Being stabbed, a burning town, strange creatures resembling humans, and now her parents. If Ashley's wound had not been throbbing from Ansel's kick, she would have thought this was all a dream. But it was not. This was reality. The introduction of Ansel in her life had flipped the very meaning of her world on its side.
She propped herself up against a table as she watched her father stand before Cypress, paralyzed in place. Below him, a dark yellow puddle slowly expanded from where he sat. His pupils widened to reflect the faint lights of the tavern.
Ashley would have laughed if she had not been scared herself. To see the man who tried to assault her suffering gave her a warm feeling amongst the chaos. His betrayal as her adoptive father had been met with a suitable punishment. While she understood why Ansel had held back last night, she could not understand his decision to let the whole thing slide.
"…" Markrove let out a sigh as his hollow eyes looked down at the pitiful man. He held the sword in his hand towards Cypress's large belly. He watched, but Cypress made no effort to move. His eyes were locked with his as his sanity seemed to return as he slowly understood his situation.
While the inside of the tavern was deathly quiet, the same could not be said about the outside. From within the tavern, the clashes felt loud. The painful sounds of bones shattering filled the room, sending an unpleasant sensation through her body. She turned to face the hole in the tavern's wall through which dense smoke poured. Ansel was surrounded by strange black masses and creatures that differed from the black skeletons she saw just before being flung into the tavern.
These beings had a hard shell of thick muscle with a blackish hue. They wore no skin and had black eyes filled with nothing but fury toward the exhausted man, taking them down one by one.
They moved fast, close to Ansel's own unnatural speed. Each time their weapons or fists collided, blood shot out from Ansel's hands. His crimson veins overtook his hands to stop the bleeding just before vanishing. As more creatures attacked at once, Ansel danced around them as if he knew how they would attack. The beings crashed into one another, and Ansel grabbed their heads and slammed them together. Their heads exploded like watermelons. Ebon ooze was scattered everywhere, singeing the ground, his skin, and even his shirt. However, his black pants, adorned with silver embroidery, remained pristine even in the chaos.
Their bodies fell, and they morphed into more blackened masses. Ansel panted heavily as more creatures hatched from other masses and began their charge. The thick crimson veins that covered his body started to shift towards an ebon hue, and his eyes turned bloodshot red. A twisted smile warped onto his face as he gripped his dagger tightly, which dripped with ebon ooze.
*CRASH!*
"EEEEE!!!" Cypress let out a high-pitched noise that somehow felt forced. It startled Ashley, pulling her attention away from the fight outside. "M-Markrove hear me out!!!" His voice trembled, yet the previous traces of fear in his eyes had vanished.
Just inches in front of Cypress lay a sword embedded deep into the wooden floors of the tavern. Markrove, annoyed by Cypress's squirming and lack of maintenance of his own tavern, struggled to pull his blade from the ground, allowing Cypress to crawl backward to escape. Just before he could get far, a pair of legs stopped him. Cypress looked up towards a woman, casually smiling as she held and cradled her head.
"L-Lorry!!" Cypress grabbed into Lorry's cloak with a desperate look on his face, yet once again, his eyes showed a different emotion. Ashely felt an uneasy feeling in her gut as she watched Cypress plea for his life. "T-tell him to c-calm down for a sec!!" With a strong pull with his entire body weight, her cloak slipped from her shoulders, revealing a pale body devoid of blood covered in bruises and deep lacerations that covered her from her breasts to her butt. Cypress's eyes widened with joy that was short-lived as the sword that belonged to Markrove shot through the air, shattering the floor just before Cypress's crotch.
Markrove gave Cypress a murderous glare that sent a chill down Ashley's spine, even though she was not the target. Cypress' expression paled as Lorry fixed her cloak.
"Oh, dear." She spoke in a soothing voice. "Your aim has been off lately." She looked down at Cypress. Her eyes burned with malice that could not be subsided with death for her prey. Yet, with her extreme expression, she forced a cough and a gentle smile swept across her face.
"All his squirming makes it hard to hit the oversized rodent."
"Here, my love, let me assist you." Lorry placed her bare foot on Cypress's leg. Cypress smiled a bit before his face distorted into a fierce pain.
*Creeeeak—Crunch!!*
"AHHHHH!!!!"
Ashley winced from the agonizing screams let out from Cypress. Lorry dug her foot deeper. Blood poured out as the midsection between his calf and knee had been flattened.
"You really are something, you know that?" Despite his sarcastic tone, Markrove looked at Cypress with faint admiration. "We honestly thought on that faithful day we lost our lives; the city had been onto our little escape. Even after going through all that effort to erase our very existence from their databases."
