Chrysalis Chapter 1739 - She Who Reaps The Harvest
Previously on Chrysalis...
Crinis seethed with fury. In all honesty, that barely scratched the surface of her wrath. She simmered in outrage. Bubbled over with it. Every bit of her shadowy, formless essence ached to seize those repulsive… beings and tear them apart.
Tear them apart once more.
Maybe she could squeeze in a third round, should the opportunity arise. But with the sheer number of these tear-worthy foes swarming around, it seemed unlikely, which only fueled her ire further.
They would dare to attack her master. A single attempt was already an outrage, an affront she couldn't abide, yet they hadn't quit there! Instead, they had assaulted him a staggering four-hundred and eighty-six thousand, three hundred and thirty-two times!
Even thinking about attacking her master was beyond what she could stomach. Without the explicit commands holding her back from unleashing a nightmarish feast of devastation, Crinis would etch into these rude offshoots a terror so profound they'd fear sleep for ten long years!
No, her master compelled her to show kindness to those wholly unworthy of it. The notion twisted her tentacles in frustration.
Denied her due retribution, Crinis found herself with scant outlets to release her bottled-up fury. Prohibited from her usual methods of reprisal, thanks to the strict order her master had issued, she was left to exact her revenge through the pettiest means possible.
Like a shadowy maestro concealed in the darkness, Crinis commenced her sinister symphony.
The mayhem began at the battle's edges. Extending her tentacles, Crinis targeted the weary, the injured, the lone stragglers. Her Soul-Seeker Cilia could pierce right through armor, skin, and skeleton, allowing her to tamper with the psyches and wills of those she ensnared.
With a wicked chuckle to herself, Crinis selected her initial prey.
As the thicket of appendages rained down upon the forces, only Crinis could monitor them all. Despite their desperate efforts to repel them amid the frenzy of combat, inevitably some would slip past.
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The cilia evaded the barriers of Crinis' ill-fated quarry, gliding through his plating, his locks, his cranium, and infiltrating his mind straightaway.
Exposed to her manipulations, countless rightful and warranted terrors awaited this vile soul at Crinis' whim. Nightmarish glimpses of a warped world, comrades morphing into grotesque, treacherous monsters, her master revealed as the radiant, luminous icon he truly embodied.
Regrettably, restrictions prevented her from unleashing the psychological agony she craved, forcing her to get creative.
Under her sway, the trooper whirled about madly before discarding his gear and charging at his closest comrade. Bewildered by the sudden turn, the fellow yelled in panic as his former reliable partner tackled him to the earth and then aimed for his boots.
Hee hee, Crinis murmured to herself.
Removing the heavy boots proved challenging, but once freed, nothing barred Crinis from delivering the peak of harmless agony she could conjure. Her directives flooded via the Soul-Seeker Cilia into the captive's thoughts, an instruction so shadowy and devious she beamed with pride at her ingenuity.
Tickle!
Overpowered by an irresistible directive, Crinis' target dragged his digits across the bottom of his comrade's foot, deploying every ounce of his might and skill. Initially clueless about the assault, the bootless warrior could merely squirm and flail in resistance, pleading for his friend to halt, oblivious that Crinis would never release her grip.
Hee hee hee, Crinis chortled.
Her opening mark now incapacitated, thrashing on the dirt while emitting shrill wails that echoed the abyss of his torment—likely pure anguish—Crinis readied herself for the subsequent one. She possessed only a limited array of cilia, perhaps a few dozen, yet with her cunning and versatile intellect, she managed legions of tentacles effortlessly, guiding each as if it were her sole limb.
Concealed and invisible, from devious vantage points she coiled her extensions around unsuspecting foes and pounced, again and again.
Every ensnared soul endured the identical hex, the selfsame penalty.
Tickle! They must tickle!
With ferocious delight, Crinis sowed disorder across the lines, pitting battle-brothers against one another. She reveled in the stunned glares of disloyalty that flickered in their gazes, and guffawed as streams of anguish and grief streaked their faces.
It paled in comparison to what they merited, yet it marked the boundary of her permitted reprisals. For now, this would suffice for Crinis.
This, alongside vast torrents of Curse Magic.