Published at 28th of October 2025 4:46 am

Chapter venari 15.5

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Ooni lurched to her feet, blinded and deafened and masked in blood, adrift on a sea of black smog.

For a moment she thought she was dead returned to the pit-trap of immortality between resurrections, yet somehow kept conscious and coherent. She blinked grime and grit from her stinging eyes, preparing for the black miasma to condense into a face, a demon assigned to punish her for heresy, to drag her kicking and screaming back to the Kingdom of Death.

But, no.

Ooni was dead, but only in the same way that shed been dead already. She was in too much pain for this to be an illusion.

She had avoided the worst of the two grenade detonations. She had already been down on the floor; the shouted warning had given her a split-second of useful motion between the first and second explosions, just enough to hit the deck and wrap her good arm around her head. She dimly recalled being picked up and slammed against the wall, her armour carapace peppered with fragments of shrapnel. Her ears were ringing, her left cheekbone throbbed with the sharp pain of a bad fracture, and her face was covered with tiny scratches and cuts and wounds, bleeding freely.

How had those two grenades done all this? Ooni had expected damage, of course, but they were just fragmentation grenades. Had the tight confines of the chamber reflected the pressure from the blasts?

No time to count that blessing. Pain was everywhere, in her burned arm and bruised shoulder and bloody face and every battered, twisted, knocked-askew joint. But Ooni didnt care; the pain was total, yet abstract, held at arms length, like she was bobbing on the surface of an infinite sea.

Her left hand was already groping for the grip of her submachine gun.

Ooni couldnt see anything, let alone a target. The air was saturated with dense black smoke, bitter and caustic in her eyes, scraping the exposed skin on her face, turning every little cut into a throbbing abrasion. She tried to take a breath; suddenly her mouth and throat were on fire, raked raw by sandpaper and gravel. She doubled up and vomited a string of bile onto the floor, tainted black by the foul air.

It wasnt smoke it was aerosolized glass. The black blocks that lined the chamber had been shattered by the explosions, pulverised into a swirling, choking, pitch-dark cloud of lethal particulate.

Ooni wasnt even sure how that was possible. Had the contents of the glass cooked off somehow, intensifying the blast? Was it even glass?

Ooni spat and retched and tried not to breathe. This air would have killed a live human being in seconds, but Ooni wasnt alive. She was a revenant. She was the reborn flesh of a new world, clay in the hands of Telokopolis.

She wrenched herself back upright, scrabbling for her weapon. Her right hand was still near useless, encased in Ilyushas protective resin. Her left gauntlet was covered in blood her own? Didnt matter. Her fingers were slippery on the trigger mechanism, but she held on tight

Ooni peered into the black. She couldnt even tell which way she was facing.

Muffled screams and shouts reached her as if she were a mile underwater, but she couldnt make out any of the voices, let alone the words; her hearing was bottled out by a single high note. Something crackled and hissed right in her ear, like an insect passing too close. Ooni hissed and whipped her head away, but that just made her vision swim and throb.

Then boom!-boom!-boom! that was Ilyushas shotgun! And her war cry, a long howling Fuck youuuu! To Oonis left? Shed gotten turned around.

Ooni twisted a full one hundred and eighty degrees and bumped her right shoulder against the wall. Pain shot through her bruised flesh and drew a wet sob from her throat, but she couldnt hear her own cry, and she didnt falter. Now she was facing the right way, toward where the Deaths Heads had been gathered when shed rolled the grenades under their feet.

Ooni raised her submachine gun and pointed it into the churning black, in the general direction of her former sisters.

Deaths Heads to kill. Fight wasnt over.

Ooni knew that when the fight was done, she would feel every inch of her pain. Something was holding her up and out of those waters of agony. It was not like before, when the voice of Telokopolis had spoken so clearly inside her. It was just a product of her own forward motion. If she stopped, if she gave up, if there were no more steps to take, then that favour would be withdrawn.

Ooni staggered forward. One step, two, three.

Gonna she said, then choked and gagged on the razorblade-air. Gonna kill you gonna

A soot-singed giant stumbled out of the soupy murk, limping with shattered servo-motors in one power-armoured leg, right on top of Ooni.

