'From all directions…ruthless attacks…and me. With Lyzelle on my back, gotta make sure…she doesn't take any more hits…gotta get somewhere safe…why is this even happening…? Fuck you…fate. Always wanna ruin everything. But Lyzelle warned me about something like this…these aren't bandits…these are fucking inmates from the dungeons. I've seen knight patrols transfer them on griffins and even horses and carriages sometime ago…what could they want? Why are they out? Hunting us only?'
His bladed chains lashed through the air like the wrath of a dying star as Kota hurled himself downward, each link of his celestial weapon gleaming with a manic, burning light. He cleaved through an inmate midair, blood curling like ribbons behind the spiraling corpse as Kota twisted his body in the fall, using the weight of Lyzelle on his back to drive momentum.
But the moment of impact with the forest floor didn't offer a pause—it was war from the instant his boots hit dirt. The canopy shattered above as two inmates lunged, one conjuring razor-edged glyphs that floated like spinning wheels around his limbs, the other crackling with a hex-brand hammer made of fossilized bone.
"Haha! This is gonna be fun!" An inmate cackled.
Kota vaulted between them, chains flaring out like twin vipers, one blade carving through a glyph mid-spin as the other wrapped around the hammer's shaft. With a ferocious yank, he tore the weapon away, flipped forward, and buried his boot into the man's jaw, sending teeth clattering like hail against tree bark.
But there was no time to catch breath—he was always running. Always moving. He spun low beneath a beam of sizzling blue magic, kicked off a splintered tree trunk, then hurled his left blade outward. The chain whistled, slammed through a fallen log and pinned a reaper-masked inmate by the shoulder, who let out a choked laugh as he twisted to fire a curved crossbow at Kota's back—only for Kota to somersault, snapping the chain tight so the blade dragged the man into the air and crushed him against a boulder with a visceral, wet crunch.
Sweat and blood blurred his vision, but his grip never faltered. He parried a serrated spear with the edge of his elbow, then retaliated by whipping the spiked hilt of his chained blade into the attacker's knee, cracking bone, before impaling his thigh and kicking him aside like a sack of meat. Lyzelle whimpered softly on his back, voice fragile, but he didn't listen. Couldn't. Wouldn't.
Above in the trees, Sen reclined on a thick branch, a wicked grin on his face as he watched the chaos unfurl below. "He's burning fast," he murmured. "That boy's gonna be mulch in a minute."
Vexxen stood beside him, his blood-slicked scythe humming low like a purring beast, eyes narrowed with disinterest. "Let him. We're not here for that. We have to find him," he said, voice cold and sharp.
Sen turned, eyes dancing. "You were serious about that back in the pit? About that guy?" Vexxen said nothing, just started walking along the branch as though it were a paved road. Sen cackled. "You really are a fun one, Vexx. If I wasn't using you to find a way out, I'd have killed you when I first met you."
Kota skidded sideways across moss and roots, carving grooves in the earth with his heels. His shoulder had been pierced by a jagged hook blade moments earlier, and blood soaked through his coat.
'Take one down, more show up! How many of them are there?! This is impossible! Will we make it?!'
Still, he kept running, breathing like a beast, swinging his blades to deflect a whirling onslaught of crimson projectiles hurled by a flame-eyed inmate whose fingers split open into mouths. One blade coiled around the man's neck mid-laugh and Kota yanked, hard, the body slamming into the side of a thick trunk with a grotesque pop. Just then, the forest shook.
"RAGGHHHHH!" A monstrous roar sounded off like a battle cry.
Cursed beasts.
From between trees emerged carnal, nightmarish creatures drawn by the fury—a four-legged abomination stitched from bear and mantis anatomy, its limbs sharp with barklike armor and oozing rot; a headless elk crowned with bone antlers that bled mist; a centipede the size of a cart, its flesh stripped, exposing writhing muscle. They descended on the nearest inmates like divine punishment. The mantis-beast cleaved through two men with its sickle arms, one inmate's scream ending in a gurgling chorus as his ribcage was opened midair. The elk trampled a trio beneath its hollow body before it was felled by a lightning bolt of scarlet fire conjured by a tattooed inmate who laughed and called it a "puppy."
