"Flesh is but clay," Sett mocked, his voice echoing from multiple throats.
Sett's body then started to convulsionate.
As if to demonstrate, a large portion of his own torso tore away with a wet, ripping sound. The mass of flesh hit the ground and immediately began to reshape itself, stretching and contorting into a faceless, humanoid puppet that shambled forward on unsteady legs.
Krieg's mind, though fogged by spiritual exhaustion, was a whetstone. Distraction. The shadow is the real threat. He waved the Seafarer's Compass, and a layer of water enveloped him like a second skin. The puppet started advancing forward. He didn't try to dodge. Instead, he focused through the Judge's Balancer, his will a sharpened spike.
"Psychic Lashing."
The invisible force didn't need a mind to break; it shattered the mystical bonds holding the flesh together. The puppet convulsed violently and exploded into a cloud of gore and bone shards. The bloody mist pattered against Krieg's water armor, washing away in rivulets. One problem gone.
The moment of focus cost him. The shadow creature, a blur of living darkness, was already upon him. He jerked his head back, and a clawed limb of solid shadow passed inches from his face. The evasion left him off-balance, exposed.
Sett didn't miss the opening. His body lost all form, dissolving into a torrent of red and black mush that surged across the floor straight for Krieg's feet. This is it. The Captain's grip tightened on the Balancer. The only way to stop that was a full prohibition. The spiritual backlash would shatter him, but it was the only—
"Light."
The word, in flawless Hermes, was not his. A golden streak, a captured dawn, shot into the center of the room and detonated.
The world turned white.
'What the? A sun charm'? Krieg was puzzled
Krieg recoiled, his eyes stinging, but the water layer diffused the worst of the blast. He was momentarily blind, disoriented from the change of a dark room to the light of the day.
But from the heart of the light came a sound that was pure agony—Sett's scream. The Rose Bishop lost orientation, the advancing puddle of flesh solidified mid-flow, writhing on the ground as sett felt a slight burning sensation on his skin.
The shadow creature that was about to swing its deformed limb to perform another blow against Krieg, being a form of condensed darkness, simply vaporized, its malevolent presence snuffed out in an instant.
Through the blinding afterimages, Krieg saw the source. It was who he knew as the helpful translator, "Henrik Moss." The man was already moving, a phantom in the dying light, fleeing the scene without a backward glance.
"You!" Krieg growled
Lutz himself was surprised at the effect of the charm. "Geez, this thing is like a flash-bang".
Lutz didn't break stride. The moment the Light charm left his fingers, he was a ghost in motion. His hand dipped to his belt, found the two small cloth bags by touch alone, and undid the knot on the one containing Milled Briarflame. He didn't look back as he hurled it toward the writhing, half-formed mass that was Sett. A little spice for the stew.
'Hope you like spicy, crazy fuck'
The bag spun through the air, its contents spilling out in a cloud of fine, dark red powder that settled over the Rose Bishop's corrupted flesh. It wouldn't kill him, but the incendiary mixture reacting with his unstable biology would feel like being peppered with a thousand hot needles. A distraction, an irritant. A way to keep the monster busy.
Krieg's vision cleared just in time to see "Henrik Moss" perform the same throwing motion again, this time aimed directly at him. He cleans up his loose ends. There was no time for analysis, only reaction. His Compass slashed through the air, a whip of water severing the second bag before it could reach him.
It was a pristine, professional deflection. And a catastrophic error.
The severed bag vomited its contents—a mix of inert grey powder and tiny, spherical purple specks. The grey powder dissolved harmlessly against his layered watery protection wich was still active. But the purple specks—Follyglue—reacted with the moisture instantly. They swelled from grains of sand to plump, sticky marbles in the space of a heartbeat, greedily drinking his protective water layer until it collapsed. The marbles adhered to his coat and skin, secreting a thick, purple adhesive that seized his joints. He tried to raise the Compass again and found his arm moving as if through tar. 'You clever bastard.'
A shriek of fresh, raw agony tore from Sett. The Briarflame powder was doing its work, sizzling and popping on his flesh, causing tiny, painful combustions that disrupted his concentration. He swatted at his own body, his form flickering between solid and liquid. His one good eye, streaming tears of pain and rage.
Lutz didn't watch. The moment the Follyglue bag left his fingers, his hand was already moving to the shotgun holstered at the small of his low back. In one smooth motion, he drew, leveled it, and his finger found the trigger. One less problem. He focused on Krieg's center mass.
A spike of pure mental force, courtesy of the Judge's Balancer, slammed directly into his mind. Psychic Piercing.
It wasn't a lashing meant to break bonds; it was a dagger to the consciousness. Lutz's vision whited out. His finger, already applying pressure, convulsed.
The shotgun roared, the sound deafening in the confined space. The blast, meant for Krieg's chest, went wide. A spray of pellets ripped through the air, most embedding themselves in the wall behind the Captain. Two, however, found their mark, tearing through the fabric of his coat and biting into the flesh of his upper arm.
Krieg grunted, a sharp, pained exhalation. The impact jarred him, but the Follyglue held him fast, preventing him from staggering back. Close. Too close.
Lutz shook his head, blinking away the psychic static. 'Fuck'. He saw the two bloody patches on Krieg's arm. Not a kill. A nuisance.
