Florenca spat a glob of blood and dirt onto the scarred concrete floor. "This damn robot is really annoying," she muttered under her breath, the words tasting like copper. The constant whirring, the relentless, mechanical logic of its attacks it was maddening. "I wish that damn Pranit would wake up already."
She was a whirlwind of motion and internal frustration, relying on the fluid, unpredictable movements of her enhanced body to stay out of that robot's kill-radius. But frustration was a luxury she couldn't afford. The brief lapse, the moment her thoughts drifted to the man lying inert miles away, was all the opening the machine needed.
The robot moved with a burst of acceleration that defied its bulk. One massive, clawed hand shot out, not to strike, but to trap her in a grapple. As Florenca instinctively crossed her arms for a block, the robot's other arm, equipped with a vibrating monomolecular blade, severed both her forearms just below the elbow.
A soundless, white-hot shockwave of pain ripped through her consciousness. The severed limbs, still clenching useless fists, clattered to the ground. She stared at the bloody stumps, the shock so profound it momentarily froze her from screaming. The world tilted.
Florenca was shocked. Not by the pain, which was excruciating, but by the sheer, cold audacity of the cut. She'd lowered her guard
a rookie mistake she hadn't made in centuries.
Run.
The command was primal. She spun and scrambled back, her remaining arm pushing off a piece of twisted wreckage, trying to build speed. But the robot was already there. It was a predator that never tired, never blinked.
Its massive form loomed over her, a mechanical shadow of death. It raised its slicing arm for the final strike, the blade humming. Time seemed to stretch into a viscous, slow crawl. Florenca braced herself, her eyes squeezed shut, preparing for oblivion, regret already stinging her not for the fight, but for her fleeting moment of distraction.
The Inciting Blast and Carmilla's Doubt
A deafening shot blast ripped through the air, followed by a concussive shockwave that kicked up dust and debris. The noise was incredible a sound that spoke of catastrophic power unleashed.
The massive, slicing arm of that robot, the one about to deliver the killing blow, crumpled. Not cut, not melted, but violently shredded, leaving ragged metal and sparks arcing into the gloom. The robot staggered, its motion systems briefly thrown into chaos.
Florenca blinked, her eyes streaming, and looked past the smoking husk of the robot's arm.
Standing twenty yards away, framed by a halo of smoke that caught the single sliver of moonlight filtering through the cracked ceiling, was a figure. He was holding a colossal, specialized anti-armor rifle that looked too big for a human to wield comfortably.
It was Pranit. He was wearing his usual, irritatingly stylish combat trench coat, and he was smiling—a cocky, infuriating smirk.
"Well, now," a cold, silk-smooth voice drifted from the shadows beyond the factory floor. Carmilla stepped into the light, flanked by Eve and Angela, their expressions a mixture of fury and disbelief. Carmilla's emerald eyes were wide, and her composure was visibly strained, shattered by the impossibility of the scene.
"How... how?" she hissed, the word loaded with menace. Her voice cracked. "You should be dead! We watched your body your very essence got cutted
Pranit settled the heavy rifle on his shoulder, the barrel still faintly glowing orange. He gave a slight, almost polite bow, an act of pure, distilled arrogance.
"Perhaps I could be," Pranit said, his voice light and even, carrying easily over the mechanical whines of the damaged robot. He spoke to her as if they were trading pleasantries at a gala, not facing off in a ruined battlefield. "But, as it turns out, I have some… abilities."
"What? How?" Carmilla demanded, her pitch dangerously high. She clenched her fists, her lacquered nails biting into her palms. The elimination of Pranit was supposed to be the keystone of her plan, the one guarantee that she would prevail. Now, that guarantee was standing there, alive and armed.
Pranit chuckled, a sound full of theatrical mirth that grated on Carmilla's nerves. "Oh, dear. We're not in a movie, are we? I'm certainly not going to share my secrets with the protagonist." He winked, a gesture that immediately sent a jolt of annoyance through Florenca even in her compromised state.
