金瓶梅第2部

Tycondrius leapt out of the magical shadows, Shatterspike in mid-swing... aimed to slice off the head of one of his closest friends.

It cut cleanly through the air and... nothing else.

Surprised, Tycon lost his balance as he landed, somersaulting onto the sand... getting itchy grains of it into hair.

...How frustrating.

Wroe was... nowhere to be seen.

...After assessing his surroundings, Tycon realized it was he who had erred.

He had emerged over a dozen yalms away from his intended destination.

"...Of course," He cradled his face in his palm.

He was in one of the seven hells. It was an oversight, but magical hell-darkness did not have the same properties as magical... 'regular' darkness.

--still... he'd misplaced an entire Daeva because of it.

"Hades!" Tycon raised his voice.

Narrowing his eyes, he glanced left and right, searching for... anything that resembled a small house in size.

He'd lost Hades, as well.

That... was even more baffling.

"Oy, Tycon!!"

Tycon breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't lost Hades, after all.

"Come look, yeh?" The god of death the dead beckoned.

...Slowly, Tycon turned to look behind him.

Too close.

He gazed upon the battered, barely-recognizable face of Hexblade Tarquin Wroe... not more than a fulm away.

His strange sword remained in his hand-- held loosely, but still in his grip.

That... was good.

That he'd come so close to striking him with his guard down was... off putting.

Tycon took a healthy step backward.

He did not fear injury from an Unranked Hexblade... but he wanted to avoid any of his bodily fluids.

There was much of it.

Wroe's feet dangled above the blooded sands... held aloft by Hades' enchanted warscythe piercing through his abdomen.

Despite the swelling bruises forcing his eyes nearly shut... his brows implied he was glaring-- as if his mangled state was Tycon's fault.

The fellow was fully deserving of his beating and subsequent skewering.

Thankfully, he had seemed to learn from his mistakes. His unreasonable demands to be taken to his patron ceased in full.

"T... tekkk... mif... tooowrr," The dying angel mumbled.

Wroe's speech was sorely affected by his swollen cheeks.

...It seemed he was trying to say... 'take me to her?'

Tycon rolled his eyes, "You can't be serious, Mister Wroe. You're still going on about that-- in your condition?"

To that, the Daeva renewed his struggle... moaning in pain as he bled his hands on the dark-metal of Hades' scythe.

...That earned him nothing, of course. An *actual* angel could not budge the Death Orc. Wroe would remain impaled at Hades' discretion.

"Should I put him down?" The orc tilted his head.

"What?" Tycon grimaced, "*No.*"

Without any viable options remaining, Wroe ineffectually tried to claw at Tycon's face-- who stood mere ilms out of his reach.

"Mister Wroe," Tycon frowned, "You've suffered a critical wound. I *suggest* you calm yourself."

"I thought you didn't want him?" Hades raised an eyebrow.

Dark blood began to gush from Wroe's open mouth, dribbling down his chin. New blood slicked his neckbeard atop the old blood.

Tycon shook his head.

"Tarquin Wroe is no longer fit to serve under the banner of Sol Invictus... but he... is still my friend."

He was about to turn away when his eyes were drawn to a peculiar shine. It was not an attack... but it was something he might have missed if not for his sensitivity to movement.

"What'cha lookin'--" Hades furrowed his brows-- then widened his eyes and slackened his jaw, "WhoOoa... Tiiiiiight~"

Tycon leaned forward to inspect Wroe's injury... "Strange."

The massive orc loomed over Wroe, cradling his chin with his fingers, "So whaddya think, Tycon? That a regen ability?"

The Daeva's injuries... appeared to be lined with a shining metallic liquid.

The Hexblade magic absent throughout his fight... had unexpectedly appeared, afterwards.

Tycon examined the cuts he previously inflicted on Wroe's arms... each of them covered with a hardened line of the silvery material.

Flicking his fingernail against one such line, it crumbled away into thick, shimmering flecks of mana. Underneath it was raw, but freshly healed skin.

"It appears he is," Tycon nodded... "The... metal is a protective seal formed over his wounds."

"A scab," The orc agreed... "A scab made by... the gods."

"Mister Wroe," Tycon sighed... "You remain blessed by your Goddess, it seems. Otherwise, I'm certain you'd be incapacitated."

He'd broken several of the Daeva's bones and delivered severe blunt trauma to his head and chest area.

By all means, Tarquin Wroe should have been dead-- or very close to it.

Tycon was tempted to ask Hades to summon a Reaper to verify... but he feared it would imply that either he or his subordinates were lacking.

"I... I am blessed..." Wroe shut his eyes... lightly quivering.

...The motion made Tycon uncomfortable, but he pressed on.

"But really, Mister Wroe..." Tycon sighed, "what have you been doing all this time?"

Wroe offered a bloody smile, "Searching... for her?"

"And you're still Bronze?" Tycon glared.

"Well, uh... aha..." The angel-on-a-scythe let out a guilty laugh.

Tycon tilted his head up, groaning loudly... "Arrrgh... Hades."

"Yep," The orc nodded. He placed a heavy hand behind Wroe's back and... pushed him off the blade.

The gentleman gave out a short scream of pain before falling face-first into the sand.

Wroe's divine blessing of metal-- if that's really what it was, continued its work. Within seconds, Wroe's open wounds knitted closed.

The speed of which lent credibility to the magic being divine in nature.

Almost immediately, Wroe began the struggle to pick himself up.

Hades pointed at the face-down, rear-upwards angel-blood with his chin, "Should I..."

"No," Tycon waved him off. "He's earned those injuries."

"I was offering to put him down," The orc explained.

"Ah, my mistake..." Tycon took a moment to consider it-- "I'll have to deny your admittedly kind offer. Despite the threat of severe feedback from a broken magical contract... if need be, I'd prefer to kill him myself."

"Pff," Hades scoffed. "That's rough. Alright-- if you say so, man."

Finally, Wroe sat himself up on his knees... "H-hey, Boss."

Ah.

...Those were the exact words Tycon was waiting to hear.

"Finally awake, then, Mister Wroe?" He smiled politely.

"As such..." His eyes narrowed to judgmental slits, "I'll have you explain what in the seven hells has been going through your feathered brain."