Book Three – Chapter Ten – Part One – The Banquet of Death

Servi landed with a roll in front of her first target: a small warehouse near a desolate part of town that would put the wasteland created by Fulgur Spike to shame. It most certainly housed an entrance to a large underground base like Deset’s decoy laundry building. The lack of any windows wasn't unusual, considering a warehouse’s purpose was to store items, and most people wouldn’t give it a second glance. The map she found hadn’t steered her wrong yet. According to it, the base had the codename ‘Turner.’ 

The two lookouts dressed in heavy armor halted their casual conversation and readily drew their weapons, a sword and a spear, at the mysterious intruder. When their eyes stared at her nadrium sword, a million thoughts ran in their minds.  

Servi laughed in a low voice as a crazed expression took root on her face. Her red eyes were big and wide, her mouth twisted into a grin that showed off her pearly whites as the last of the blood on her sword dripped to the ground.

It was as if time froze. The Kobold on the left stared like he was dueling Servi’s image in his mind. The sweat dripping down his green, scaley face proved he was losing, and that was when Servi decided she didn’t want to spare any more time.  

With the swiftness of a sparrow and the ferocity of a bear, Servi swung her greatsword in a diagonal arc and sliced the guards in half. The tops of their bodies slid down, revealing their spinal cords and other goodies. Without wasting any time, Servi walked forward, slashing the iron door in front of her with the utmost ease, and created herself her own personal entrance.

With it being nighttime, she was enveloped by darkness. The only light came from the hole she made. A few uses of Lux Sphere later, she saw something she expected. A staircase, maybe ten meters wide, descended into the ground. Looking around, she noticed that was the only thing of note. Other than the four walls surrounding her, the roof above her, and the staircase, the warehouse was empty.  

The sudden illumination, bright enough to be noticeable in the middle of a volcanic eruption, penetrated down the staircase. It didn’t take a genius to realize something was amiss because three squads of four guards each raced up the steps.  

They arrived to see a single girl with black hair.  

“Tell me. How the fuck were people supposed to go down the staircase when it’s dark as shit?” she asked.  

“Who are you?!” shouted the Dwarf standing in front. The face of his shield had a ‘7’ marked on it. He and the eleven other people were decked out from head to toe in protective gear. Even the helmet completely enclosed his head, and he only had a small slit to see out of. Servi really only knew he was Dwarven because of his height. The eleven others standing behind him could’ve been Humans, an Elves, or Koena.  

The three races were nearly equal in height, but Elves were generally the tallest race when excluding Kobolds. The Koena were below them, and Humans below the Koena. The three races came in a variety of different physiological appearances. Of course, that was to be expected since there were estimated to be millions of people belonging to those three races alone.  

“I’m your worst goddamn nightmare. I suppose the two dead bastards in front would have given a candle or something to the members that report here, correct? I did see a small case next to them, but I didn’t see it as anything worthy of my attention,” Servi answered him.  

“Gentlemen, let’s make this quick. Notice her sword and lack of armor.” The Dwarf readied his axe and commanded his men to attack not with sentences but with a series of hand signals. The taller members of each squad raised their brass staves and chanted. Simultaneously, the leader Dwarf raised his shield and charged forward with two more shield-wielding tanks behind him.  

“Protection!” shouted the shortest of the twelve men. The small book he held glowed orange as it elongated into a staff that was no different from an ordinary walking cane. He gripped the handle, hitting the flat bottom into the ground. His tapping didn’t compare to the heavy stomps of the Dwarf and the two men who followed him.  

“Create Water!”  

“Chain Lightning!” 

The two staff wielders shouted and collapsed in unison from expending nearly all of their Skill Energy.  

“Water?” Servi questionably stared up at the waterfall created above her. “Aww, you shouldn’t have. I just took a shower before I came here.” She looked down and received a punch to the face from the Dwarf. Servi held her ground as the two guards gripped both arms, each into a lock, then used their weight to force her to the stone ground. Out of the corner of her eye, a single cloud, hidden by her Lux Spheres, descended. It didn’t compare to Niadiabola in terms of destructive potential, but the skill was called Chain Lightning. In theory, it had the potential to spread to an unlimited amount of people if they stood near each other.

