Chapter 321: Berseker
The first silhouette stepped into the edge of the blue light.
Then another.
Then another.
The lantern hissed as the dark bent around them, and the safe zone stopped feeling safe.
Kael counted without moving his head too much. The mini-map had already done most of the work for him, but seeing bodies replace dots made the situation uglier. Climbers came out of the darkness in a loose ring, careful not to step too far from the faint lights hidden among them. Some carried weapons openly. Others kept their hands low, close to belts, pouches, or sheathed blades. A few stayed half-merged with the shadows beyond the lantern’s reach, trusting the torches behind them to keep Vanitas from skinning them alive.
One of the climbers looked at Yenna and grinned.
"Found her," he called out. "Vanitas Sector One-Four. Everyone come out."
More shapes shifted.
More green dots pressed closer.
Kael turned his head slightly toward Yenna. "Friends?"
"Got none," Yenna said. "Want none. You better run."
Her sword came out with a sound that was almost too clean for the place they were in.
It was a long, curved, heavy blade, closer to a saber in its arc but broader and crueler near the tip. Blue lantern light ran across its edge, then caught in her red hair. That hair began to glisten, gaining a new sheen, not merely reflecting light but answering something inside her. It looked darker at the roots, brighter at the ends, as if blood and flame had both decided to sit inside each strand.
Kael’s gauntleted fingers flexed.
"If you need help," he said.
Yenna glanced at him. "Have you ever killed a person before?"
"Can’t say I’m a professional," Kael said. "But yes. I don’t throw up after. Especially if I think of them as not very human."
"Then good," Yenna said. "Try not to die. I’ll clean up."
She moved.
No warning.
One second she stood beside the lantern. The next, she was gone in a red streak, tearing across the safe zone toward the first climber. The man in front of her reacted fast enough to prove he was not fodder. Two daggers appeared in his hands, reversed and blackened, and he jumped backward into the shade while his body blurred into stealth.
At the same time, two others fired.
An arrow screamed through the air from the left.
A fireball came from the right, orange light briefly shoving back the blue glow of the lantern.
Yenna avoided both without slowing.
Her body twisted mid-step, slipping between the two projectiles with a margin so thin Kael felt the heat wash past her shoulder from where he stood. She continued toward the man who had sunk into shadow, her sword already cutting for the place he should have been.
Then someone shouted, "Take out her light!"
A stream of water burst from the darkness.
Not a splash. A pressurized gush, thick and violent, aimed directly for the lantern’s blue flame.
Yenna cursed and abandoned the chase.
She sprang backward, landing near the safe zone’s center before the water struck. The stream hit stone instead, spraying cold mist across the lantern’s light. The blue flame flickered, then steadied, but the warning was clear. They were not trying to defeat her only with blades. They were targeting what kept Vanitas from doing the killing for them.
"Be carefu..."
She stopped.
Kael was gone.
Yenna’s eyes flicked to the spot he had been standing.
Empty.
For one sharp instant, annoyance crossed her face. Then it faded into something duller, almost unsurprised. People ran. They always did, eventually. He had been dragged back into Vanitas wearing pajamas and slippers, carrying secrets too large for his own survival. If he had used the lantern’s teleportation to escape, that was not even a bad idea.
A smart one, really.
She could use it too.
The problem was that the lantern transfer took a second. One second was enough to die. One second was enough for a dagger in the spine, a spell through the throat, or a dozen coordinated climbers to turn escape into an execution.
She had to thin them first.
But the moment she left the lantern zone, they would strike at either her body or her light. Both paths ended badly. The hunters did not have that problem. They had torches, but the attackers themselves did not always carry them. The light holders stayed behind, protected, while the killers moved at the edge of safety.
Experienced climbers.
Organized climbers.
People who knew Vanitas well enough to weaponize its rules.
Yenna’s gaze moved quickly.
She needed to kill the torch carriers first.
That would not be easy. The light holders were protected by fighters who understood exactly how valuable they were. Each torch was a moving safe zone. Each one let their side attack, retreat, and reposition without being torn apart by the dark.
Then one of the torches went out.
Yenna did not notice it at first.
Neither did the man holding it.
The flame simply died, its blue glow vanishing with a soft, almost pathetic wink.
For half a breath, nothing happened.
Then Vanitas touched him.
The man screamed.
His body began shredding from the outside in. Skin peeled. Cloth split. Flesh tore open as if invisible claws had hooked beneath him and pulled in every direction at once. He stumbled forward, eyes bulging, one hand clutching the dead torch while the other clawed at his own face. The two climbers who had been using his light reacted instantly and sprinted toward the nearest surviving torch.
They never made it.
The darkness caught them between lights.
One collapsed after three steps, his legs decomposing beneath him before his upper body hit the stone. The other tried to ignite an emergency torch, fingers moving with desperate speed, only for his hand to blacken and fall apart before flame could answer. He dropped face-first, body twitching as Vanitas ate him in silence.
The first torch bearer staggered into the lantern’s safe zone.
Half his skin was gone.
Blood poured from his face, chest, and through ruptures in his crumbling clothes. He gasped, still alive only because the blue lantern pushed the darkness away at the last moment.
Yenna met him with her saber.
One cut.
He split in half and fell to either side of her, blood spreading across the stone.
A second light went out.
Not far from the first.
Then the same thing happened again.
A scream. A rush. Panic tearing through formation. Climbers scrambling toward other light holders while the darkness punished anyone who misjudged distance by even a step.
"What the fuck is going on?" someone shouted.
"Our lights are turning off!"
"Get more torches out!" another ordered. "Don’t let it die out!"
That was when the hunters revealed themselves properly.
Torches appeared in shaking hands. More blue flames sparked to life. Their offensive pressure dropped instantly because too many of them were forced to protect the lights rather than attack. The formation widened and brightened, showing bodies that had been hidden a moment before.
Yenna smiled.
Hungrily.
"Good."
She dashed forward.
Now that the climbers were using their own lights openly, she did not need to carry hers. She could move through their safety without being forced to protect a torch. They had solved one problem and created another. Every light they ignited let her see them clearly. Every man assigned to hold one became a beacon.
The first swing took a fighter across the chest and hip, splitting armor and body together.
The second cut removed a head before the man’s spell finished forming.
The third broke through a shield, arm, ribs, and spine in one flowing arc.
Yenna moved like a red line drawn across the battlefield by a hand that hated hesitation. One swing per person. Sometimes less. Her blade did not stop long enough to be blocked properly. Those who tried to parry found their weapons knocked aside by the heavy curve of her saber before their bodies opened. Those who dodged discovered she had already adjusted. Those who ran found their torches dying at the worst possible second.
A climber with a spear lunged from the side.
Yenna stepped inside the thrust and cut him from shoulder to waist.
A mage fired a burst of stone spikes.
She ducked under the first, twisted around the second, and took his legs before turning the same motion into a rising slash that ended his scream.
A dagger user appeared behind her, blade aimed for the back of her neck.
His torch went out.
He had enough time to realize it.
Not enough time to fix it.
The darkness stripped him before Yenna even turned.
Bodies fell. Torches clattered against stone, blue flames sizzling as they landed in pooling blood. The light mixed with red reflections until the ruined street looked like a broken shrine built by slaughter.
Yenna’s name changed.
Above her, faintly visible in the Tower’s cruel overlay, the name burned bright red.
Murderer.
And it seems quite fitting for her hair color.