The foyer that welcomed her was grand and empty. Red lights shone dimly from unseen edges of the hall, lined with more marble pillars that supported its high, bridged ceiling that was painted with ornate depictions of warriors in the heat of battle and women in the heat of sex. In the intervals between pillars, there were divans and tables holding vases or fruit trays. As she made her way down the cool foyer, she started to hear an ambient sound that drummed and rang from a great distance further inside. It was loud enough to feel but the distance made it less coherent. At the end of the foyer was a small podium, behind which stood a very bored hostess. She was dressed in a violet chiton, her hair tied loosely, eyes glued to the magazine on the podium. She didn't seem to notice Zaphrriyah even when her khukuri chopped into either side of the podium, barely an inch from the hostess's elbows.
"Where is the King of Shadows?" Zaphrriyah demanded.
The hostess sighed impatiently, rolling her eyes and dropped her magazine. "I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, bitch. Just gimme your fucking name like every other sinner so I can check you in."
Zaphrriyah took a second to contemplate the attitude of this hostess. Then she leaned close and scowled. "I drink your blood and eat your skin."
The hostess was not impressed. "If you wanna fuck me, just say it, but unfortunately for both of us, I'm on clerk duty tonight. So just do me a favor and gimme your name so you can get the fuck out of my face.”
Zaphrriyah narrowed her eyes, contemplating how best to butcher this sinner.
“What the fuck – you deaf or something? Hellooo? Your name, biiitch.”
Zaphrriyah grit her teeth, growling, and dislodged her blades from the wood. “Zaphrriyah.”
The hostess rolled her eyes again and fumbled beneath the podium, taking out a thick, rugged book. She placed it on the desk and flipped through it, giving up halfway and closed it shut. "Yeah, you're probably welcome or whatever. Go ahead, enjoy yourself or whatever.”
Zaphrriyah didn’t linger a second longer and carried on past the hostess. Once behind her, she swiftly drew her blades, slicing across the hostess’s back, shoulder and legs, clean and sharp. The hostess didn’t even feel a thing until Zaphrriyah was already at the end of the hall. Then came her cries, a shrieking, agonizing scream as the skin flayed off her back, drowned beneath the vigorous, thumping beat rapidly growing louder as Zaphrriyah pushed past the doors at the end of the hall.
Red lights flashed blindingly and deafening noise thundered tumultuously. As her senses adjusted to the overload, Zaphrriyah beheld a crowd of dancing sinners, though the sinners were hardly dancing as there was barely any space to move from the density of the crowd, and the noise wasn’t just pandemonium as there was actually a melodious tune behind all its reverberating volume. It was music, loud but enticing, an inspiring, heart-rocking melody unlike anything Zaphrriyah had ever heard. She felt drawn to it, to its source, to its nature.
Frost, darkness and violence. Grant me your power and drink your fill.
Zaphrriyah drew her blades and entered the crowd.
Blood slowly flooded the floor as bodies dropped around her. Those nearby that noticed were alarmed and eager to get the attention of as many of their fellow sinners as they could over the deafening music and disorienting lights. They were brave and foolish enough to try their luck against her empty-handed, prudently surrounding her with measured paces before the first sprung at her with a flying roundhouse kick. Zaphrriyah didn't think she could have done it better herself, but unfortunately her khukuri was in the way. She sliced through their shin, anticipating where they would land afterwards and impaling her other blade through their chest, carving their torso wide open and spilling out their guts as she carried on through her momentum, cartwheeling over the next sinner with her blades still swinging, dismembering their forearms as they tried to guard against her and stabbing two other sinners once she was back on her feet. More sinners pounced over the corpses of their fallen, throwing their bodies at her fearlessly even after witnessing the gruesome fate of their brethren. Sinners struck from every direction in synchrony, almost on beat with the music, one after the other wherever there was an opening as blood poured and limbs flew.
Zaphrriyah had not been vigilant enough – an inexcusable mistake as Aphrodisia would say – and eventually she took a hit to the back of her head. The punch packed far more power than she'd previously thought such lowly sinners capable of, knocking the lights out of her head for a second, just long enough for another to throw a hook across her face that felt as though it shattered her cheek bone, staggering her even longer until a kick at the back of her knees sent her sprawling to the ground. She had an instant upon hitting the floor to look up, and thanks to that, saw the leg of a sinner raised high over her head mere moments from plummeting down on her skull like a sledgehammer. She rolled out the way just as the sinner's heel crushed the floor, sweeping with her blades at the ankles of those near her as she turned the momentum of her roll to a pirouette picking herself up.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Vigilance, focus and will. Three more strikes came for her immediately, a flying knee to the guts, an elbow to the back of her head and a kick for the shins. Zaphrriyah dodged the knee, outpacing the kick and sliced the arm off the sinner that dared to try and elbow her from behind. Henceforth, there was not a moment of distraction. It was a meticulous, swift and deadly ritual. Though the sinners bore no weapons in this battle, they were far stronger than the ones on the street, relentless, fearless and by all means did they pack one hell of a punch.