The cloud glowed yellow, and lightning struck the closest enemy. Even as it enveloped him from head to toe, Servi figured there would be an eruption of pain, but nothing came. The lightning embraced him with the gentleness of the wind setting a flower down on a fawn. Then, like an infectious disease, it scattered from person to person.   

“Lightning proof? Insulation?” Servi innocently asked when she realized not a single person cried out. Her carefree way of speaking in the face of terror didn’t go unnoticed by the two holding her down. When the lightning struck the Dwarf, who held raised his axe, Servi absorbed the armor worn by the two pinning her to the ground and equipped it over her brown leather armor. “Insulated armor is probably a good thing." Servi’s words were drowned out by roars of pain coming from her left and right. With that, Servi had two more souls inside her ring. The lightning then flowed to Servi, but she didn't feel a thing. Her eyes did get a bit fried from staring into it, but that was already healed.

“Wha—” The Dwarf swung his axe down in response to an unexpected development while exclaiming his surprise, and his weapon disappeared in front of his very eyes. Servi leaned up, meeting his empty hand with her armored fist backed by her incredible strength. His bare hand exploded like a water balloon dropped from a towering height, and he flew back until he crashed into the ceiling. The rafters halted most of his momentum, but not in a way that benefited him. His body smashed perpendicular, wrapping around the rusted red rafter and crushing nearly every bone he had. With how hard he went flying, it was a small wonder the warehouse didn’t get uprooted.  

“No, it’s not insulated. I don’t feel anything… It has to be enchanted against electricity…” Servi got to her feet and picked up her weapon. The Dwarf’s blood dripped down, splattering loudly against the hard ground. She held her sword out. One by one, the remaining foes, including the two unconscious Skill Users, were lifted by an invisible force and carried towards her sword. Four seconds later, it was as if her weapon became a shish-kabob. She slammed her arm down, cutting up through their corpses. Gravity took over and messily slopped them to the ground.  

Without a second look, Servi walked over to the stairs, absorbing the corpses, and descended. Since her Lux Spheres were enhanced by her Skill Stacking, they gave off an impressive amount of light that pierced down through the stairwell. She saw the bottom, of course, and a lot of trash that probably came from the men she just killed. Chances were high that they were on standby, but Servi didn’t understand why Turner would go through with the effort.  

To her, it seemed that every base had its own personal quirks. During her time at Deset, she didn’t see anything resembling the elite defense force she just annihilated.  

“If the Mafia was one cohesive unit, then there has to be set rules and regulations involving the construction and appearance of the bases. And since there aren’t, I’m sure the Mafia isn’t such a close-knit group after all. It’s almost as if different factions within the Mafia strive for the same thing,” Servi spoke to herself to organize her growing disarray of thoughts.

Itarr found it peculiar how differently Servi acted when it came to combat and fulfilling her mission. She’s hot-headed one moment and cool as ice the next. The different Servis that made up Servi, as a whole, all had a plethora of experiences. At least, that was what Itarr wanted to believe. The one war-torn cage that made itself known after the ambush was the only one of its kind. Itarr knew that because nothing else had shown itself to her.  

The fact that the girl she loved lived such a hellacious life that forced her to be normalized with slaughtering hundreds and thousands of people without a single care was abhorrent to her.  

I’ve only been with her for a few months, yet I’m already tired of the killing. She isn’t. I don’t think she’ll ever be exhausted of it. She’s lived a life that I don’t think a thousand people would ever want to live a single second of.  

Servi found a passageway at the bottom of the stairs. The crusty bricks making up the walls to her left and right were nasty and sickening. The trash and gore she saw while descending continued for a few more meters, only stopping when she came to a door with two handles. Out of irritation, Servi hefted her immense blade and slashed at the hinges.

