The gleaming blade faithfully carried out the task entrusted to it by its master, the slicing of steel through air producing a thread of whistling sounds as sharp and chilling as a call for death.
Maria, in a flash, stepped onto a chair and charged toward the altar, her speed like that of black lightning.
Silver light flashed!
Before the naked eye, a silver half-ring rippled outward from Maria as its center, the shimmering radiance forcibly raised to a dazzling brilliance under the unshakable will of the black-clad nun. Pastor Lynn was clearly not the combat-type among the clergy, and when faced with this bone-piercing killing intent, he was at a complete loss.
Shrrrip—
A swift and precise thrust — light enough to seem effortless — sliced open half of Pastor Lynn’s throat. The exposed crimson flesh immediately began to writhe in aberrant mutation. Giving Lynn no chance to retaliate, Maria followed with a savage kick, twisting his head at a grotesque ninety-degree angle from his body.
For a normal human, such a blow would mean instant death.
But Pastor Lynn, having fallen into corruption as a chaos-tainted, could no longer be called a normal man — nor even a normal lifeform. His upright frame suddenly lunged forward, grasping at the black-clad nun. Before her eyes, his two hands aberrantly mutated as they extended —
Uneven protrusions, bone-like plating, chitin like an insect’s shell, and warped, chaotic flesh combined to form a pair of monstrous, nightmarish claws.
A single scratch from those claws would be nothing short of catastrophic.
It seemed Maria hadn’t expected her father’s descent into corruption to be so swift and thorough. After kicking his head aside, she failed to retract her long leg in time.
Maria braced one hand against the altar and swept her leg across.
Crack!
Her heavy boots connected solidly with Pastor Lynn’s elbow joint. With a Strength stat of 15.5, the force of inertia sent his whole body flying. With his now-twisted arm, he crashed through who knew how many pews before lying miserably amid the wreckage.
Yet, shockingly, lying among the shattered wood, Pastor Lynn used his aberrant claws to forcibly wrench his grossly displaced head back into place with an audible snap.
The consequence, of course, was that his once mostly intact face now bore several hideous gashes — one of which split his mouth open entirely. From the torn wound sprouted fleshy tendrils, adding a visceral, nauseating horror to the bloody scene.
She had underestimated him.
Carefully shifting her footing, Maria felt the crushing pressure make even breathing difficult. She’d fought against chaos before crossing over, but her foes had mostly been the relentless Khorne demons who fought to the death. Encounters with such grotesque, resilient horrors as this were far fewer.
“If only I were a Hunter.”
She licked the blood from the corner of her mouth, letting the sweat at her temples trickle down, remembering fondly the Hunter’s heavy weapon she jokingly called “Oreo.” Failing that, she’d even take a Gatling gun.
Against a chaos-tainted, you either gun them down or saw them into primal scraps.
There wasn’t much time for the black-clad nun to complain.
When Pastor Lynn rose again, his neck bones emitted a grating, unnatural creak, and from the wound Maria had cut began sprouting tumor-like growths.
He was adapting to his new body. His clouded, yellowed eyes locked onto the slowly moving Maria. In the next instant, the coiled aberrant left arm lashed out with a heavy whoosh, slicing through the air. Without thinking, Maria dove headlong toward the window behind her.
Boom!
Barely half a second after she leapt through, the sweeping limb demolished half the front hall’s wall in an instant, like a demolition machine.
Seizing this rare chance, Maria — cradling her fractured left hand and ignoring the stinging pain from shards pelting her back — circled from the front hall to her room.
She needed her weapon.
With her current injuries and damaged gear, the black-clad nun had little hope of victory. To defeat this chaos-tainted and eradicate the source of calamity, Maria would have to risk everything in one final gamble with fate.
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