New Novel
Chapter 38: Memory Fragment

Chapter 38: Memory Fragment

The axe struck the center of the Fourth Rank’s head. Bone split beneath the blade as the owl-like face separated from crown to jaw, dividing its enormous eyes and opening the skull beneath them. Rook pulled the weapon free, adjusted his grip, and struck again.

The second blow drove the blade deeper and broke the creature’s head apart.

There was no feeling of cruelty, rage or madness, Rook’s action looked like those of a butcher cutting meat, mundane, and almost too stoic. As if the act of mutilating a fourth tier was nothing but an everyday job.

The Fourth Rank’s body stopped struggling, though the ropes remained taut around its limbs. Thin smoke began leaking from the wounds, escaping through the cracks in its skull and the gaps between its ribs.

Rook pressed one boot against the creature’s chest and dragged the axe downward. The blade tore through the remains of its face, passed along the spine, and split the narrow torso open. Its ribs separated around the wound, revealing something floating within.

A crystalline sphere hung between the Fourth Rank’s broken ribs. It was slightly larger than Rook’s fist, though its surface refused to hold a consistent shape. Pale light gathered along its edges while dark smoke moved beneath them, forming blurred outlines before folding back into itself.

It was the creature’s spiritual condensation.

Everything that kept the Abomination from dispersing had gathered inside that sphere. The memories it had stolen, the remnants of the soul it once possessed, and whatever corruption had twisted both together were compressed into something that did not fully belong to the physical world.

It was something Rook could never destroy. He knew that, but it did not stop him from trying.

Rook drove the point of the axe toward the sphere. The weapon passed through it without impact or resistance, sinking into the ground beneath the Fourth Rank’s body and leaving the crystalline object floating exactly where it had been.

Rook cursed and stabbed again, only for the same thing to happen. The sphere rippled around the axe as though the weapon had passed through smoke. Shapes moved beneath its surface, too distorted for Rook to understand, then vanished before his eyes could follow them.

"Move," Voss said.

Rook looked toward him. "Cull it."

"In a moment."

"Now."

Voss ignored him.

He stepped over one of the ropes and reached into the split chest. His fingers closed around the sphere without passing through it. The surface flexed beneath his grip, and several flashes of pale light travelled along his hand.

Voss pulled, but the sphere resisted for an instant.

The Fourth Rank’s body began shuddering. Both sword arms struck weakly against their restraints while the broken ribs bent inward, as if trying to protect what remained inside them.

Voss tightened his grip and ripped the sphere free.

The Abomination convulsed. A final layered scream escaped its ruined throat, but it contained no words. The body collapsed into thick black smoke, beginning at the head and spreading down the spine. Flesh, bone, and sword-like limbs dissolved within seconds.

Every rope pinning it in place fell loose. Hooks struck the ground, and Reapers stumbled backwards as the tension disappeared without warning. Those who had been pulling by hand fell against the stones.

The smoke spread across the field before thinning beneath the blue lantern light. Nothing remained of the Fourth Rank except the sphere within Voss’s hand.

He turned it slowly between his fingers as shapes gathered beneath its surface.

Mara emerged from behind Rook’s coffin and approached carefully, her attention shifting between the sphere and the place where the Abomination had disappeared.

"What is that?"

"What’s left of it," Voss said.

"That tells me nothing."

"Fourth Ranks remember more than the smaller ones. Most of what’s in here belonged to the souls it consumed. Some may have belonged to whatever it was before."

"Then Cull it," Rook said.

Voss looked at him.

Rook still held the axe with its edge resting against the ground. Blood and black residue covered his coat. Several thin cuts crossed his face, and one shoulder had begun darkening where the Fourth Rank’s strike had thrown him across the field.

Voss looked back at the sphere as something moved inside it. The smoke gathered against the crystalline surface, forming a pale rectangular shape surrounded by darkness. A body appeared within it for less than a second, lying beneath a light bright enough to erase every detail from its face.

Then the image scattered, and another took its place.

Several figures stood on the opposite side of something transparent, their outlines stretched and indistinct. One raised an arm. Another turned away. Smoke swallowed them before Voss could make out anything more.

A sound came from within the sphere. It was too faint for Mara to hear and too broken to be called a voice. Voss brought the object closer to his covered face as the smoke shifted again.

Every shape inside it turned toward Rook.

Voss’s amusement disappeared.

Rook noticed. "What did you see?"

"Nothing useful."

"Then Cull it."

Voss continued staring at the sphere. The images had already collapsed into a tangled mass of smoke, but something within it still pressed against the side facing Rook.

Mara stepped closer. "Can those memories be separated?"

"Perhaps."

"How?"

"Carefully." Voss closed his fingers around the sphere, hiding the movement within it. "several centuries inside an Abomination turns memories into a tangled mess. Pull on the wrong one, and all you get is nonsense."

"Then give it to me," Rook said.

Voss looked at him. "So you can hit it with an axe again?"

"It was worth trying."

"You already knew it wouldn’t work."

"I wanted to be certain."

"You’ve been certain for three hundred years."

Rook tightened his grip upon the axe. "Voss."

The warning in his voice caused several nearby Reapers to reach for their weapons, though none of them drew. Voss noticed the movement and raised one hand, stopping them before their fear created another fight.

He glanced from Rook to Mara and noticed her gaze, there was something there, as if she wanted it. The he ended by returning his attention to the sphere concealed within his palm.

A smile slowly entered his voice.

"Interesting."