Arknights: The Scarlet Devil of Terra — Chapter 8

Chapter 8: The Reservoir’s Tragedy

If Flandre had lingered in the factory rafters until dawn, she might have realized the loudmouthed man below was the Ursus officer’s most trusted confidant. He was the rat who had dug up the truth of her existence—though his reports were so absurdly terrifying that his superiors had laughed them off. He had spent half a month stalking the perimeter of this Logging Camp. Had he not been dragged away to manage the previous disaster, he would have seized the facility weeks ago.

“Tie them all up! Watch your blades—dead Infected can’t be sold!” he bellowed through a battered megaphone, his breath pluming in the chill air. “Don’t maim them either! Cripples fetch a garbage price!”

Perched high above, Flandre tilted her head. She had the gist of the situation now. It was time for a rescue. But how was a girl whose entire existence revolved around absolute destruction supposed to handle something as delicate as ‘protection’?

The math was delightfully simple. If Flandre killed all the bad men, the good men would be safe. Perfect!

Her silhouette fractured. One girl became four, plummeting from the night sky like a volley of crimson meteors.

“What’s that in the—” a soldier gasped.

Flandre was already there.

Why is a little girl flying? That fleeting thought was his last. Flandre reached out, found the structural ‘eye’ of his existence, and squeezed. The soldier detonated into a shower of crimson mist and shattered armor.

The sheer efficiency of the slaughter shattered the Ursus ranks instantly. The confidant dropped his megaphone, eyes bulging as he connected the impossible sight before him with the rumors he had chased.

“I was right,” he breathed, stumbling backward. “People who fly… instant death… They aren’t Infected. They’re—Blood Fiends!”

Flandre drifted down right in front of his face. “Is this mister scared silly? What is he mumbling about?” she wondered aloud.

Without breaking eye contact, she plunged her small hand straight through his ribcage. She withdrew her prize—a steaming, frantically beating heart—and took a cheerful bite out of it like a fresh apple.

“Yes… I was right…” the man gurgled, staring down at the gaping cavern in his chest. As he collapsed into the snow, a twisted smile of vindication froze on his lips.

Ten minutes. That was all it took for every Ursus uniform in the camp to be reduced to scattered gore.

The surviving loggers huddled together, paralyzed by the sight of the Blood Fiend girl descending from the sky, her manic, silver-bell laughter echoing through the trees. Many recognized her from the recent victory banquet. Now they understood why the previously rescued Infected had refused to talk about their savior. If it were them, they would want to scrub this nightmare from their memories too.

The four Flandres skipped toward the center of the camp, overlapping and snapping back into a single entity right in front of the camp manager.

“What is everyone standing around for?” Flandre asked, licking a smear of blood from her thumb. “Check if any bad guys are hiding. If not, call your base! You have to abandon this place now.”

The manager jolted as if struck by lightning. “R-right! We need to wire the main base immediately!” He sprinted toward the telegraph machine, driven by the distinct fear that lingering for a single second would put him on the menu.

Flandre scratched her cheek, watching him run. “Is Flandre really that scary? Everyone says Flandre is a good girl!”

She remained blissfully unaware that the manager had just watched her eat a human heart for dessert. The fact that he hadn’t soiled himself and could still operate a telegraph proved he possessed nerves of steel.

Miles away, the assembled Guerrillas were just gearing up for a desperate rescue march when the telegraph clicked to life. The camp was already safe.

“So fast!” Frostnova exclaimed, turning to Talulah in sheer disbelief.

Fifty kilometers of harsh terrain. A full enemy occupation. Wiped out in less than twenty minutes. The Reunion forces hadn’t even finished distributing their meager, shared armory.

“We still march,” Talulah stated, her voice an anchor of calm. “The Logging Camp’s location is compromised. We must extract all personnel and supplies immediately, then establish a new perimeter. Winter is closing in. We cannot afford to lose those resources.”

“Understood. I’ll order the squads to travel light so we can haul the supplies back in one trip,” Frostnova said, pivoting to reorganize the ranks.

The mood in the camp was a dizzying whiplash—from absolute panic to deep confusion. A fifty-kilometer slaughter in minutes? Some guessed it was the terrifying girl from the banquet, but logic dictated such speed was impossible.

Back at the camp, Flandre interrogated the shivering workers about the Ursus Patrol’s origin point. A dawn raid meant they had camped nearby. If any stragglers survived to report back, the main Ursus army would descend on the forest. The workers pointed trembling fingers south.

“About ten kilometers south of here,” the manager rasped, forcing his voice steady. “There is a reservoir, flanked by a waterway. It’s the only logical staging ground for an ambush.”

“Okay! Flandre will go check!” she chirped, launching herself into the sky.

A collective, shuddering exhale swept through the camp the moment she vanished. She was their savior, but the crushing aura of a predator and her gruesome methods left them suffocating in her presence.

“Move!” the manager barked, clapping his hands to break the spell. “Drag these corpses into the brush and start packing! We evacuate the moment the Guerrillas arrive!”

The workers threw themselves into the labor, desperate to scrub the nightmare from their minds through sheer physical exhaustion.

