She made a dash for the nearest one, blades thrust-

  BANGBANGBANGBLAMBANGBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBANGBANGBLAMBANGBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBANGBANGBLAMBANGBANGBANGBLAMBANGBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBANGBANGBLAMBANGBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBANGBANGBLAMBANGBANGBANGBLAMBANGBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBANGBANGBLAMBANGBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBANGBANGBANGBLAMBANGBLAMBLAMBLAMBANGBANGBANG!!!

  Bright, blinding flashes of light ignited down the entire mezzanine like a wildfire, followed by the orchestra of steel that bombarded into Zaphrriyah, each a small, sharp head of steel packed with the force of thousand-pound bow. Muscles were torn to shreds. Tendons ripped and snapped. Bones were shattered into exploding fragments. Organs bled like maggot infested carcasses. The perception of pain or really anything at all was rapidly seeping out her mind like the pink, sloshy flesh of her brain. The force of all the bullets swept her off her feet and blasted her straight across the mezzanine back through the room from whence she came until she hit the wall and slumped to the floor.

  The sinners lowered their guns slightly, still on high alert. The sinner that Zaphrriyah had gone for approached her lifeless body, gun aimed at her head, even though there wasn't much left of it to shoot. They prodded her body with their gun. There was no sign of life. The sinner stood up and turned to report to their fellows.

  No body. No senses. No feelings. Alone. Trapped. Drowning. But then there was another. Not a sense nor a form. Something more. Something that bled out the vessel into the Blackwater. It became aware. Of itself. Of the Blackwater around it. Even so, it was helpless, powerless, unable to do anything but sink deeper into the abyss. As time passed, it grew familiar with the Blackwater, with its intangible, impossible form, with its strange, slimy sensation and its cold, calming feeling. It learned to move – not itself, but the Blackwater. It learned to control it to an extent, to see through it, hear through it, feel through it. The Blackwater had devoured everything it once was but now they had become one. And through the Blackwater, she was reborn.

  Zaphrriyah lurched forth, slicing off the sinner's gun hand, stabbing her other blade through their feet, pinning them in place as they collapsed into her hold where she sunk her teeth into their neck, tearing out their carotid artery. Another volley of bullets fired in a flash, but Zaphrriyah was already gone, rolling out from sight. Bullets continued blasting along the walls, anticipating where she would have gone. After the first round of fire ceased to reload, a squad of sinners went in, sweeping the room and heading downstairs, but before they could make it to the first floor, Zaphrriyah dove from above, landing on top of one and impaling both her blades into their chest, kicking off of their body with her blades still latched on, throwing it at the other as a shield against their bullets – though a few still grazed her arms and shoulders. She dropped to the ground tout de suite and sprung to the next sinner, slithering low, past between their legs as they tried to shoot her, blades swinging as she sprung back up, slicing the sinner's legs into four parts each as she dashed at the remaining two, suddenly changing directions mid dash for the other while sinking low again, leading their fellow to accidentally shoot them in the head while Zaphrriyah spun on the ground and straight back at them, blades raised barbarically as the sinner's eyes went wide in horror, realizing the bullets they blasted into her body did nothing just before they were sliced down either side of their neck in a V shape.

  There were a hundred and seventeen individual bullets and fragments still lodged inside her body. She knew exactly where each and every one of them was located, and only a few were problematic. She left the room, finishing off the sinner whose legs she'd violated with an unenthusiastic stab in the back, sticking close to the back walls beneath the mezzanine and took a seat against the wall beside some other bodies. There she carved her blade under her ribs and stuck her hand inside, meticulously plucking out the bullet in her liver. While she was there, she reached further, slicing open her left lung with her nails for two fragments stuck inside. Finally, she reached up towards her heart and pulled on the fragment that was lodged into the wall of her left atrium when it had healed around it. She dropped the fistful of bloody shrapnel onto the floor beside her and sealed the wounds.

  The sinners upstairs were all on their guards now. None dared venture into the room where they'd heard the screams of their brethren. Yet, they were hardened sinners, cruel, relentless and merciless in their work, determined to stop the witch at all costs, holding their positions firm, covering every possible entry and opening on the mezzanine. Unfortunately, Zaphrriyah created her own openings.