He glanced at the sputtering that robot, his internal thought process instantly calculating the threat level. This damn robot is really fast. He didn't just register the speed; he registered the lack of hesitation, the machine's cold focus on the kill.
He didn't hesitate either. He took aim and fired another round.
The second shot was even more devastating. The gun was so strong it didn't just damage the robot it violently obliterated the robot's remaining shoulder and a substantial portion of its torso armor, exposing internal piping and sparking wires. The smell of superheated metal filled the space.
"Well, well, well," Pranit crowed, his confidence soaring. "Looks like we're gonna win this one, after all."
Florenca, bleeding heavily but now fully focused, looked down at her limbless forearms. The pain was an annoying hum beneath the electric shock of the battle's new dynamic. "Damn it," she thought, then shook her head. Anyway. She turned her attention to the whirlwind of the fight, her personal injury temporarily forgotten. The survival of the mission, and her own life, depended on this madman.
Carmilla's Internal Crisis and The Attack
The damaged robot, though hobbled, reacted with blinding speed. It didn't retreat or attempt a tactical analysis; it merely identified the primary threat and rushed at Pranit in a ragged, powerful sprint, its single remaining claw outstretched.
Pranit, however, was faster. He dropped the now-smoking rifle just as the robot's remaining claw sliced the air where his head had been a microsecond before. He spun, drawing two ornate, silver-plated handguns from his coat, and squeezed the triggers simultaneously.
Twin beams of concentrated plasma ripped into the machine, hitting the previously exposed armor seams. The robot's casing exploded outward, showering the floor with shrapnel and sparking debris. The machine was now little more than a collapsing, limping hulk.
From a distance, Eve, the heavily augmented assassin, watched the exchange, her optical sensors analyzing the damage output. She gasped internally, a purely reflexive reaction from her embedded neural network. How painful is it? The sheer destructive force being wielded was staggering, unlike anything they had predicted a mere 'sinner' could possess.
Angela, the exhausted, struggling leader of the group, finally focused her weary gaze on the battle. "Damn it," she whispered, her voice tight with strain. "These sinner are so strong. Stronger than anything I saw yet."
Carmilla, her initial shock now curdling into cold, venomous fury, took a step back, her composure cracking like cheap glass. "I won't let them win. I won't let them run!"
Her mind fled the terrifying present and retreated into a memory from the past, a discussion with her mentor and former commander, William, whose head was now a chilling trophy in their possession.
The memory was a quiet, twilight office. William, his face set in a look of grim determination, had leaned over a map of the contested territories.
"Lady Carmilla, how strong do you estimate a Sinner is, truly? We base our strategy on the Visionary's decree, but their power… it feels like legend, not fact."
Carmilla, younger and more self-assured, had replied with the confidence of official dogma. "I heard by the Visionary" and he said
"They have lost their true power a long time ago. They are strong, yes, but they are not at their prime. Their world changing abilities, those of world changing power are gone. They are relics, capable only of enhanced speed and resilience.' We fight monsters, yes, but monsters at their weakest."
William had only nodded, the doubt lingering in his eyes. "A weakest monster can still kill, my Lady. But I trust the prophecy."
The memory dissolved into the reality of the robot's destruction. Carmilla stared at the smoldering ruins of that robot. Amachine designed to withstand an orbital strike. This was not the work of a monster with broken fangs. This was a demon from hell breaking a toy.
Was the Visionary wrong, then? The possibility shook her to the core, threatening to unravel the entire structure of her faith and her purpose. Or are they still that strong at their weakest? Are they holding back? The panic tasted like iron.
The robot, now staggering, let out a continuous, ear-splitting shriek of feedback as its last remaining systems failed. Pranit, his face a mask of intense concentration, raised one of the handguns for the final, finishing shot.
"This is enough," he said.
But the voice that came out was not his usual smooth, theatrical baritone. It was deeper, coarser, resonating with a terrifying, unearthly sharpness. It felt like a blade scraping against bone, a sound of profound internal rupture.