Markrove approached Cypress and grabbed him by the neck. Cypress struggled in the air before Markrove flashed him a smile and tossed him onto a nearby table, shattering it into pieces.
"But no, turns out the reason we died was because of our favorite little bartender who always had a lustful gaze towards my one and only. So Cypress, might I ask how that WISH turnt out? Hmm?"
Upon hearing the words "wish" leave Markrove's mouth, Ashley noticed Cypress had flinched. Cypress then turned toward Ashley as if expecting her to stop the man staring him down with degrading eyes, looking for a chance to kill.
Ashley shook her head, and, for a brief moment, she saw what seemed to be a vengeful scowl from Cypress. Her heart skipped a beat as a chill ran down her spine. She felt something was wrong. Like she had just made another fatal error, just like yesterday.
However, even while feeling that gut feeling, she knew that she'd be a fool to take the hand of a man who betrayed her trust. Besides that, she wanted to know more about what her father meant by Cypress being the reason they died. Cypress had been keeping a tight lip, but she knew that if she wanted answers to her questions, she needed to be upfront.
As Ashley pondered what to say to Cypress, he shouted, "You've got it wrong!" Markrove took a step forward. "I had nothing to do with that attack. I avenged the both of you!" Another heavy step echoed through the tavern's walls. "Please, believe me."
"Want me to believe you? Then explain. Explain how Ashley ended up in the forest that day."
Ashley turned towards Cypress, her expression mixed with curiosity and anxiety about the answer Cypress was being forced to give. She herself wanted to know about his involvement. Alder had hinted at him being involved countless times, and his mistrust of the bartender had ever increased.
"Cypress," Ashley spoke his name. His gaze turned icy as both Markrove and Lorry turned towards Ashley. Something was wrong with his reaction, but Ashley had no time to think about it. "How are you related to all of this? Did you truly lure me into the forest that day? If so, why?"
Despite his cold stare, she kept her voice calm and collected. After yesterday's encounter with Ansel, Cypress's intimating stare felt nothing more than a child throwing a fit.
Her sharp words had shattered his expectations. Ashley, once the timid, kiss ass who no one had ever hated, was standing up to him with a side he had never seen before. Who was it? Had Alder been teaching her ways to be bold behind his back, or was it the cursed man fighting outside?
Cypress bit his lip as the pain from his fattened leg shot through his body. No matter what, he was gonna die today. That was the truth he knew. Perhaps that damn man outside would rush in once he finishes those monsters off? No, that would be wishful thinking.
There was a reason that that cursed man had sent Ashley flying into the door of the tavern. If it were just him in here alone, he might have held off, but Lorry and Markrove were here…he must have known they would be.
Cypress reached behind him and grabbed something hard. He carefully squeezed the object with his thumb as he gripped the base. A sharp pain shot through his hand as he felt something warm trickle from the palm of his hand.
He bared the pain as he glared at the young woman who dared to stand up against him after all the struggle he had gone through to raise her and her brother. She was ungrateful. The brat should have taken his side. Ash would have done it without question, so why not Ashley?
It had to be his influence. That cursed man was the cause of his problems. If he had never entered this town, he would have been content with baring the guilt from the wish he had made towards that winged woman.
With a deep breath, Cypress opened his mouth. What came out was not words but a dry, maniacal laugh that grabbed everyone's attention.
"HAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
(Kill!!!)
As Cypress laughed, he heard a voice call out in his head. It was harsh and sinister.
"HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
(Kill the Cursed brat. Break free from the bounds of this world.)
He glared at Ashley. She was defenseless. The entire time, she limped as if she were in pain. She was an easy target and one that would be the most trouble if she told the others about what conspired in here. But the problem was the two that he had gotten killed. Without a doubt, they were strong, and the chances of him leaving alive were slim, but he would make sure to take Ashley down with him.
There was cold unease in the air as Ashley could feel her hair stand on end. His gaze turned blood thistly, and a grin stained his face as he finished laughing. She thought it was natural for a person to bare their fangs once backed into a corner, but this felt wrong. Somehow, the eyes that lay upon her were no longer Cypress but someone else in his body, as if the same thing that happened to Ansel was happening to him.
"Cypress," Lorry spoke, unaware of the change within Cypress. "We know of your sin. You one-sided lust towards me, but how did you pull it off?" Cypress shrugged his shoulders smugly as Markrove took another step as he grew impatient.
"T-there was a small animal. A silver fox," Cypress spoke, pretending to be a frightened man. "I used that fox to lure Ashley towards the dense forest that day. The plan was to just have Markrove follow, yet you were there too, Lorry."
