Wall of Corpses (2)
A short while later, the Septic Flower Unit crawled up onto it. They shoved their hands into the gaps between the corpse mounds, stirring through the flesh bloated by water. Deep inside, where the heat of decay still lingered, they planted Astamar's spores.
"Bones as pillars," Astamar muttered, gazing down at the rotten flower in her hand. "Flesh as mortar."
Heat began to rise again from within the pile of bodies. The decaying fat melted and fused together. The mixture of blood and water filled the crevices.
"Blood and water as the slurry..." She exhaled in satisfaction. "Anyone who steps here will crumble in the shape of their footprints."
The boundary where the flood of holy water clashed with their plague pools was visible to the eye. The blue and white holy water poured down from above, covering the mound, but the black water seeping from within refused to fully mix, forming layers like separate rivers. From overhead, it looked as if the river had split into two colors. The blue of holy water, the black of plague. Gabriel's waters and Astamar's pestilence were playing tag in the middle of the battlefield.
The Ironblood Shields climbed atop the mound. They hooked their shields onto the bones of the mound and stamped down on flesh and bone to secure their footing. Rotting stench and heat rose from beneath their feet. Above, water, light, and blood splashed.
From atop the city gates, I looked down on it all. Today's front line wasn't on the dirt. It was on the rotting demons.
Shadows darted between corpse alleys. Through rotten water pools, Septic Flower gardens, half-submerged corpse mounds. Narrow paths that hadn't existed yesterday had formed. The water was deep. But if you carefully navigated the edges of the corpse mounds, corpse walls, and plague pools, you could just barely find places to plant your feet, linking together.
Only the demons knew these paths.
Kama leaped first. With every step, sounds came from underfoot. Flesh bursting, bones snapping short and sharp. It felt like screams with every stomp. Fortunately, most were already dead.
Beneath his skin, the hellish patterns woven along his blue-gray flesh faintly glowed. In the center of his pupils, eyes that had appeared as single red lines split into two, then three lines.
Kama drew a deep breath. Amid the battlefield where the clamor of corpses, water, and iron tangled into one mass, he overlaid his own rhythm atop it.
The final seconds of those crushed beneath his feet. The terror of eyes rolling back under pressure, bones shattering from within, breaths twisting inward and halting. Kama wove those severed breaths into short, ragged beats and draped them over the heads of the front-line angels.
One angel descended with a confident expression, believing the ground firm. But what he stepped on was the spine of a demon, half-rotted and swollen. He realized too late. The water sounds he heard, the sensations of the ground he felt—they weren't his own.
"...Huh?"
In that instant, Kama slashed his sword deep. The angel's body arched back and was pushed into the water.
Today's battlefield gave Kama too much. So many corpses, death so close—endless material to draw from. In turn, his body burned away faster. The patterns on his arms grew hot. The joints connecting his wings throbbed as if searing. Somewhere in his mind, strands of spreading terror turned red and snapped.
This wasn't a method he could sustain long. Still, he didn't slow.
If he couldn't hold this battlefield today, tomorrow he'd be material pasted onto the walls.
"Flank's losing balance," came Morcan's voice from behind a shield. He heard the sway of the current, the timing of the corpse mound shifting, even the flow of terror Kama scattered.
Morcan leaned beyond the shield. A short thrust and retreat. He tapped the angel's ankle lightly. Balance shattered. The angel twisted his body in the direction his senses indicated—toward the rotten mound Kama had deliberately left open, not solid ground. He slipped on the pile of decaying bodies and plummeted.
Above, the Skyskins held their angles. From the air, the angels' paths through the narrow corpse alleys were clear at a glance. Overlaid were the terror Kama imposed and lines of false sensations.
The Skyskins couldn't hover forever. The air inside the dome was heavy, the pressure from the water eroding their wing balance. So their throws weren't prolonged—short and decisive. One shot to end it.
Spears from the Skyskins flew along those lines. Not one. Countless spears dropped from different angles simultaneously. They pierced barriers, wings, wrists, ankles. The angels lost their flight directions. Their fall points were forced. Not into the water—the heavenly sanctuary—but onto corpses and Septic Flower mounds.
One angel's heel slipped on a dead demon's face. Shattered teeth flew out, floating on the water. One eye popped free, spinning at the boundary between black water and holy water.
The scene flashed by like an instant. The next moment, swords and spears clashed again atop the mound. Screams, splashing water, cracking bones, Kama's ragged breaths, Morcan's footsteps—all blended into one rhythm.
A red line split once more in Kama's pupils. In that moment, his patterns flared brightly. The rhythm of woven terror shook not just the angels, but nearby allies' breaths momentarily.
Kama gritted his teeth and tightened the beat again. One more shake, and this rhythm would become not a weapon, but a disaster.
He wiped his eyes and let out a short laugh. "...Let's keep killing."
His wing patterns glowed hotter, as if slowly burning away.
From atop the city gates, Zan overlooked the battlefield. Red Breakage draped the front and flanks of the gates like a curtain. Beneath that curtain, a thin line of corpses was visible. Corpse ramparts. Septic Flower pools. Flood encirclement. The waters of heaven and hell formed unmixed boundaries, as if someone had drawn lines.
Here, the graves don't stay still.
The first to die walk forward for the living, becoming walls.
Zan thought that. Another red prayer line plunged down before the gates. That line bound the corpse piles and mounds into one wall. Even if holy water crashed over it, it wouldn't easily cross that line.
Zan clenched her fingers. "...Just a little more."
At her feet, the red line seeped into the cracks between the rampart stones.
El stood at the entrance to the treatment zone from behind. Demons passed before her. One missing an arm. One with ribs exposed, crudely wrapped in cloth. One with an eye melted away, leaving only a black socket. All had nearly died once, their breaths barely clung on by force. And now they headed back to the front.
I'm not really 'saving' them. El murmured inwardly. Just deciding the order—whether to use them today or paste them on tomorrow.
She grabbed the shoulder of the last one. The joint connecting shoulder and arm was unnaturally stiff. A proper swing would snap it again. Still, it might hold today.
El released her hand and whispered very softly. "Still... live today."
The demon flinched, lifting his head. "...Pardon?"
"If you're dying tomorrow," El hid her bloodied hand behind her. "Come curse me then."
The demon smiled wordlessly and walked back toward the battlefield. His shoulder shook unsteadily. El already roughly knew which spot on the corpse wall his back would fill.
Still, she'd sent him off alive today.
Dusk. Another layer was added to the map in the command room. Blue waterways and golden prayer lines atop. Red corpse hills and plague pools.
Nas traced the battlefield with her finger. "Day three—actual front line advance... about two lines."
Her fingertip stopped at the new corpse mound line, slightly ahead of the gates. "Instead, this whole sector... is packed with corpses and plague."
Navriel marked another golden dot beside it. "The prayer lines couldn't dig deeper."
Her voice was dry. "Instead, zones angels can't tread have expanded."
The boundary where holy water and plague refused to yield. Astamar, Balrag, Zan, El. Zones carved out in their own ways. They were becoming land angels couldn't easily enter.
Astamar shook off her arms. "Those who brushed past here today—"
"From tomorrow, it's already decided where their bodies will start rotting."
Rotten flower spores and black water dripped from her hem.
I traced the corpse hill line on the map with my finger. Our front hadn't visibly advanced. Instead, the ground ahead had changed. No longer dirt and stone clashing—but flesh and bone hardened in place.
"Good." I said quietly, pointing to the empty space behind the corpse hill line, still unmarked. "Behind this line—"
I pulled my hand away. "Until tomorrow, it's where our breaths hold."