Yazhu, neither down nor out. She was burned and scored and dented probably from being smashed against a wall by the explosion right beneath her feet. But she still clutched her plasma rifle in both gauntlets. Her head snapped upward at the sight of Ooni, the optic trench in her helmet struggling to pierce the black with a pulse of red targeting light.

Yazhu jerked her plasma rifle into a firing position, stock to her shoulder. A pinprick of purple light sparked bright inside the muzzle.

The grenades hadnt mattered. Ooni was right back where shed started, facing a foe she couldnt possibly defeat, staring down her own execution, yet another return to the endless cycle of death and resurrection. She knew her chance of finding Leuca again was next to nothing. The chances of reuniting with the others Elpida, Pheiri, Ilyusha, her new comrades, her new sisters, though she had not dared to think of them as such until now were even lower. She was about to be alone and hungry, again and again, forever and ever, no matter what she did. And by Yazhu, too, not even Yolanda or Kuro. A solid foot-soldier of the Sisterhood of the Skull, going along with whatever her mistress ordered. Oonis actions would be worse than meaningless.

The Ooni of before would have sobbed and surrendered to her fate. The Ooni of before would have closed her eyes and shied away from the killing blow.

The Ooni of before died right there, in a roar that Ooni herself barely knew.

Telokopolis is forever!

Ooni slammed into Yazhu before shed even realised she was charging her left shoulder low, taking the powered suit in the gut, knocking Yazhu off-balance, overcoming the damaged servo in her left leg. The plasma rifle discharged with a crackle-thump of energy, cutting through the black murk with a bright purple bolt at the edge of Oonis vision.

She rode Yazhu to the floor. The powered armour landed with an almighty crash of ceramic and metal, throwing up great swirls of the black glass-cloud. Ooni scrambled up Yazhus armoured chest, trying to get as close as possible before Yazhu recovered. She had no idea what she was doing, working on pure instinct, powered by adrenaline and the shining spire of Telokopolis in her minds eye.

Yazhus power-armoured fist arced out of the murk and slammed into Oonis face.

The world went white, then throbbed red and black. Ooni was certain her jawbone was broken, and probably more besides but she had somehow kept a grip on Yazhus armour with her right hand, the resin-encased fingers curled into a claw, hooked into a curve of the suit. The pain was unspeakable; Oonis right hand was a cage of agony, like her bones had been cooked to carbon and then shattered by her own trembling strength. But the pain didnt matter. Something was inside her, muffling the hurt and taking it away as long as she kept fighting. Ooni had never felt anything like this before. Was this what Elpida felt like, when she fought? Was this what it was like to be the child of a god?

She clung on tight, too close for Yazhu to draw a bead with the plasma rifle. The Deaths Head wa bellowing inside her armour, the unwieldy length of the plasma gun caught against the plates of Oonis carapace.

Ooni found her submachine gun with her left hand again. She dragged it up the length of Yazhus armour, muzzle rattling off the metal. The bullets would do nothing, not unless she could find a weakness, an opening, something to exploit. And Yazhu would come to her senses any moment, just smash Oonis head to pulp with one armoured hand.

Yazhu freed the plasma rifle with a clatter. A bright purple bead of light burned right next to Oonis eyeballs.

Ooni reared up, screaming with the pain, arcing high off Yazhus front and then stamped on the plasma rifle with her right boot, slamming the weapon into Yazhus chestplate. The plasma bolt went wide, searing a passage of superheated air through the black murk, tendrils of glass-fog swirling behind.

For a fleeting moment, Ooni had Yazhu pinned beneath her, one foot on her chest, one hand in a curl of her armour. But it was still a futile contest. Even wounded and momentarily winded, Yazhu was invulnerable inside that suit. All she had to do was reach out and snap Oonis neck. Yazhu merely had to raise her arm and the servo-motors in her suit would overpower all of Oonis body weight, slam her against the wall, and that would be that. Skull fracture, brains leaking out. Back to the cycle of death. Why was Ooni even bothering? What was the point of this fight? To exert herself against her former sisters for a few more moments? To die screaming and flailing rather than sobbing and cringing, with her back turned away from the blow that would kill her? Why fight when she knew she would die?

Yazhu hesitated for a single split second.

And Ooni realised why why fight, why Yazhu hesitated, why do any of it. Ooni was grinning. Her former sisters had never seen her grin.