"Puppy my ass!" yelled another inmate, his chest pulsing with shifting runes. "I'm eatin' whatever's left of it!" He threw a chain-wrapped punch into the mantis-beast's jaw, sending it spinning before his companion split it in two with a cleaver-like greatsword that he twirled like a baton. Vexxen watched without interest. Sen clapped lazily. "Art. Pure damn art."
Kota, meanwhile, was barely surviving. He tumbled beneath a wide arc of axes, each swing meant to tear his head from his shoulders. He stabbed a chain into the dirt and used the recoil to launch into a handspring, flipping over a flaming net, then curved mid-spin to drive a blade down into the collarbone of the attacker. He parried another blow with a twist of his wrist, spun into a crouch, and shoulder-checked the enemy hard enough to crack ribs, but another was already coming—a woman with hummingbird speed, her knives flickering like lightning. She sliced his forearm open and slashed across his back.
He roared and retaliated by grabbing her wrist mid-strike and slamming her headfirst into a rock. Blood sprayed like ink. Lyzelle's voice trembled against his back. "Stop…"
But Kota didn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't. His eyes were wild. His body carved with pain. But he was furious. His heart was an inferno.
'I feel like passing out…my heart's thumping…I can't….'
His chain blades flared, glimmering with celestial voltage. He ducked a leaping kick, twirled, and flung a blade around a trunk, the chain swinging wide and smashing three opponents with enough force to knock bark from the trees. He dashed forward, caught the recoiling chain, and yanked, the blade returning to him like a comet. A hook slammed into his side—he roared, elbowed the man who threw it, and stabbed his own knee into the bastard's throat. Blood. Heat. Chaos. His vision blurred, his soul seared, and still he fought. Still he endured.
"I'm not losing here…!"
Kota's body was screaming. His arms burned from the constant recoil of the chains, the pink-white flames sputtering with every frenzied swing. His ribs ached where someone had slammed a jagged gauntlet into him—he could still feel bone grinding when he twisted. There were at least a dozen now, no—fifteen, maybe more—closing in fast, circling him with perfect formation, each with their own brand of hell.
One inmate had eyes like shattered mirrors, and with every step, he blinked and copied Kota's last move with eerie precision, learning his rhythm. Another moved like a spider, limbs clicking and lengthening, his magic stitched into every joint, threading his fingers with metallic cords that sliced the air like harp strings. A duo flanked the left, twin sisters with mask-like faces and venom-coated blades that bent like silk; they struck together with synchronous motion that forced Kota to defend in two directions at once. He retaliated—barely—by vaulting over them, spinning his chains into a blazing pinwheel, and drove one blade down into the skull of the mimic-eyed bastard mid-leap. The crunch was deep and wet. But he didn't get to land; he was blasted by an orb of refracting gravity, sending his body tumbling into a cracked slope of stone.
'So many of them, successful in gaining a fragment of a god's power…so used to their magic it's like breathing air for them! How can I even survive this shit?! Since i've been contracted to Lyzelle, I'm faster and stronger now, but I'll be overwhelmed soon if I can't find a hiding spot..' He coughed up blood. Vision blurred. Every joint throbbed. He was losing. Fast. He staggered to his feet, blades dragging, pink-white fire flickering low.
Another came—a brute with a saw-blade arm and metal skin, charging like a train. "I'll admit, you're not half bad, but I'm going home to my family!"
Kota lunged into a roll, letting the chains whip around his body mid-motion, and tripped the bastard, then lunged forward to drive both blades into his exposed neck. They pierced through, the flames erupting out the man's eyes. Another inmate—a pale, twitching woman whose body was made of countless interlocking jaws—bit down on Kota's shoulder from behind. He grabbed one of her dislocated arms, spun, and suplexed her into the earth, planting his boot on her chest and yanking a blade through her abdomen. But it never stopped. Another pounced, and another, and another. His back was shredded. His thigh was bleeding freely. Lyzelle was a fading weight on him, light and quiet. He couldn't hear her breathing anymore.
