Cosmic Ethics by Erico Schroeder (Schaten)
Kriegvar advanced through the
battle; this was a good body, with
strong bones and vigorous muscles,
which granted her extremes of
strength and speed. This time she was
fighting brutish “orcs”, and those were good
fighters. She tasted their blood with her
claws, and cleaved their souls with her
sword, filled with bloodlust and fury. A
bigger orc clad in bulkier armour advanced
toward her, and struck his mockery of a
blade into the demoness flesh, Kriegvar
tasted the moment for a century, before
reacting in a second: the bigger orc endured
one slash, defended another, and fell to the
third one. While dying he exhaled flavourful
scents of fury and hatred, intoxicating the
demoness.
Overwhelmed by the thrill of the battle
Kriegvar felt invincible, she grabbed the
pommel of her flaming blade and screamed
a war cry, darting trough a dozen of the
squishier orcs, while tasting their pain and
despair. Suddenly the biggest orc she had
ever seen stormed into the fray, she lunged
into the beast, and the other orcs retreated
in respect to their boss. Booth clashed their
bulky weapons a few times, making
resounding noises in the battlefield,
impatient she could no longer wait, and
advanced right into her foes grip. The beast
took her by the neck, banged her head into
the ground and sliced her throat with his
giant “choppa”.
Kriegvar woke up, she was in another
battlefield, and could see the entire battle
from her position: these enemies were
humans, most of them squishy and weak,
but some clad in thick armour and others
inside huge behemoth tanks. Red
silhouettes were already harvesting these
fields of human souls, and she was anxious
to join the fray. Raising her flaming sword
high she charged into the human lines,
feeling the lasburns tickle her skin on the
way. To her those humans looked all the
same, and she only distinguished them by
the way she killed each one: some were
dismembered, some beheaded, and others
she sliced through, or punctured in vital
parts. There were many of them and she
could devise just as many ways to
commission their souls to the gods of war.
Suddenly an explosive shell bursted her
shoulder, and she smiled while her flesh Kriegvar woke seated on a throne, she was
rebuilt, there was a warrior facing her, a big alone but could hear the sound of distant
warrior clad in silver armour. He tried the battles. The sky was covered in dark red
explosive shells again, but she dodged the clouds from where rained blood, into a sea
bullets with ease and approached him with of dark red liquor which expanded to the
malice, the fiery sword clashed against the infinite. Her throne was made of skulls, on
brother’s halberd. She swung by his left and top of a mountain of bones, whose roots
he deflected the blow into his shoulder-pad she knew, also expanded into the infinite.
swinging the halberd low, she jumped the Somehow she knew those were the bones
attack and lunged for his heart. Struck by and blood of everyone she ever had slayed
the sword and the surprise, the warrior in battle, in any reality at any time.
tried a new salvo of explosive shells at
There was a leathery book at her front, she
point-blank, but she predicted the
flipped the pages and found pictures of
movement, kicking his arm while slicing his
many weapons whose she owned, including
throat open.
the flaming sword she had been using. At
the bottom of every picture was her glyph,
The demoness screamed in joy, while the
except for the last one: a picture of a
battle raged around her, another silver clad
beautiful axe whose head burned in green
warrior came into her direction, but she
flames, and she wanted it. She signed her
made short service of him, a third warrior
glyph under the picture, and the mountain
turned his attention to her after killing one
of bones started to sink into the red sea.
of her kind, but she gave him no time to
She sunken with it, drowning under the red
react. She was filled with anger, covered in
ichor.
blood and nothing could stop her! A tank
shoot from afar, and a shell three times Kriegvar woke up, materializing in a new
bigger than the first exploded her into battlefield; her was a good body, with
pieces. strong bones and vigorous muscles. She was
fighting brutish orcs again, and those were
Another time Kriegvar woke up ready to good fighters. She raised her axe into the
fight again, her enemies now marched in air, green flames sprouting from its head,
ranks of bony white soulless bodies, and and charged into the fray. The axe felt just
there was a summoner calling for her help. like any other weapon she ever owned, but
She dived into action and started to crush looked great, and made her feel better…
brittle bones with joy and carelessness. She About everything.
had spent her entire existence doing that:
fight, kill, die, repeat. In the name of the
war gods, for glory, for honour and for fun.
This time she died impaled by a horror
shaped like a giant scorpion, made by sharp
bones and tortured souls.
Through eternity she took part in all kinds of
battles, through all times and realities,
sometimes with her own materialized body
of a demon(ess), sometimes possessing
bodies of other creatures. She had killed in
dirt-muddled trenches, died in green
meadows, and battled in distant reality
pockets. She had fought the same battles
many times, under the skins of different
creatures, and was slayed by herself on
many occasions. Once she even participated
in a strange battle, where she could not
move by herself, instead being pushed
around by godly beings who decided her
fate by the roll of strange cuboid artefacts.
She always had killed, and she always had
died.