Ooni rammed the narrow muzzle of her submachine gun directly into the optic trench on Yazhus helmet. Something glassy and brittle broke with a crack. Ooni pulled the trigger and held it down; the recoil and the angle and the ricochet of the first few rounds almost threw her off Yazhu, but Ooni held on and screamed. A ricochet slammed into the armour over her right shoulder. Yazhus powered gauntlet closed on Oonis wrist; she felt her forearm bones creak and snap. Still she held on and held down the trigger and

And then the bullets punched a hole through Yazhus optic trench and into her helmet. She jerked and spasmed beneath Ooni, power-armoured limbs flailing as she died.

Ooni was knocked clear. She landed hard. The world went away for a moment, then rushed back, all noise and pain and swirling miasma.

Ooni climbed back to her feet again. Her right leg wouldnt work properly, it wanted to fold up, but she made it obey. Her left arm was bulging at the wrist with multiple fractures inside her gauntlet, but her hand still worked. Her face was on fire and her jaw was screaming. She had so many broken bones that if shed been a human, she would be dead.

Ooni didnt care. She was dead. She was dead and still going, dead in the embrace of Telokopolis, and she would never truly die. The pain was overwhelming, but Telokopolis accepted it in her place. She had work to do.

Her submachine gun was gone, ripped from the strap and lost somewhere in the clouds of black glass. Yazhu was spread-eagle on the floor, a dead giant of metal and ceramic. How had Ooni done that? She could scarcely believe that was the work of her own hands, but it was. She had killed a Sister, in single combat. A revenant in powered amour! Yazhu!

She yanked the plasma rifle out of Yazhus dead gauntlets, pointed it at the ceiling, and pulled the trigger crack! Still functional.

Ooni dragged herself upright and filled her lungs, ignoring the searing pain of razor-blade air ripping at her throat.

She howled into the black. Yolanda!

Her voice cut through the high-pitched whine in her ears. Was it just her imagination, or did the shouting and screaming and gunfire ebb for a moment, in respect for her challenge?

Didnt matter. Find Yolanda. Kill her.

Ooni had no sense of which way she was facing, shed gotten so turned around by the fight with Yazhu. She staggered forward and almost blundered into a jagged crag of black glass the remains of one of the blocks, exploded by her grenades. The thing looked like it had detonated from inside. She lurched around it, to the right. This was where the Deaths Heads had been standing when the grenades had gone off, wasnt it? Or had Ooni staggered back in the other direction? Ilyushas voice still echoed from beyond the murk, far away to her left. That didnt seem right.

Ooni almost tripped on a corpse meat seared by heat, blood cooked to a shiny black crust, flesh torn apart by the glass shrapnel. Somebody else was on the ground, writhing and screaming, but it wasnt Yolanda. Ooni stepped past them, leaving them behind in the black.

Suddenly she was in an open space, no walls on any side, no ruined black glass, just the whirl of choking murk.

And there was Yolanda.

She was crouched, peeking around a corner of something, looking off to the left. Her distinctive purple powered armour was scratched and dented all over. Her flame-red hair was dirty with soot, raked back over one shoulder. She was bleeding from several cuts on her face, blood getting into her eyes. Another shape moved behind her in the swirling murk, picking itself up off the ground, tiny mechanical tentacles waving Cantrelle? Somebody to the left was shouting over the rattle-crack of automatic fire, cut up by the thump-boom of Ilyushas shotgun.

Ooni filled her lungs and roared again. Yolanda!

Yola looked. Wide-eyed. Green-eyed. Terrified.

Ooni raised the plasma rifle to her shoulder, pointed the muzzle at Yola, and pulled the trigger; the first shot glanced off Yolas powered armour, spinning her at the hip, caught in the act of rising to her feet. Yolanda squealed, and Ooni roared with something better than victory. She strode forward, pulling the trigger again but another revenant came swarming out of the black mist, knocking into Ooni, and the shot went wide. Ooni snarled and jammed the muzzle of the plasma gun into the newcomers guts.

Ooni wasnt sure who it was big blue eyes and softly pale skin, soaked with blood and soot. Hands slapped at the plasma rifle, slippery with fresh blood, trying to pull it from Oonis grip. Ooni yanked the trigger and shot her assailant through the gut. A mass of flash-cooked gore arced out of her back.