'They're too good. They're coordinated. They're not just fighting—they're reading me!' Kota's thoughts raced as he stumbled back into a rocky clearing, cliffs surrounding the space like jagged teeth. 'They're not pushing all at once. They're taking turns, watching how I counter each of them.' He analyzed the terrain: a sunken pit of crumbled stone, with a few scattered ruins—a broken statue, an old arch, a collapsed column. High ground's useless. No cover. Too many angles. Too many variables. He could feel his pulse pounding in his ears. 'I can't parry everything, not with this many opponents who fight like a hive—!'
FWIP!
Someone shot a crystal bolt into his calf. Kota screamed.
'—I'm too slow—!'
His body wouldn't respond fast enough. He dropped to one knee. His plan crumbled in real time. The others rushed in. He tried to cleave the nearest with a chain sweep, but another tackled him mid-spin. He hit the ground hard. Another inmate kicked him across the jaw. Then again. And again. Lyzelle groaned softly against his back, a sound like a dying bird. And in that moment—he cracked.
Lyzelle moaned, "Kota…run…leave me here..•
Kota thought:
'—It's always like this. Every time I think I get a break… the world shows me it was just a setup. A trick. Like it's laughing. Like I was born to be beaten.'
Blood dripped from his chin. A tear followed it. Nothing's ever stayed good for me. Not once. Not for a damn second.
'I've always been outside. I've always been the thing people hated. Another punch. Another kick. Kota didn't even block. Why? Why won't the world let me belong? His head slumped, but then—why won't anyone want me?'
Then…a vision burned across his mind.
A throne of endless shadows, built from ash and bone. A figure sat atop it—humanoid, but empty, made of pure, writhing blackness. Horns twisted up from its head, and a black halo floated behind it like a dead moon. The thing grinned at him. Just smiled. Like it had been waiting for him to fall.
Kota stopped breathing.
And then—he embraced it.
Hatred.
His eyes opened, and they were pitch black.
He stood. The wind howled across the rocky plains. They weren't in the forest anymore—this was an open battlefield surrounded by jagged cliffs, the terrain cracked from previous battles. More than a dozen inmates had encircled him now, all in various states of glee and eagerness.
"He's finally outta gas!" one laughed. "Took long enough!" said another.
"That Cupid's gonna bleed out before he can blink. Let's wrap this up."
"Dibs on the killshot."
"Yeah, you wish. I'm getting the freedom for this." They laughed, bantered, some pacing like rabid dogs.
And then—they rushed in.
Kota turned to the one closest to him. Slowly. His lips curled into a broken, hollow smile.
'Hatred. Nothing but hatred for this world and what comes with it. Cursed since a child, how could I love this shit…?'
Kota didn't wait. As the closest inmate lunged, Kota spun, his chained blades roaring to life with pink-white flame, tracing blurs in the air like calligraphy carved in firelight. The blade snapped outward, coiling mid-spin like a striking serpent before it carved through the inmate's jaw, splitting it in half—tongue still twitching as his skull ruptured open. Kota surged forward, vaulting off the falling body, chain-wrapping around another's throat midair and wrenching the man backward so hard his spine snapped. The moment Kota landed, he somersaulted under a barrage of bone-darts hurled by a hunched inmate with glowing veins and metallic fingers.
Kota yanked his right blade, its chain wrapping around the dart-thrower's forearm, and with a savage pull, flung the man face-first into a jagged rock. Blood exploded on impact. Another inmate tried to flank him, leaping in with acrobatic precision, dual daggers gleaming—but Kota spun, catching one dagger arm mid-swing with his chain, and crushed it into the earth with a momentum-fueled slam. The wrist snapped, the elbow twisted backward, and Kota buried his second blade into the assassin's chest with a precise, brutal pierce. His movements were no longer human—they were feral yet refined, flowing like controlled chaos given purpose.
Two inmates to his right called out, trying to strategize amid the chaos—"Keep distance! Rotate formation!" one barked. The other raised her voice, "He's favoring his left side! That's where he's weakest!"
"He's a fucking monster!"
Kota vaulted into a backflip, using the rocky terrain as leverage. One chain shot down like a comet, shattering the stone under the tactician's feet and throwing her off balance. Kota slammed into her from above, dragging his blade through her clavicle down to her gut, cleaving her open as her eyes bulged.
Before the other strategist could even scream, Kota hurled his blade mid-spin like a discus, its flame trailing, and the blade caught the man square across the mouth, bisecting his skull clean in half. Kota ripped the chain backward—snap—and the blade shot back into his hand. No time to breathe.