Kicking the door, Servi sent it back with enough force to shatter into tiny wooden fragments. Such a loud noise obviously alerted the people inside. She stepped through and prepared for the worse.

There were Mafia members. And a lot of them. And candles. Hundreds of candles flooded the walls like water droplets in a hurricane. There couldn’t have been more than five or six centimeters of free space between each one.  

The Mafia members all sat a variety of different lengths away in a room similar to a warehouse. She saw no dividers to separate the training area from the living area, the kitchen sat right next to a toilet that spewed an unholy and vile scent, and beds took up most of the free space.

“It looks more like a homeless shelter…” Servi waved her weapon and stared at the nearest person, a Koena. With a grin, she kicked off the ground towards her next victim. He only stared at the approaching murderer, who seemed to teleport, with big, golden eyes.  

After cleaving him in half, Servi lifted the upper half of his body to block a stream of arrows coming from her left. Most of them pierced the Koena’s scales, and he let off a final agonized breath. She lowered her hand, thereby lowering his corpse, and threw it away to her left. It nearly exploded when it smashed into the ground and slid to the wall, which knocked down more than a dozen of the numerous candles.  

Like a bullet, Servi kicked off the ground and flew towards the group of archers targeting her. The armor she had stolen minutes before protected her from an incoming wave of Thunderbolts and Lightning Orbs.  

She barreled into the back wall with one of the archers acting as a fleshy airbag and immediately ducked an arrow. Thanks to Soul Essence of Primal Combat, she could dodge even when her back was turned, and when she spun around with her sword out, a destructive beam of light followed.  

Sword Beam had the tendency to be an extremely powerful skill, and most researchers agreed it to be a must-have when one reached Rank 6 in Warden. An expert wielder of the technique could block, defend, attack, and pressure their opponent simultaneously by timing the use of Sword Beam. For example, by expending as little Skill Energy as possible, a tank could gain a monster’s aggro in the opening moments of a fight. On the other hand, if an enemy broke away from them and started to retreat from battle, even a half-charged Sword Beam to the leg could be all the difference between killing it and letting it escape.

Servi didn’t care for any of the nuances involved with Sword Beam. She only cared about the destructive potential. And with her nearly inexhaustible Skill Energy Reservoir, it was no trouble at all to fire off hundreds of thousands. She started slow, taking the time to aim as she sliced the air in front of her. In a way, it was like she repeated the events at Parrel’s mansion. The sword she acquired then had the intrinsic ability to create waves of fire very similar to the pure white beams she was in the midst of shooting off. Yet, in a way, Sword Beam had the potential to come out on top. The thick, destructive waves, white as the driven snow, pierced steel armor and concrete walls with as little effort a Kobold would use if they wanted to tear a dried leaf.  

And that was because Servi could stack it. She sliced and cut the same spot in front of her. A weird noise grew in strength from the amount of compressed energy that accumulated. With a final strike, she sent the fifteen waves off in a straight line spanning the width of the enormous room. Servi was at the northern end, and her targets were huddled at the southern end, trying to escape. They were fast and aggressive when their lives were in danger, but Servi’s beams were faster.  

The cowards who ran never stood a chance of escaping her attack. Servi stood in place, spinning and cutting the air like a madwoman. Beams fired off, cutting off hands and toes, ears and noses, and heads and arms. A loud cackle escaped Servi’s mouth as her movement become feral and animalistic. Her swipes became jagged, like that of rock used to sharpen a second rock, and her beams became varied in both thickness and length. However, she didn’t build up an amount to be launched later. She fired off each beam as she completed her attacks, sending hundreds of deadly lasers every few seconds and reducing the remaining Mafia members to red paste.  

Their screams drowned out the noise of steel weapons banging against the ground as Servi’s deadly beams destroyed barrels full of armaments. The green gruel being made in the kitchen section spilled over the concrete floor and joined with the ever-growing lake of crimson.  

No one tried to be a hero once they realized Servi was a monster. Those who wanted to escape had to step over a growing mountain of corpses in the dark. With so much blood hiding the bodies, every potential escapee tripped. When they did, a swift death only followed.

