[Echo Acquired: Laughing Hyena]
[Effect: Stamina and strength increase with continuous laughter. Warning: Prolonged use erodes mental stability.]
The glow split open as her hand closed on it.
The Echo bled into her palm, not light but liquid, hot and suffocating. It surged up her arm in a rush of fire that seared through tendon and bone. Her chest arched, breath ripped from her lungs as her vision fractured into color—red, violet, a sickly green—before splintering into laughter not her own.
A sound threaded through her throat, cracked and jagged. Her laugh tangled with another, faint but piercing, as though the Echo itself was giggling inside her skull. For an instant she couldn't tell if the voice belonged to her or the thing clawing its way into her body.
Heat scalded behind her eyes. Her ribs felt as though they might split apart. She collapsed against the cobblestones, nails raking lines into the stone as the Echo fused into her flesh.
Then silence.
The world steadied, though her pulse roared like a drum. Every muscle hummed with something not her own, an energy that turned her trembling limbs iron-hard. She staggered upright, giggling between ragged gasps, her lips curled too wide.
The corrupted man's chain cracked down where she'd been kneeling a heartbeat ago. Stone shattered, shards spraying across her face.
Sera darted sideways, faster than her body had ever moved. Her feet skidded but held, her lungs burning with new air. The chain whistled past her head again, missing by inches, and she laughed harder—because she couldn't stop, because the Echo inside her demanded it.
The corrupted man lurched toward her, his teeth bared, his chain screeching sparks from the cobbles. Hunters shouted somewhere beyond the clash, but their voices blurred under the pounding in her skull.
Sera spun the jagged spear haft in her grip, still slick with ichor. Her body should have been too heavy, too weak, but with every laugh that tore loose, she burned hotter, moved sharper.
He swung. She dropped low, breathless cackles spilling as the chain carved a line above her head. Her cracked weapon slammed up under his ribs, biting deep. He howled but didn't fall, his hands yanking the chain in a wild arc.
Sera tore her weapon free and staggered back, boots slipping in blood. The movement should have drained her, but the laughter only pushed her further, flooding her veins like firewater. Her grin shone slick with ichor, her shoulders shaking with the sound.
The man roared and charged again. His swings were heavier, brutal, each blow cratering stone, but there was no rhythm—only frenzy.
Sera's steps found rhythm where his didn't. She weaved between arcs of steel, her laughter high and broken, echoing across the square. Every hunter's gaze snapped toward her, unease deepening with each breath.
The corrupted man wasn't the only monster anymore.
He slammed her back against a shattered stall, chain tearing through wood as she rolled free by inches. Splinters cut her arms. Her lungs seared, but she laughed anyway. The sound ripped out of her, jagged and unrelenting, until she realized the voice wasn't only hers.
It still giggled inside her skull.
Her eyes burned with red haze. Her muscles screamed, but her body only moved faster, her grip on the broken haft tightening until her knuckles split.
The man came again. She met him head-on.
Her spear haft rammed into his chest, cracking ribs. He staggered, spit flying, his chain wrapping around her arm. Pain jolted up to her shoulder as he yanked, dragging her close. His eyes blazed crimson, veins bulging black. He stank of Echo—burnt iron and rot.
Sera's grin split wider. Her laugh came out sharp, almost animal, as she wrenched her body sideways, dragging him with her. The haft punched into his throat.
The crack echoed like a bell.
He collapsed, gagging, chain unraveling from her arm. His body twitched once, then stilled, blood pooling beneath his cheek.
Sera staggered, panting, the haft slick and ruined in her grip. Her arms shook. She should have collapsed.
Instead, her laughter spilled, louder now, rolling ragged through the square until it bounced against the walls. She pressed a hand to her mouth, but it wouldn't stop—the Echo wouldn't let her.
The Hunters froze.
Their weapons dripped black, their armor bent, but their eyes weren't on the Gate anymore. They were on her—on the girl swaying in gore, laughter clawing from her chest like it belonged to something else.
"Saints preserve us…" the words cracked out like a prayer.
The next beast crawled through the Gate. Hunters shifted to guard the civilians. Sera darted ahead of them, swinging her haft like a butcher's cleaver. The blow split its skull.
A haze bled upward.
[Echo Acquired: Chitin Fang]
[Effect: Strikes lash out with jagged force, like brittle claws. Unstable and prone to shattering.]
Another monster lunged. Sera's swing lashed jagged, striking with more force than wood should allow. The beast collapsed at her feet.
A second haze rose.
[Echo Acquired: Juggler's Step]
[Effect: Instinctive, erratic footwork slips through attacks. Prone to overextension.]
The following beast charged the civilians. Hunters braced. Sera blurred through them, laughter breaking high. A sword swiped at her as she passed, but she stumbled sideways, boots skidding on ichor, and the blade cut only air. She slipped through the monster's claws the same way, rammed her haft into its ribs, and dropped it twitching.
Another haze rose.
[Echo Acquired: Stalker's Eye]
[Effect: Sight sharpens in bursts, catching sudden movements. Flickers unpredictably.]
Her pupils narrowed. The next beast lunged—but her haft was already moving. It cracked through the creature's jaw mid-leap, silencing it in a single blow. Hunters swore. To them, it looked like she had struck before it moved.
Another haze bled upward.
[Echo Acquired: Last Gasp]
[Effect: When near collapse, body surges with one desperate strike. Leaves user weakened afterward.]
The next beast's claws raked across her side, drawing blood. She staggered—then jolted forward in a desperate surge. Her haft tore through its throat, driving the corpse back into the cobblestones.
Her arms trembled. Her vision blurred. Still, her laughter spilled, cracked and high.
Hunters cried out. Civilians pressed to the walls, hands over their mouths.
What they saw wasn't survival. It was feeding on death itself.
Each time a beast fell, a haze rose. Each time, Sera's laughter climbed higher, her movements sharper, her strikes heavier. They had seen corruption before—how Echoes hollowed the mind until nothing human remained.
But never like this. Never growing stronger with every kill.
She tore through the rest that way. Slipping where she should fall. Striking where she should miss. Her laughter rang on and on, wild and ragged, until it seemed to belong to the square itself. Echoes bled into her one after another, five lights sinking into her body as if the world was answering her madness.
When the last creature crumpled, silence pressed in. Only her laughter filled it.
Dozens of Echoes shimmered in the air, pulsing faintly. None dared touch them. None dared move. Hunters kept their weapons raised. Civilians whispered prayers, their voices cracking.
Sera hunched in the center, drenched in ichor, her broken haft trembling in her hands, laughter clawing out of her chest until it tangled with the faint giggles still echoing in her skull.
Greywick had not been saved.
It had only traded one nightmare for another.
Greywick's Demon.