Bloodsteel Hunter
Episode 4 – Choir of Screams
The number 2 glowed beneath my boots, stamped into black stone like a brand.
It wasn't much. Just one notch higher than the gutter. But the change was there—subtle, insidious, like someone had adjusted the tempo of reality. Ash fell slower. Air bent different. Every sound dragged behind me like it was late to the party.
So this is what leveling feels like.
I flicked the butt of my cigarette into the river of blood and watched it hiss. Behind me, the Vampire Lord's headless body twitched like a drunk trying to dance, but the system had already stamped the receipt. His resurrection timer ticked on a clock only he could see. Twenty-four hours, and he'd be back. That's the curse of immortality—nobody stays dead, just humiliated.
Good. I liked leaving a mark that doesn't fade.
The HUD pulsed again, bathing my silver eyes in cold light.
[New Random Contract: Warlock Queen of the Sable Choir]
[Target Level: 102]
[Reward: +1 Permanent Level]
[Mode: Solo Recommended]
[Modifier Active: Dimensional Gauntlet]
The portal opened like a bruise across the air, deep violet bleeding at the edges. I didn't hesitate. I don't hesitate for anyone.
I stepped through.
⸻
The Choir's World
The first thing that hit me was the noise.
Not screams—wails. Thousands of voices, dissonant, layered, an endless chant that scraped nerves raw. Every syllable was a nail down a chalkboard made of bone. My liquid steel skin rippled as the vibration crawled through me.
The sky was a cathedral roof turned inside out—arches of flesh stitched with stars, chandeliers of skulls swinging in windless air. Black towers rose like organ pipes, and from each one poured a choir of warlocks, robed and faceless, their mouths stretched too wide, pouring endless sound.
And above them, at the heart of the chorus, floated their queen.
The Warlock Queen of the Sable Choir.
Her level—102—glowed beneath her in pure white flame. Her body was draped in robes stitched from skin, her hands long, bony, tipped with claws dripping black fire. Her face was hidden behind a crown of jagged thorns, but her mouth… her mouth was a pit, wide and endless, screaming three voices at once.
The HUD whispered across my skull:
[Target Identified. Weakness: Sound Reversal. Warning: Vocal Resonance exceeds safe threshold. Do not listen directly.]
I smirked. "Bitch, everything you say goes in one ear and out the other."
First Clash
She raised her hand, and the chorus sang.
The sound was a wall, a tidal wave of shrieking syllables that cracked the ground, splintered towers, and rattled the blood in my veins. Hunters at higher levels might've braced it. I wasn't higher. I was 2.
So I cheated.
My body liquefied, every inch of me turning into rippling steel. The vibrations hit, and instead of shattering me, I let them pass through, flowing like water around a rock. My torso split into panels, the sound carving holes, but the holes just sealed again.
I charged.
Speed. That was the difference. At Level 1, I was surviving. At Level 2, I was faster than her choir expected. Every stride blurred, liquid legs flexing like engines.
My arm snapped forward, blade extending, steel screaming into a spear. I threw it—not to kill, but to test.
The Queen caught it midair with two fingers. The spear dissolved into liquid, slithering up her arm like a snake. She hissed, voice three-toned, shrieking into my skull.
"You dare profane the Choir?"
I laughed, sharp and low. "Choir? You sound like a fucking middle school band."
The steel snake exploded up her arm, jagged shards bursting across her shoulder. Black fire spilled. She screeched louder. The sound hit like a train, my liquid body vibrating until I nearly came apart.
Nearly.
⸻
Trick of the Steel
I dropped to one knee, steel rippling. She thought she was breaking me. Good. That's what I wanted.
I split my body into threads—hair-thin wires of liquid steel that stretched across the battlefield, invisible in the dark. Every step I took left more behind, an ever-growing web.
The Queen floated closer, her choir of warlocks echoing every note.
"Fall, spawn. Kneel before the Sable Choir."
I spat blood—metallic, silver, steaming. "Lady, the only thing I kneel for is head."
Her scream became a blade of sound, ripping through me. My torso shredded, liquid spraying in all directions. But the web was complete.
I collapsed, reforming in her shadow, grinning up at her. My wires tightened, snapping taut.
The warlocks in their towers kept singing, feeding her power, but the web wasn't for her. It was for them.
The wires lashed outward, slicing across towers like piano wire. Heads rolled. Choir mouths split open and fell silent. The chant faltered, their harmony collapsing into a jagged stutter.
The Queen's aura flickered.
I stood, cigarette somehow still between my lips, blade forming anew.
"Quiet down. Show's over."
War of Wails
The Queen roared, black fire gouting from her claws. She ripped the wires apart with brute force, sending shards of me spraying across the sky. Her mouth opened wide enough to split her skull, and she screamed.
The sound became physical—an orb of compressed shriek, a bomb of resonance.
It hit me dead center. My body detonated, shredded into a thousand shards of steel. For a moment, I was gone.
The warlocks cheered, their voices rising again, filling the sky with sickening song.
Then the shards twitched.
They didn't scatter. They circled.
My liquid steel gathered back together, but not into a man. Into a storm.
A tornado of steel shards spun upward, every piece jagged, every edge honed. I let Infinite Ammo sing, pouring more and more into the storm until it became a drill, a spiral of knives screaming louder than her choir.
I hit her head-on.
Her scream met mine. Sound versus steel. The sky cracked, towers collapsed, moons dimmed. For a heartbeat, everything was just vibration, pain, destruction.
Then her body ripped open, black blood spraying into the spiral.
⸻
Cliffhanger
The storm ended as quickly as it began. I reformed, kneeling, breathing slow. My cigarette was gone this time, burned to ash in the chaos. My blade dripped steel and black blood both.
The Queen floated still—but broken. Her crown hung shattered, her robes torn, her face half-revealed. One of her three voices was silent now, strangled into nothing.
Her level still glowed 102, but her health ticked down in the HUD:
[Target Health: 71%]
I grinned, teeth sharp, eyes silver.
"Guess you're only good for two-part harmony now."
Her remaining voices screamed in fury, and the sky itself began to crack like glass.
The real fight was just beginning.