The darkness around Kal’s bound form writhed with tendrils of bloody flesh and agonized, gaping maws but it was all beyond his notice as he bent his will to his recovery. His heart pounded and dark blood oozed from ruptured pores, veins, and organs. Each attempt came with agony far worse than even what he experienced in The Place Between but the thought of stopping never crossed his mind.

He had to make them pay.

Kal could feel the people within his fear aura quaking in terror and even some of the screams from somewhere far above him, “Good… They should see it coming!”

Health:

3320=>3342/4870

Stamina:

7440=>0/7440

Wrath:

0

Kal spat another wad of burning and half-congealed blood onto the ground as his one-hundred-and-thirty-ninth regeneration cycle ended. His body continued to burn all over as the strain of his brute forced regeneration eased until it was nothing more than a dull buzz. The pain was intense enough that he felt that if he had enough wrath to try he would have activated Slayer’s Apathy. It would have been so much easier.

Grinding his teeth Kal cursed himself for such weak thoughts and focused on his recovery again. There was little he could do to accelerate his stamina recovery but there were other equally important things to work on. Every moment he bent his will to improve upon his will tendrils, repairing burned-out gaps or extending them further than he already had.

To break out of this prison he would have to somehow break through the arrays surrounding him. His first temptation was to lash out at arrays with a gesture of his will but he forced himself to think instead. He had learned quite a bit about arrays from The Butcher but even so, they were just the basics and what surrounded him was far from basic. With the basics it had been like when he was viewing his skill threads and constructs, it hadn’t taken him long to grasp the purpose of a construct or in array terms ‘a rune’ but here it was another story.

He was able to grasp the general function of the array as a whole purely by feel, which on its own was useful but when he looked closer at the runes he got nothing. He hadn’t seen any of them before and it made him wonder how he recognized them. Identify didn’t seem to work on them. It had been while he was in the throws of madness that felt ever so close at all times while the darkness crawled around him. Was it something he had seen in one of his missing memories? Or was it something else? Fyborh had mentioned something called soul memory, hadn’t he?

Could his soul know with him knowing? His memory of Slayer’s Apathy felt clear but his actual thoughts felt as if they contained awareness and knowledge he simply didn’t have. Kal felt himself slip and his teeth begin to grind against each other as he felt himself draw close to something but in the last moment he pulled away. He couldn’t let himself slip now. In an attempt to ground himself, he flexed his bound arms against the thick black chains. The bolts fastening the chains to the cell walls groaned and his muscles burned from the effort but like every time before he just wasn’t strong enough to free himself.

In any case, his attempt at grounding had worked and his mind refocused on the arrays but before he was able to inspect them he heard the sound of booted feet outside of his cell. Kal watched the door swing open to reveal Hemdal flanked by two more men in dark robes with green trimming.

[Hendrian Lanarta | Priest 77 | Human]

[Alistair Belen | Binder 76 | Human]

Kal dismissed them almost instantly, his anger making him discard them purely because of their level. They were weak. Hemdal on the other hand was held in Kal’s burning gaze.

As Hemdal entered he paused for an instant as he inspected Kal’s body, “You have healed too quickly demon. Who is responsible for this?!”

At the sound of the man’s voice Kal’s ground so hard against each other that he felt one of his wisdom teeth crack.. He wanted to tear himself from the chains that bound him and tear them all apart but he restrained him, barely, while the walls of flesh at the edge of his vision grew more wild. Ignoring the Sanguine Keeper’s question, Kal glared into his face, “Which of my sisters do you have…”

Hemdal sneered, the expression looking almost snake-like on the man’s thin and sickly face, “I am asking the questions here, demon. Who repaired your mockery of a human form?” Hemdal waved his hand at the Binder who stepped forward raising both of his hands.

Warning: Alistair Belen has attempted to use Thread Trace.

If he could have seen it with Eyes of the Slayer he would have simply just severed it but without it, the skill landed without difficulty. Kal focused his will against the foreign skill as he felt it wash over his body but his attributes were still nowhere near their best with the mental backlash of the battle at the abyssal anchor and mana burn. Kal held the skill at bay with will alone and his gaze locked onto the Binder who looked like he was shaking with the strain of activating the skill. Just when the man looked as if he was about to give up Hemdal stepped closer and pulled something out robes.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

A vial smaller than one Kal had seen the day before was wrapped in a small dark black and green chain. As it came free of Hemdal’s robe the chain unraveled from around the vial as whatever was in the vial pulsed with red-green power. The sneer on Hemdal’s face deepened, “Sanguine Woe”

Kal’s mind spun and his will shattered. Every inch of his body felt as if it had burst into flame but far far worse. The blood flowing through his veins and artery stilled for an instant before it felt as if it started to boil. Blood blisters rushed to the surface of his skin, some bursting to spray the walls of his cell with his dark blood but others flowed more slowly but instead of dripping onto the floor his blood coursed up his body toward his mouth and eyes. Blood forced its way into his mouth making him gag and the rest filled his nose blocking off his airways.

