1345 Bloody Retribution (Long Chapter)
"You pathetic little fuck," Michael growled, his voice dangerously low. He stared at Thorfinn, really stared at him, and for a mont, the dwarf regretted pissing off the Dark Lord.
Thorfinn braced himself, expecting the killing blow. He'd seen what that obsidian blade could do, witnessed the way it cleaved through flesh and bone as if they were nothing more than thin paper. But the killing blow didn't co. Not in the way Thorfinn expected.
Michael, with a casualness that bordered on the absurd, simply tossed the sword aside. It arced through the air, a blur of obsidian and shadow, before landing with a soft click in the waiting scabbard on Michael's back.
"What—? What are you—" Thorfinn sputtered, confusion montarily overriding his terror.
Michael didn't answer. Instead, he did sothing far more unsettling. He smiled.
It wasn't the cruel, mocking smile he'd worn before. This one was different. Smaller. Cruler. And infinitely more terrifying.
"You want to hurt ?" Michael murmured, his voice barely a whisper now, but every word carrying the weight of a falling mountain. "Fine. Let's see how you handle a little… disappointnt,"
He could have killed Thorfinn with a thought. Vaporized him, just like that monstrous serpent had done to his demon army. But that… that would have been too quick. Too rciful.
For the first ti in perhaps a very long ti, Michael wanted to savor this. He wanted Thorfinn to feel every ounce of pain, every shard of bone, every drop of blood.
He drew back his fist. Even with his power restrained, even with the barest fraction of his true strength flowing through his arm, the air crackled with anticipatory violence. Thorfinn, despite his centuries of battle experience, despite the dwarven blood that ran thick and hot in his veins, couldn't help but flinch back.
But there was nowhere to go. He was suspended in midair, Michael's grip on his neck as unyielding as the chains of fate themselves.
The blow, when it ca, wasn't precise. It wasn't surgical. It was a blunt-force trauma, a teor made of flesh and bone connecting with Thorfinn's jaw with a sickening crunch. And then Michael, with a roar that echoed the rage of a god pissed off, launched the dwarf straight towards the monstrous, seven-headed serpent.
However, the seven-headed serpent, its reflexes honed by the combined instincts of seven ancient beings, twisted away from the hurtling projectile that was Thorfinn Borgersson. The dwarf, a mangled ss of broken bones and sputtering rage, sailed through the space where the monstrous creature's head had been a heartbeat before, slamming into the hull of a nearby Skyhall warship with a sickening crunch.
The impact reverberated through the air, a sound like a giant's fist colliding with a ripe lon. The warship, its shields already weakened by the demon army's relentless assault, crumpled inward at the point of impact. Runes, glowing monts before with celestial energy, flickered and died, their light extinguished like snuffed candles.
Thorfinn lay in a crumpled heap amidst the wreckage, his once-imposing fra a study in broken angles. Blood, dark and viscous, seeped from between his lips, his chest rising and falling in ragged gasps. Broken ribs, white and sharp, protruded from his chest at unnatural angles, and one arm, twisted at an impossible angle, lay slack against the deck. Even the hardiest dwarf couldn't have survived that kind of force.
"Thorfinn!" Erael cried out, her composure, so carefully maintained throughout the battle, finally shattering. She made to move towards her fallen comrade, but a hand, cold and strong, gripped her arm.
"Don't," Devdan hissed. "He's done for, and we're no match for him in this state. We need to go, now!"
"But he's going to kill him!" Erael spat back, her voice laced with a terror that was as much for Thorfinn as for herself. "We have to do sothing!"
"And what, pray tell, do you suggest we do?" Devdan snapped, his gaze flickering between Michael's advancing form and the carnage unfolding around them. He took a deep breath, regaining a asure of control. "Our priority is survival, Erael. We need to get out of here, regroup. The Celestial Cannon—"
"He'll hunt us down," Erael interrupted, her voice shaking. "To the ends of the universe if he has to. You know this,"
"Then we'll be ready for him," Devdan said with resolve and decided to use their best weapon against the Dark Lord. "We need to use the Celestial cannon, Erael. It's our only chance."
But even as they spoke, Michael moved.
"But even the Cannon… it might not be enough."
"It will," Devdan said, his voice laced with a chilling certainty. "If we give it… the right fuel. We need to use the souls we collected as the fuel to the cannon,"
But even as they whispered their treasonous plan, Michael moved.