The Sister reeled backward, tearing the plasma rifle from Oonis hands. The black mist swallowed her up.

The old Ooni would have sobbed with frustration. The old Ooni was dead.

Ooni whirled back to Yolanda, who was picking herself up. She tried to leap, but her legs wouldnt work right, so she lurched forward, arms out, going for a grapple. Yolanda stumbled back, all her smug superiority finally washed away in a white-faced spasm of fear. Ooni howled something again, but it wasnt a word anymore, not through her broken jaw.

Yolandas retractable helmet started to close. Ooni crashed into her and got the fingers of her gauntlet beneath the descending lip of the helmet. Yolanda was screaming in her face, trying to shove Ooni back, but Yolandas powered armour was all for show, the servos barely stronger than any old unaugmented zombie. Ooni shoved as hard as she could on the lip of the descending helmet; the mechanism whined and locked up as she broke something inside. Yolanda toppled backward, crashing down across a jagged outcrop of broken glass. Her helmet was wedged open.

Ooni dropped onto her and punched her in the face with the carapace gauntlet. Yolandas head snapped sideways, bones breaking beneath Oonis fist, teeth knocked out. Ooni hit her again. Blood exploded from split lips and the side of Yolandas cheek. Ooni had never felt so good.

She was gong to beat Yolanda to death. Somebody should have done this years ago. Ooni should have done this, the first time theyd met.

Yolanda was flailing and kicking, her purple gauntlets slapping at Oonis front, trying to shove her off. Yolanda was no weakling, she should have been able to fight back; Ooni was a bag of broken bones, each blow jarring the fractures in her left arm. But the pain was like the black fog all around but not yet inside. A cold fire in Oonis flesh kept it at bay, kept her on top of Yola, kept her swinging. The fire told her keep going, keep going, keep going! Ooni knew she would be burned up, used up, melted down to nothing, but she didnt care. Revenge was worth the end.

She hit Yola again, breaking an eye socket, drawing a wail from the ultimate leader and true prophet of the Sisterhood of the Skull.

Ooni drew her fist back again and somebody big and strong grabbed her from behind, ripped her off Yolanda, and hoisted her into the air.

Ooni tried to twist and fight, spitting blood-mangled froth from her broken jaw. But a hand slapped her across the cheek, open palmed, hard as metal; the strike to her face burst through the cold fire which kept the pain at bay, rocketing through her like a bolt of lightning.

The world went out, black and red and throbbing with Oonis heartbeat. She felt herself dragged off her feet and pinned between arms like iron bars. A familiar deep hum was pressed to her back.

Oonis sight returned in stutters. She coughed and choked and wheezed, pushing at her new restraints, flailing at her captor. She screamed something, but she couldnt make proper words. The muzzle of a very large weapon was pressed beneath her chin, forcing her head back and up, grinding at the pain in her jaw. She was dangling, held off the ground, her back against something cold and hard, an arm over her chest.

The air was clearing, the black razor-clouds receding or falling to the ground at last. A huge hole had been torn in the far end of the space, as if the wall had been coaxed to peel itself back.

The chamber was a wreck. Most of the black glass blocks on this side had been pulverized by the two grenades. The rest of the room was pockmarked with small arms fire, chunks blasted out of the blocks, bullet holes in the walls, severed pipes and ducts hanging from the ceiling.

The gunfire had fallen silent, but there was a lot of shouting, fading in and out of Oonis hearing.

up! Back up! All of you degenerates, you back off right now or we will flense the apostate before your eyes, you

Yolanda, doorway! We need a doorway, we need out

Put her down! Down, right now!

Fuck you, reptile cunts! Coward shit-eater bitches! Come fight me, fight me, come fucking get fucked

landa! Yolanda! Cantrelle, get her at the wall, we cant hold here

Put her down or we will open fire.

Click-buzz, right above Oonis head. A suit of powered armour, opening external speakers.

We have a deal, Kuros girlish voice was full of static, rough with damage. Call off your monster.

Ooni forced her eyes as wide as they would go, trying to clear her vision. She was pinned across the chest, her arms held in place by Kuros grip, clutched to the front of Kuros armour. To either side of her the final remnants of the Sisterhood of the Skull were scuttling into what scant cover they could find, pressed against the rear wall. And there was Yolanda, bloody and battered and weeping, clinging to Cantrelles arms.

