Chapter 655: Given a mouth, so I will scream
[FINALLY!]
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What once was a group of dangerous warriors and criminals that was so hellbent on escaping that they would murder literally anyone that got in their way, had somehow devolved into a chaotic mess of people trying to get rid of a strange skeleton monster that had appeared out of nowhere.
Well, there were at least two people who knew what this strange skeleton was, but they had no obligation to explain what it was to these people. Granted, they were also confused as well.
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Moments ago, the Fallen Clan warriors and the inmates were just about to overpower the Gate and Puppet with the help of the Fallen Aether Lord, Gao Yu Feng. The two elders had been brought to their knees not due to superior skill, but due to the power of sheer numbers and attrition, they were outnumbered ten to one after all.
Gao Yu Feng was just about to bring the figurative and literal thunder upon the two Aether Grandmasters with the help of his [Astra] and render the two of them into meat paste, when something unexpected occurred.
A strange aura that felt like a graveyard or an abandoned battlefield suddenly appeared, accompanied by a scream akin to the wailing dead that echoed throughout the prison chamber, washed over the group before they could deal the final blow.
A majority of these warriors paused once they felt this aura washed over them, unusually in the order of experience, but only for a second. After all, they were warriors that had sharpened their senses and bloodlust on the battlefield, they couldn’t be stopped by a mere aura.
That second though was just enough time for a strange, screaming skeletal woman to come bounding out of the darkness like a demon escaping the darkest pits of the underworld and violently assault the Fallen Warriors. Or to be more precise, the skeletal woman had sucker punched one of the Fallen into unconsciousness before latching onto another like a murderous koala, trying to position herself in a way that forced her target to stare at her in the face.
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[You…are…too…loud…be quiet…]
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As the blows continued to rain down in an ineffective manner, she decided it was finally time to stop this annoyance and began to take a deep breath. While she inhaled though, the aether around her began to take on a more sinister feel.
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This sudden change in the aether surrounding him was so sudden, that the man being ensnared completely stopped his fruitless punches. It was hard to move after all when one felt as if the very breath of the grim reaper was whispering at one’s ear…or in this case, breathing in his face.
He wasn’t the only one to notice and be affected by this sudden change in the surrounding aether, as the rest of the warriors present suddenly paused alongside him, albeit, it didn’t stop them from talking.
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[Silence, I said…]
The first to react this change was none other than the Aether Lord, Gao Yu Feng, but all he could manage to do was squeak out a single sentence.
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While everyone heard this command, only about half of the warriors present managed to heed it fast enough to cover their ears, including the Zhen Clan elders. By the time the rest managed to react, it was too late.
[I thought I told all of you…]
The surrounding aether eventually reached some sort of peak known only to the skeleton woman, at which point she made her move. That is…she made herself heard.
[TO SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!]
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”
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She released a scream, a shriek, a cry of madness directly into the face of her grappled enemy, that was so dense with death aether, that anyone who heard it and wasn’t prepared would begin to feel as if their very soul was dispersing into nothingness while their bodies began to rot and decay. Then again, that effect could’ve been due to the unknown energy that was mixed in alongside the death aether.
As the scream continued to reverberate in the room, and the damage of this scream began to make itself evident, it was soon noticed that the severity of the wounds caused by this attack appeared to be random. At least, it appeared to be random to those afflicted anyways.
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Excluding the ones who had managed to cover their ears in time, some of the warriors appeared to be mostly fine, other than gripping their head due to the immense pain they were in at this moment, while others appeared to be losing their vitality at such an extreme rate that their limbs were turning into dust as they tried their best to fight off the effects.
None of the warriors present knew why this was the case, but if one were to look into the past of these afflicted fellows, to understand their histories of murder, bloodshed and violence, one would notice that the ones most affected by this scream also happened to be the ones with the most kills on their records.
It was if this scream was commanding the slain to take what they were owed from their killers, telling them to reclaim the essence that had been stolen and the pounds of flesh they were once promised.
To many, this sound was something out of a nightmare, something to be avoided at all cost even to one’s own detriment.
But to some people, this scream was nothing more than a pleasant notification.
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The Library of Nowhere, in a private room where a drunken man-skeleton spends his eternity in a daze…
{Storm the castle~ Kill the king~ Take his head and sell his ri-hmm? What’s this? I thought all of my kaijin were no longer…no, wait…this one is new? I don’t recall the new lord having any valuable materials in that vein…unless he…interesting…looks like I’ll have to be a bit more proactive with my lessons now…}
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Name: [Scream of Damnation]
Rank: Unknown
Affinity: Death/[Chaos]
Description:
It is said, that the act of killing can fundamentally change a person.
In a world where might makes right and one must learn to kill in order to survive, the idea of feeling guilty over every single death suddenly becomes obsolete. However, regardless of whether or not someone’s mind and heart is able to remember killing, the soul never forgets.
Every time a person kills another person, be it in cold blood or a mercy killing, the soul will inevitably develop a mark, a lesion, a sign that one soul has snuffed out another.
This ||| art, allows the user to release a scream that resonates with these lesions of the soul, to release devastating shockwaves that get more destructive the more lesions that are present.
Guilt is simply a feeling after all and memories tend to fade, but the sin remains regardless.
And the dead always remembers.
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Meanwhile, in a cell located several hundred feet below in the underground with nothing but complete darkness surrounding them, an old, disheveled looking prisoner started to stir from their slumber.
He wasn’t exactly happy about it though.
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The prisoner sat up once he thought “she” had shown up, only to be disappointed that it wasn’t.
However, he was still intrigued by what he sensed.
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Motivated by this question, the old man stood up from his sleeping position and looked up. As he did, the image of a demonic beast that overlapped with him, looked up as well in unison.
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