Pranit's Descent and the Blackening
Florenca's eyes went wide with immediate, stark horror. She knew that sound. It was the sound of a mental dam breaking. The tremor in the air was the pressure of an ancient, terrifying ability being unleashed without the filter of sanity.
"Shit! He's losing his sanity!" she screamed, a desperate warning. "Stop! Pranit, stop!"
Her words were useless. They barely registered on the man who was no longer quite Pranit.
Pranit threw his gun aside, the theatrical flair replaced by bestial intent. He took a single, impossibly fast step toward the machine and delivered a punch. It was a perfect, concussive blow aimed at the robot's exposed core.
But even as the robot's chassis crumpled under the force, its last programmed directive kicked in. Its remaining monomolecular blade, designed to slice through titanium, lashed out in a desperate, final counter-attack.
It cleanly severed Pranit's head from his body.
The punch finished the robot, which fell forward with a deafening, final crunch. Pranit's body stood still for a second, then his head rolled across the dusty floor, coming to rest near a discarded coil of copper wire.
Carmilla let out a strangled cry of relief and triumph. "Is he finally dead?" she gasped, momentarily regaining her composure.
The body of Pranit took another step.
The severed neck wound, which should have been a geyser of blood, was instead sealed by a shimmering, pulsating black substance. It wasn't organic; it was an active vacuum, absorbing light and color. The head on the floor did not stop glowing with life; it merely… floated.
This is what they are, Pranit thought, his awareness fractured, split between the rolling head and the standing body. A creature defined by its absolute refusal to die.
The head slammed back onto the body with a sickening shloop, reconnecting with a sound like wet clay being molded under immense pressure.
The Pranit that stood up was different. He was taller, broader, and his movements had lost their stylish swagger, becoming jerky, predatory, and brutally efficient. His awareness was no longer a human stream of thoughts and jokes, but a raging torrent of need, a primal hunger for energy, for release. The control, the carefully constructed persona, was gone, burnt away by the effort of sustaining life after fatal injury.
He bent and, with frightening speed and force, yanked William's severed head, which had been resting on a nearby crate, from its container.
His eyes, once sparkling with arrogant humor, rolled back until they were completely, unnervingly black. The blackness was not a shade; it was an absence of light, a pair of physical voids in his face.
Florenca felt a cold wave of certainty. "He lost it. Shit!" The man she knew, the ally, was gone.
In the next second, the robot's already crushed shell was subjected to a second, incomprehensible impact. William's head, wielded by Pranit, became an object of monstrous pressure.The robot was crushed into a two-dimensional slab of metal and wiring, compressed to the point of structural failure. The air around the impact point shrieked, a high-pitched cry caused by the sudden, massive displacement of force.
Even Eve, the half-damage machine who felt nothing, recoiled and gasped. "What was that?" she whispered, her internal systems momentarily registering an E−level overload a force that should not exist.
Then, Pranit, his breathing ragged and deep, turned. His black gaze didn't linger on the villains; it locked directly onto the most vulnerable thing in the room Florenca. He saw not an ally, but a source of power, an obstacle, and a thing to be consumed.
Florenca's Ordeal
He moved again, a blink-and-you-miss-it surge across the floor, and was instantly on top of her. He slammed her into the ground, pinning her with his enormous weight, and then, with a bestial roar, he began to eat her.
It was a nightmare made real. His mouth distended, his teeth elongated into wicked, obsidian shards, and he ripped into her shoulder and chest. The pain was beyond anything she had ever known not just the cutting, but the violation, the physical tearing away of her very being.
"Get out of me!" Florenca shrieked, the sound a raw, desperate thing of pure terror, yet laced with the ancient fury of a warrior scorned. She was a Sinner, a being who had defied death countless times, and this was how she was to die? Eaten by her own comrade's uncontrolled power?
The taste of her blood, rich and complex with the energy of her ancient race, only fueled Pranit's frenzy. He was beyond reason, driven by the raw, unadulterated hunger of his kind when the veil of humanity was stripped away.