  The wooden floor spit asunder beneath their feet and through its crack erupted the witch, blades hissing as she cut into every sinner within her proximity. Blood sprayed in gushing arcs from its source, cloaking the witch in the midst of death and chaos as guns fired and bullets flew. A blade spun from out the veil of blood and limbs, nailing a sinner in the face, followed forthright by the witch as another blade spun out from her hand, slicing through two sinners before latching onto the third one's shoulder. As pain and shock electrocuted through their nerves, the sight of Zaphrriyah manifested before their eyes and off came their head.

  The remaining sinners rushed her all at once, the first initiating the attack with a straight kick for her head, which Zaphrriyah dodged swiftly, only for a chamber of lead to pump into her guts. Viscera spew, entangling the sinner as Zaphrriyah dealt with three others, dancing around strikes and bullets fired at point blank, retaliating by hacking her blades into their flesh and crushing their bones. The viscera slowed her down, and though Zaphrriyah manipulated it for cover and distraction, it was nonetheless an injury she would have to answer for, and judgment came in the form of a shotgun that blasted off her right arm.

  Zaphrriyah screamed.

  Her viscera retracted, crushing and dragging the remains of the sinner inside her. Her remaining blade flailed furiously in fast, fluent arcs around her, dismantling everything within the gleam of its steel dome. The sinners fired at her from range, but their bullets were swatted out the air like flies or split perfectly in half as the Zaphrriyah sauntered towards them. The damned, scarlet eye born of the abyss burned its impression into the very fabric from whence it came, seething with malice, wrath and thirst.

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  More sinners flanked her from behind, risking themselves in the line of fire, armed with shotguns and high caliber handguns. The first and furthest was kicked in the chest before they could get any closer, her heel penetrating straight through their torso. The ones that came after were repeatedly and brutally stabbed with the protruding bones of her dismembered arm in their throats and faces, and the last one had their neck torn off between her teeth. The ones ahead were the only sinners left, and it seemed as though they'd run out of bullets. Even so, they stood their ground, running at the witch with nothing but their bare hands, shouting a battle cry.

  One tried to punch her, a straight right, and had their fist sliced straight through, all the way down their arm, twisting at their shoulder and across their chest, exiting from out between the middle and ring finger of their other hand. The second one didn't even get a chance to do anything when her blade spun into their eye. The third tackled into her, but they couldn't bring her down. The witch slowly wrapped her slender fingers around their neck and lifted them up and away from her, promptly snapping their neck. The fourth seemed to have accepted their fate, and being no coward, simply stood in her way, reaching into their coat for a smoke and a lighter, drawing one last nicotine-filled breath before their heart was ripped out from their ribcage, crushed and swallowed. The fifth and final sinner, on the other hand, was a coward. They didn't even try to run, knowing there was no hope of escape, instead determined to take their own life with the path of least resistance, opting for a swift, painless end. But the witch did not allow it.

  Zaphrriyah grabbed the gun and crushed it along with their hand. The sinner was lifted off their feet like fish on a hook, hanging them in place perfect for butchering. For a moment, they gazed into the monstrous eye of the abyss and then a sudden rush of pain bloomed in their guts. She tore off the sinner's arm and threw them into the air, where she stabbed them a dozen more times with the stub of her arm until she caught the sinner's lifeless body at the bottom of her heel and crushed it on the ground.

  Heaving, bleeding and seething. She staggered towards her dismembered arm, picking it up and collapsing over a blood-soaked, bullet-riddled couch chair. She examined the dismembered half of her arm. The blast had destroyed the flesh and bone in the arm, leaving those parts missing. Zaphrriyah mirrored the missing flesh on the end of her intact arm and carefully reattached the rest. Fibers of flesh and thick, coagulating blood sealed onto the arm from the inside, clotting thickly around where the bone should be, forming a temporary cast out of crystallized blood. She moved each of her fingers in turn, feeling the blood flow through those cold veins again. Then she got back onto her feet, retrieved her blades from the bodies and headed through the door at the end of the mezzanine.

  Another short, empty corridor. The music grew louder.

