Kalon

Chapter One-Hundred-Twelve: Basha Ulnok Ula

Galactic Quadrant: Darna Quadrant

Ruling Government: Talum Merchant Federation

Solar System: D-447

Planet: Ora

Location: Research Facility

My hand grasps the Cursed Edict turned blade.

The room around me shakes violently from the waves of pressure coming from the black blade, its edge glows a vibrant red. My flesh tears under the pressure of it, until the light from my chest which once belonged to Leora flows to my arm. The light fights back the darkness as I try to wield this blade of wrath. In my grasp, I feel pain incarnate, and unbridled wrath turned power.

The electronics in the room are off, the energy weapon lights are also off. The pain from Mallock and Krotha's torture is nothing compared to what I feel in my hand.

"Oh slag," one of the mercenaries says.

Mallock shoves them forward, running to the door with the others.

Grabbing the blade firmly, I swing it. Red energy erupts from it slashing through everything around me, cutting through the metal armor of the mercenaries and cleaving them in two. My body is so weak, yet the blade beckons me to make good on my promise to give an offering of souls.

"Those who sought death... I have brought it."

My voice echoes with power, shaking the fabric of the air. Even as I am, withered and malnourished, starved… I am not broken… not by the false gods… and not by them.

They pry with their fingers at the door, fingernails tearing back, but they manage. Mallock throws another in my path, clawing his way from the room with rancid fear upon his once cold brow.

The person he threw clatters across the ground, begging and pleading.

"Please! Please…"

A single stroke of the blade rends them into oblivion. The blade sucks their blood dry until they are but a husk.

There will be no mercy this day. None.

Mercenaries and soldiers alike point their weapons, but they don't fire. The foolish bring their bodies to the blade and try to attack my flesh. A single fluid motion carves head from shoulder on both. Cleaving both hand and weapon as well. The ones in the halls try to flee into the rooms, it does not save them.

One of the rooms which they have fled has words drawn in blood on the glass, the occupant missing. Basha Ulnok Ula… give me death, end my suffering. I will give justice for them. Their cry is not forgotten.

The blade drinks. Again and again. So many times that I lose count.

With every step I feel it growing in strength, I feel Krotha crawling in the recesses of my mind. Looking for a way in. She will find it soon enough… but not before I have freed them all… not before I feed the blade.

Mallock has long scampered down the hall. It does not matter, I can feel them all, through the thick walls that are nothing in the blade's path. He moves toward a hangar. I feel the ripples of an Etheric engine. I turn the blade, instinct driving me. Pulling forth energy from the fallen, concentrating it upon the edge of the blade. I swing, unleashing it toward where he is a hundred paces away, beyond seven thick walls.

The building quakes again as the energy flashes through it, shattering stone and carving metal as it ricochets. The energy cuts the ankles from Mallock's legs, sending him to the ground in a heap. Krotha tries to claw now, but the golden eyes flash. Words draw upon my lips.

"I am the blade that carves. I am vengeance for the cries that are no longer heard. I am that which will be your death."

Mouths whimper before being silenced.

Krotha claws again, scraping her way in finally, her words peel into my mind.

Yes… embrace the power… bring forth the true form of the blade

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A flash in my mind, the golden eyes in the darkness. Krotha's presence is pushed away from my thoughts by it.

Mallock has nearly crawled to his shuttle now. Behind me, lies the path that I have laid nearly a hundred dead. Sunken faces, bodies drained of soul and life. I can hear their screams inside the abyss of the blade. A sweet melody. Yet it still hungers for more. Like when Mallock stabbed the man turned dog… I feel even an ocean of blood would never be enough to satiate it.

I am near where they keep the prisoners, my body is failing rapidly, it is too frail to wield the power, and the light from Leora is nearly gone. My time is short. Pulling the blade of dancing crimson light in front of me, I draw from the black ichor, energy. Forming a massive edge, swinging it toward the cells that hold my people. It thunders through the walls. Carving holes in every room. The magnetic cuffs release their bonds. They are free… free to join the blade. My head shakes. No, not them.

"You will obey me, blade," I warn, tightening my grip upon it.

There are only a few left from Mallock's staff, I have carved each room one by one to feed the blade. My people may be weary and malnourished, but they are more than enough to deal with them. Before my body breaks. I will carve Mallock.

I feel vibrations from the building rumbling around us. Floors are shifting and collapsing from the blade's work. Looking down below me I see a trail of fresh blood. Leading to him, Mallock. Nearly to the shuttle, crawling with his arms and knees, he looks back toward me. He rolls onto his back with his hands in front of him.

