Chapter 32 - The Unmaker
- Excerpt from ‘Secret Sina Household Journal’, Written by Sanyon Sina
Three hundred and seventeen humans of Alshifa picked up arms as the midnight bell rang, sharply on time—and it was all six of the fifth-years who charged ahead first, a gust of wind speeding their steps.
The firefly in the centre of the Bazaar whirled on them, its eyes twitching in irritation.
With an underhanded throw, the firefly sent a lightning bolt flying. They split before the scent order was given; Issam and Dahlia and Jerie jumped left while the others dashed right, the bolt splitting a ravine in the ground as it fizzled out against the building behind them. It wasn’t as strong an attack as the bolts that came before it. Then a second, third, and fourth bolt whipped out from each of its arms—faster, wilder, and more desperate than any that’d come before.
All of them stood their ground this time.
Amula kicked her bolt away, a flash of blue zipping through her leg, up her hips, then down into the ground through her other leg. The twins left behind shadows made of withered leaves that their bolts struck and disintegrated. Issam covered for Jerie and Dahlia as the boys swung their blade and flute at the same time, splitting their bolt in half, Jerie wincing as his nails caught aflame. The firefly’s outstretched claws remained crackling with lightning. They hardened their muscles, charged straight on, and continued closing the distance.
Collision. Impact. Bombardier beetle boots, twin bullet ant shortswords, the scream of a cicada flute, a mantis scythe-sharpened blade, and ten black chitin claws arced at the firefly all at once from every conceivable direction—the firefly screeched so loud it created a shockwave that sent a billowing wind through the Bazaar. The monster stood its ground; it didn’t move an inch, contesting all of their weapons with four arms. A backhand sent Jerie flying back into a stall. Its claws ripped into Ayla’s left arm and jerked her into Aylee, sending them both tumbling into violent rolls. Issam swung for its neck, Amula aimed a low kick at its thighs, Dahlia shot her claws for its face.
Their weapons were stopped short by its impenetrable chitin, and the firefly screeched again. This time, of them were sent flying in various directions from the shockwave.
Dahlia got the better end of the stick. She crashed into the wall of sandbags, shoulder first, and the stake in her waist dislodged itself. Fresh wounds opened. Her right arm ached where she’d slammed into the sandbags, but when she sucked in a gasping breath Eria forced her adrenaline to flare—her bicep may throb a little, but she was otherwise unhurt. She could still stand. She could still fight.
She charged again, and so did her friends—leaping and running through the electrified smog as the firefly heaved for breath.
The twins dashed in with zigzags, keeping themselves light on their toes as they drew bolt after bolt of lightning away from the rest of them. Issam’s mantis scythes screeched against his blade before every swing, and nobody could tell it was a ‘sword’ in his hands; it was a sabre of pure fire with how fast it slashed, not at all unlike Amula’s beetle boots as she aimed for the firefly’s thigh with every twirling kick. Chasing the firefly around the Bazaar, they moved in at any opening they could get. Matching guttural scream for guttural scream, Jerie roared into his flute to stop the firefly from escaping the arena, and Dahlia… most certainly tried to keep up with the distraction tactics.
She was the weak link of the group. The firefly seemed to notice, laughing, mocking her, casting more lightning bolts her way. Issam stepped in every time to chop the projectiles. His blade grew brighter. Amula hopped from side to side, her heels bursting with flame geysers, and the twins fanned her flames to surround the firefly in a dome of heat again. It didn’t even pretend to feel any pain this time. Its claws went up and down, chucking more lightning bolts wherever it could catch a glimpse of the twins’ shadows, and steel shattered in mighty droves. Tarps went flying, clotheslines whipped into the sky, even the wall of sandbags was finally felled by a stray bolt that was supposed to pierce Jerie’s chest.
But while Dahlia’s legs gave out and she fell on one knee, hands pressing over the bleeding wound in her waist, a flood of pebbles soared from the ruined buildings, whacking the firefly on the side of its head. Bigger objects started flying. Broken chair legs, firefly cages, hammers and chisels and butcher knives and dust-beating sticks—the three hundred and eleven townsfolk of Alshifa rose in a giant circle all around the Bazaar, throwing whatever they could find at the firefly while the six of them fought to catch their breath.