While he struggled against the mind-shattering pain Kal felt several more skills wash over him, scrutinizing him uncontested.

Warning: Alistair Belen has attempted to use Shell Discernment.

Warning: Alistair Belen has attempted to use Affinity Augury.

Warning: Hendrian Lanarta has attempted to use Eye of the Acolyte.

Kal couldn’t defend himself at all. His mind and body were utterly overwhelmed by Hemdal’s assault. Only when the skills had finished did the pain finally cease and the blood choking him resumed its natural flow. Gasping for breath, Kal’s perception of the world around him returned and he saw the three men talking to each other as if he wasn’t even there.

“His shell has several irregularities but not to the point my skill graded him as anything beyond the base variant. According to Affinity Augury, his affinity does not have mana as its source of origin,” Alistair said.

“And his improved condition?” Hemdal asked in reply.

“No signs of skill-based regeneration besides on its internal organs. Is it possible natural healing is the cause?”

Hemdal shook his head confidently, “No his vitality is not high enough for such natural regeneration to be possible. Bring the girl in for questioning. Priest, his blessing?”

Hendrian looked nervously at Kal for a moment but turned to Hemdal, “He does not have one but I feel the touch of Dhinir upon him. Perhaps it was taken away?”

Kal chuckled but it sounded more like a pained gasp for breath, “I refused Dhinir’s blessing! Like you should have refused Uton’s, Va’nir’s second traitor god!”

A snarl came from Hemdal’s throat and Kal returned to the sea of agony as blood began to boil once again, “You will not speak the name of the Lord of the Underworld again demon!” A laugh filled the room, almost drowning out Kal’s roar of pain, “To think your shell would be so malleable to my skills. A prime candidate indeed-”

The pain vanished and Kal saw the two other Uton followers leave, leaving him alone with Hemdal who was carefully looking him up and down with a smirk across his face, “Your insilance to my lord almost made me slip Freak! We cannot let the trash know what is truly at play can we?”

Kal’s pain and anger-addled mind took a moment to catch up as Hemdal stepped closer, “What?’

“I know your purpose little freak,” Hemdal snickered, “And what a purpose it is!”

Kal’s soul flared up dispelling the residue pain like water into vapor and his gaze hardened on the sickly-looking man, “My purpose is my own.”

“Ha! If only that were true. No, Freak. Your purpose is as manufactured as the birthright nestled in your core. Tell me What is your purpose?” As Hemdal said the words a sudden weight crashed down on Kal’s mind and his soul roared up inside him, its crimson hatred burning through his flesh and mind alike.

Kal felt words enter his mind from somewhere deep inside him. He opened his mouth to speak-

The crimson arm moved away from the tainted silver light leaking from his chest. The Lady flicked her hand to the side and in her frustration thousands of flesh things tore apart into even further brutalized and tortured forms. The millions reached out as they always did but Kal’s numbed mind and barely saw them. Corpses were beneath his notice. They were simply along their journey to the end as all things should end.

“Ender… Do you understand?”

Her voice was everywhere and nowhere. A titanic catastrophe of destruction and the whispers of the dead but even so her words were nothing he hadn’t heard before a hundred times, a thousand times. A question he would not answer for one reason.

Another voice, a calm voice. One he had almost forgotten but remembered when he needed to the most whispered from beyond the crimson arm, beyond the sea of gore, and beyond the tainted light of his prison, “Remember Kal. Man is not so easily bound. Spit in the eyes of gods they always deserve it.”

The memory always came back to him that way. It felt so long ago. His body had changed from the child who had been taken and that body now bent over in grotesque and insane laughter. Kal spat out into the churning sea and toward the crimson arm that parted it. Furious hatred that shattered Kal’s concentration tore across his prison of carnage and The Lady’s voice roared, “Your purpose is clear Ender. Accept your fate…” The sea surged up toward his bound form and its endless slaughter began once more.

Kal came back to himself as his tongue froze in his mouth. “Say it… Your purpose is clear…”

Hemdal was smirking as he watched Kal freeze up as the words tried to crawl out of his throat but his mind seized up.

“Say it…You are to kill… To end… He who kills… Wrathbringer…” His world shuddered again and the flesh reached even further than before almost touching his own.

Kal growled, “Fuck you!” But even as he said it his mind echoed another’s words, “My purpose is to bring about the end…”

Hemdal laughed, ignoring the spital that landed by his feet, “Ha! It is true. You are broken in more ways than one Freak! You could not even be fixed by the touch of the gods. I see now why you were discarded, though how Dhinir blundered and allowed you to inherit the birthright even The Lord of Death doesn’t know.”