Since she had a lot on her docket, Servi decided to finish it up.  

“One base is about to be down, many more to go,” she murmured as a yellowish fog-like smoke filled her surroundings. Since she wasn’t outside, where there were different variables to account for, it only took a second or two for the underground-like warehouse to turn into a mass grave. Even those who played dead by hiding in the blood couldn’t escape from Kaasuvuoto’s poisonous touch. Crimson blood soon dripped from everyone’s orifices. 

Servi took a second to crouch down as the quick-acting gas accomplished its intended purpose. The deep, scarred walls from her erratic Sword Beams only showed more concrete behind. In any case, the information she gathered didn’t support any kind of hidden room or secret exit. Even if there were one or two tucked away under that unusual rug near the back corner of the room, which there was because Servi saw two red souls floating to her, Kaasuvuoto's gaseous particles were super tiny and super deadly. Only a sealed space that prevented any gas from escaping or entering could protect against it, but since living things had no choice but to survive by way of respiration, that option was thrown out of the picture. There might have been a few skills that offered some kind of resistance to gas-based attacks, but Servi wouldn’t claim to know them. And even then, it was entirely possible for there to be living creatures who didn’t need to breathe to survive.  

She just hadn't met them yet.

“After all, I’m one of them," Servi whispered to herself.

You’re one of what? Servi? 

Itarr debated on asking Servi to clarify what she meant, but decided to ignore it. Their relationship was strained to the limits, and any further questioning could transform into the metaphorical scissors to sever the thin string connecting them.  

Servi sighed and put a hand to her blade’s two pulsing lines. They felt cold and lifeless, with the only warmth coming from the few drops of blood that hadn’t dripped off. As she walked over towards the large pile of bodies located in front of the doorway she came through, Servi took one final look around Turner.  

She thought it was an odd name for a base. But more than that, it was the sheer difference in everything that confused her the most. The one thing that remained even similar was the concept of assigning certain people marked with a number to a leadership position.  

It didn’t make sense. 

Nothing in Arcton, New Arcton, Deset, or Turner made sense. For all Servi knew, she didn’t make sense. It was as if her understanding of the world disappeared the moment Momo vanished from her life.  

More than ever, when Servi thought about common sense, she believed she was a person who didn’t belong in this world. Her way of living, way of thinking, the things that made sense, and the things that didn’t make sense all made up Servi as a person.  

Everything together formed her core concept. But as she lived through the past week, no one thought like her, and no one acted like her. If civilization was founded on people coming together and using common sense to thrive, she didn’t belong.

After all, why would anyone be friends with a person like me? Maybe I don’t need them... I don't... I don’t need Momo... And forget about Claire and Dineria. Fuck Srassa.  Fuck Fisher and his family. Fuck them all... NO!!! You’re doing this for Momo... It’s all for Momo... It’s… It’s… IT’S… AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! 

“FUCK!!!!!!!!!!” Servi cracked as part of her psyche shattered for the umpteenth time. She stomped down on a pile of corpses stacked five or six high, sending an unimaginable amount of gore flying up. It coated her from head to toe, but her stomping continued. Each stomp sent out sharp cracks of pressure. They were strong enough to shatter the concrete, along with every bone in her left foot and leg. But even when she had no more concrete or bodies to break with her destructive stomps, she resorted to throwing bodies like a child having a tantrum. They sloppily slapped against the walls making up the single room, spreading cracks and breaking apart.  

A few of the thrown corpses hit the support beams keeping the roof from caving in. And the warehouse on top, along with the area of ground between the roof of the base and the base of the warehouse, fell down on top of Servi. Inadvertently, her powerful stomps had reached even the warehouse itself, which was bolted to the concrete by way of thick screws a Kobold would have trouble bending.  

It sounded like hell. Metal scraped against metal, rusty rafters cried as they forced against the hard ground. An immense amount of dust and smoke billowed up, and an enormous amount of debris crushed Servi alive.  