He floated now, rising from the battlefield as casually as if he was taking a stroll through a park. His eyes, still black pits of unrelenting rage, were fixed on Thorfinn, and a slow, predatory smile spread across his lips.
Around him, the very air seed to shudder, the temperature plumting as he unleashed a wave of absolute zero. .
Frostbite.
It blossod outwards from him, a ten-ter radius of absolute zero that turned the very air to ice. Skyhall angels, caught within its sudden embrace, froze mid-flight, their expressions locked in masks of terror. They plumted towards the bottomless void below, bodies as brittle as glass, shattering against the hull of a nearby warship with sickening crunches.
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for killing—]
The notifications, usually a constant stream of morbid encouragent from the Badass System, were silenced with a thought. Michael didn't need the distraction. Not now.
As he floated towards the dwarf, his expression a chilling mask of restrained fury, Devdan turned to Erael. "Now! Summon the cannon! Use the souls… use everything we have!"
Erael, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and grim determination, didn't hesitate. She closed her eyes and then, with a crackle of displaced air, she was gone, vanished from the pocket dinsion entirely.
"You… you'll regret this!" Thorfinn coughed, a spray of blood erupting from his lips, painting the wreckage around him a grueso crimson. "You and that bitch who birthed you! Skyhall will hunt you down! You'll pay for what you've done!"
Michael paused, hovering a few feet from the mangled dwarf. He tilted his head, studying Thorfinn with the detached curiosity of a scientist examining a particularly interesting specin.
"Regret?" Michael chuckled coldly. "I believe… regret is a dish best served cold."
But before he could deliveranother punch, a new sound reached his ears. A chorus of shouts, laced with dwarven curses and the clang of heavy armor.
"For Thorfinn! Kill the bastard!"
A small group of Skyhall soldiers, their loyalty to their fallen elder clearly outweighing their sense of self-preservation, surged towards Michael, their weapons raised in defiance.
"No, you don't, boys," a familiar voice purred, laced with amusent.
Lenora, a crimson blur against the backdrop of chaos, swooped down from above, intercepting the dwarven soldiers before they could get within a hundred yards of Michael. She left a trail of blood in her wake, a crimson mist that hung in the air like a macabre halo.
"You want to play hero?" she asked, her voice laced with a predatory hunger. "Fine. But don't bla if it gets… ssy."
She landed on the upper deck of a nearby warship, her boots striking the polished steel with a clang that was audible even over the roar of battle. Her fangs, usually retracted behind a veneer of civility, descended with a hiss, her crimson eyes gleaming with a hunger that was both terrifying and strangely… seductive.
The Skyhall soldiers, montarily taken aback by her sudden appearance, recovered quickly. They were Skyhall's finest, trained from birth to face down creatures of darkness. And a vampire, even an ancient one, was still just a creature.
"Go to hell, abomination!" one of the dwarves roared. He slamd his warhamr against the deck, the impact sending out a ripple of force that slamd into Lenora's chest, knocking her back a step.
Others followed suit. Blasts of celestial energy and spears of solidified light arced towards her, each one capable of vaporizing a lesser being.
But Lenora simply laughed, a throaty, seductive sound that sent shivers down the spines of the soldiers, despite their best efforts to resist. She moved with a speed and grace that defied her age, weaving through the barrage of attacks as if they were nothing more than gentle snowflakes.
"Darling, you do realize," she purred, her voice dripping with mock sympathy, "that magic doesn't work on vampires?"
And before they could react, before they could even blink, she was upon them.
Claws, razor-sharp and tipped with a faint, sickly glow, flashed through the air. Soldiers scread, their cries abruptly cut short as Lenora tore through their armor and flesh with equal ease. Blood, bright crimson against the dull tal of the deck, sprayed in all directions, painting a grueso painting across the once-pristine surface.
She moved through them like a whirlwind, her laughter echoing through the carnage. One mont she was here, the next she was there, a crimson blur leaving a trail of mangled bodies in her wake.
And just when it seed the Skyhall soldiers might manage to regroup, to contain the blood-drunk vampire with their superior numbers, a new wave of reinforcents arrived.
The demon army, sensing weakness, descended upon the remaining Skyhall vessels with the fury of a thousand storms. They weren't concerned with elegant tactics or battlefield formations. They were chaos incarnate, a force of nature unleashed.
Lenora, montarily distracted from her bloody work, grinned at the sight of the demons tearing into her attackers, her fangs glinting in the dim light. "About damn ti, boys," she purred.