"Good doggie, be good for master." He says.

My right hand swipes the blade across his arms and legs leaving stumps in its wake, ripping the floor from under us, sending us down to the next floor. Pulling myself from the rubble I move to use my hand, but see that the red light is disappearing. The golden eyes flash in my mind. The feeling of defiance from it rolling from my chest toward the blade now, strangling its power, pressing it back inside. There is a choice I can feel between the ebbs of power… join the blade and lose myself in its madness, or relinquish it, never to call upon it again.

Krotha's voice pierces my mind again.

Do not release the blade, forge your path with blood, you are…

The golden eyes pulse. Her words cut short. The blade falls from my grasp, shifting back into the black box, the glow abating. My arm burns up to my shoulder with spindling lines, creating strange shapes that look to have meaning. I clench my jaw, but the pulse of the golden eyes from my chest washes over it, stopping it from moving further.

"Please doggie, get master help," Mallock says, his mind seems frayed as though he is in shock.

He crawls using his stumps through the rubble towards the ledge. Before me, I see a large expansive city made of stone and metal, it looks familiar, yet not. Where are we? This is not Tarvashal. It looks like a Kuwathi city, yet abandoned. My vision is growing blurry, but the rage bids me to continue. He will suffer for what he has done.

"Come here doggie," I say to him, I stagger forward, falling to my knees, my body is failing. I grasp the stump of his leg, pulling myself to him.

"Bad dog, bad," he says, the madness rolling in his eyes.

From the ground, I see an energy weapon, cut in half, its core almost critical from the blade's damage. I grab it, hoisting myself up and over him. Placing it in his foul venomous mouth.

"Woof for me," I say.

His eyes grow wide, terror and madness swimming in them.

I punch the rapidly deteriorating energy core over and over into his mouth breaking the teeth until it wedges into his throat. He makes gurgling sounds, as though trying to woof.

"Good doggie," I say, pushing him off the edge to the floor below.

I hear and see his body thud, my eyes watch, for I must see him die. My breath is ragged, he barely stirs, choking on blood, until… his body explodes outwards, bones shattering and smashing against the walls. The building begins to shake again from the aftershock of the explosion. Sending me downwards into the falling rubble.

He didn't break me. My will is still my own. There is some honor in this death at least. Perhaps the others can escape. There is hope for them. They are Kuwathi, they only need a glimmer of hope to rise from the ashes. My eyes close as I fall further downwards, stones trying to break my body as the building collapses further. Darkness starting to embrace me, whispering for me to follow. As the darkness pulls me into the depths, there is a small light above me between the rubble, I see a hand reaching for me, the skin upon it is blue, the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat covers their eyes.

***

Crumbles of stone fall as my eyelashes brush them away. My body feels less broken. Less damaged. Like I have been healed somehow. My body is still withered though.

"You're lucky you're past the fourth, or even I couldn't have helped you," a familiar voice says. One I have not heard in some time. Tavjac Mordow.

"The others?" I ask weakly.

He turns to look at me, he's sitting upon a piece of rubble, his eye on level with the edge of his hat, "The ones who have not changed may yet live."

"Good," I say, laying my head back against the broken stone.

"But only if you rise to help them."

My eyes open again.

"Have you figured out what the right question is yet?" he asks, placing a cup of the strange tea to my lips, he nods for me to drink.

"How do I get stronger?"

He mulls the words for a moment.

"Almost, perhaps next time we meet you will know it."

The liquid burns with warmth inside me, the clawing of Krotha subsiding again.

"Goodbye for now, Child of the Dawn," he says, leaning down and picking up the Cursed Edict.

He is not the first to call me this. Leora called me that too. I close my eyes for a moment. The air whips. My eyes stir again, he is gone. I need to rise. I need to stand. There is work to be done. Groaning, I struggle to my feet, barely able to stand without the support of the rubble around me. So weak, so frail. Yet alive. That is all I need. Pressing forward, I try to crawl up, but it is so hard.

"Kalon." a voice says quietly from behind me.

It is Ralia, the serious twin. Her face is gaunt. She stumbles down the rubble toward me. She falls into me, grasping me weakly, I feel her weeping into my shoulder, pulling the little cloth that remains.

"Have you seen Salia?"

I shake my head.

Her eyes buckle at the thoughts. I pull back her loose hair, taking her eyes into mine.

"We do not mourn those who may live. If she draws breath, we will find her. We will find them all… Haki… Daki… even Fennec. Then we will leave this place together."

Her eyes waver back and forth before she nods. Strength flowing into her face, tempered by resolve.

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