? I'm so wet!" she laughed.

Her laughter was cut short when a brick smashed her in the face. Before she could react, another brick hit her in the gut, just one of countless raining down on her from all directions, ripped from the street and now striking with enough force to shatter into dust. Bella sprinted through the street and ran across rooftops, using her superior speed to escape the attack with bricks hammering the ground behind her.

Elyot kept the assault going, following her movements with his staff. His staff and grimoire were unique. Not only were they made of the finest materials he could get his hands on, but they were connected by the gems. As long as he had both tools, he could rapidly cast any spell inscribed in the grimoire without naming them. That said, it required skill and mastery that took over a decade to hone and burned through a great deal of mana.

Bella turned and sprinted towards him with new flesh bubbling across her body. Elyot stabbed the ground with his staff, summoning spears of earth meant to impale Bella, but she dodged each one. He clicked his teeth, realizing he had underestimated her speed. Still, trying to kill him would cost her dearly.

Elyot waved his staff and summoned more orbs of holy light, using them to bombard her with divine energy. Bella retreated into the dust cloud of their battle, hiding from the light. Then, out of the dust, a brick was launched towards Elyot. He managed to dodge, but it was just the first of several as Bella went on the offensive. Though she only had one arm, she threw bricks like a pitching machine.

Elyot summoned a wall of water around him to catch the bricks. With Elyot surrounded, Bella attacked from above, but he was ready, countering with a massive jet of fire launched straight up like a volcanic eruption. The blast threw off Bella's trajectory, and she fell outside the water barrier, but despite her burns, she succeeded in getting close and lunged once again. Though Elyot's water barrier had stopped the bricks, her bone blade cut through it, and she managed to slash Elyot across the side.