Florenca fought back with the only weapons she had left: her will and the stumps of her arms. She swung a bloody stump, connecting with his jaw but it had no effect. It was like striking granite. She pushed, she screamed, she thrashed, but he was a terrifying, suffocating weight.
I survived the Great Purge, the Cataclysm, the betrayal of the Visionary! her mind screamed in silent protest. I will not die like a broken animal!
She felt the sharp, sickening crunch of her collarbone as he bit deeper. Her vision tunneled. She felt her life energy, her precious power, being leeched away with every grinding chew. The despair was crushing. She was a deer under the lion, and the world was collapsing.
The Escape and The Reckoning
Carmilla's scream was ripped from her. "The fuck is happening?" The sight of the man, Pranit, devouring his own ally with the head of her dead Commander in his hand, broke her completely. The terror was all-consuming.
She grabbed Eve's good arm and Angela's struggling form. "We have to run! Now!"
"Wow," Angela gasped, already sprinting, fueled by panic rather than adrenaline. "You get this idea now? I thought we were going to fight the zombie!"
Carmilla shoved her forward. "Shut up and run! That's not a Sinner. That's a demon!"
They ran, scrambling over the factory debris. Eve was half-damaged, her movements impaired, and Angela was breathing raggedly, struggling with every step. The sound of Florenca's muffled, fading screams was the fuel driving their desperate flight.
Pranit continued his attack on Florenca, consuming her piece by agonizing piece. Her screams began to fail, replaced by ragged, struggling gasps for breath. He was nearing the end.
Just as Florenca's life began to flicker, a sudden shadow fell over the brutal tableau. Not a shadow from the ceiling, but a clean, sharp shadow of intervention.
Pranit, completely lost to his murderous frenzy, looked up, his black eyes tracking the change in light.
A woman in an immaculately clean, traditional maid dress was floating silently above them, a long, slender rapier held loosely in her hand. Her dress, somehow, had not a single speck of dust on it despite the carnage around them. Her face was serene, composed, but her eyes held a profound, almost cosmic weariness.
"Look like you lost your sanity, again," the maid stated, her voice soft but carrying an undeniable weight of authority. It was the voice of someone who had seen this exact catastrophe play out countless times before.
Florenca, gasping for breath, her blood pooling around her, managed a strained, relieved "Yess…" She was alive for now. She forced herself to look, the sight of her half-eaten body a secondary concern to the chance of survival.
Pranit, now fully a feral beast, roared and jumped at the maid, the severed head still clutched in his hand like a grotesque weapon.
Luckily, she dodged. It was not a jump, but a graceful, almost indifferent slide. The air where she had floated a second ago was violently displaced by Pranit's attack. She landed lightly, sighing as she looked at the chaos. "What a pain." She wasn't angry; she was merely inconvenienced.
The maid moved. It was the epitome of efficiency. Her rapier flashed.
The razor-sharp blade found a crucial pressure point on Pranit's neck. It wasn't meant to decapitate; it was meant to stun and disrupt the flow of raw, uncontrolled energy.
The blackness in Pranit's eyes receded, the manic hunger draining away. His body slumped. He blinked, the eyes returning to their normal color, and the horrible clarity of his actions crashed down on him. The sheer, overwhelming disgust at the gore on his hands and in his mouth was instant and physical.
"Damn it, what did I do?" he whispered, his voice cracking with self-disgust.
He looked down at the half-devoured, bleeding, and limbless body of Florenca. The horror of his own actions was overwhelming. He released William's head, which clattered to the floor, a final insult to the dead.
"I'm sorry," he choked out to Florenca, the human guilt a crushing weight.
He looked up and saw Carmilla, Eve, and Angela disappearing into the distance. A grim, self-loathing smile touched his lips, quickly replaced by a predatory glint. The maid's intervention saved Florenca, but it also saved his targets.
"Well," he said, his voice hardening with renewed purpose, the madness still a whisper beneath his skin. "I will catch you later. I promise."