Flandre arrived at the reservoir in a flash. Below, over a dozen Ursus Patrol soldiers loitered near the water. They were in a foul mood, currently venting their frustrations by savagely beating an elderly man.

Gross spat into the dirt. Six squads had deployed, but because his captain refused to bribe the confidant, five were sent on the glorious capture mission while his unit was left behind on janitorial duty. They were supposed to prep the holding pens for the Infected. It was insulting. His glare snapped back to the bleeding old man, who had tried to slip away in the night to warn the camp.

“Your strikes are pathetic,” Gross snarled, snatching the heavy leather whip from a subordinate. “The old rat isn’t even screaming anymore. Watch how it’s done.”

The subordinate merely chuckled, stepping back to watch the show.

Gross hauled his arm back, aiming for maximum agony. But as he snapped the whip forward, the crack never came. No scream followed. Gross blinked. He was an expert interrogator; his strikes never missed. Why was the air so quiet?

Then, he looked at his right arm. It was coiled like a wrung-out towel, the bones splintered into a grotesque spiral.

“GAAAH!” The delayed agony slammed into his brain, tearing a raw shriek from his throat.

The rest of the patrol froze, utterly bewildered by the sight of their torturer screaming while the victim lay silent.

“Enemy attack!” someone finally roared, spotting Gross’s mangled limb.

Before their eyes, the invisible force seized Gross’s entire body. He twisted violently, flesh and armor wringing together until he ruptured in a sickening explosion of gore.

“It’s a Caster! Scatter and find cover!” The veterans broke formation instantly, diving for the concrete barriers.

One soldier took a frantic step, only to feel his boots glue to the earth. He looked down. His legs were wringing themselves into braided meat, the distortion climbing rapidly toward his waist.

“No… no! Help me!” he shrieked, clawing at the dirt.

The invisible grip swallowed him whole. A horrifying chorus of snapping bones echoed across the water before he, too, detonated. Only his severed hands remained clawing at the mud—a grim monument to his final struggle.

The survivors pressed themselves into the dirt, paralyzed by the unseen phantom. Then, a shadow fell over them. One soldier dared to glance up. Hovering directly above him was a little girl in a crimson dress, smiling sweetly. Absolute terror seized his lungs.

“Does Flandre look pretty?” her innocent voice chimed right beside his ear.

“P-pretty… very…”

Before the stuttering soldier could finish his desperate flattery, his skull caved inward. Flandre’s hand plunged into his chest, extracting the pulsing organ within. She swallowed it with a delighted hum.

“Pretty is pretty, ugly is ugly… why are you stuttering?”

Within seconds, the remaining patrol members were reduced to twisted heaps of scrap and flesh. Only the battered old man remained in the center of the carnage, his breathing shallow.

Flandre crouched beside him. Despite the ruin of his body, his eyes held a fierce, lucid light. He looked at the blood-soaked girl and managed a weak, bloody smile. “Did you… kill all those beasts?”

“Cleaned them all up. Not a single one left,” Flandre promised.

“Good. But there are… dozens more… in the forest…”

“They’re dead too. Flandre just came from there.”

A violent coughing fit wracked the old man’s frame. When it passed, the tension bled out of his shoulders. “I’m done for. Listen to me… my son is an Infected. Romanlov. He works at the Logging Camp. Tell him… he has to live.”

He swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “The corpses… use the heavy sacks from the warehouse. Weigh them down with stones… throw them in the water…”

He poured his last ounces of strength into teaching this terrifying savior how to hide the evidence. His voice faded, his chest hitched once, and he grew still.

Flandre stood, looking down at the quiet elder. “If there is a next time, Flandre hopes you get born somewhere quiet.”

She gently dragged his body to a nearby cord of chopped wood. Fetching a smoldering coal from the guardhouse stove, she ignited a proper pyre for him. Then, she turned her attention to the Ursus Patrol. Using her Arts, she braided their mangled corpses together into a towering, grotesque sculpture of flesh and steel, planting it right at the reservoir’s entrance. Let Ursus find it. Let them know what happens when they hunt the Infected.

Flandre took to the sky, returning to the Logging Camp. She found the manager and relayed the events at the reservoir, delivering the old man’s final words.

To her surprise, the manager crumpled. He pulled his knees to his chest and wept, his quiet sobs shaking his entire frame.

“The Romanlov you mentioned… that’s him,” a nearby worker whispered to Flandre, wiping his own red eyes before turning away.

Flandre blinked, finally understanding why the manager had known the reservoir’s exact location.

Minutes later, Romanlov approached her, his face pale and hollowed out by grief. “Thank you. For avenging my father.”

“You aren’t mad that Flandre burned his body?” she asked, tilting her head toward the bustling evacuation efforts.

“No. I owe you for that too.” He swallowed thickly. “If you had left him there… those monsters would have…”

He didn’t need to finish. With the patrol wiped out and their prey gone, Ursus reinforcements would have undoubtedly desecrated the old man’s remains in pure spite. The fire had protected him.

Two hours later, Talulah and the Guerrillas finally broke through the tree line.