A massive inmate with plated skin tackled him from behind, sending them both tumbling down a slope. Kota twisted in mid-fall, braced against a slab of stone, and wrapped his chains around the brute's arms. With an explosive pull, he tore the man's arms apart in a grotesque spray and drove both blades into the man's heart, his roar echoing through the cliffs.
Kota's footwork became pure poetry of carnage, weaving through blades and fists, sliding under wide arcs, deflecting spears with a parry from one blade while his chains coiled around necks, ankles, wrists—any weakness.
He ducked a crescent kick, let himself fall, then used the centrifugal force of his descent to whip an inmate's legs out from under him and smite his face into a rock. Kota then flung his other blade upward, dragging a fleeing enemy back down in a spiral—slamming them into the corpse pile like a meteor. His body was coated in blood, face cracked with dried crimson, wounds deep but ignored.
Two inmates attempted to tag-team him again—one using multi-limbed martial strikes, the other attacking from afar with ricocheting blades that bounced off walls. Kota twisted through their rhythm, allowing the far blade to miss him by inches as he vaulted off a tree stump, caught the close-quarters fighter in midair, and crushed his face into a spire of rock. The ricocheting blade hit the other inmate in the gut—Kota had angled it just right. A final step, and Kota kicked the blade deeper into the man's stomach with a boot stomp that turned his insides to paste.
"Kota…" Lyzelle groaned.
'He's completely lost…something spoke to him…'
Blood rained from every direction. One inmate with scale-etched skin tried to scream an incantation, but Kota's blade flew into his open mouth before he could finish—pierced through the back of his skull and pinned him to a wall. Kota then used that pinned blade to anchor himself, swinging around it in a horizontal arc, feet dragging across the ground like a living guillotine as he struck two more down at the knees. One of them—gasping and clutching his ruined legs—begged. Kota did not stop. He wrapped the chain around the man's neck and twisted, bones and flesh snapping under the chain's tension. When another stepped in to help, Kota vaulted off the corpse, landed behind him, and decapitated him in one seamless motion. Every movement Kota made was a language written in blood and metal—ferocious, precise, untouchable. He wasn't just killing. He was unmaking them.
A final, desperate inmate broke rank. She sprinted. Limping. Crying. "Please, no, no—!" she screamed, trying to flee through the cliff's narrow pass. Kota's breath was ragged. His eyes were bottomless black. Still holding Lyzelle, he snapped the chain out. It screamed through the air like a beast's cry, piercing clean through the woman's back and out her chest. She screamed, staggered. Kota gave one final yank, dragging her body across the dirt in a crimson blur, and twisted with his remaining blade in hand. One seamless arc of steel. Her body was cleaved in half at the waist. A shower of gore painted the earth.
"KOTA!!!" Lyzelle's scream ripped through the carnage like a nail through the soul. The scream of as painful to Kyzelle as she grunted again, blood dripping from her mouth.
But the cry snapped through the void in Kota's mind. His breath trembled, the dark heat behind his eyes evaporated. He looked down. His hands were soaked, dripping. His body swayed, bloody and torn. Around him lay heaps—piles of dismembered limbs, crushed skulls, steam rising from opened entrails. And Lyzelle, weakly clutching his back, whispered, "You let him in… the god of blood and darkness. The one who only knows hatred." Her voice was cracked, horrified. "You let him in because you… because you thought you had nothing else left, didn't you…?"
And before Kota could say anything, voices echoed in the distance. "Over here!" "Tch—why'd we land so far?!"
"We thought they'd be here first, idiot!" Kota's eyes widened. More were coming. Still holding Lyzelle close, he didn't wait. He ran. Fast. Into the terrain, into cover, into shadow. He didn't speak. He just ran.
….
The cave wasn't shaped by time—it looked gnawed into the earth by something hungry. Its walls were slick with moss that shimmered faintly like bruised skin, casting subtle blues and purples in the dark. Stalactites curved like hooked fingers from above, and veins of strange, silver ore pulsed faintly with heat, as if the cave itself breathed. The entrance was almost nothing—a narrow gash behind a tangled lattice of black-rooted trees that had long since petrified. You had to squeeze between jagged stone to enter, your body grinding past stone that hissed with cold. Inside, the air was wet and heavy, but still. Silent. Safe… for now.
