ONYXSPIRE: THE DESCENT OF CLIVE COLLINS

Chapte 06. Massacre Beneath the Snow

The falling snow at the bottom of The Maw no longer felt cold to Clive Collins. To him, every crystal of ice that touched his skin felt like sparks feeding his adrenaline. In front of him, three Radiant Guard soldiers stood frozen in place. The blue glow of their plasma spears flickered nervously, reflecting across the polished white armor that now looked more like metal coffins for the men wearing them.

“What the hell is that arm?” the soldier in the middle, probably the sergeant, shouted, trying to hide the tremor in his voice. “Subject 404, you have been contaminated by a biohazard! Drop your weapon and surrender for quarantine!”

Clive did not answer. His tongue felt numb, coated in the bitter taste of the black fluid still leaking into his throat.

[Enemy Analysis: 3 Targets Identified.]

[Armor: Poly-Ceramic Radiant Grade. Durability: High against standard physical attacks.]

[Weakness: Gaps around the neck joints and armpits.]

[WREN: Clive, Lycus demands immediate protein intake. Synchronization has risen to 18%. You can feel the hunger, can’t you? Stop looking at them like humans. They are merely meat wrapped inside metal cans.]

"Eat... Clive... Tear... Open... The cans..." Lycus whispered, the echo making the hairs on the back of Clive’s neck rise.

Without warning, Clive lunged forward.

His first step shattered the ice beneath his feet. His speed was no longer human. He moved like a shadow dragged by the wrong gravity. The soldier on the left reacted immediately, swinging his plasma spear in a horizontal slash that should have split a normal man in half.

Srring!

Clive did not dodge. His left arm moved automatically, a parasitic reflex far faster than conscious thought. His obsidian claws clamped around the blazing shaft of the plasma spear. A violent hiss erupted as the plasma energy tried to burn through Lycus’s flesh, yet the black arm only tightened its grip.

“That’s impossible! Plasma burns at two thousand degrees!” the soldier screamed.

“Maybe for you,” Clive hissed.

With the force of a hydraulic machine, Clive yanked the spear forward, dragging the soldier closer. His left arm suddenly changed shape. The black muscles twisted and stretched, sprouting razor-sharp thorns like an organic whip. Craaash! The whip coiled around the soldier’s neck, its spikes punching through the armor seams and shredding his throat instantly.

Blood exploded outward, splashing across Clive’s face. It felt warm. Sweet. Worst of all, Clive felt satisfied.

[Biological Energy Acquired: 5%.]

[Status: Synchronization Stable.]

“SHIT! KILL HIM! DON’T LET HIM GET CLOSE!” the sergeant shouted in panic. The remaining two spears thrust toward Clive’s chest at the same time.

Clive leaped backward, his movement jerky, like a puppet yanked by invisible strings. He landed against the stone wall of the ravine, his boots sticking vertically thanks to the claws that had grown through them. From there, he looked down.

The two soldiers looked small.

Weak.

“Why are you shaking?” Clive’s voice sounded wrong now. A second echo growled beneath it, his own voice mixed with Lycus’s low snarl. “Weren’t you the ones who said I was garbage?”

He launched himself from the cliff wall. Kael’s massive axe, gripped in his human right hand, now pulsed purple from the energy flowing through it from Lycus.

BOOM!

He crashed down between the two soldiers. The impact created a small crater in the snow. Before either of them could reposition, Clive swung Kael’s axe in a brutal three-hundred-sixty-degree arc.

The supposedly impenetrable Radiant Guard armor shattered like cheap ceramic. The axe split the second soldier clean across the waist, severing his body into two halves that collapsed in opposite directions. Intestines and steaming fluids spilled into the snow, hot vapor rising from the open wound into the freezing air.

“N-no... please... mercy...” The last soldier, the sergeant, collapsed onto the ground. His weapon was broken. He crawled backward desperately, kicking snow wildly with his boots.

Clive walked toward him.

Heavy. Steady.

Every step left black footprints that burned through the ice.

“Mercy?” Clive tilted his head. “When Kael begged, you cut his head off. When I begged for my sister’s letter, you spat on it. Where was your mercy then?”

“T-that... those were orders! We were just following orders!” The sergeant ripped off his helmet, revealing the pale face of a middle-aged man drenched in tears. “I have a family! I have children!”

Clive stopped.

The words family and children triggered something inside his skull. A memory of Mina smiling at the orphanage. A memory of Kael handing him half his bread. Clive’s human right hand began trembling violently. The axe suddenly felt unbearably heavy.

“Family...” Clive whispered, tears forming in his eyes. “I... I just wanted to protect my family too...”

[Warning: Emotional Fluctuation Detected.]

[WREN System: Clive, empathy is a malfunction in this scenario. The target is reaching for a thermal grenade on the back of his belt. Do not let the remnants of your humanity kill you.]

The sergeant had not truly been begging. His trembling hand was groping behind his armor, searching for the emergency detonator.

"Let... Me... Clive..." Lycus took over.

Suddenly, Clive’s left arm exploded beyond the limits of his control. It stretched unnaturally, its fingers transforming into long black blades. Before the sergeant could pull the grenade pin, five black spikes punched through his chest and lifted his heavy body off the ground.

CRACK.

Lycus crushed the man’s ribs inside his armor. The sergeant coughed blood, his eyes wide as he stared at Clive before the light inside them vanished forever.

Clive stood frozen, his left arm still embedded inside the corpse’s chest, absorbing the last traces of life. Then he began laughing and crying hysterically at the same time. His sobs collided with the sound of Lycus chewing inside his mind.

“I’m a murderer... I really became a monster...” Clive collapsed to his knees, his left hand still lodged in the corpse. “Kael... forgive me... I can’t be a good person anymore...”

The hysteria spiraled out of control. He slammed his own head repeatedly with his human hand until blood streamed down his face, trying desperately to silence WREN and Lycus. The sight was horrifying. A young man sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of a pile of corpses he had butchered with savage brutality.

The blood on his face began to freeze.

[WREN: Evaluation Complete. Nearby enemies eliminated.]

[Recommendation: Clean the area. Radiant Guard armor contains positional tracking systems. Reinforcements will arrive in approximately fifteen minutes.]

“I... I don’t want to stay here anymore,” Clive sobbed. He ripped his arm free from the sergeant’s chest with a wet plop.

He looked toward the pile of Kael’s dried bones. With trembling hands, he gathered scraps of armor and wood from his ruined porter bag. Using the last remnants of Lycus’s energy, he ignited a fire.

“I can’t bring you home, Kael,” Clive said softly, his voice empty now. “But I’m not letting them turn you into an experiment or rat food.”

The flames grew larger, devouring the remains of Kael and the evidence of the massacre. Clive stood before the burning pyre. His face, once soaked with tears, slowly hardened. The grief had not disappeared, but he shoved it deep into a black corner of his soul.

[Permanent Synchronization: 20%.]

[Subject Personality: Undergoing Hardening.]

[WREN: Good. Your tears only waste bodily moisture. Now pick up the axe. We still have a long journey to the heart of Onyxspire.]

Clive picked up Kael’s axe. He no longer bothered hiding his left arm. Let the world see what they had created. He stared up toward the top of the ravine, toward the distant lights of Lumeria high above.

“Benedict,” he hissed. “Wait for me. I’ll deliver one final package to you. And inside it... will be your head.”