The Captain's face was a mask of strained focus. The Follyglue was setting, making every movement a battle. But his hand, still glued around the Seafarer's Compass, managed a stiff, jerking wave.
Three orbs of churning, dark water materialized in the air and shot toward Lutz in quick succession.
Lutz, now with Creed in his other hand, was already moving. He sidestepped the first projectile, which splattered against a crate, making a hole in it. He ducked under the second, feeling the damp wind of its passage. The third was coming straight for his chest.
He didn't dodge. He stood his ground, the sawed-off shotgun coming up. He judged the trajectory in a split second. 'Let's see how your water likes this.'
He fired the second shell.
The blast met the water projectile head-on. There was a concussive thump as the spray of pellets shredded the orb into a harmless mist. But the momentum of the shot carried through. A handful of stray pellets, riding the wave of dissipated force, peppered the area behind it.
Krieg tried to twist away, but the glue held him fast. A couple pellets struck his thigh, punching deep. He cried out this time, a strangled sound of fury and pain. Blood began to darken his trousers.
Lutz didn't wait to assess the damage. The shotgun was now empty. Without time to reload, he quickly stored it in its holster again.
"YOU!"
Sett was pushing himself upright, his body a canvas of blistered, weeping flesh. The Briarflame powder still smoldered in patches, but his rage was a force that overpowered the pain. His one good eye, wide and insane, was locked on Lutz. "You will die tonight, damned thief!"
His right arm began to morph, the flesh and bone bubbling and distorting. Lutz's mind flashed back to the street, to the corrosive blood that had melted the cobblestones. Not this time. His hands were a blur, snatching two throwing knives from his bandolier.
Across the room, Krieg, sensing the greater threat, made a choice. With a grunt of effort, he waved his Compass, summoning a shimmering wall of water between himself and the Rose Bishop. A temporary, fragile shield.
Sett's arm completed its grotesque transformation, swelling into a pulsing, fleshy orb. He swung it forward, ready to detonate the toxic flesh bomb directly at Lutz.
But Lutz was already moving. His arm snapped forward. The first throwing knife flew, not at Sett, but at the fleshy orb itself. It was a perfect shot, the blade sinking deep into the unstable mass. The impact altered its trajectory, carrying it sideways where it thudded into the far wall, stuck fast.
It exploded.
A spray of black, corrosive blood erupted, eating into the wood and stone. The toxic mist billowed, but the water shield Krieg had erected sizzled and absorbed the worst of it, as for lutz, he was too far away to be affected.
In the same fluid motion, Lutz pivoted, the second knife already in his hand. His target was still Krieg, the man who was still a living witness. He threw it, a silver streak aimed for the Captain's exposed throat.
Krieg's eyes widened. The Judge's Balancer was still in his hand. He couldn't move his body, but he could move the artifact. He brought it up, not as a shield, but as a focus.
He didn't have the strength for a prohibition. But for a simple, brutal judgment, he just barely had enough.
"Flog."
The word was a whisper, but its effect was immediate. As the knife left Lutz's fingers, a searing, invisible lash tore across his left calf. He gasped, stumbling. It felt like a red-hot wire had been laid against his muscle and pulled taut. Blood instantly soaked through his trousers. The cut was deep, vicious, almost to the bone.
The thrown knife, its thrower compromised, went wide. Krieg managed to twist his glued upper body, deflecting the blade with his own forearm instead of taking it in the throat. The knife carved a deep gash along his wrist before clattering to the floor. The Judge's Balancer, its final function spent, fell from his numb fingers, hitting the concrete with a dull, metallic clang. He was utterly spent, weaponless, and trapped.
Lutz clutched his leg, pain radiating up his spine. He looked from the bleeding, immobilized Krieg to the enraged Sett, who was already preparing another attack.
Lutz's mind, sharp through the pain, calculated the variables. The fire will reach the treasury any moment now. Krieg isn't a problem anymore. I need to lure the cultist somewhere and finish him off quick.
With a grimace, he put weight on his injured left leg. A fresh spike of agony shot up his calf, but he pushed through, turning and staggering out of the storage room, heading towards the stairs to the second floor.
Sett saw the retreat and took the bait instantly. With a guttural roar, his body dissolved into a amorphous blob of flesh and blood, surging across the floor after Lutz.
From his adhesive prison, Krieg saw the opportunity. Gritting his teeth against the numbness spreading from the Follyglue marbles, he tried to summon water projectiles. He aimed for Lutz's back, he didn't care about dying anymore, he deemed himself death, so the only thing to do was stop this thief, bring him down with himself. But his arm, growing heavy and unresponsive, jerked involuntarily. The projectiles shot out, wobbling and off-target.
They missed Lutz completely and slammed into the mid-air blob that was Sett.
The churning water tore gaping, temporary holes through the Rose Bishop's semi-liquid form. A howl of pure frustration echoed in the room, mingling with the fire's roar.
"You fuck! Just die already!" Sett hissed, his form struggling to coalesce, his pursuit of Lutz momentarily interrupted.
'What the hell?' Krieg thought. 'My limbs are becoming numb... is it this purple substance? Not only is it sticky, impeding movement, its also venomous and numbing? Who the hell thinks of stuff like this... this guy is only supposed to be a sequence 9, but he has prepared so many tools and has used our fight to his advantage...'
Lutz didn't look back. He vanished into the smoke-filled hallway, the monster momentarily delayed but still coming.