章 277: CHPT 277: Open the Blinds, Malice lurks outside your Window....
Demons. A subject Claude thought he'd heard the end of for a while. For more than a month at least. But, it seems luck wasn't on his side this time around.
Demons. Beings of pure malice that seemed to sow their dark seed into the very fabric of the desert outside Rollan's forested home.
Demons. More than something physical-- if what Claude witnessed in the tainted forest meant anything. They were more than HellFire and horns. They transcended physical forms. They infected the minds of the power-hungry, ripped apart unions and destroyed the welcoming grasp of life.
During their walk back, he had what felt like all the time in the world to think on it. Rollan seemed to no longer have time for lighthearted jokes or insightful questions about who or what Claude was. He meant business. He had more to explain.
Leaving the last Lupine to follow his quick pace while his mind fired off thoughts in unison with the man's footfalls.
Despite the rapid and almost chaotic nature of his thoughts brought on by the sight of the decimated monsters, his overall thought process stayed the same as he reviewed the events.
Just as Rollan coaxed the answer from him-- much like Prof. Raizen, "It was Demons. The touch of the desert was the touch of demons-- in more than a physical sense. The Centaurs had split as a whole before whatever burned the bark of the trees to charred blackness had entered their ranks. Before the physical touch of Demons. Members of the Centaurs had succumbed to greed and malice-- bringing them closer to the desert. Bringing them closer to the Demons. And these Demons of the Desert seemed to be closing in on the forest.....closing in on Rollan and his home. What could he have that the Demons want?"
***
The thoughts continued to swirl and churn in his mind like an angry sea until he felt his paws plunge into healthy long blades of grass and the smell of herbs heightened to an almost nauseating degree. When he looked up, the familiar sight of the dozens of trees twisting up into the home of Rollan and his jars of monster heads was all that welcomed him.
The wooden sacrificial sculpture of the beautiful woman that once burned with the bodies of Centaurs littered inside off to the side of the home was now merely a charred sculpture of smoking ash.
He adjusted the sleeping Berserker over his shoulder and followed after the silently moving Rollan.
"Our conversation continues inside, Monsieur." He said before hurrying to the home, opening the door and entering.
The pack silently sauntered in soon after. No time to waste, Claude set Ursula in the hammock by the window of Rollan's home and looked up to find the blindfolded man once again looking at him with unseen and unknowingly perceptive eyes.
".....I hope your decently versed in Demons. Your scent makes me think so, yes? Or else this may take a while. The desert is complex...oui, it is." Rollan said, ending the conversation as if he was speaking to himself instead of the eight foot tall Shape-Shifter he was sharing his home with.
"I know enough....hopefully. I'll ask questions when they're needed."
Rollan nodded before running a long fingered hand across his unnaturally smooth-skinned face, "Alright." He said with a sigh, "You may ask your questions, Beast of the beasts. But first, I will ask mine. Do you know what these are?"
FWOOSH!
In a flash, the man reached behind himself and tore away the brown curtains that split the house in two, giving way to a much larger room with an almost entirely new aesthetic from the rest. Despite all this change, only one mattered.
The chain-like tattoo that snaked down the leathery skin of his left arm took on a green glow and sizzled with raw power.
Beside him, Frosty snarled and Gil charged into the room like a rhino mid-charge.
Before any damage could be done, Claude reached out and leashed the Hound with his Malevolence Tether.
"Nobody MOVE! Nothing is alive. Stay calm!" Claude snapped while Gil barked and roared with every tug of the flaming chain leash. "Relax..." He repeated to the Hound being pulled by its slaying instincts.
"[Demon Drive....seems a lot like Prey Drive.]" Arne commented as Claude looked up to Rollan.
The man stood by, unfazed by the sudden burst of movement. "Take your time. Tell me if you recognize anything. Hopefully you do."
He snorted an understanding and let his eyes easily return to the backroom of the home.
While the front room he stood in with his pack and Ursula was calm and natural. Bathed in colors of light browns, greens and flowery purples. The back room was dark. No windows, black curtains over any crevice that revealed the outside and everything contained in one way or another...explaining why he couldn't smell it all before.
The most mundane of accessories within the room was the weapons. Of all forms and qualities. Swords-- some rusted, some empowered with Runes, Shields, Axes, Long-Bows, Bo-Staffs, and even Daggers.
They sat in glass containers on the left and right side of the room as if the back of his home had been transformed into a weapons shop.