Lyzelle lay near the center of the cave on a slope of cool rock, her breath ragged, her body pale beneath the flicker of the cave's eerie light. Kota knelt over her, his hands smeared with her blood as he pressed strips of a fibrous, amber-red cloth against the wound in her side. The material sizzled softly where it touched the open wound, sealing it with a faint hiss—but he knew it wouldn't last.
"It's called Gorecoil moss," he muttered. "Grows in shaded pits where corpses rot fast. Every kingdom has a pocket of it somewhere. They say it was a punishment given by the earth itself—a way to make sure nothing dies quietly."
He adjusted the pressure gently, trying to keep his hand from shaking.
"It stops bleeding, yeah… but only for about thirty minutes. Then it melts. Reeks like burning hair when it does." Kota added.
Lyzelle winced but nodded, forcing herself to stay present.
"We'll need something stronger," Kota said. "Permanent. I'll find it."
She frowned. "Be careful."
Her voice was soft, cracked. Her eyes opened just enough to show a faint glint of that reckless fire still behind them.
"Some of the ones out there—they're not even from Ironbone. I've seen a few before… some I wish I hadn't."
Kota looked at her, and she continued, naming them one by one.
"That prison pulled from everywhere. Like the Grallochi, that slug-race—they breathe through the slits in their spines and bleed flammable oil."
She groaned a bit, then pushed through the pain.
"Or Redmourns, the hive-minded glasskin that scream when one dies. Then there's Tindervar, skin like wet bark, always on fire from the inside… Hard to kill."
Her fingers curled.
"There was a Yulmkin out there too. Only ever saw one before. Their blood is blue but it boils if you look them in the eyes too long. The Cruxmen—bone-dancers—they don't even need organs, just a rage to move."
She took a long breath, then added, "And I swear I saw a Drayviss, Kota. Those things don't even belong to a kingdom anymore—they're outlawed from the map itself."
"You better be fast," she muttered.
Kota nodded slowly. He was quiet for a moment, then her tone shifted.
"I..I don't want to die."
He looked back at her.
"I hate saying that out loud," she went on. "Makes me sound selfish, I know. But… I wanted freedom. That's all I wanted. Not to be locked in a cell, not trapped in a dying body, not cornered by pity like some storybook princess."
She winced again, breath catching.
"If I wasn't hurt—if only I had fused with you—those bastards wouldn't have stood a chance. They'd be nothing but spit and dust. But now I'm just this broken thing. And I hate that feeling more than anything."
Kota brushed blood-matted hair from her face.
"Rest. I'll be back fast. I know what to look for."
"What material?" she asked.
"Whalebone Grass," he replied, tightening the chains loosely around his arms. "It's not really a grass—more like spiked silk. Grows only in frozen salt-flooded ground. First found in Skirndelfjord, the Frost-Orphaned Wastes."
He stood as he explained.
"People there don't even have birthdays—they mark their age by when the whales sing. The grass only grows from the ribs of drowned leviathans, and if you press it to a wound, it hardens like bone and smells like salt. It can last for days. Some say it binds the wound to the sea itself, keeps the soul from drifting."
He looked down at her, voice low.
"I won't let this world take you. Not you."
A silence followed, heavy.
"So much of my life," he said, "I let it win. I let everything go wrong. I let the worst things happen because I wasn't strong enough to change shit."
He turned away, fists clenched.
"And the way I killed them… the way I felt… I was a monster. I know I was. But I had to be. I had to be that thing to survive…."
Lyzelle stirred, voice sharp even through weakness.
"Don't let it take you. That thing you felt? That cold thing that made killing easy? It wants you. I can tell….that you're thinking about letting it in again."
Kota scoffed at himself, dragging a bloody hand down his face.
'She's right…what is wrong with me?'
"Yeah… yeah, I am. What if I keep doing it? What if it becomes easier every time? Will I still be me?"
He looked back at her, the question sharp in his voice now.
"What even is me? Some sad kid with a chain and too many scars? Or the thing I have to be to live?"
He looked away.
