“Ugh!” Beatrice’s stomach churned and its contents quickly shot up to the back of her mouth as her body tried to expel the ungodly thing that assaulted all her senses.
Beatrice instinctively covered her mouth and nose with both her hands to block the repugnant stench from coming in and keep her insides from coming out, but the ghastly sight alone was enough to induce nausea. And as the stench of burnt flesh rapidly poisoned the air, sothing dark and foul slowly oozed out of what was once a human being, seeping into every crack of the surrounding uneven pavent.
The bubbling of the foul soup and crackling of burning hair as the tiny flas slowly spread to the man’s clothes distracted Beatrice enough to not notice for several seconds that when she covered her mouth and nose with her hands, she also brought up her sharp claws, including the one she used to end the suffering of a man, bringing the sticky, dripping, reeking, unholy mixture of blood, lting flesh, and glistening brain matter right up to her own face.
“UAH!!” Beatrice all but threw away her own hand. Failing that, she held her infected hand as far away from her head as possible. Looking away from it all, Beatrice frantically tried to shake off every single drop she could while wiping her face with her other hand.
Though Beatrice had heard and witnessed enough stomach-churning things to build a considerable tolerance toward the macabre, this ti Ember went out of her way to create one of the worst things to behold. It took all of Beatrice’s willpower not to storm out of this forever tarnished alley, though she did take several steps back from the rapidly advancing stench for what little relief it gave.
A scene of fire and death in the tunnels flashed in Beatrice’s mind. Beatrice wondered how was it different that ti? Was she sohow less sensitive to things due to sensory overload after the recent rebirth and all that happened? Did Ember simply burn her opponents to a crisp? At that ti, it was a fight for their lives, even though it quickly beca clear to Beatrice just how little threat the noble’s rcenaries posed to Ember.
This was different. Not only did Ember lie to the man about letting him live, but she sentenced him to the worst kind of a death, effectively burning and boiling him from the inside at the sa ti. A tortuous death just for the sake of it. One look at Ember showed Beatrice how unfazed her bodyguard was by this. If anything, it almost seed like Ember was a little disappointed that Beatrice reacted this way to such a trivial thing.
“I thought you’d be used to such things by now,” Ember said, confirming Beatrice’s suspicion.
“That was excessively cruel!” Beatrice voiced her disapproval.
“‘Appropriately cruel’,” Ember corrected Beatrice. “What do you think the Purple Capes will do to us if we just walk over and surrender ourselves? How many did we kill? How many of them lost soone dear to them at my hands, or yours, or Olivia’s?
“What about the Guild? I can vividly imagine all the fun-fun tis they have in store for you for what you did to not only their many mbers but also to their entire Forge of Champions operation! And let’s not forget about the royalty and all the nobles! They’ll have a few things to say about the treatnt of a literal princess!
“After everyone’s done with you, there’ll still be a fight for your body parts! And it goes without saying that everyone you’ve ever so much as spoken to will be taken along for the ride.”
As Ember spoke she ingited a small fla in her left hand and slowly grew it larger and brighter.
“As for that imbecile,” Ember continued and threw a disdainful glance at the lting corpse. “Do you think his hands were clean just because he was a lookout? Just now he participated in arresting everyone who was in the Inn. Indiscrimanetly. All of them taken away to a place designed for indignity and suffering. And for what? That sobody might know or you?
“And even though they don’t know it, they took sobody important to you, sobody important to . Sobody important to a person we never t or will et. And what sort of treatnt do you think those people are subjected to in the depths of those Pits? I tell you right now that anything the Purple Capes—or anyone else for that matter—dare do to Y’Shtara or her sister I will return to them a hundredfold in the worst ways possible! This was nothing!”
Ember took a mont to size up Beatrice, sighed, and added, “What happened to your little ‘enemies beware’ speech? Was this the limit?”
As she asked that Ember got down at the lting corpse, thrust her non-flaming hand deep into the man’s exposed head, and pulled her hand out drenched in the stuff. She then got up and held up her gore-covered hand beside her face with a dead-serious stare aid right Beatrice before lighting it on fire.
“I took you to the Forge of Champions for a reason,” Ember said, looking at Beatrice without blinking while the flesh in her hand burned away. “If you’re still hung up on so silly moralities, maybe you’re better off going into hiding together with Olivia and her little sister and have threesos together or sothing. I have people to kill.”
And with that Ember put her right fiery hand against the wall of the building that pressed against the side of the Wholeso Inn.
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