Instead of cowering in fear, they, too, had chosen to shout, to scream, to bellow their rage at the firefly.
could live with the regret of not doing anything to help.
Desperation. Malicious onslaught. The firefly whirled in place, annoyed by the dozens of heavy objects flying at it every second, and every lightning bolt it sent streaking in a random direction was accompanied by the screams of many—the children on the left were crushed by rubble shot down from the ceiling, the textile store owners on the right were split in half by metal plates flying along the bolts’ trajectory, even the elders in the back weren’t spared from having lightning dust ignite their crusty beards and hairs—but backed down from the Bazaar. Those who’d lost only a single leg kept on crawling, reaching for more debris to throw. Those who saw their old friends lose their heads by their side kept on screaming curses, tossing knives with greater ferocity, with more wrathful lights in their eyes. Those who’d already lost everything had nothing to fear; death was but a moment before the firefly’s fearsome lightning.
Dozens of people were falling by the second, yet they rushed on, buying time, uncaring for their own safety.
They knew the only ones who could slay the firefly were the six of them with their Swarmsteel.
Dahlia blinked, blood spraying into her face, feeling bone and lightning dust splattering against her skin. She willed her legs to stand, to stop allowing people to throw themselves in front of her, but as she tried she tripped forward, crashing to the ground. A heavy chunk of stone falling from the ceiling would’ve crushed her skull right there and then had the twins not jumped in at the last moment, kicking her out of the way—and the last she saw of them were the brilliant, dazzling smiles, mouthing at her words that didn’t need to be said out loud.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Keep on going,” Aylee said.
“I’ll massage your shoulders again,” Ayla said.
Then they took her place and died, crushed by the boulder that would’ve taken her head.
She reached her hands out at the twins, but there were too many targets. Too many people throwing things at it all at once. The firefly flung itself through the air, slashing and clawing and kicking at everyone bold enough to try to engage it in a melee. Lightning danced around it, but the trails were no longer blindingly blue, as though it were losing steam with every human body it had to cleave through. Jerie was the final straw. Before Dahlia could even pry her lips open to scream, the firefly had blurred over and run one of its arms through his chest, crushing his heart with a violent snarl—but ever the stoic, the boy belted out a final laugh before jamming his flute into the firefly’s mouth, screeching a final, ear-shattering tune from inside its head.
“How’s that for volume?” he seemed to say, as the firefly clutched its head and stumbled back, blood swirling and sloshing behind its eyes.
Jerie dealt damage to its senses and died, falling with a cackling laugh.
Her arms thrummed with nervous energy, strain building up in her head and turning into a constant, throbbing pulse. The firefly snapped its head sideways, aiming a palm her way. Somehow she managed to crawl onto her feet, choking for breath, gasping for a cry, but not a second later was knocked onto their backs by Amula clashing with the firefly, shin against shin, armoured boots against chitin feet. Every last muscle in Amula’s body strained and struggled, pushing and shoving against its leg, until her boot could take the pressure no more—a flash of lightning coursed through the Swarmsteel and her entire leg burst into flames, the firefly grinning with spiteful glee.
But it most certainly didn’t expect Amula to keep her whirring boot pressed against its leg, her kick having been thrown with such force half her foot was lodged in its shin.
She merely glanced back at Dahlia with a quiet nod, before mouthing something with her boots glowing bright red.
“You’re not spineless,” she said.
Then her boots exploded and took one of the firefly’s legs along with them, toppling the monster with a savage scream of pain.
She didn’t have the time to blink. She didn’t have the time to get up from lying on her stomach. She didn’t even have the time to comprehend the deaths happening right before her eyes. Third time’s the final charm—a high-pitched series of whirs came from inside the fallen firefly’s chest as it clenched its fists, preparing to strike the ground.
They’d done it.
They’d made it desperate enough to use its Swarmblood Art one last time, and everyone still alive dropped to the ground, bracing for the explosion. There weren't a lot of them remaining; there wouldn’t be a lot of them remaining afterwards.
And this was the firefly’s strongest explosion yet.
