Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power

Chapter 415: Chapter 415: Meeting with Echidna

Chapter 415 – Meeting with Echidna

Inara was walking alone, this time with none of her monsters with her except Oeil hidden behind an eyepatch.

At each side of her were corridors made of shed skin of snakes, creating her a path towards the depth of her castle.

Her steps were steady and filled with quiet authority, the sounds of her boots clanking on the scaled floor booming through the enclosed space.

Despite everything of her showing calmness, Inara was anything but that. After all, she was about to meet a critical root that made her who she was.

The one that gave her the epithet of Heiress of the Mother of Monsters, helping her shed away her skin of mundane snake princess and become something greater.

With the help of Echidna, Inara had been truly reborn.

And without even wishing to, there was a sense of awe and fear gripping white-knuckled her heart at the thought of Echidna.

Because of that, Inara had always avoided meeting her again, despite the fact that she knew she could.

Now, choices were no more.

Enemies that were not hers were breathing down at her neck like hungry hunters. And she didn’t need to be face to face with them to know they wished nothing but shred her into fucking pieces.

"Well fuck those unknown bastards. I cannot goddamnit allow that," Inara muttered, her one eye slithering and fragmented like glass, "I still have many things to accomplish. Death is not an option. And it will never be one."

The Snake Princess balled her fists tightly, then finally halted in her steps, arriving at her destination.

She stared at the tombstone in front of her. Like last time, an assembly of monsters — as numerous as worms on rotten food — were etched on the tombstone.

Those same monsters encircling a woman sitting on a throne.

Memories of her first time flooded inside her mind, but Inara pushed them away.

It was no time for reminiscing.

Closing her eye for a brief second, Inara exhaled through both her nose and mouth.

Green steam puffed out of them, coiling, hissing and gurgling like a living thing.

She outstretched her right hand, pressed her palm against the cold surface of the tombstone.

She didn’t use her mana.

She used her blood, and the tombstone glowed a brilliant black-green light, swallowing Inara whole.

...

Splash—!

Inara fell on her knees on a sea of ebony blood, her eyebrows knitted together, trying to scatter away from her mind the aftermath of such a brutal teleportation.

That luxury was not given to her.

"Oh, my disciple has come to see me, at last." Echidna’s voice reverberated through the whole realm of dead monsters, causing Inara to slowly lift her head, resting her eyes on the sinfully beautiful Mother of Monsters.

Echidna was smiling warmly, as if happy to see Inara after such a long time.

But everything Inara could see was the hundreds — no, thousands, or was it billions? — of eyes glaring straight at her soul through the mouth of Echidna.

She was now a changed being, but Inara couldn’t suppress a shudder at that sight.

"You have grown." Echidna added, looking quite pleased, "Blood indeed doesn’t lie. Oh, and the more you grow up the more you look more like her. Wonderful. Truly wonderful. My dear snake princess, come and tell mother how have you been."

Inara was confused by the strange words of Echidna, but she immediately remembered the reasons why she was here to begin with.

She staggered up instantly, splashing sounds scattering in the wind with her action.

She coated next her body with her aura to stop the poisonous smell and blood of the dead monsters from touching her.

The scent was disgusting, to say the least. It was like a wet garbage dump, but worse.

Above, the sky was crimson with a gigantic blinking black slitted eye staring down at her.

Inara blinked. It was not like this the last time, she thought.

Was it because she was stronger so she could see beyond the veil?

Inara didn’t know. And it was not time to ponder about it.

"I greet the Mother of Monsters." Inara bowed slightly, "and though I wouldn’t mind boring you with my life recently..."

"Oh, my lovely princess, you will never bore me with your life."

"...I have urgent things to discuss with you, master." Inara completed, causing Echidna to tilt her head knowingly.

"Let me guess. The barrier is already down?" She said, smiling softly.

But Inara could sense an edge of coldness behind that smile.

"Yes." Inara nodded, not surprised by how she knew, "in at most three days, it would completely disappear. I have created my own barrier, but I know it won’t last long. That’s why I am here, master."

She looked deeply into Echidna’s eyes. The Snake Princess regretted it instantly. She snapped her head away, cursed, but continued her words,

"I need to know who I am fighting." Inara said, "I need to know why I felt like they wish nothing but to completely destroy me, with not even ashes of me left."

"Well, my princess," Echidna growled, "do you know a slave who wouldn’t wish anything but to destroy his slaver and the collar around his neck?"

"Huh?" Inara exclaimed, "what the fuc—! I mean, what do you mean?"

"It’s simple, my sweet princess. It’s very simple." Echidna whispered, raising her head upward, her voice filled with a wrathful yet motherly tone, "The created have forgotten the Creator. The beasts have bitten the hand of the feeding Master."

The more Echidna talked, the more Inara’s eyes widened, and the more her heart trumpeted in dismay.

Echidna lowered her head back, looking deep into Inara’s eyes.

And there, she changed.

Her body shifted and became a cluster of billions of mouths of all types and sizes and colors, all of them wide open.

Then she — they — spoke.

And Inara felt like the world was collapsing on her head as the wrathful fragmented voices of the Mother of Monsters reached her mind.

"The Falcon can no longer hear the Falconer." The Mother of Monsters screeched, the realm trembling under her fury, "and for that, Inara, my princess, they need to die."

She shouted with overwhelming anger!

"THEY NEED TO DIE FOR BETRAYING THEIR MOTHER!!!!"

...

Meanwhile, in the Order of Orion, Sky was in the process of obtaining his Third Scars.

The man had now grown, with his long red hair tied into a ponytail and flaming red eyes.

He was truly a sight to behold, causing Katy to look at him with lovesick eyes. But not only her. Many others were all enamored with Sky, earning him the reputation of the most loved man in the Order.

It was true.

But he was equally the most hated man, thanks to having anything most of them would never have.

To them, Sky was indeed a sky.

Someone they could see but never reach despite trying everything.

But Sky was not concerned by this. Instead, he was more interested in the sight in front of him, or rather around him.

Receiving the Third Scars inside the Order of Orion was a qualitative change. Now you were fully recognized as someone important, and so, allowed to see things you didn’t have the right to before.

And right now, in the Room of Peerless Scars, surrounded by his master and two high-ranked members of Orion, Sky observed pictures adorning the walls of the room.

The pictures all described the same monster, but there was a subtle difference that actually meant the monster was different. In other words, same species but different individuals.

But,

"What is this?" Sky asked, looking at the pictures. His nose subtly twitched, the scent of burned flesh curtaining the room.

The monster was tall, full black, made entirely of bones. There were goat-like horns erupting from their skulls, pointing at the sky sharply.

They wore clothes made of elementals, coating their bodies like fog.

On each of these monsters was a bow. And Sky saw them use the bones coming out of their bodies, elements wrapping around them, as arrows.

"Oh, this?" His master answered him, smiling sharply, "I wonder, what does it look like to you?"

Sky peeled his eyes away from the pictures and stared at him, no, at them.

Sounds like cracking bones began to echo, as Sky witnessed his master and the other two Seven-Scars members transforming into the same monster in the picture.

His body trembled for a second, and his master’s voice reached his ears.

"This is our true form. This is our nature, how we were born."

"We are not human, Sky. We are BoneHunters."

"And it’s time for you to know the true face of our Order."

—End of Chapter 415—