All Chapters of Mosquito System: Blood Required: Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
79 chapters
Dance of Bone and Rot
The air outside the building was worse than the rot insideU. I stepped onto the cracked pavement, my boots crunching on shattered glass, with the skeleton rattling rhythmically behind me. Chiching-ching. "So, where do we go now?" I whispered, my eyes darting toward the rusted husks of cars lining the street. "Do you know any place where we can just lay peacefully? Somewhere we don't have to gut a zombie every five minutes?"Master, you finally asked!" The blue flickers in his sockets flared like dying stars. "But no, Master. There is no such thing as quiet here. This city is a warzone that won't heal anywhere near. One wrong move and you won't even have an intact skeleton like mine to boast about."I glared at him, the stress of the countdown gnawing at my brain. "Shut up... you freak.""As you command, Master," he chirped, making a theatrical gesture of locking his jaw shut."You've been wandering this hellscape for an eternity," I hissed, stepping over a severed arm that loo
Only 4% Survival
The alley ended in a wall of rusted shipping containers stacked three high, forming a dead-end that smelled of dried blood. We were trapped in a box of corrugated steel, and the air was getting thin."Master, get behind the crate," the skeleton hissed. His bone-white fingers were trembling from a high-frequency vibration. Chiching-ching. The sound was frantic now, a warning bell tolling in my marrow."What is it?" I whispered, my voice cracking. I gripped the chef's knife. "The zombies... we took them down. Why aren't we moving?""The air," he rasped, his skull tilting upward. "The air has changed."Then, the sound started. It was a heavy thud. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Something was walking toward us.From the mouth of the alley, a figure emerged. It stood nearly eight feet tall, draped in a tattered, crimson trench coat that looked like it had been stitched together from human skin. But it wasn't the coat that ma
Gulp, The General's Rebirth
The cave was freezing cold. My muscles were screaming, the aftereffects of the Titan's Breath leaving my limbs feeling like they were made of cement. I slumped against wall, clutching the tactical bag that held the remains of my only friend. Ashes and bone shards. That was all that was left of the knight who had called me Master.[Host... there is a way.] The System's voice flickered in my mind, sounding strangely distorted, like a radio signal passing through a storm."A way to what? To die faster?" I hissed into the dark.[The Black Blood you obtained from the Mother of Rot. It is a catalyst. If poured upon the remains of a soul-bound entity, it can trigger a Forced Reconstruction. You can bring him back.]I didn't hesitate. I pulled out the small, glass bottle of swirling black ichor and the bag of grey ash. My hands shook as I emptied the remains onto a flat slab of stone. Then, I uncorked the bottle. The scent that h
Lava
The rain screamed against the earth. I and Gulp, we ran toward the skeletal remains of the city, our feet pounding against a road that was more pothole than pavement. Every time the lightning flashed, the world turned rainbow colours, revealing the ghostly silhouettes of skyscrapers that looked like broken teeth reaching for a dying sky. Every nerve in my body was on fire, a residual hum from the Red Zone’s toxic atmosphere."Gulp!" I yelled over the roar of the wind, my lungs burning as I sucked in the wet, ozone-heavy air."Master?" His voice was a dry rattle, yet it carried over the storm with a strange clarity that bypassed my ears and resonated directly in my skull. It was a cold sound, like wind whistling."There is something fishy with this whole apocalypse thing. Don't you think so?" I swerved around a rusted-out bus, the metal groaning as my shoulder clipped the frame. "The timing, the way the air feels... it’s like we're walking inside a giant, rotting lung. It’s too
What?