A hundred lightning bolts shot out in every direction, aiming for total annihilation. No building was adequate cover. No Swarmsteel was tough enough to withstand the attack. She practically didn’t hear the explosion go off for how dazed and exhausted she already was, but even then she knew nobody made it through. If the lightning didn’t get them, the metal shrapnel flying everywhere did. If the shrapnel didn’t get them, then the stones from the collapsing ceiling did. If someone were alive after enduring all that, they’d have to be the most fortunate person in the world or the strongest person in the world.
… Dahlia was fortunate.
Because when the smoke cleared and she blinked the dust in her eyes away, the second strongest person in her world was standing over her—shirt torn, hair dishevelled, broken mantis scythes hanging limp off his shoulders, a dozen holes bore through his torso by sharp rocks and metal debris.
And for some reason, he still had a small, wistful smile on his face.
“... This is the end for me,” Issam whispered, pushing the words forward even if it killed him to do so. Dahlia choked, crawling onto her knees before reaching her hands towards his; he grinned for a second when her claws curled around his fingers.
Then he pushed her away and reached behind his waistband, slowly, clumsily, his shoulders still holding up the dark slab of stone.
“I don't have much time left,” he mumbled, as her face became ugly, wracked with tears, trying to stop him from moving and opening his wounds even further. She didn't have the strength to do so. Even in living death, Issam's arms were indubitably strong—even trying to scratch his veins out wouldn't stop him from doing what he wanted.
Eventually his left hand found what he wanted on his waistband and he pulled it forward, letting it dangle on a crude silver chain in front of her face.
“This is all I can leave you with.”
It was a pocket watch made entirely out of silver, eight-sided with three needle hands shaped like pointing fingers. Glowing white crystals decorated the rims of the watch, quite sparingly so as not to be gaudy, but the back was carved with web-like lines and inset with amber shaped in the form of a little black bug—and the whole thing was a crude, unrefined piece of work. The edges weren't smoothened, the lines weren't perfectly straight, the bug was barely recognizable for how crooked its legs were… but no doubt Issam had spent days and weeks pouring over every last detail, making sure it was something she could wear with pride and joy.
For her part, she was still refusing to let go of his hands.
“I’d like to spend the rest of my life around you, but, well…”
Her eyes widened as his shoulders slumped. Then her lips began to tremble, and so did her cheeks, her shoulders, then her whole body. In her arms, she watched as his amber eyes dulled into the familiar white void she knew death better with. This was the very first time she’d seen him so tired, and the whirlwind in her chest refused to settle, refused to give up. Her claws dug into his arms, wishing him pain. Wishing him agony. to keep him awake, anything to keep his head held high like the hero he was to her—then he shook his head and patted hers in return, an oddly calming sensation that froze every bone in her body.
He’d run out of air to speak with, so he settled for mouthing his parting words instead.
Her ears started to ring as Issam fell forward into her, and something red and ugly flared inside her.
Her vision blurred.
Her lips parted as though she wanted to say something, as though to respond to his profession with one of her own, as though to pull his face into hers so she could show him what she really felt about him—but instead she only managed a vague, incoherent noise, bubbling out of her throat.
That noise turned into a strident cry.
That cry turned into a scream, and she dragged her claws behind his shoulders to cut the slab of stone in half.
Moonlight fell around them, basking the broken Alshifa in a cold, gentle glow. The cavern was collapsing. Nothing could stop the ceiling from caving in completely now. Half the undertown was already buried, the Bazaar littered with the bodies of brave men and women who’d given their lives for her; the firefly was struggling to regenerate its missing leg and damaged eyes a good fifteen metres away. Its torso was no longer glowing, not a single streak of lightning dribbling out its claws. It’d used up everything it had with that final Swarmblood Art, and now that it saw her still kneeling, still breathing, it clicked its mandibles at her so fast she couldn’t help but think it was afraid of her.
The bug was afraid of .
Their auras—their killing pressures—were equal.
Sniffling, gritting her teeth, she took Issam’s pocket watch and slipped it behind her waistband, turning the little dial.
The one minute countdown began.