The pressure pressed against her body flattened her instantly in the first few moments. Servi's brains splattered out the back of her head, and the rest of her cranial innards were expunged through her ears. True Immortality kept her alive by constantly making sure her body was free of anything providing a minuscule amount of discomfort. In other words, it was always active, but Itarr could choose to decrease its efficiency if she wanted to.

“HAHAHAHAHA------HAHAHAHAH------HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!” When Servi’s head regenerated, she unleashed a torrential amount of laughter in the split-second she had before the debris stacked on top crushed her.  

Itarr cried, screaming out as she hurried to absorb everything pinning Servi down. Little by little, her shrieking laughter lasted longer and longer each time it abruptly ended. When her shrieks had started for the last time, Servi waited for the moon’s light to enter her eyes and illuminate the world while the warehouse’s heavy steel ceiling kept her eyes covered.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH—Ah, there it is…” Like a switch, Servi’s laughter ended, and she spoke in a tone that was quite solemn. The sight of her darkness being defeated by something so beautiful calmed her growing insanity. She looked around.  

Nothing. Servi saw nearly nothing. The warehouse? Nope. The rafters? Gone. The numerous pieces of concrete that fell atop of her? Disappeared. She wasn’t exactly at ground level since everything above her collapsed down. Even though the stairs she walked down were gone as well, she was more than confident she could hop the seven or eight meter walls that did their best to keep her in. 

Servi?! Servi, are you okay?! I absorbed everything!!! Please say— 

“I’m fine,” Servi spoke towards her ID flying nearby. She pressed her hands down against the dirty ground, squeezing in an attempt to feel the dirt between her fingers.  

But it wasn’t dirt her hand squished against, and that wasn’t wet mud thoroughly coated her fingers. It was her brains. 

Plural.  

Servi died and regenerated nearly a hundred times. Itarr did her best in the stressful situation, but even a Goddess could make mistakes in the heat of passion. Each time she lost her concentration after nearly absorbing a large piece of concrete, thereby having to start over, Itarr verbally and mentally abused herself for being so pathetic.  

I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!! Itarr wrote on the floating ID. Her heart, once full of the unbreakable trust between her precious Servi, now contained nothing. There wasn’t anything left even resembling what she once felt. She used to be happy and proud, full of love and joy. Excitement used to flood her heart at the wonders of learning new things about her favorite people. She was especially fond of Claire. That red-haired Elf quickly grew to become one of Servi’s and Momo’s closest friends. Itarr’s too, but her heart no longer had the right to think it had the privilege of receiving love.  

After all, she believed that everything that happened over the past week originated from her stupid desire to help Servi by manipulating her emotions. She felt she was responsible for every corpse Servi produced. It wasn’t Servi killing. Itarr wanted to believe everything was her fault because she altered Servi's emotions from way back when. And the worst part was that Itarr didn’t have the knowledge or experience of knowing what kind of chaos such manipulation she unintentionally wrought with her experimenting could bring.  

That one sentence Itarr wanted Servi to read held nothing but uncertainty at the growing future and her inability to deal with the tens of thousands of corpses that could only exponentially grow. It was words on a stone tablet, but written letters could only do so much. Itarr didn’t have the know-how to imbue her words with her true feelings. More than ever, she wanted to shout at Servi, telling her the truth in an attempt to prevent the guilt from swallowing her alive. If she had the courage to do that so many moons ago, just how many people would still be alive? 

The Goddess broke down, filling the empty space that was her home with non-existent tears and wails full of regret and guilt. Like a puppet with no strings, Servi’s red ID fell to the ground in a large puddle created by innards.  

But I still love you! I will always love you!! As her red, humanoid form wept, Itarr sobbed the love she held for Servi.  

“How funny… The ID is the same color as blood. Well, time to get to it.” Servi spoke while watching the dust fade away into her body. She didn't even bother to read what was written on it.

She slapped the bloody ground so hard she lifted herself and landed on her feet, unaware of how much Itarr was suffering.