The Phantom Limb

The Phantom Limb

Master Root - The Port of Seda

The sea air was usually a cleansing thing, salty and cold. Tonight, it tasted of ash.

Master Root stood at the end of Pier Four, the wooden planks creaking rhythmically beneath his boots. Behind him, the great city of Seda was a portrait of chaos. The pillar of smoke from the refinery blotted out the stars, glowing with a hellish orange underbelly from the fires raging in the lower districts.

He took a deep breath, savoring the panic in the air. It was the fever breaking. The body fighting the infection.

He checked the alignment of the stars, visible only through a gap in the smoke. His extraction was late. The Warlord’s currents were turbulent tonight, agitated by the sheer volume of Ether he had released.

"Impatience," he chided himself. "A surgeon waits for the anesthesia to take hold."

He turned his back on the sea and looked toward the city gates. He felt them before he saw them.

The Hunter. The one with the scent of the deep woods and the raw, untamed magic. He was coming fast, cutting through the confusion of the port crowds like a blade.

Root had felt the Hunter’s presence in the refinery—a wild, chaotic anomaly that had resonated with the explosion. It was unexpected. A variable he hadn't accounted for.

And now, that variable was here.

The heavy wooden doors of the pier burst open.

They were a motley collection of symptoms. A giant barbarian wielding a sword with lethal intent. A traitorous Senate daughter clutching a scroll like a shield. A broken soldier. A pair of terrified scholars. And...

Root’s single eye narrowed.

...a golden construct, leaking pure Ether, supported by a vagrant.

"Fascinating," Root whispered. The city was weakened; only able to vomit up mutant antibodies to fight him.

"Root!" Rina Cassius screamed, pointing a rusted iron bar at him. "It ends here!"

The barbarian—Aga—didn't speak. He didn't pause. He launched himself down the pier, his longsword raised, moving with a speed that defied his size. The killing intent rolling off him was a physical weight, cold and heavy.

Root did not draw his blade nor did he move.

He simply raised his single hand, palm out.

"Halt."

He didn't use Ether. He used the blood of the dying city. He pulled on the ambient suffering, the spilled life force from the riots, the slaughter in the plaza.

A wall of crimson force, solid as iron, slammed into Aga mid-stride.

The woodsman hit it with a grunt, bouncing back as if he’d run into a cliff face. He landed in a crouch, snarling, and immediately circled, looking for a flank.

"You," Aga growled, his voice vibrating with a father’s rage. "You smell of the cage. What do you want with my boy?"

Root tilted his head. "Boy?" He genuinely did not know what the savage was talking about. "I have no interest in children, Hunter. Only in cures."

"You killed the city!" Faren shouted, stepping out from behind Aga, his voice trembling but loud. "You murdered thousands!"

"I excised a tumor," Root corrected calmly. "Seda was dying of its own pride. I merely accelerated the inevitable."

"By feeding it to the Abyss?" Elara stepped forward, her cannon humming as it charged. "We saw the cisterns. We saw the Lashers. That isn't a cure. It's a parasite."

"It is power," Root said. "Real power. Not the hollow philosophy of your Institute."

Gaidan, pale and sweating, stepped up beside Aga. "Flank him. Asset, take left. Elara, suppressive fire. I have right."

They were coordinating. They were closing in. Root stood alone at the edge of the dark water, surrounded by six people who wanted him dead.

He felt a familiar vibration beneath the pier. A cold, deep thrum that resonated with his own altered blood.

"You are too late," Root said. "The incision is made. The patient is bleeding. You cannot stitch a wound this deep."

"Watch me," Aga roared.

He lunged again, and this time, Elara fired.

The blue-white beam of Ether screamed across the pier, aimed squarely at Root’s chest. At the same moment, Aga struck from the left, his sword swinging for Root’s neck. Gaidan threw his dagger from the right.

It was a checkmate.

Root smiled.

"Sanguine," he whispered.

The wood of the pier exploded—not outward, but upward.

From the dark water beneath the dock, something massive and crimson erupted. It was not a tentacle. It was a hand.

A gigantic, skeletal hand, formed of solidified blood and shadow, rose up through the planks. It was twenty feet tall, its fingers thick as tree trunks, dripping with seawater and black ichor.

The shockwave knocked the group backward. Elara’s shot went wide, sizzling into the ocean. Aga had to dive to avoid being crushed by a rising knuckle.

The hand didn't attack them. It closed around Root.

It formed a protective cage of crimson bone, shielding him from the sword and the dagger.

Root looked through the gaps in the giant skeletal fingers. He looked at Rina, whose face was a mask of despair. He looked at Aga, who was already on his feet, hacking uselessly at the hardened blood-bone of the hand.

"This is not a victory," Root called out, his voice amplified by the magic. "This is a reprieve. Seda survives tonight. But the rot is deep. And I will return for the rest."

"Coward!" Aga screamed, striking the hand again. Sparks flew. "Face me!"

"I am not a mere warrior, Hunter," Root said, his figure beginning to dissolve into red mist within the grip of the hand. "I am a surgeon. And my work here is done."

The skeletal hand clenched into a fist, crushing the space where Root stood.

Then, with a sound like a thunderclap, the hand liquefied.

It collapsed instantly into a torrent of seawater and common blood, splashing down onto the pier and into the ocean.

Aga was left standing in a puddle of red slime, swinging at empty air.

Root was gone.

Silence rushed back in to fill the void, broken only by the crackle of the burning city behind them and the gentle lapping of the waves.

"He's... he's gone," Faren whispered, dropping to his knees.

Elara lowered her cannon, staring at the empty pier. "Teleportation. But... biological. He used the blood as a medium. That shouldn't be possible."

Rina walked to the edge of the dock. She looked down at the dark water. There was no sign of him. No ripples. Just the reflection of the burning city.

She reached into her sash and touched the scroll. She had the evidence. She had the name. But the man was a ghost.

"He's gone," Rina said, her voice hollow. "But he left us a message."

"What message?" Agapititus asked, helping Skooh stay upright.

Rina turned back to the group. Behind her, Seda burned. The skyline was forever changed. The Senate was broken. The Institute was compromised.

"That this wasn't an attack," Rina said, looking at Aga. "It was a surgery. And we're what's left."

Aga sheathed his sword. He didn't look at the city. He looked at the horizon, where the dark sea met the dark sky. The scent of the Abyss was gone, masked by the salt and the blood. But he knew it was out there.

"Then we hunt him," Aga said. "We heal the wound. And then we kill the surgeon."