That thought was expelled when his eyes reverted back to the center of the room directly across from him. The wall was littered with maps covered in illegible writings and routes of all shapes and sizes.
The bulk of the maps faded from importance in the presence of the most eye-catching and horrifying objects that occupied the space on the center wall.
Arms.
None of them were the same in form-- yet they all invoked the same feelings in him and his pack.
On the far right, the biggest of the arms was the closest to resembling a human. It's shoulder was the size of his head. Even in death and disconnection, rope-thick veins still ran all across the bulbous muscle and ran through its ink-black skin-- disappearing behind the patches of ape-like fur. The fur covered it's sinewy muscled forearm before splitting to reveal a thick bony protrusion from just above it's wrist. It looked like a gigantic misplaced talon...made of black bone. Despite the golden-yellow glow of the liquid that filled the jar it was placed in, he could still see a dim red glow at the end of the inhuman appendage.
"[Just when I thought the bastards couldn't get any uglier..]" Arne said, bringing audible words to Claude's thoughts before his eyes switched to the middle arm.
The arm in the middle was a polar opposite when compared to the ape-like monstrosity on the right. Where the other was lined with muscle and fur, this arm was eerily thin and long. Sheathed in dry and chaffed dark skin that reminded him of the skin on a bird's legs. But, that was about as bird-like as it got. As his eyes scanned down the arm, parts of the chaffed and dry skin spiked or collected to become something denser while other areas showed signs of bladed weapon injuries. Once he got down to the forearm, he found himself looking over a fin-like blade made of what can only be described as organically metallic materials. It was damaged and worn by time, but the glowing red haze of hell still lined the razors edge as clear as day.
At the bottom of the jar he found one black feather lined with a dull shade of red.
If his heart already wasn't pounding out of his chest, then the sight of the last arm did the job for him better than any of the others. Familiarity tended to have that affect.
Long. Muscular. Somehow recognizably feminine and wrapped in dark brown-- almost black, reptilian plating. The last creature he'd seen with similar natural armor was missing a left arm. The arm he now watched from behind the glass jar it rested in, was a left arm.
"Fuck..."
"Do you know what you're looking at? Your Wolves seem to." Rollan questioned.
Claude nodded, stiffling the growl that fought to rise from his throat. "I know what one of them is..."
"[I know what they all are...and so do you.]" Arne suddenly said, causing Claude to put his conversation with Rollan on the backburner.
"What are you talking about.....I've never seen those other ones."
"[You don't need to. I was trying to tell you this a while ago...when we were at the lake. When you met Rollan for the second time.]"
"Arne. Spit it out."
His guide sighed within his mind, "[Do you remember your fight with the HellBreeder?]"
"As clear as day."
"[Then you remember how angry she was about the death of her....uhh...children?]"
"Mhm..."
"[What was she saying?]"
Claude felt like he was about to put a hole in the nearest inanimate object if he didn't gain an understanding of his situation fast, "Wha--"
"[Just say what you remember.]" Arne cut off.
"She was crying about her babies....about her Spider...and her Snake."
He caught his words at the end realizing the error in his thoughts and horror at the instant realization.
"[Claude...she never mentioned the HexenBiest.]"
"The fuck does that mean?"
"[That means a different HellBreeder changed that Monster. And if the HellBreeder you faced showed anything, it was that it mainly changed Monsters it shared similar traits with. Claude-- you see, I think the books were partially wrong...]"
He looked back up to the arms as Arne continued on. All so different, yet all invoking the same feelings and showing the same eerie red glow.
"[...I don't think a HellBreeder is simply one style of Demon. I think it's a loosely fit term applied to many forms of infectious Demons...so that means...]"
"Monsieur. Tell me what you're looking at." Rollan cut in, now tired of waiting.
Now it was Claude's turn to sigh.
"They're HellBreeders. They're all HellBreeders....and that makes you...a HellSlayer. Doesn't it, Rollan?"
クリエイターの想い 
_Avatar0FFury_
_Avatar0FFury_ WELL! More mysteries unveiled. I hope some more confusion is cleared in a mystery/thriller like fashion thats enjoyable for ya! Anyway let me know what you think of the Chapter and Rollan. Thanks for the powerstones frenandoi, alex99, warriorwolf, TheLucidParagon, krissch_, Ominous_Reader, Demosura, Bop_, train_master, Shadowwolf1928, XX_Osiris_XX, Amith_Sydney, Bonb_Crusher, Lucas_Gommes_1300, Deadra606 and Zombireno!
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