“Attention.” We heard him chuckle over the intercom.
“Naizo.” Abul growled.
“As you may have already realized, this is a cargo room!”
“I should’ve killed you long ago.”
This prompted Naizo to laugh even more hysterically. “If only you could see yourselves… helpless, hanging on to whatever thread of life available; it’s perfect!”
As the two of us struggled against the powerful gusts pulling us toward the World Below, the Nagao heir continued taunting us without remorse.
“Believe it or not, this was my idea, ‘Prince’ Shikon! A cargo port renovated to appear as any of the other rooms on this ship!”
“But why?!” I shouted.
“How is it not already clear to you?” Naizo sounded baffled. “Failure to obey an order is treason, and so you’ve justified the use of more extravagant means to execute a traitor.”
“You betrayed us!” The demon howled. “You accursed creature!”
Abul lost his composure.
“The Elder handed your fates over to me—it’s always been thus, truly. He doesn’t know about this part of the operation yet, but neither of you will be missed in the coming days of the Naizo legacy.”
The shutter to the room swung open to reveal two foot soldiers in tailored suits wielding assault rifles and prepared to open fire as we struggled to keep from falling to the mercy of the abyssal winds. And in an instant, the Shikon Prince turned his gaze toward them and focused intensely.
The two of them were abruptly petrified, and I could just view one of them shuddering as his eyes flickered wildly enough—as if he was trying to escape his own body.
“I’m not here to play with you!”
Abul began chanting something I didn’t understand and in a language I’d never heard. As his chanting increased in speed and intonation, I spectated as the two attackers stiffened to the extent that they failed to clutch their weapons properly and released them to be swallowed by the opened cargo door.
“Abul!” I shouted. “Wait!”
I could hear the genuine hatred echoing from his tone, and—as a consequence—the two men stepped into the portal we’d so desperately evaded. They walked forward, willingly and blissfully, into their doom as we saw their figures descend limply before they became obscure marks on some section of land below us.
Abul continued chanting, and a third man revealed himself by shaking abnormally as he walked to the edge of the platform on which he stood and leaned toward us. He extended a hand in my direction just as Abul, having now transformed into his true self, hefted me with incredible strength to take the newcomer’s arm.
I grasped his hand and was immediately thrown with all of the possessed man’s power into the corridor leading up to the cargo chamber. I could hear muscles tear open and bones crack in response as Abul compelled his new subject to use his body to its fullest capability despite the injuries that might result. Following my rescue, Abul used the wall to stabilize himself before relinquishing his grasp as he sprung toward the foot soldier and impaled him through the chest with the fractured stump left of his arm, and the two of them plunged to the floor.
We’d made it.
“He’s fucked us, Tavon!”
The Shikon demon started to alter his appearance to resemble one of the men he’d so quickly dispatched. Within moments, he looked as if he were one of them now; his expression, however, still conveyed his arrogance.
“That scum thinks he’ll kill us… but this is not the destiny of a Prince!” He attempted to hide his bloodied arm and seemed to be weakening.
“Abul,” I pleaded, feeling my resolve gradually become empowered. “Let me take care of the rest; I’m Nagao’s second-best fighter, after all!” I smirked.
“They have fucking guns, you fool. You can’t punch your way out of every situati—”
“Hey!” An older voice resounded through the corridor as two more soldiers approached us.
Behind them, there appeared to be a small squad; ten foot soldiers equipped to handle an onboard threat.
“Fuck!” Abul screamed while nearly succumbing the agony produce by his injuries.
“Can you control them?”
“Some!” He growled. “But not enough to take the whole fucking ship!”
Seconds passed and, before they could even raise their weapons, the two scouts froze before rigidly turning to face their own men.
“Damn.” I said breathlessly.
The possessed men fired upon the squad, who were rapidly decimated upon not anticipating the attack. Despite receiving rounds through various portions of their bodies, Abul’s soldiers marched through a hail of gunfire delivered by the remaining squad members before they subsequently gunned down the rest of them moments later.
Abul cried out upon releasing hold of the thugs’ psyches and collapsed to his knees. His puppets promptly slumped over to loosely crash against the ground.
“TAVON!” Abul howled. “We have to use their clothes if we want to survive!”
I dashed forward while hearing voices echo far down the corridor:
“Did you hear that? Someone’s firing inside the ship!” A man’s voice declared.
A woman exclaimed: “We’re under attack! Someone’s trying to assist the traitors!”
“How did other enemies get on the ship?!”
As Abul and I changed, we could hear the intercom system activate before remaining generally silent over what sounded like paper being shifted in the background. Finally, a muffled voice rang out across the entirety of the cruiser:
“Servants of the Nagao, it has come to my attention that there are two traitors running rampant in the J-Sector. They’ve already caused considerable damage to the crew, and thus the individual or party who manages to ‘deal’ with them appropriately will be rewarded the title of samurai. Get them.”
By now, the two of us more closely resembled other members and made haste to leave the J-Sector altogether.
“Head west,” Abul ordered, “the western sectors were never finished completely and are the farthest from any residential room.”
“Got it!”