Ooni felt a surge of determination; pain seemed irrelevant. She ripped and tore at Kuros arm, trying to wriggle free, trying to reach out and grab at Yolanda, trying to pull her eyeballs out, tear at her cheeks, rip off her head. Yola squealed and shied away.

How could Yola escape again!? Ooni had been so close! Another few blows and Yola would have been dead, her brains dashed on Oonis gauntlet. And now, this

Let her go, or you all die, a voice rang out. Deal or not.

Elpida!

Ooni sagged in Kuros iron grip. On the other side of the room were three figures, two half in cover, one standing in the open. On the right, Ilyusha was crouched behind the remains of a black glass block, half-collapsed with her own debilitating recovery, shotgun balanced on the top of her cover, teeth bared. On the left was Elpida; Ooni couldnt see her face inside the full carapace suit and helmet, but the voice was unmistakable. Elpida was crouched half in and half out of cover, lest the situation go either way.

In the middle of the open passageway between the shattered glass blocks stood Shilu, a nightmare scarecrow of black knives and razor-sharp edges. She stood perfectly still, ready to spring forward. Both of her arms were three-foot swords.

Call off your monster, Kuro said again.

Elpida shouted back, Not until

Ooni filled her lungs, and almost sobbed; her ribs were broken, a bag of glass inside her chest. But she held it in, and howled through her shattered jaw.

Kill them! she wailed. Shoot through kill them shoot me kill them!

Kuro ground a weapon against Oonis jaw; the pain made her stop, keening like an animal.

Elpida shouted again, voice muffled inside her helmet, Ooni! Ooni, you hold on. You stay conscious, and you hold on! Understand me? Thats an order, Ooni!

Ilyusha screeched, You dont get to die now, fuckhead!

Ooni couldnt reply. Her plea emerged as a bloody gurgle.

Kuros speakers crackled again. Call off your

The hole in the chamber wall, directly opposite Ooni, suddenly brightened with the rainbow darkness of oil on water. A protoplasmic mass boiled into the room.

Iriko entered like flood waters. She slammed into the room and flowed straight down the middle, her vast scale-armoured mass too big for the chamber, a slug of fluid with the force of a wrecking ball. Shilu leapt out of the way. A few remaining Deaths Heads screamed and opened fire; bullets and rounds and plasma bolts were deflected or soaked up by Irikos refractive mail. Kuros weapon systems flowered open either side of Oonis body, bristling with muzzles and target locks and the threat of close-range energy discharges, but Ooni knew it wouldnt be enough.

Iriko filled the world, rearing up to engulf all that was left of the Sisterhood of the Skull, and Ooni along with them.

Kuro took a single step back. She raised Ooni like a shield.

Ooni smiled. The pain was worth it. Her death would be worth it. She didnt want to die, she didnt want to go; she would be alone and hungry and cold forever, but at least her former comrades would be dead and scattered.

She gurgled two final words from her bloody, broken lips. Thank you

Iriko shuddered to a halt with a sound like a mass of raw meat dragged across jagged metal; the flowing wave of her body paused in mid air. Small arms fire trailed off; Kuros weapon systems quivered, scorpion-tails ready to sting. Ooni gazed into the shifting protoplasmic depths of Irikos exposed flesh. Eye-like organs formed and twisted and dissipated beneath Irikos surface, all fixed on her, on Oonis own face.

No Ooni spat. No, Iri ko kill kill me too, do it, do

Iriko flowed back, like the tide retreating across a black and blasted beach, up the middle of the open passageway between the shattered blocks. She held position in the middle of the room, writhing and roiling. Elpida and Ilyusha and Shilu were still sheltered by the cover of the ruined chamber. Elpida half-rose, helmet peeking above the jagged sea of black.

Ooni sobbed; it was the worst thing shed ever felt relief that she was still alive, and horror that she was going to live. The cold clarity of fire in her flesh faded to nothing. She gasped. The pain was everywhere and everything.

Kuros speakers crackled again, sharp and harsh in Oonis ears. We have a deal.

You have a hostage, Elpida shouted. No eal.

Same thing. Deal or no.

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