The Bounty Hunter
Chapter 40: The Fallen One

November 30th, 2088

Clara Fox, that’s the name of the dwarf hero who allegedly betrayed her city.  I say allegedly because I am way too familiar with this horrid world.  I find it far more likely that Clara was used when it was convenient for them and then they tried to eliminate her when she became too threatening to their power.  

In the history books it praised how she gave up everything to protect the city.  She never saw her family, she never had a lover, she never had fun and she never had the time to spare for friends.  I believe she was forced or manipulated into doing this.  The strength and power of her negative emotions must have been overwhelming. 

But she stubbornly stuck to her duty in spite of that.  Then she was betrayed by the very people she had sacrificed her everything for.  The already powerful negative emotions became uncontrollable and thus she rampaged.  I am so certain of my theory that I have chosen to invest a lot of time and resources into coming here and exploring. 

Those cursed voices emanating from the palace are the probably the remnants of her consciousness.  They have been growing louder as I proceeded closer to the throne room.  I finally arrived to the 4 story tall doors to the throne room, the pressure from the presence of Fallen Hero is palpable here.  As if waiting for my arrival, the doors opened with an ear-splitting grinding. 

In the center of the throne room there was a kneeling body with a sword impaled in its belly.  From the angle of the sword and the posture of the body, it seems like it was a suicide.  The sword was a magnificent specimen.  There was no excessive embellishment nor were there gaudy adornments on it, but it had a kind of simple beauty that could only come from a master craftsman.  A long, straight and narrow blade led into a simple cross style hand guard.  It was an estoc.  No signs of rust or wear were apparent.  The impaled sword was not the only weapon on the body.  On her back was an impressive looking mechanized crossbow and on her waist were a pair of beautiful butterfly swords along with a matching set of throwing knives.  All of them were made with a similar style to her estoc.  Her armor was standard steel plate.  The body was still intact enough for me to tell it was a female dwarf with black hair.  

This must be the Fallen Hero Clara Fox.  The body was in the midst of decomposing but the fact in hadn’t become dust yet made it obvious that it was an undead, specifically a zombie.  It was likely lying in wait to ambush me.  So I pretended to focus on the throne and I walked towards it.  I had past the body when it suddenly pulled out the estoc from its stomach and stabbed me in the back. 

Or more specifically Clara stabbed my illusory afterimage.  Immediately as she lunged in for her strike, I was above her with my rhomphaia swinging towards her head.  She had already committed her forward momentum and thus could not easily dodge.  But as expected of a hero, instead of trying to go against her momentum she increased it.  So instead of decapitating her cleanly, I ended up knocking away the mechanized crossbow from her back as she flew forward. 

The undead Clara then performed a combat roll and quickly faced my direction just in time to receive two full clips of 9mm rounds.  I was blasting away full force with my magic guns and she had no means to respond.  Pieces of decayed flesh were being picked off, but Clara was lithely avoiding my attempts to get a headshot.  Are zombies usually that limber?  She had been disarmed from her crossbow and the distance was too great for throwing knives to be a threat.  Or so I thought. 

She grabbed all of the 13 throwing knives and tossed them simultaneously at me.  They made a screeching sound as they rent through the air.  She had intentionally spread them out so there was no way to dodge all of them.  I quickly had to contort my body and bring my pistols up to deflect the one knife I couldn’t dodge.  I barely managed it. 

All of those daggers flew to the other side of the room and easily gouged chunks out of the solid stone walls.  What incredible arm strength.  That was the only thing I could think before Clara was already upon me, thrusting forward with her estoc.  I quickly electrified my pistols and tossed them at her. 

She sensed the danger and hurriedly pulled back… to find that her feet had sunk into quicksand that had appeared from nowhere.  With phenomenal improvisation, she chose to toss her estoc at the pistols.  When they touched my trap activate and a blast of lightning occurred.  Clara had been wearing steel plate armor, so she was like a lightning rod and got bombarded by the lightning. 

I used the force of the blast to slide backwards as I drew my ninjato in preparation for the next exchange.  I activated my body reinforcement magic and threw in all the mana I could spare.  The smoke cleared and the zombie Clara stood there.  Her armor had been melted off from my attack and I could see her lifeless red eyes.  Even as a rotting zombie one could still see traces of her charm from when she was alive.  She truly must have been a lovely woman back in the day. 

She drew the pair of butterfly swords and vanished.  She didn’t really vanish but instead approached with an absolutely shocking speed.  Zombies are supposed to be slow, damn it!  Even with my magically enhanced kinetic vision I lost sight of her momentarily.  I had to rely on my intuition as I brought my ninjato down forcefully to block her rising cuts. 

She pressed her advantage as she unleashed a furious barrage of attacks.  She masterfully flowed from one move to the next.  I barely managed to guard against it.  I conjured a forceful wind to blow her back slightly and used that extra distance to utilize my longer reach and stride.  I continually struck and stepped away as Clara tried to close the distance and get into attack range. 

This hit and run tactic was proving fruitful, as Clara soon had multiple wounds on her limbs.  But she was tireless, and I was running out of the mana I needed to keep up with her.  Time to go for all or nothing.  I secretly magnetized my ninjato and stabbed them both forward recklessly.  She easily parried them as expected, but her swords stuck to mine.  I then increased their weight tremendously in an instant.  Even Clara’s ridiculous strength couldn’t handle it and all four blades landed on the ground with a massive thud, creating a small crater. 

It was now a brawl between me and Clara.  Not.  I pushed off to gain some distance and then I threw all my mana into an exorcism spell.  That had always been the plan from the start, but I needed to disarm her and damage her body so she couldn’t move as quickly.  Now she had no way to interrupt my spell in time, although she still charged forward desperately.

Golden light coalesced within my cupped hands.  It was gentle, soothing and pure.  I opened my hands palm up and lightly blew on the light.  It scattered into the air and enveloped Clara.  Her rotten body slowly changed into particles of golden light.  All of it was sucked into my soul sapphire, which then started shining brightly due to the strength of the soul fragment.  Soon there was nothing but silence once more in the throne room. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ NʘvᴇlFɪre.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

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