No More

Chapter 83: Clockwork Part 8 (With Q&A)

Axel and Luke ran out of the "Offering" room as a cultist submerged inside a liquid body of thick blood chased after them.

The two males ran as fast as their terrified bodies could carry them while the cultist, no longer resembling anything human, let out a spine-chilling roar as she smoothly slid across the ground.

They found themselves back inside the jail, now empty of people as fog leaked through the bars Luke placed earlier to prevent the invisible undead from entering.

But he also prevented them from escaping too, trapping them both with the blood mage hot on their trail. Axel, improvising, used his massive strength to rip out the iron bars from the cells and barricaded the path behind them.

"Lets go!" Axel shouted, punching through the iron bars that Luke placed, and rushing outside. They inhaled the cold air outside as the snow continued to rain down.

They're alone. No refugees. No invisible undead monsters wearing black armor with red eyes. Nothing but the layer of fog that's covering the ground. "Where is everyone...?" Axel whispered in the cold.

"I think," Luke panted, clearly exhausted and shivering a bit from the cold. "I think we lost her; we're safe."

"Define 'safe', Luke." Axel tapped on his shoulder, and pointed to the massive hole in the thick obsidian wall, the ground still covered in fog.

But beyond that, a swarm of fresh undead monsters were making their way towards the Clockwork Fortress. "You've got to be kidding me," Luke shouted in disbelief. "More undead monsters?!"

"This just keeps getting worse and worse," Axel concluded, letting out a cough. "We need to find my friends, they'll know what to do."

"Where do we even start-?" Luke went silent as he looked back at the inner wall of iron to see a massive mechanical golem clinging high onto the side of the iron wall.

Axel followed his gaze, mouth open in disbelief. "Can this get any worse?" Axel complained.

A second later, a pillar of blood burst out of the ground in front of the two males; Luke let out a startled scream from the sudden action.

Two clawed hands emerged from it, gripping the fog-layered ground as the blob-like mass of the cultist from earlier emerged. The veins from her hood was spread all across the blood body she's submerged in as a circle with a dot in the center, representing an eye, is on the head; moving as if it is the real thing.

"Oh, come on!" Luke whined as he and Axel got into a fighting stance, ready for conflict.

"You are a candidate," The cultist from within scolded Luke, her voice echoed and layered and mixed in with hundreds of other tones and different voices. "How dare you run away from your destiny!"

"I make my own destiny!" Luke retorted. "And I don't even know what you're talking about!"

"To join the crimson collective," The cultist detailed, gesturing to the bloody mass she is submerged in. "We are one, joined together to please the one true god!"

"Why would he join you?" Axel stepped forward. "You're just a bunch of liquids held by Mana!"

"Silence, you fat oaf!" The cultist insulted, pointing a clawed, liquid hand to Axel. "A sacrifice shouldn't speak out of its place!"

"Sacrifice?" Luke repeated.

"To feed the bloody god," The cultist explained before shifting the liquid so she towered over Axel. "We our one, blended in the crimson, for we carry the will of the one true god!"