Cypress gritted his teeth as he fidgeted with something behind him. Markrove bit his lower lip as a fierce anger could be seen despite his hollow eyes. Ebon ooze dripped down, singeing his cloak. He adjusted the sword in his hands.
"You a despicable man, more so than I am," Markrove spoke with his eyes fixed on Cypress, who looked surprised. "Do you know why we came to his town? Besides escaping the city of Pandora?" Cypress shook his head. "We—Lorry and I have committed more crimes than your pity half-baked plan could ever amount to."
"You only killed a handful of people from another town," Lorry spoke. "We killed several hundreds of children for the sake of advancement. We experiment, tortured, and subjected the future generation of humanity to a fate worse than hell. Their screams and cries seared into our minds, even as an undead."
Ashley and Cypress both looked at Lorry with polar opposite reactions to the sudden information. Ashley felt her stomach turn as her mother confessed to something she would have never expected. Yet Cypress stood there unfazed, with the same creepy grin on his face.
"That man outside," Markrove said as he pointed his blade away from Cypress. Cypress followed his drifting gaze towards the man outside.
Ansel, a Cursed man from the city. A man who flipped Cypress's world upside down and who gave Ashley a newfound purpose. He fought ferociously with urgency. Only a few creatures remain. Their appearances are now no longer that of skeletons or fleshless beings. Tall, bulky humanoids with black hardened skin that glistened with the flames of the town stood against Ansel.
He was winded, hunched over, eyes bloodshot red. His hand dripped with a steady stream of blood as he gripped his dagger. His crimson veins that covered his body were fading towards an eery ebon black.
"He is the fruit of our labors. A successful man-made Omen. A slave of the city of lies." Markrove grimaced as he took his eyes off Cypress.
Cypress bit his lower lip. Now was the only chance he had. Felt adrenaline filling through his veins. The pain he felt from his leg and hands had disappeared, and his eyes locked onto Ashley. Her expression was great. Her instinct was keen, yet unlike her brother, she failed to react to it. The fear she felt made his heart beat faster. He wanted to see her bleed. He wanted to bask upon her lifeless body before he would meet his inevitable end.
With a single deep breath, Cypress lunged forward, grappling onto Markrove, slamming him into the ground. As Markrove's sword fell from his hands, Cypress locked eyes with Ashley. She could feel his bloodlust as he threw the item he was clutching tightly behind his back.
A broken glass bottle flew through the air. Its sharp edges were covered in his blood. It flew in the air with its sharp edges aimed toward Ashley's neck with an adrenaline-powered throw. She had little time to react. Ashley instinctively guarded her face by bringing her jacket up.
Cypress's eyes traced her body. Her lower stomach was covered up by a makeshift bandage made from a shirt that Cypress had bought her last year. His eyes widen once he lays eyes upon her bare skin, only covered by her bra stained with blood. As his jaw fell, the glass bottle he threw shattered into glass dust as a silver glint flashed through the tavern. The glass dust twinkled around Ashley's body, highlighting her figure. That was the last sight he ever saw.
"Your lust towards your adopted daughter is sickening." A man's voice echoed as a sharp pain filled his mind.
"AHHHHH!!!!" Cypress rolled onto the floor, screaming in pain as he held his eyes. Blood poured out as Ansel stood next to him, holding his eyes in his hands. Ashley lowered the jacket she used to protect herself and looked at Ansel. His eyes were filled with hatred as he looked down at the man writhing in pain.
Markrove stood up from the ground and grabbed Cypress by his neck. He threw him across the room. "Not only had you dared to kill our daughter, but your filthy eyes dared to lie upon her body. You are lower than the filth you serve at this tavern."
The anger fueled Markrove tried to move, yet a hand reached out to stop him. It was Ansel who took a deep breath to calm himself down before speaking. "That makes two strikes, Cypress." His voice felt impatient as he walked towards Cypress, who lay on the ground holding his eyes. "Answer my question as quickly as possible so that I shall ensure you get healed. I swear that upon my rank as a Silver. Tell us the truth."
"You can't be serious!?" Markrove called out. Ansel remained silent, but his eyes burned with such intensity that the other man felt a chill run down his spine. "Right…" Ansel turned back to Cypress.
"Tell you the truth? What good would it do when nobody would believe me? What good would claiming that a woman with wings appeared before me one day and offered me a wish? What good would telling you guys that a strange voice in my head just urged me to kill Ashley?"