"What if I lose myself chasing survival? What if I stop being myself just to stay alive?"
Lyzelle reached up and touched his hand weakly.
"Then make sure you don't forget what you're fighting for. Even if you get lost… fight your way back. Welp..that sounded super duper corny coming from me, I heard it from Nireth…"
Kota gave a tired laugh. He took one last look at her, eyes softer now.
"I'll be back."
"Uh…hellllooo? You aren't worried about a nasty prisoner coming in and finishing me off?"
Kota turned toward the narrow mouth of the cave.
"This cave's well hidden," he said. "I've been here before with a Hunter's Guild. We were tracking Fangroot Dogs—wolves with mirrored eyes and tongues like flayed hands. No one ever found their nest. This cave hid us then. It'll hide you now."
He started toward the exit, then paused when Lyzelle smiled. "You're a weird human."
Kota grinned over his shoulder.
"And you're a weird ass, crazy ass, Cupid."
"Aww thanks."
Then he slipped through the gap in the stone and vanished into the frostbitten wilds.
The cave's breath pulsed in quiet wheezes—roots glowing like fading embers above her, casting uneven, jagged shadows along the stone. Lyzelle lay on the brittle ground, her body refusing to move more than inches at a time. One arm cradled her ribs; the other hung loose beside her, fingers twitching involuntarily.
A slow, trembling breath left her lips.
She looked up.
The roots above looked like veins. Like a body, hollowed and fossilized.
Her eyes stung, but she didn't want to cry again.
'Kota can't see me like this. Not the pitiful version. Not the weak one.'
Her jaw clenched. Another pang of pain shot down her side.
She bit back a whimper and whispered—
"…It's nothing…"
A lie.
A tear rolled down the side of her face, carving a wet line down her cheek, and she wiped it away quickly with the heel of her palm.
'I hate this. This feeling. Being helpless. Stuck. Trapped. Always trapped. Whether it's a wound. Or a cage. Or a fake smile. Or the silence after someone leaves. I can't breathe when I'm trapped. Even death is a cage. And pain. And love. And goddamn loneliness.'
She sucked in a breath and groaned, shifting to sit slightly upright, bracing her hand against the wall.
'I don't wanna be someone's burden. I'm not a porcelain doll waiting on a shelf. I don't wanna be pitied. I'm not a damsel in distress… I was born with fire in my chest. And wings. And a bow. I'm not meant to wait for rescue—I'm supposed to be the one who charges in. Then why does this hurt so much?'
Her eyes fluttered closed.
She remembered running barefoot through her home land of Il'Vaemel Laughter in the halls. The scent of crystal sugar in the air. The other Cupids chasing her with flower-tipped arrows for fun.
"I wanna see the real world!" she shouted once, at the top of her lungs.
An elder gently smiled and said, "Lyzelle… this is the real world. Not tainted by the darkness outside of it. Here is only purity."
'No it wasn't. It was a box with stars painted on the ceiling.'
She sat in the quiet, the light fading with each pulse of the roots.
And then she whispered.
"…Kota… come back."
'It's lonely without you here..'
...
...
Wind howled across the fractured gulch.
Sen stood with one hand on his hip, His grin curled like a knife. Vexxan stood beside him, cloaked in shadows and silence, as always.
Below them sprawled a clearing littered with jagged stone and rusted iron crosses. Inmates moved like scavengers in the distance—one had a skinned wolf mask and bone armor, another had metallic arms stitched with blood-thread. A third dragged a bag that screamed softly, muffled.
But Sen's eyes were on the center.
"Look at that tension," he mused. "Delicious."
Vexxan's eyes narrowed.
Mak of House Briam stood at the front—broad, armored, with a conjured double-headed hammer resting against his shoulder. The hammer pulsed with raw weight, vibrating the ground. He had blonde short hair, light brown skin, and grey eyes.
To his left, Salai the Flamevein twitched his head, eyes bloodshot with euphoria. His blade—a curved, jagged mess of soulmetal—whistled in and out of the air, releasing faint screams every time it moved. He had black long hair which was in two braided ponytails, red eyes, and a scar under his chin.
To the right, Darrick Redgore crouched, already mid-shift—veins black, jaw distending, fur pushing through his arms as claws curled from his knuckles. He had a brown buzz cut hairstyle, and brown eyes with a bushy beard.