We sprinted through a series of corridors while panic ensued behind us. The portions of the cruiser that lacked completion revealed sparse, uninhabitable rooms with no air conditioning and an infestation of both pests and insects alike.
“Tavon, slow down!”
Abul’s voice had grown hoarse, and he quickly rested his back against a nearby wall while panting.
“Demons get used up, too, you know… I—I might faint…”
Abul started to stumble forward, but I stepped in and propped him back to his feet. His wounds needed to be dressed, but I didn’t even know if demons could bleed out.
“Ah, thanks…” He spoke through his weariness. “When I take a mind, it saps almost everything I have.”
“You can’t give up on me now!” I insisted.
“You’re right.” He grinned. “But for once… I have to leave it up to someone else…”
“How do you mean?”
The demon winked. “I’ve gotten weak. Tavon, it’s up to you now to win this fight… and I have one last secret to share to help you do it!” He clenched his fist. “Damn Naizo.”
“You can’t control his mind?”
Abul gritted his teeth. “I can’t even possess the frailest fool on the entire ship right now, but if you believe what I say to you… we might just stand a chance!”
Soldiers were beginning to shuffle our way and shouted to each other in the distance. With Abul’s uniform already drenched in whatever dark fluid he produced, it’d prove impossible to get by them.
“Clear! Give me a visual on that corner now!”
“Moving! … Looks Clear.” One of the members replied.
Abul inspected the assault rifles he’d taken with his one working hand, and he stared at me as he asked, “Haven’t you ever wondered why you’ve become so strong? Because we can sens
e it, you know…”
“Sense what?”
“Most humans never really Awaken, Tavon… tangibly Awaken—though each Awakening always seems to take differently…”
“Abul! What are you saying?!”
“Let’s go—let’s go!” Another foot soldier screamed in the background.
They were becoming nearer to us by the second.
“Humans evolved something within themselves against ‘monsters’ like me. It’s a hidden strength—a power that shows itself in ways that defy categorization and in more than one way… it’s why I haven’t eaten you like I would’ve Rokshasa had he become a close friend.”
“ABUL! They’re almost here!”
In an instant, the demon roughly grasped my shoulders; his eyes became orbs of radiant fire as he spoke, “One day, Tavon, if you live long enough… you’ll see yourself become this strong once again, but tonight—and for a brief time only—I’ll grant you the power you were meant to achieve with a complete Awakening!”
Electricity jolted through my spine and spread across my extremities, paralyzing me as Abul’s grip tightened.
My mind was slipping again…
What these beings were capable of… it was incredible.
“Most humans aren’t able to handle potential like this; it changes them—often for the worse. Especially when it’s too soon.”
My heart throbbed with intense speed, and I groaned in pain as every muscle in my form swelled and defined themselves while condensing in the confines of my body’s frame. However, the cells in my body continued to work in overdrive, compounding even more, new muscles into my extremities while simultaneously strengthening my joints and ligaments.
I saw the head of the first shooter as he was beginning to edge himself around the corner while aiming in our direction!
Without further hesitation, I bounded toward the henchman and sidestepped his line of fire before I closed in and sent a haymaker his way! I struck with such immeasurable strength that the enemy’s neck was immediately broken as he fell back and nearly landed on his colleagues, who quickly backed away to take cover behind the wall.
Abul crouched beside me as he delivered a hail of bullets in their direction, causing rounds to ricochet and one of them to hit another of the foot soldiers in his calf as he cried out in pain!
As the demon stopped to reload, I unexpectedly rushed forward in time to grab the barrel of my next opponent’s rifle and heave it out of his grasp. I followed by jabbing him with a blow hard enough to crush his vertebrae as he began to stumble toward me. I ducked under his form before bringing him up over my back as I moved forward through the subsequent gunfire! My mind was gone… replaced with this berserk animal bent on wreaking mass destruction.
I reacted without conscious thought, swinging the corpse’s body to the left to obscure another attacker’s line of sight and rotating as I launched my fist through both the plate armor and abdomen of the opponent to my right. Refusing to stop, I retrieved my bloodied hand and jumped toward my next enemy. I brought my knee upward to soar into his cheekbone and dashed his head open against the steel barrier outlining the great vessel.
Just as the foot soldier I’d prevented from shooting me managed to move his deceased colleague’s body off himself, Abul entered the room and emptied the rest of his available ammo on the remaining squad members! I crouched under his reckless aim as four men, three of them wearing only gaudy suits for protection, were hit and became unresponsive, and I plunged through the rest of the wave of thugs.
I rushed toward my next enemy, swinging my fist fiercely enough to smash his own weapon out of his clutches. I struck him in his chest and followed with a heavy kick to his side that broke through his ribcage and knocked him unconscious while he bled out from the inside.
Abul killed the next thug with a round to the head before I was forced to confront the final squad member, who aimed a pistol at me and attempted to smirk in order to hide his nervousness.
“What are you?!” He demanded.
“Sometimes Awakened humans can be just as scary as demons.”
I kept moving.
He would shoot me, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted to fight—to find somebody strong.