As the slaughter progressed, her enemies grew fewer and the room cleared up enough for her to see what the excitement had been about before her arrival aside from the adrenaline-pumping music. At the far center of the room was a pit inside of which two warriors fought bareback with cold steel. Their fight seemed to have lasted the entire time, and the sinners near the pit were more invested in the subject of their bets than the blood bath spraying around them. When it was only those sinners left, Zaphrriyah decided to spare them, taking a second to breathe before sprinting ahead and jumping into the pit. The two fighters broke apart and turned their attention to the third party. Zaphrriyah weighed each of them in turn and decided they were nothing special. These fighters were just like the sinners on the dance floor but now armed with swords and bucklers. As always, Zaphrriyah took the initiative, dashing at the one that looked weaker before turning sharply and dashing to the other fighter immediately upon reaching the first, throwing one blade behind her for that first sinner who had attacked only to miss, saving the other for this one. She struck low for the femoral artery such that her attack couldn't be parried with the buckler. The sinner still managed to dodge, and with only one blade, her next attack came a moment too late and he anticipated it with his own gladius. Blades clashed, and immediately upon impact, Zaphrriyah leapt back, flipping through the air over the other fighter that was screaming in pain from having her blade impaled into his chest, only for her to retrieve her blade and end his suffering with his head on the ground. Armed with both blades again, Zaphrriyah doubled the pressure, distracting the buckler with one blade and dismantling the gladius with the other, cracking open the fighter's guard like an eggshell, crossing both blades simultaneously, decapitating and spilling viscera.
The crowd above cursed in roaring outrage as their bets washed down the drain like the blood in the pit, pointing and throwing empty cans at Zaphrriyah before she retaliated with her own throwing object that promptly imbedded itself in one sinner’s face. The crowd quickly disillusioned and turned to screaming and scramming for their lives as Zaphrriyah climbed out the pit to retrieve her blade and move on. Just as she wondered where to go next, a door at one side of the club burst open with a squadron of samurai charging at her with swords and spears. Their armor was tough, but it wasn’t a challenge she hadn’t already faced. Infusing one blade with a coating of thick blood, she dodged the first samurai's straight cut, deflecting their following cut and bludgeoning her coated blade into their mask, shattering it before stabbing her other khukuri into their skull. Just then, a spear pierced through the body of the dead samurai and stabbed her in the kidney. Zaphrriyah might have appreciated the sinner's ingenuity after her own tactics if she had the focus to spare. Instead, she cut off the spear shaft, kicked the body into the spear-wielding samurai and yanked the spear head out of her body. With the first one down, there were only three more. The former spear-wielder was not discouraged by their spear being broken, taking the sword from their fallen brethren. The other two samurai spread out to surround Zaphrriyah, positioning just barely out of her line of sight.
Zaphrriyah grinned, licking the front of her teeth, the entire choreography of the fight to be already playing inside her head. Three against one, all skilled swordsmen with no fear of death, determined to bring her down if it was the last thing they did. Striking in perfect harmony, forcing her into arduous stances to fend off their attacks as she danced and pirouetted with her blades, two for two whilst nimbly evading the third, pushing back on the offensive and singling out one samurai to pressure, leading on the others to pursue. She allowed a few, weaker cuts from that samurai to land, scathing her skin and a little into the flesh, nothing that would hinder her combat, but enough so that the samurai would grow confident and think he was gaining on her, and through that emboldened offensive, an opening. Thinking her injured, the samurai swung wide for the kill, leaving him vulnerable in the stomach, where Zaphrriyah was already prepared to eviscerate, violently pirouetting past the other samurai's attacks to crush the chest plate under her bloodied blade, instantly followed by the sharp edge of the other that cleaved deep into the samurai's chest, rupturing their heart asunder. She carried through the momentum, using the corpse of the samurai as a pivot to flip herself over, avoiding the other samurai’s pursuing strikes, landing with enough space to push on the offensive against both at once. Her blades soared in a flurry to the rhythm of her body; a dance she'd rehearsed thousands of times. A dance in tune with the melody of the music. Every strike of her blades hitting twice against their swords almost simultaneously, cutting through their guard like paper and inevitably breaking it for the sharp edge of her khukuri to slice off both their heads in one swoop.
The dance completed, the ritual accomplished, a door opened, Zaphrriyah continued on her path. The door led to a two-story room. It must have been a lounge, with its sofas and low tables still littered with bottles and trays of pink powder, but there was no one here. Looking up at the mezzanine, which had an ornate, decorative wall that reached the ceiling halfway, she saw no signs of sinners either.
A shame.
There was a single booth upstairs with a table still filled with food. Above it and to the side was a screen that seemed to display the scene of the fighting pit outside, what was currently a static screen of two dead bodies lying in blood. Past this was another door that led out onto the mezzanines surrounding the club. Zaphrriyah hadn't paid much attention to the second floor when she'd been downstairs, and for that, she scolded herself. There were dozens of sinners here, all lounging casually over the couches and chairs lining the mezzanines or leaning over drink tables and the balustrades. These sinners were different. They were all dressed in black suits, waistcoats, ties and fedoras. They didn't seem excited or afraid at Zaphrriyah's arrival, having no doubt witnessed her slaughter downstairs just now. Nevertheless, they all had their attention fixed on her. Be it their unusual calm or uniform dress code, Zaphrriyah had the sense to be cautious when making her next move around these sinners. She was still going to kill them all, of course.