And in their middle stood a man.
Old. Slightly hunched. Cloaked in cloth that shimmered faintly, like dead fish scales. His eyes were pure white, no pupils. His blade was thin, curved, and shimmered with red spiraling eyes that blinked slowly along its length.
Threm.
Mak grunted, stepping forward.
"You remember us, don't you, old man?"
Salai clicked his tongue. "You killed the witch. Our witch. That bounty was ours."
"Twenty thousand gold coins," Darrick growled, teeth sharpening. "We were gonna use that to leave this hellhole kingdom. Make it to Drelvikar."
Sen raised an eyebrow.
"Ahhh… the Kingdom Beneath the Quiet. Isn't that the one where they carve prayers into their skin instead of talking?"
"Mm," Vexxan grunted.
Below, Mak kept speaking.
"You know what they say down there, Threm? 'If you name it, it owns you.' They don't even speak names. Just bleed the meaning."
Salai twirled his sword, grinning. "We wanted that. No more witches. No more contracts. Just… quiet. Peace."
"We had a plan," Darrick said. "And then you ruined it. We tracked your damn house down. Took your family. Thought we could lure you in.."
"But then that damned knight Captain Halven showed up," Mak hissed. "Dragged us to King Rellka. Got sentenced. And what do we see when we're tossed in cells?"
Salai spat.
"You. Sitting there. As if nothing happened. Like you didn't just steal our ticket out."
Darrick cracked his neck. "So where's the gold? There's no way you spend 20000 gold in a day. Not even the richest nobles can spend it in a day in this world. Money is everything, especially with the witches and their cursed beasts causing havoc. People hold onto their gold like it's their very souls in their hands."
Threm mumbled.
Soft. Almost too low to hear. No words. Just rhythm.
Mak's hammer slammed into the ground.
"You think we're gonna let you walk outta here?! You think we'll just forget?! We'll force it out of you if you're just gonna mumble!"
They charged.
Mak first, hammer overhead.
Salai zigzagged, blade shrieking like a soul being flayed.
Darrick roared, beast form fully engulfing him.
Sen licked his lips.
"Ohoho… here we go."
Threm raised his blade.
The red wind spiraled around him like smoke made of curses.
And then—
TAP.
TAPTAPTAPTAPTAP.
Light-blink fast. The sword clinked against the stone five times in one breath.
The ground erupted.
Blades—massive, blood-red and veined with spiraling eyes—shot upward like metal trees.
Mak was split through the waist mid-swing.
Salai tried to twist away, but a blade curved impossibly and speared through his spine, lifting him off the ground.
Darrick's beast form was torn open, limbs impaled in a cruel triangle, mouth frozen in a howl.
All three dropped. Silent. Bleeding. Gone.
Sen tilted his head.
"…That'll do it."
"That's Threm," Vexxan finally muttered. "The one who can get the bugs out of our neck."
Sen looked at him, grin never fading. "The ones that'll poison us if we try to leave without killing the Cupid and the boy…"
"If we go a certain distance away from where captain Halven holds the nest of the bug, it implodes.."
"Ah yeah. Those critters who stray too far away from their home, explode. I might need some in the future for killing purposes."
"Tch. Whatever…"
They started descending.
Then—
THUD!
Someone else landed hard in the clearing.
She cracked her neck.
"Finally! Let's get this over with! Get this crap outta us! Dirty bugs—!"
Her voice echoed. Confident. Eager.
She stood tall—light brown skin, black silky hair to her shoulders, yellow slit-pupil eyes that gleamed. Tiny black horns poked through her head, and her teeth flashed sharp with every word.
She was a Reklluunn, an endangered race that was very nomadic, kin who sought to build their own kingdom using their own laws and principles. She was named Pyun.
Vexxan's eyes widened. "Oh no."
Sen dove.
"Shut UP!"
They both tackled her, Sen clamping a hand over her mouth as she squirmed.
"Shhh! Those bastards could be listening to us!" Sen hissed.
"Mmf mmf!!" Pyun thrashed.
Suddenly… they froze.
Threm was behind them.
His blade raised high. Red wind spiraled.
The blinking eyes stared at them. All of them.