Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Cauterize

The human body is a marvel of engineering, now that is generally up to the individual to decide how to marvel: perhaps it is awe at the natural beauty and power that the human body can produce, perhaps the marvel is wondering how such a slap dash construction of bone and flesh operates without collapsing into a pile of mush since the human spine is a waiting disaster, and human feet are a crime against nature making humans basically a jenga tower full of meat juice.

But perhaps that's not the point.

Ever find it interesting how, watching animal documentaries, the workers are always so concerned with making sure the animals don't get stressed? Specifically birds and some reptiles can just straight up die when placed under stress, but when it comes to humans you'd be hard pressed to kill one even under the most stressful of life events.

Hard to say what causes this.

Perhaps being one of the weakest predators on a deathworld forces you to get used to being at the bottom of the food chain. Perhaps it's something else but either way, the human body has always been asked to do a lot, and sometimes it even does more than what it is expected to do.

At least that's what Krill thought as he sat in a spreading pool of blood watching Adam's heart beat onward despite bottoming out blood pressure. It was a valiant effort, a valiant effort that, with every pump of his heart, was only spilling more blood onto the floor. Now, Krill had been prepared for this, of course, and had brought some blood with him, hidden and stored away inside his medical supplies, he was't stupid.

But pumping him full of blood wouldn't matter unless he could stop the bleeding which still coursed out of his now open wound. Mitzen had cut the shaft of the trident a good few feet down. Now at Kazna's height this still left a good portion of the trident intact, but it was now light enough that Krill felt confident in his ability to remove it. Blood red light slicked the shaft of the spear turning actual blood black. He was able to slip his tools in through the open wound and gently manuver the barbs out of the flesh. Using all four of his arms to gingerly do the procedure, he was able to cover the barbs and pull the trident out handing it to Mitzen who carefully set it aside as more blood began welling up from the wound.

Below the blood, Adam's skin was pale and cold, growing colder bare chest barely rising and falling with breaths that were growing more and more ineffective by the minute.

All of this as a whirlwind of chaos went on behind him, a tableau of combat painted in red.

Or perhaps it was wrong to separate the two events, as even as he worked, a body crashed through the space right over Krill's head kicking up a wild gust of wind , only to land on Adam's discarded pile of armor and go rolling across the floor sending armor pieces scattering in all directions. Krill ducked and shouted, Mitzen gave a cry f alarm before diving to the side.

Sunny skidded across the floor and came to a slow stop face down against the dark marble, but it didn't take long before she was moving again, bracing her hands against the stone and shifting her spear to one of her other hands. She raised her head displaying half of her helmet, which had been shattered by an immense impact, leaving one of her golden eyes to glitter from the rift.

She pushed herself from the ground and got to her feet quickly, raising her voice in a deafening yell as she charged past them and back into the fray. Maverick and Ramirez dueled with Everette side by side, their two human bodies barely a match against a corrupted maker all while Sunny and Celex took on Kazna.

Celex leaped from the darkness, grabbing kazna around the throat and letting off a discharge of golden light that ripped the shadows from her body and sent them spinning across the room. She spun in a circle, elbowed Celex in the face, throwing him to the ground and raised her spear just in time to catch Sunny, again. They clashed twice before Kazna ducked low trying to Sweep Sunny's legs, but Sunny simply jumped forcing the butt of her spear into Kazna's open temple.