She let Issam rest gently onto the ground, rose onto her feet, and immediately stumbled—falling on her face with her very first step. Burning pains raced through her waist and torso and she cried in agony, scratching the ground as she pushed herself up on shaky elbows. More heat blossomed along her arms, but she bit down on her teeth, straining to get back up. Shards of chitin from her broken Swarmsteel dug into her skin and she smelled something putrid in the air—remnants of all the lightning that’d been flying around—so she focused on how horrible it all smelled. She focused on how much she wanted to erase it from the cavern, the hideous smell of ash and the ails of courageous souls who’d taken her this far; was she going to lay there on her stomach and bleed out like the bug she was, or was she going to fight even if it meant a more painful demise for her?
Without question.
Without doubt.
And when she crawled to her feet, barrelling straight ahead, and the firefly regenerated just in time to slash two of its left claws at her–
The steel thread guided her to sidestep past its shoulders, her own claws darting in zigzags to dismantle the chitin on its outstretched arms.
She felt pain in her ankles and pivoted, ducking under its third arm and stabbing it three, four, five times along its forearm; the moment the firefly realised what she was doing and jerked itself back, she’d already dashed in again, doing as Raya did, refusing to give it any breathing room. Its wings trembled, trying to flap and send it shooting off into the sky. She whipped around it and severed them off its shoulders, catching drops of blood with her tongue. It lunged for her throat with a sudden burst of speed, but she’d seen the attack before and sidestepped, darting in herself, slashing at its unarmored arms and cutting them into ten identical sections. Now two of its arms were gone, its movements were unbalanced—on its second backstep, she pounced in and reared her claws back, ready to strike again.
Sharpened antennae flew at her. She stabbed them with two index fingers and ripped them off its head. Its claws sank into her waist as it raised her in the air. She screamed and jabbed her claws into its eyes, pressing them into its skull. As her feet made contact with the ground she immediately pushed forward, hands swirling around its right arms to dismantle their chitin plates while it reeled in pain; by the time it noticed it had no more protection on its striking limbs she’d already severed its right arms too, headbutting it straight into the ground.
Boulders crashed and shattered around them. The hole in the ceiling widened, now it was a whole ravine, misty white blobs of fog hanging far, far overhead. She remembered they were called ‘clouds’ on the surface, droplets of water in misty form. Tonight, it was ‘raining’, ‘thunder’ cracking in the distance—and between the flashes of natural lightning, she sank her claws into the firefly’s chest and tore its chitin apart, plate by plate, layer by layer. Like peeling an onion. Like dismantling a faulty watch. The firefly kicked its feet into her back, mutilating her flesh as best it could, but her eyes were following the brilliant steel thread without an ounce of regret. Without a trace of hesitation.
The firefly had to die.
… And when she finally crushed what felt like the firefly’s heart in her hands, she lost all strength in her body and fell next to its unmade carcass.
She’d cut, torn, ripped, and dismantled every individual piece of chitin from its flesh, so now she was sure that if a boulder were to fall onto them—and that happen, within the next minute or two—they’d both be flattened and killed for good.
No more regenerating limbs.
No more lightning explosions.
Alshifa had triumphed over the Swarm at long last, and now, as the cavern continued collapsing around her, she felt she could close her eyes to take a good, long nap.
She didn’t need to survive this.
There was no point in surviving this.
She envisioned herself standing at the top of the stairs to her house, a golden field of flowers swaying in front of her. Her dad and mom stood in wait before the door, and everyone else was there, too. Instructor Biem and his children and the rest of the students sparring behind the house. The twins playing ball on the roof. Jerie playing his flute by the edge of the cliff. Amula was kicking Raya and vice versa off to the side, fighting up a storm. Issam was shaking his head at them, telling them not to make a ruckus at someone else’s house, but then he turned and walked forward and offered her a hand—his was a hand, not at all dark and jagged and disproportionately long like hers already were, having long since began melding with her Swarmsteel claws.
She took his hand, a relieved smile on her face, but he was mouthing something at her. His lips were blurry. She couldn’t hear a thing. She took a step forward, intending to get closer, but then his face changed.
Issam became Amula, who started mouthing something at her again.
Amula became Jerie, who played a tune she couldn’t hear.