On the other hand, Thorfinn, his body screaming in protest, tried to pull himself upright. His dwarven blood, usually so quick to nd wounds and knit bones, felt sluggish, the chill of Michael's magic lingering in his veins like a poison.
He didn't even have ti to scream before Michael was upon him again, his movent a blur of shadow and rage. One mont Thorfinn was staring up at the dim glow of the pocket dinsion's artificial sky; the next, he was back in Michael's grasp, lifted effortlessly off his feet, his broken body dangling like a child's forgotten toy.
The seven-headed serpent, sensing an opportunity, changed course. It moved with surprising speed for sothing so monstrous, its scales a blur of sickly green as it shot towards Michael, jaws gaping wide to unleash a torrent of soul-venom.
But Michael didn't even spare the creature a glance. His focus, his entire being, was locked on the broken dwarf in his grasp.
And in that mont, Thorfinn knew. He wasn't just going to die. He was going to suffer.
"These hands," Michael whispered. It was a sound devoid of warmth, of any trace of humanity. Just… cold, echoing emptiness. He took one of Thorfinn's mangled hands in his own, his grip gentle, deceptively so.
"These fingers…" Michael continued, his gaze fixed on Thorfinn's face, watching as the realization, the sheer terror of what was to co, dawned in those pale, bloodshot eyes. "They slapped her, didn't they? Struck her, again and again…"
He squeezed, just slightly, and Thorfinn roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony as bones ground against bone, his mangled flesh protesting the impossible pressure.
"No, please…" Thorfinn whimpered, his bravado, his dwarven pride, crumbling before the abyss staring back at him from Michael's eyes. "I— I didn't…"
A sharp, cracking sound cut his words short. Then another. And another.
Michael, his expression unchanging, his movents precise and almost… delicate, began to peel Thorfinn's fingers back. One by one. Like soone peeling an overripe fruit.
Blood, thick and dark, welled up between his fingers, painting Michael's hand a grueso crimson. But he didn't seem to notice, or care.
"And this hand," Michael murmured, moving on to Thorfinn's other arm, his voice as steady and calm as if he was discussing the weather. "This hand… this one grabbed her hair, didn't it? Dragged her across the floor…"
"Stop… please… I'll do anything! Anything you want!" Thorfinn's voice was a high-pitched whine now, the words tumbling over each other in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable.
Hearing the dwarf beg, Michael chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that sent shivers down Thorfinn's spine. "Pain and fear," he murmured, his voice deceptively gentle. "They have a way of… breaking even the strongest resolve. Even a stubborn little shit like you." He leaned closer ad said calmly.
"But you know what's funny?" Michael continued, and Thorfinn could hear the amusent in his voice now, a chilling counterpoint to the agony that ripped through his mangled body. 22:47
"She never scread. Not like you, anyway. Not like a pathetic little bitch."
Thorfinn whimpered, a pitiful sound that was swallowed by the ever-growing chorus of screams echoing across the battlefield.
"This shoulder," Michael whispered, his lips barely moving, but every syllable dripping with ice-cold venom. "This one… it took the brunt of her falls, didn't it? As she tried to crawl away from you…"
He squeezed, his fingers digging into the joint with impossible strength, and Thorfinn scread again, the sound high-pitched and ragged, like a rusty hinge protesting a lifeti of neglect.
"Holy shit!" a horrified voice gasped from sowhere below.
"I can't look," another voice echoed, tinged with a terror that was almost palpable.
But no one dared to intervene. The sight of Michael, his face a mask of chilling detachnt as he thodically dismantled the dwarf, was enough to give even the most battle-hardened warrior pause.
A sickening crack split the air as Thorfinn's shoulder dislocated, bone grinding against bone with a sound that turned the stomachs of even the most hardened Skyhall angels watching from the sidelines. Blood, a crimson geyser, erupted from the wound, splattering against Michael's armor, but he didn't even flinch.
"And this leg," Michael continued, his voice as calm and conversational as if he was discussing the rits of a fine wine. He moved down Thorfinn's body, his grip shifting to the dwarf's mangled thigh. "This one… this one connected with her ribs, didn't it? Over and over again…"
"Fuck… you…" Thorfinn gasped as his vision blurred at the edges.
But Michael wasn't listening. He twisted his hands, a slow, deliberate movent, and Thorfinn's leg, already broken in several places, snapped again at the femur. The sound was like a dry twig breaking under the weight of a falling tree. "Well, I'm a fair god," Michael growled, his voice a guttural roar. "I believe in… equal retribution."
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