430: For All of Your Problems
“Ugh!” Beatrice’s stomach churned and its contents quickly shot up to the back of her mouth as her body tried to expel the ungodly thing that assaulted all her senses.
Beatrice instinctively covered her mouth and nose with both her hands to block the repugnant stench from coming in and keep her insides from coming out, but the ghastly sight alone was enough to induce nausea. And as the stench of burnt flesh rapidly poisoned the air, something dark and foul slowly oozed out of what was once a human being, seeping into every crack of the surrounding uneven pavement.
The bubbling of the foul soup and crackling of burning hair as the tiny flames slowly spread to the man’s clothes distracted Beatrice enough to not notice for several seconds that when she covered her mouth and nose with her hands, she also brought up her sharp claws, including the one she used to end the suffering of a man, bringing the sticky, dripping, reeking, unholy mixture of blood, melting flesh, and glistening brain matter right up to her own face.
“UAH!!” Beatrice all but threw away her own hand. Failing that, she held her infected hand as far away from her head as possible. Looking away from it all, Beatrice frantically tried to shake off every single drop she could while wiping her face with her other hand.
Though Beatrice had heard and witnessed enough stomach-churning things to build a considerable tolerance toward the macabre, this time Ember went out of her way to create one of the worst things to behold. It took all of Beatrice’s willpower not to storm out of this forever tarnished alley, though she did take several steps back from the rapidly advancing stench for what little relief it gave.
A scene of fire and death in the tunnels flashed in Beatrice’s mind. Beatrice wondered how was it different that time? Was she somehow less sensitive to things due to sensory overload after the recent rebirth and all that happened? Did Ember simply burn her opponents to a crisp? At that time, it was a fight for their lives, even though it quickly became clear to Beatrice just how little threat the noble’s mercenaries posed to Ember.
This was different. Not only did Ember lie to the man about letting him live, but she sentenced him to the worst kind of a death, effectively burning and boiling him from the inside at the same time. A tortuous death just for the sake of it. One look at Ember showed Beatrice how unfazed her bodyguard was by this. If anything, it almost seemed like Ember was a little disappointed that Beatrice reacted this way to such a trivial thing.
“I thought you’d be used to such things by now,” Ember said, confirming Beatrice’s suspicion.
“That was excessively cruel!” Beatrice voiced her disapproval.
“‘Appropriately cruel’,” Ember corrected Beatrice. “What do you think the Purple Capes will do to us if we just walk over and surrender ourselves? How many did we kill? How many of them lost someone dear to them at my hands, or yours, or Olivia’s?
“What about the Guild? I can vividly imagine all the fun-fun times they have in store for you for what you did to not only their many members but also to their entire Forge of Champions operation! And let’s not forget about the royalty and all the nobles! They’ll have a few things to say about the treatment of a literal princess!
“After everyone’s done with you, there’ll still be a fight for your body parts! And it goes without saying that everyone you’ve ever so much as spoken to will be taken along for the ride.”
As Ember spoke she ingited a small flame in her left hand and slowly grew it larger and brighter.
“As for that imbecile,” Ember continued and threw a disdainful glance at the melting corpse. “Do you think his hands were clean just because he was a lookout? Just now he participated in arresting everyone who was in the Inn. Indiscrimanetly. All of them taken away to a place designed for indignity and suffering. And for what? That somebody might know me or you?
“And even though they don’t know it, they took somebody important to you, somebody important to me. Somebody important to a person we never met or will meet. And what sort of treatment do you think those people are subjected to in the depths of those Pits? I tell you right now that anything the Purple Capes—or anyone else for that matter—dare do to Y’Shtara or her sister I will return to them a hundredfold in the worst ways possible! This was nothing!”
Ember took a moment to size up Beatrice, sighed, and added, “What happened to your little ‘enemies beware’ speech? Was this the limit?”
As she asked that Ember got down at the melting corpse, thrust her non-flaming hand deep into the man’s exposed head, and pulled her hand out drenched in the stuff. She then got up and held up her gore-covered hand beside her face with a dead-serious stare aimed right Beatrice before lighting it on fire.
“I took you to the Forge of Champions for a reason,” Ember said, looking at Beatrice without blinking while the flesh in her hand burned away. “If you’re still hung up on some silly moralities, maybe you’re better off going into hiding together with Olivia and her little sister and have threesomes together or something. I have people to kill.”
And with that Ember put her right fiery hand against the wall of the building that pressed against the side of the Wholesome Inn.