"Hold still, Gulp," I whispered, my fingers hovering just inches from the snout of the gargantuan beast. "He’s looking at me like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.""He does, Master," Gulp rasped, his new plasma-flecked armor casting a sharp, sterile white light against the cooling lava on the ground. "He sees the fire that used to light the world. He sees the hearth of the Golden City.""I told you not to call me that," I snapped, but the words died in my throat.As my palm finally made contact with the Dinosaur’s scales, the heat surged. My vision shattered.The Flash:The roar of the storm was replaced by a silence. I wasn't in the mud anymore. I wasn't breathing decay. I was standing on a balcony of ivory and sun-warmed marble, overlooking a valley that defied the laws of the apocalypse I knew.This was the city of Mantra Vatika. It was a god-gifted masterpiece of geometry and nature. Trees with leaves of hammered silver lined streets paved in white quartz. There was no h
Wait For Me, Gulp
I didn't answer. The System spoke as if it had just fixed a minor software lag, as if it hadn't just yanked me away from a world where I was a legend and dropped me back into the dirt to count the seconds until midnight.I looked at my legs—six thin, striped sticks tipped with tiny hooks. I looked at the dark pond below. Ten years of devotion to Xena led to a push into the dark, and now, even the apocalypse had kicked me out.I was happy to be away from the ghosts, sure, but I... I could still feel the heat of the Dinosaur. I could still hear the rattle of Gulp’s voice. "System," I buzzed. "Bring them here. Bring Gulp and the Dinosaur."[“Request denied. Current coordinates are incompatible with the physical structures of the entities known as Gulp and the Eternal Flame Tyrant.”]"Why? You opened the Altar of Ascension! You’re ancient and echoing! Move them!" I spiraled in a frantic, angry circle over the slate.[“The enti
A NEW Encounter
"System," I buzzed, my wings vibrating with fury."We need to talk about my compensation. You dragged me into that localized hellscape because your code was leaking. I paid three years of my human life for a phone call, and I nearly ended up as a zombie’s appetizers because you couldn't hold a connection. I want a refund. Or at least a damn bonus."The silence that followed was heavy, filled with mocking croak of a bullfrog. Then, that cold, familiar text scrolled across my vision.[“Request denied, Host. The System does not issue rewards for environmental stabilization. The Red Zone transition was a necessary recalibration. You are still alive; that is your compensation.”]"You stingy, gold-plated bucket of bolts!" I snapped, spiraling upward in a tight, angry loop."You're a glitchy parasite! One day, I’m going to find your source code and I’m going to delete you with a smile on my face."[“Duly noted. You have 34 hours remaining to harvest Royal Blood. The clock is ticking, an
The Eclipse of Heaven
Arthur was waiting for me in the air outside the hotel. He looked different now. The blue tinge was fading, replaced by a soft, silver radiance. The canyon in his throat had closed."You have my gratitude, King," he said, bowing his head."I told you not to call me that," I buzzed, but the bitterness was gone."The wind is yours," Arthur whispered.He surged toward me. He wrapped around my wings, and suddenly, the laws of physics ceased to apply. I was a passenger on a phantom gale.The world below became a mist of dark trees. I covered fifty miles in what felt like five seconds. The speed was intoxicating.And then, I saw the Harsley Palace. It sat on a high ridge, a massive gothic fortress. It looked like something out of a dream—or a nightmare.The ghost of Arthur gave me one final push, depositing me on the cold, stone nose of a gargoyle overlooking the inner courtyard."The blood you seek is in the Dancing Hall," Arthur’s voice echoed in my mind as he began to dissolve
The Eclipse of Heaven
["Caution: Bio-electrical reserves at critical threshold. Initiating Shadow-Soul decoupling. Energy levels dropping... 12%... 8%... Transferring mana into the Wraith Projection now."]The world collapsed. One moment I was feeling the rough, abrasive texture of the brick under my microscopic hooks. The next, a freezing vacuum sucked me out. It was a sensation of being peeled away from my own body. I felt my body stiffen.A scream tore through the air, but it was the sound of the 'Aegis of the Sun'—that blinding, incandescent pillar of celestial fire clashing with the ink-black mana of my Wraith Projection.I felt myself being ripped through the golden veil. My consciousness, now draped in the terrifying, six-foot-tall silhouette of the Reaper, bled through the ward-protected barriers. The red arrows of light hissed through my form as I crossed the threshold, but there was no meat to pierce, no nerves to burn. A soul-system.But as I solidified inside the dance hall, hovering near
Trojan Horse
I stood in the corner of that wretched cell, a silent witness to a tragedy that had been repeating for centuries. My shadow expanded, the clawed fingers of the Reaper stretching across the ceiling until the flickering torches gasped and died, plunged into an unnatural darkness.These people in the Harsley line, the officials in their black sleeves—they were the same as Xena. They took life because they were too cowardly to face their own mortality. They wore black to hide the splatter of the lives they stole. They pretended to be royals, but they were just scavengers. Fucking scavengers, I murmured again. "You want a curse?" I whispered. The voice vibrated out of the shadows, a guttural whisper that seemed to resonate with the hard stones of the palace."Yes... Yes..." The woman’s voice rattled in a throat that had been drained of everything but spite. "I want them... to never see the life they value too much. I want them to choke on their own eternity."She turned her head sli