Zane was on his knees, a drowning man in an ocean of his own agony.
And then, the angel of fucking murder showed up.
The woman with the ice-blue eyes stood over him, her silver shortsword humming faintly after parrying Slag's mace.
Slag, the mountain of a man, stared at her.
"A 'Blade'..." he growled, his earlier confidence gone, replaced by a sudden, sharp caution. "Fuck... Why is a fucking Blade in the Sump?"
Zane didn't care. He was dying. The withdrawal was tearing him apart.
He needed a death.
He looked at Slag, then at Bolt, the crossbow fucker, then at the woman.
<...kill him... Zane begged silently in his skull. ...please... "just" "fucking" "kill" "one" of "them"... I'm... I'm "starving"...>
"Fuck the Blade!" Bolt shouted, his terror making him stupidly brave.
He didn't know what a Blade was.
He just saw a woman. "Kill her and the rat!"
Bolt raised his crossbow, aiming centre-mass at the woman.
TWANG!
The bolt flew, a black streak in the grey rain.
Zane flinched.
The woman didn't.
She didn't dodge. She didn't block.
She moved her sword in a blur so fast it looked like an illusion.
CLANG!
She parried the crossbow bolt. Knocked it clean out of the air.
Bolt stared.
Slag stared.
Zane stared, his agony momentarily forgotten.
"My... my turn," the woman drawled.
Slag roared and charged, swinging his mace in a heavy, bone-breaking arc.
The woman flowed. Not like a person. She moved like water.
She ducked under the swing, the wind of the mace ruffling her hood. She moved inside his guard, too close for him to swing again.
Her silver blade flashed.
It didn't aim for his heart. It didn't aim for his throat.
It stabbed down.
A single, precise, vicious thrust that sank three inches into the back of Slag's right knee.
"GAAAAAAH!"
Slag screamed, a high, thin sound that wasn't human. His leg buckled. He dropped his mace, clutching his leg, and crashed to the cobblestones.
Zane's Whispers skill lit up like a fucking inferno.
<...MY 'LEG'! FUCK! FUCK! SHE CUT MY FUCKING LEG OFF! IT'S A SPARK! A FUCKING SPARK! WE'RE DEAD!...>
'Spark?' Zane thought, his head spinning. 'What's a 'Spark'?'
Bolt heard the scream. He saw his partner on the ground. He saw the woman turn her ice-blue eyes toward him.
He was the smart one.
He dropped his crossbow.
"Fuck this!" he shouted.
He turned and ran, disappearing back into the smog he'd come from.
The woman let him go.
She stood for a moment, her head tilted, as if listening to music.
She was listening to Slag scream.
Slag was on the ground, writhing, clutching his ruined leg. Blood was pooling around him.
He wasn't a hunter anymore.
He was dying.
And his despair was a fucking banquet. Pure, violent, agonized terror.
Zane gasped. The withdrawal was at its peak. The smell of the Essence was so strong he could taste it.
He needed it.
He put his hands on the cobblestones and started to crawl.
He was a vulture, crawling toward the kill.
"Don't."
The woman's voice cut through his hunger.
Zane froze. He was halfway between his original spot and the screaming Nail.
He looked up.
The woman was staring at him. Her ice-blue eyes were cold, curious, and utterly devoid of pity.
"He's not yours," she said quietly.
She walked calmly over to Slag.
"Please..." Slag begged, his voice wet with blood and tears. "Please... I'll... I'll "give" "you"..."
"Shhh," she whispered, almost gently.
She knelt, raised her silver sword, and plunged it cleanly into his heart.
Slag's body arched. A final, wet gasp.
And then… silence.
Next second, the world exploded.
A tidal wave of Soul Essence erupted from Slag's body.
It was hotter than the alley feast, more brutal than Gart's, more potent than the old woman's.
It was a fucking nuclear bomb of pure, concentrated despair, rage, and terror.
Zane didn't even have to breathe.
The hunger slammed out of him and devoured it.
The Essence hit him like a physical blow.
"GAAAAH!"
Zane screamed as the power hit him. The withdrawal wasn't just gone; it was obliterated.
A roaring, white-hot power surged through his veins. His aching ribs mended. His fatigue vanished. His vision snapped into hyper-focus.
The filthy, rain-soaked street was suddenly a kaleidoscope of perfect detail. He could see the individual scratches on the cobblestones ten feet away.
Oily, corporeal shadows boiled off his skin.
He pushed himself to his feet, his body thrumming with so much power he thought he was going to explode.
He was high. Impossibly high.
The woman stood ten feet away, calmly wiping her silver blade on Slag's leather vest.
She watched him. Her icey-blue eyes missed nothing.
She'd seen it. She'd seen the grey-blue mist erupt from Slag.
And she'd seen it fly across the street and disappear into him.
Zane's mind raced. His new, super-charged brain was finally piecing it together.
<...she's a Spark!> Slag's dying thought echoed.
She didn't kill him for money. She didn't kill him to save me.
She crippled him and she played with him.
Zane focused his Whispers skill on her.
He was expecting the same cold silence.
It wasn't silent.
The System sent a notification.
Then he heard her thoughts. But they weren't despair.
<...good fight... sharp... strong panic... tasted like copper... good...>
Zane's blood ran cold.
She was like him.
But where he was a vulture, a parasite that fed on the end...
She was a predator. She fed on the fear. On the adrenaline. On the fight itself.
They were two sides of the same fucking coin.
The woman finished cleaning her blade. She sheathed it in a scabbard on her back.
She looked at the shadows wisping off Zane's shoulders.
She looked at his wide, power-filled eyes.
"You..." she said, her voice dangerously quiet, cutting through the sound of the rain.
"You're not a Blade. You're not a Spark."
Her ice-blue eyes narrowed. She had a name for him. The one he'd heard before.
"You're the Sump-Demon," she stated. It wasn't a question.
She slowly rested her bandaged hand on the hilt of her sword.
"So, demon..." she hissed.
"What the fuck are you?"