Jerie split into the twins, who each patted her shoulders and shook their heads ‘no’.
The twins became Instructor Biem.
Instructor Biem became her dad.
Her dad became her mom.
Ten faces, a hundred faces, a thousand faces—she didn’t recognize even half of them, some so faded and swirly she could barely tell they were human faces, but all of them, without a doubt, mouthed at her.
Their jaws distended, their teeth moved in chewing motions.
And when she finally blinked, clearing her vision, returning to reality–
She felt warm drops down her cheeks as she chomped on the firefly’s neck, one hand holding the carcass in place and the other already cutting out more chunks of insect flesh to devour.
She couldn’t stop herself.
There was no ‘effort’ that could stop her from wanting to live.
If she were to die, nobody would remember Alshifa, and every last person who died for her would’ve died for nothing.
Eria whispered, as it crawled over the firefly’s neck and stared firmly at her, black eyes going pale and colourless.
In response, she snapped her jaw over to where Eria’s projection was standing and bit down there, too—swallowing every bite she could get, not wasting a single strand of muscle that could mean the difference between life or death.
Because if she had to choose—and she had to choose —she didn’t want to make a decision she’d regret.
She was too busy eating to answer properly.
So it was, a hundred years after their great ancestors retreated below the earth, that the final undertown in the world collapsed with a quiet whimper.
Surely, nobody knew anything about them.
Surely, nobody would care to remember them into the future.
… But she would remember.
She would live.
And she’d make her own path bearing the weight of all of Alshifa.
[Class: Determining]
[...]
[...]
[Class: Assassin Bug]
[T1 Mutation Unlocked: Swarmguard Deity Lvl: 1]
[Brief Description: Your blood has become alive, and you have grown two extra arms from your back. These arms are controllable, but they will also move to automatically defend you should you require their assistance. At level one, they have half of all of your current attribute levels. Subsequent levels in this mutation will strengthen them until their attributes are identical to your normal limbs at max level]
[Swarmblood Art Unlocked: ?R!C?O80L8C10T!O?N]
[Grade: D-Rank Giant-Class → C-Rank Giant-Class]
Fun insect fact: Assassin bugs (reduviidae) of the order ‘Hemiptera’ are my favourite insects in the world. They are mostly terrestrial ambush predators that have pretty painful stabs with their proboscis, and they are generally teardrop-shaped with bright colours of black, brown, red, and or orange. What makes them special is their defensive behaviour, which practically no other insect in the world even attempts to emulate: assassin bug nymphs carry a variety of debris material, including carcasses of insects they killed themselves, and wear them over their backs like armour.
Self-decoration occurs in some gastropods, crabs, and spiders, and while it seems intuitive why certain insects would choose to camouflage themselves this way, little is actually known about the early evolutions of this complicated behaviour. Assassin bug nymphs in particular take corpse-carrying to extreme degrees, so they’re quite hardcore, aren’t they? First they kill their prey, then they suck out their insides, and then they wear their exoskeleton like armour.
Lebanese amber findings show the assassin bug nymphs had evolved this behaviour as early as the Early Cretaceous period (~122 million years ago), and about 90% of all modern day assassin bugs evolved from a common ancestral clade known as the ‘Higher Reduviidae’, which came to existence as early as the Late Cretaceous period (~98 million years ago). Of the Higher Reduviidae clade, the two oldest fossils of assassin bugs date back to the Early Cretaceous Period, and the results of their analysis were completed just two years ago: they were named ‘Simplicivenius Tuberculosus’, the adult male variant, and ‘Simplicivenius Rectidorsius’, the adult female variant.
… And while neither of these two species exist in the modern day, they are ancestral species of assassin bugs that predate the Higher Reduviidae clade.
Read “Debris-carrying camouflage among diverse lineages of Cretaceous insects”, “Evolutionary History of Assassin Bugs”, and finally “The Oldest Fossils From China Provide the Most Direct Evidence for the Ancestral State of Fossula Spongiosa and Stridulitrum of Reduviidae” to learn more! Many thanks to my university for allowing me access to every academic article related to the reduviids! It only took me several dozens of hours to read through all three of those articles, so I hope I’m not wrong!