I focused my strength and channeled it in the pit of my stomach…
—A bullet coursed into my chest.
“Tavon!” The demon shouted.
I stood there for a moment, genuinely curious to the point of surpassing my untamed lust for battle. The bullet was on the ground, somewhat dented and covered in some of my blood from a seemingly shallow wound encircled by an immense, dark bruise. I looked up at the shooter and tensed in rage before moving toward him again in order to take advantage of his astonishment.
“A… a monster!” the young man with grey hair found himself able to see Abul’s real identity, and in his ensuing insanity I grabbed his head before slamming it on the floor and smashing open his skull to spill its contents across the floor.
“You okay, Abul?” I shouted with what sense I had remaining.
Upon hearing no response from my companion, I peered back and saw what he’d done.
Abul was devouring the thugs we’d slain.
I stared in horror as the demon, his form alight with a dark fire, tore open one of the gang member’s clothes before digging a clawed hand through the carcass’s abdomen. Abul proceeded to eagerly reach his head into the small opening he’d created before ravenously feasting on a fresh catch.
He groaned with delight before ordering, “Tavon! Keep going. Head toward Naizo, and I’ll be there shortly!”
My adrenaline surpassed whatever shock I might have felt upon seeing him hungrily eat his prey. On the way to the control terminal for the cruiser, I hurriedly dispatched two more of Naizo’s men before being halted by a metallic door barring the way to the final corridor before the chamber itself.
Dawn was coming; My resistance and Abul’s combined had forced the Nagao heir to delay the entire journey just so he could focus on a plan to handle my newfound strength.
We weren’t going to make it to the duel on time…
An octagonal portal parted to reveal a man adorning the plated armor normally sported by Meiziki thugs. He wielded a long, slender black katana and carried a side arm in a brown, leather holster on his hip.
“He is known as Feingotz; the warrior I’d planned to replace you in case you rejected such a reasonable offer. Tsk. Tsk. What else should I have expected from a dumbass who can’t even use a sword properly!”
Feingotz grunted fiercely and ran in my direction despite his assault being slowed by the heaviness of his body armor. He seemed appalled when I reacted by heading his way prepared to enter combat with just my hands to guide me, and Feingotz suddenly stopped as I commenced my approach.
Feingotz reached for his handgun, but I already understood his intent and dashed forward while prepping to launch my first into a strike. He was clumsily able to draw his weapon but not in time before I’d kicked him in his abdomen and rocked his figure backward with a hit that knocked him off guard before he unsheathed his katana!
He’d drawn me into his trap.
A swordsman is at the height of his power upon drawing his blade for the first time…
I realized this as I moved to deliver a myriad of jabs across Feingotz’s exposed area, and he drew his weapon. Feingotz slashed upward diagonally with the intent to cut open my stomach before bringing the weapon back to decapitate me.
But I leapt back, missing its tip, and caught his blade before it came back toward me…
My hand seeped a thin stream of blood, and I brutishly gripped the middle of the weapon while simultaneously ushering him toward me! I issued a battle cry, struck Feingotz, and caved in his helmet before he finally released the katana to step away from the skirmish!
Feingotz shrieked in pain as he removed his helmet and body armor and then stood to face me while holding out one hand expectantly.
“That,” he said, “is h
ow I fight.”
For once, I became noble and tossed his blade back to him.
Feingotz nodded in appreciation before readying himself into a stance as he raised his katana with both hands and aimed an overhead thrust that tracked me as I circled his form.
“Finish it!” He shouted aggressively.
Feingotz was grounding his style solely in a defensive posture, waiting for me to move first… a patient warrior.
I didn’t waste any more time, and I rushed toward him and hefted my fist above me as I growled, entrenched in my own fury; drunk in a power threatening to consume me. At the last moment, I condensed my momentum into a crouch; the floor supported me as I focused all of my available power into a blow that might land before Feingotz could attack.
The warrior brandished his weapon overhead before bringing it down with even more speed than I could ever muster!
My fist connected with his blade.
A screeching noise emitted itself as steel tore away from itself under the impact of the strike, splitting the sword in twain as I stepped forward and rotated slightly as I collided my elbow against Feingotz’s exposed head.
He sustained the initial attack and stumbled back before I proceeded to jab Feingotz in the throat and compelled him to his knees. Subsequently, I clasped my hands together over my head and brought them down to blast open Feingotz’s cranium as bright blood burst and jetted out from where his head was once positioned. It shot out in thick waves, frozen for a moment as it spilled over my enraged figure.
The next door parted with more speed than I’d noticed in the other portal mechanisms, and it revealed the entirety of the remaining hit squad who’d gathered into a unit that could strategically pick me off after Feingotz had worn me down.
I faced them, understanding that this was it; I’d be shot, over and over until I’d bled out on Naizo’s ship.
They aimed their full arsenal at me, and—
Their firing leader, who’d been positioned behind them, began shooting into the back of one of his own men before he turned to begin dispatching other unsuspecting members of his squad. Naizo’s soldiers were relatively well-trained but also fell into the same trap of stupidity as others had before them.
Angelos Odyssey Page 62