  The chamber that followed was an open yard outside with a clear view of the night sky. There were walls of other buildings surrounding it from all sides but there was nothing blocking its clear shot at the sky. The heavens were as dark as ever, but the lights shining from the buildings around the clearing focused out the weight and significance of what was an otherwise absolute darkness. The clearing was a locker room and resting area. There were benches and tables, and racks for weapons, weights and armor. There was only a single sinner present, who sat on a bench with his back turned to the door, apparently in the middle of wrapping his arm.

  Zaphrriyah approached, swift and silent, a phantom huntress.

  "You are no warrior," the sinner said when Zaphrriyah was just a pace away.

  She did not stop, slow, or hasten, her composure cold and sharp, but when she thrust her blade, the sinner suddenly stood up, turned around, and caught her blade between his fingers. She did not hesitate to strike with her other blade. The sinner pulled her towards him, offsetting her balance and dodged her second swing, retaliating with a strike from his palm straight into her chest, knocking her nearly five paces back.

  "You have no honor, and if you would stab an unarmed fighter in the back, then you are also coward."

  Zaphrriyah did not heed any of the sinner's rhetorics, already sprinting back for another attack. She accosted the sinner from his side, blade slashing across, but he struck her blade out the air with an elbow to the flat of its face, swatting away her second blade that came cleaving down for his neck just the same, before delivering a combo of rapid strikes to her head and torso that ruptured every internal blood vessel and organs, forcing all the air out her lungs.

  "If you would not respect your opponent, then you do not respect yourself." The sinner kicked Zaphrriyah in the throat, knocking her to the ground and followed quickly with a stomp which Zaphrriyah rolled out of in time, having just recovered from his earlier attack.

  "You are no opponent of mine, sinner," Zaphrriyah scowled from the ground, wiping blood off her face. "You are prey, and I hunt the likes of you for the love of the game."

  She lunged low, sweeping for his calves and swinging a wide, overhead arc. The sinner did not jump, seeing through her intentions, he dodged the overhead instead and twisted his leg, letting her blade cut into his shin. The blade stopped at the bone, like smashing into steel. Zaphrriyah did not stop there, carrying through the momentum back up and behind the sinner, but he had already turned around, deflecting and evading half a dozen slashes before kicking Zaphrriyah in the leg, staggering her momentarily and bludgeoning his elbow into her face. He followed it up with a stronger sweep, dropping Zaphrriyah onto her back and raised his leg up high all the way above his head before plummeting down for the execution. Zaphrriyah rolled again, but the sinner knew she would and got down after his heel landed, grabbing her arm, locking it in place and pinning her other arm under his legs. She tried to cut him with her blades but before she could even struggle to do so, her arm was cracked, bent and broken the other way around. Unfortunately for the sinner, this was the same arm that had been dismembered by a shotgun just minutes before.

  Zaphrriyah did not make a sound nor waste her strength struggling. She yawned. The sinner kicked her blade out her hand and snatched the other one as he released his hold, immediately chopping the blade at her head. A surge of blood rushed out the back of her elbow, snapping what was already broken, bursting out in a spike of crystallized blood that shot right for the sinner's neck. It wasn't sharp enough to kill, but still cut into him with its pressure, disrupting his strike enough for Zaphrriyah to bite onto her blade, clamping it firmly as she broke her other arm free from this sinner's legs, twisting across and throwing her knuckles into his face, using the momentum to get off her back and onto the sinner. She pinned his arms beneath her knees and began repeatedly bashing her fist into his face again and again and again until her other arm regenerated, at which point she took the blade out from her mouth and lodged it into the ground beside her to resume the lynching, now with both hands.

  Flesh peeled off the sinner's face from the relentless blows. The nasal was the first to shatter, followed by the lacrimal and maxilla bones. Then the frontal vault began to crack, eventually caving in completely as her fists smashed into the sinner's brain.

  She drew her bloody fists out from the pulping skull, grabbed her blade from beside her and got up to retrieve the other. She left the nameless sinner like all the rest and continued onwards.

  The next chamber was a dark lounge lit only by neon lights that glowed from the walls and ceiling. There were booths and tables still occupied by sinners, all of whom stopped what they were doing and stood up when Zaphrriyah entered.