Free Web Novel“Status.” Red commanded, crushing the heart shortly after reading a string of words in front of her face. “As I expected. The ones born from infinite hatred have taken root here in the Larin Empire. The Crimson Hunger.”
“Bwa?”
The head of a wolf emerged from her shadow and aptly snapped up the heart from her blade.
“We can only hope to the Rivers that Snow has not been afflicted by the Crimson Hunger. How infuriating. Not long before we came across the boneless slugs of the Blood Festival. I doubt our little skirmish months prior destabilized them to this extent.”
“Bwa!”
“It goes without saying that if Snow is reduced to a blob of flesh, then, you must run as far away from me as you can.”
“… Bwa?”
“Unfortunately, bullets steeped in hatred do not discriminate friend from foe. You do not expect a flame to spare the innocent.”
She kicked a corpse towards the mountain of corpses she had formed by using the bodies of the infected. The way the flames burned around them caused it to resemble a ritualistic site. It also brought back memories of Red’s first encounter with the Queen of Sweet and Bitter Thorns: a Corrupted that desired her precious friend Snow, much like how Queen Mary did.
Indeed. The reason why Red had returned to the Larin Empire despite her past troubles was because the Larin Empire had captured her friend. She had been scouring the Larin Empire in search of clues but came up short time after time.
[Tracker] was useless. Not only that, but Three Paw could not manifest into Snow’s shadow despite them being linked to one another. Red was only aware that Snow was somewhere in the Larin Empire.
The Capital was the obvious place, but she did not think that Queen Mary would be so brazen as to keep Snow in the one place she was expected to be kept. Reverse psychology, as it was called, was a common tactic used to throw off skilled hunters.
Additionally, the Capital was an enormous complex made up of multiple levels. Her chances of finding Snow were slim, unless she happened to find Queen Mary. Thus, she resorted to taking the safest possible route to ensure Snow wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire should she strike the Capital.
If it were entirely up to her, then she would have attacked it immediately.
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“Agate.” Red uttered the name of her System as she held out the y-shaped device. “Wake up. There is a Sanity Token with you name on it. I’m activating the Farsight Dowser. We’ve accumulated enough material for it to clue us in.”
She implanted the device into the mound of flesh and watched as it syphoned it into the glass tube. Hundreds of bodies were condensed into less than a liter of white liquid. The object then began to vibrate in the direction of where Snow conceptually was.
The object was a Gift called the Farsight Dowser. It was obtained during a recent expedition into the Subderma Layer. The Gift allowed the user to locate an item or person by sacrificing enough material that closely matched the target.
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For Snow, the Farsight Dowser required an immense amount of Vampiric blood. To use it, however, additionally required one to sacrifice their sanity. Red was a special case, since her sanity was tied to the existence of a resource called Tokens.
Thus, she only needed to part with one to operate the Farsight Dowser.
“That guarantees it. I’m running dangerously low on Tokens. And we don’t have Snow or Dorothy to bring me back if I succumb.” Red did not seem bothered by this in the slightest.
It was more of an inconvenience for those around her, rather than herself.
“Emvita is a place rife with useless Gifts and vile wolves.” Red monologued. “Like yourself.”
“Bwa!?”
An eight-cylinder revolver was suddenly pointed at Three Paw’s head. The size of the gun was easily larger than Red’s head.
*BOOOOOOM!*
Her thin wrists did not snap, nor did her hand move an inch as the oversized revolver fired. The sound caused the skeletons of burning houses to become extinguished, and the red mist dispersed from the village entirely.
“Sneaky bitch.”
“Bwa…”
She inhaled the smoke from her revolver, brandished it, and threw it into her [Dimensional Storage]. Three Paw’s head slowly turned. One could imagine it creaking as it turned its attention to what Red had fired at.
But Three Paw could not help but be drawn more to the power of that bullet.
The building that was right beside Red disappeared. What remained were the foundations and the hole that made up the basement. Other than this, no one would even suspect that there used to be a house here.
And it was not the only house that was erased.
Street after street, an entire column of houses was erased with a single bullet.
Three Paw didn’t even know what she had shot at. Nor was there any way to tell what it was anymore.
The creature simply ceased to exist.
The weapon was one of Red’s various firearms.
And it was nowhere near her strongest.
“Agate, please warn me if there are any surprises in the Capital. I’d hate to bring out Fairytale’s Bane in an urban environment. But I wouldn’t mind erasing a city block if it meant taking out a miserable wolf. Or a Fairytale Corrupted, if we’re lucky.”
“Bwa!” Three Paw’s tail wagged as it sprung from her shadow and lowered its body for Red to mount it.
“They don’t breed mutts like you anymore. Good for Red, for managing to tame the likes of you.”
“Bwa?”
“But of course. I am, if nothing, Vengeful Red. I am nothing like the impotent child that is the Emanant Red. Onwards, Three Paw. Rockie will catch up. We march to the Capital and rescue Snow. May our enemies know of our infinite hatred.”
* * *
Hordes of Clots marred the path to the Capital of the Larin Empire. Among the monsters were low-ranking Crimson Hunger Impuritas. Balls of flesh appropriately named the Flesh Clot, absorbed the bodies of Clots to further enlarge themselves.
In a way, the Clots of the Larin Empire seemed to function as a resource pool for the Crimson Hunger to exploit. Which begged the question whether it was truly the Queen behind Snow’s abduction, or an Impuritas Group.
In the first place, Red never crossed paths of the Impuritas in any meaningful manner. Often, she was at odds with Syndicates, Associations, and the Ateliers: specifically the latter, with Justica Arms and Inflow Direct being major exception, given that Red had rescued Healers in the past.
For all Red knew, this could be the result of a breached ImpulseWorks Site, or a stage play ordained by Act X. Her distrust in the Ateliers extended to the Nexus, despite her partner’s assurance that the Nexus was the safest place in the world.
How can that be true when the Ateliers are partnered with the Nexus?
When the Act X allowed the Construct Missionary to Corrupt into the Dolly Boy?
Or what about the plague that is Scarlet Logic?
Her distrust ran deep. Nothing could sway her opinion of the Ateliers.
Except for Snow.
Who was Snow in the first place?
Red had few words to describe her.
But if she could only choose one, then it was a ‘partner’.
Snow was a human who had been by her side since the beginning. While Red currently did not possess the same strong feelings as her second half, it was still enough to drive her to challenge an Empire if it meant getting her back.
The Farsight Dowser led Red to the Capital of the Larin Empire in under five hours. Eventually, the walls surrounding the Larin Empire came into view, and she ordered Three Paw to increase their pace.
What Red did not expect was to find that the wall surrounding the Larin Empire was in fact a part of the grand complex that made up the Capital.