"So you made a wish with the Angel of Destruction, did you?" Cypress's body twitched as he heard Ansel's unsurprising tone towards him. Ansel walked forward with a forced calm expression while keeping his steps as hushed as possible. He brandished his dagger. "Why did you think nobody would believe you?"
"Why—WHY!?" Cypress's voice sounded as if he were crying as he fell onto his knees. "It's outrageous, that's why. I was jealous of Markrove. I felt my heart thaw when he walked into our little town with Lorry in his arms. Amidst the dirty and unrefined women in the town, she was like a breath of fresh air, sparking a desire in me to make her mine. I made a wish to steal her heart, but I would never have guessed it to get her killed."
"I see…"
"Then there was Ashley…her beauty was increasing day by day. It was getting difficult to not see her as her mother…so I tried too—ouck!"
Ansel thrusted his dagger into Cypress's abdomen. "That's enough. Your reasons are fully understood and there is nothing left to gain from a walking corpse such as yourself. You wasted my time here. If she dies, then I swear to enter the gates of hell myself to torture you."
"W…why… you swore…" Cypress coughed up blood.
"Those who form a wish with the Angel are already dead. Their souls are chained with the power of the Omens, slowly feasting on them till they're ready to emerge. They cannot be saved. Death is the only salvation. And I did swear, but I could not give a rat's ass about the city or my rank as a Silver." Ansel pulled the dagger from Cypress's corpse, and his body fell to the ground. Ansel waited till he breathed his last before turning towards the three bystanders.
His execution made Ashley shiver with fear. If he was truly serious yesterday about killing her, she would have been killed in an instant. So why did Ansel let her live?
Ansel looked at Ashley's troubling expression and let out a sigh. "A pretty girl like yourself should be mindful of the clothes you are wearing. Otherwise, you got creeps like him lusting after your body. But good job, and sorry I took too long."
Ashley's face flushed red as she could not help but feel slightly happy at his words towards the end of his lecture about her actions. She tried to give a response, but Lorry was faster. "Oh, you say be mindful, but that's what you were banking on, was it not? It helped you gain control as she reflexively moved and opened her wounds."
"Even after death, you are still annoying." Ansel scratched his head in embarrassment. "Even if I wasn't in control, I still would have saved her."
"How noble of the brat who would always follow his crush around everywhere."
"That's enough jokes." Markrove intervened as he noticed Ansel's expression darken after hearing the word 'Crush.' "Judging by the wound on Ashley's stomach, it was your doing?"
"You are sharper than my blade, is what I would say had you not let some wounded shitbag get the best of you."
"Heh, asshole."
"Anyway, I heard what you said from outside. I ain't no slave to the city. I escaped that place after you guys did. Though I lost most of my memories in the process."
"Oh, that's a relief. But that dark expression earlier tells me that not everyone else was so lucky." Lorry said with a soft expression.
"You could say that…but with my memories a mess, I really don't have much to go off of. Just a name, Lily."
"…"
"…"
An unnatural silence swept through the tavern walls upon the mention of that name. It was enough evidence for Ansel to know that he should focus his investigation on her. But a thunderous roar rang through the area before he could think about it further. A large swirling mass of wind towers over the forest through the holes of the tavern. Ansel's expression darkened as he bit his lower lip.
"It's a shame that our reunion must end here, " Lorry said, walking next to Markrove, hand in hand. You have the eyes of a protector despite the nightmare we forced into you."
"I ain't nothing noble like that. I just want to give certain people in my life the opportunity to live, your daughter included." Ansel turned with his dagger, pointing towards the two.
"I see; in that case, you may have our daughter. Please look after her and protect her from the dangers of the city. I truly believe you have the power to uproot the nature of the city and expose the lies we created."
"And another thing, boy," Markrove spoke with a fatherly tone. "That vixen Ash is with is not an enemy. She may be an Omen, but she's trying to free herself from the Lustful Vixen you are hunting."
"I forgot you guys share memories with the other undead. I understand." Ansel smiled as he dashed forward. A swift arc of his dagger sliced the two in half from the torso. They smiled as their bodies morphed into a blackened mass that exploded into several chunks as Ansel punched both masses with all his might.
It was the second time she had to watch her parents die before her. Yet this time, instead of crying, she felt strangely happy. Maybe it was because they were smiling at the end this time, or it was because she finally knew that she was not the one to blame for their untimely demise. The man who caused everything to happen was dead—a punishment too lax for his crimes. While she thought that, she knew this outcome was for the best.
"Up we go." Snapping her from her thoughts, she found herself on top of Ansel's back. "Hold on tight, I gonna run as fast as I can."