Pain tore through Havoc’s body. His nerves were seared by sharp and constant agony from countless lacerations carved deep into his flesh. His dislocated shoulder throbbed an unrelenting beat, the oscillating torment spreading from the break, across his collarbone, and down his ribs. His eyes shuttered tight; each staggered breath launched a fresh assault, anguish marching the length and breadth of his body, grim and terrible as an army with banners.
Get up… he urged himself. The thought trudged through his sluggish mind, clawing over barricades of longing for oblivion’s gentle mercies.
Even just a foot—he pressed himself to move. Cast between weary delirium and searing awareness, he imagined himself upright—eyes open and alert, defying the agony. But the vision fractured as he jerked free of sleep’s siren grasp, only to find himself sprawled across the cold austerity of the ebony stone floor lining the Spirit’s chamber.
He had been beaten. Thoroughly trounced. Tested against an enemy in single combat, he had been found far wanting—unequal to the task.
He could not say when, but at some point since his Inheritance, he had convinced himself he possessed real power. That illusion lay shattered—ground into dust and scattered among the splinters of his shredded pride.
By all rights, the Abominable Spirit should have claimed its prize—his very essence—and his vanquished-self should be consigned to wherever failed things go.
He was an Inheritor now; one who had slain an Abomination. He possessed the Heritage—one belonging to the Prince of War. His mastery over his Remnants surpassed that of a noble, schooled in the Dungeon’s mysteries. Even that fledgling god could not conceive his full abilities.
He should not have been counted among the weak.
Things were meant to be different! He railed, feeling the slick of his blood squeeze through his fingers and streak past his knuckles.
They were meant to be different… he repeated in his mind.
The full weight of his failure bore down on him like a house collapsed, the debris of his crumbling ego pinning him in place even as the urge to move continued to howl in the back of his mind.
Through his hurtling thoughts, spiralling between grief and shame, a question sliced through his mental clamour, piercing its way to his conscious mind:
Why?
Why should things be different? He asked himself, unable to resist the question’s intrusion into the battlements of his sorrow. Why should I be discouraged? I’m still alive, aren’t I? The pulsating rhythm of his pain confirmed that he was. But that knowledge did not lessen the weight of his failure. It could not erase the shame curling in his gut, whispering that maybe, just maybe, he should stay down this time.
No! He forced the thought away, biting down on it like the grip of a knife clenched between the teeth of battle-hardened medic.
Remember who you are! he commanded himself. I’m not a storybook hero. I’m not some mighty warrior who’d rather die than taste defeat! I’ll take ten-thousand losses! As long as I’m still breathing, I’ll always come back and pay what’s owed! Call me a street-rat! Call me a cockroach! I don’t care because I’m a survivor. Maybe it’s shameful, but where has pride ever gotten me?
I’m a reprehensible bastard who’ll still be here long after the heroes and legends have died in my place.
So get up!
As though fate conspired with his unvanquished will, just as the final piece of his fractured self realigned, the ground began to crack. Rugged lines zigzagged across the black stone floor, the ebony slates shifting with a snap, clatter, and screech. They scraped against one another, pushed into sharp-edged piles in all directions, as if carelessly swept by the blind.
As the ground continued to shift, the pointed mounds swelled in both number and height. Among them, a razored dune of splintered stone carved its way toward Havoc. Like a shark’s dorsal fin slicing the ocean’s peak, it surged through the ground at a deadly pace, its lancinating edge poised to sever him at the waist.
Havoc pushed himself to his knees, his body wailing in protest. With one hand, he rolled from the cleaving mass, wind whipping past as the jagged fin cut by. He landed hard on his back with a breath bursting thump.
A sputtering howl sloshed through the chamber, saturating the air in its slushing echo. Within the circle of ruptured eyes, fused into the fissuring floor stood the Abominable Spirit. In all its writhing horror, the creature pulled itself—fleshy vine by fleshy vine—apart. Its veins unravelled like loose knotted rope, as the Spirit reached into its coiled form, ripping throbbing cords free from its uncoiling form.
‘Monster!’ the Spirit wailed, its venom-laced tone seeped in anguish. It cast itself onto the spiked ground, and thrashed upon the stone, smearing an emerald slick upon the gleaming teeth of interlocking stone blades. ‘What have you done to me?’
As the Abominable Spirit continued to flail, the fibres of its visceral vines shredded at their seams. From every abrasion, a green discharge oozed, and plumes of white mist pooled above the tormented creature, seeping from its writhing, broken form.
The mist began to take shape. Above the writing tangle, vaporous arms puffed out, their ends curving into wavering claws. A torso—billowing and flocculent—formed between the limbs, its waist twisting down into a tail. Like the first bud from a fertile seedling, a spindly neck sprouted from the misted form’s narrow shoulders. A face curved atop the neck’s atlas. It wore no features—eyes white like a blind man’s mask, mouth wide and without lips, as though an impression pushed firm into thickset bedding.
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‘What are you?’ the mist howled, its cry more akin to the wind gusting through a vacant tunnel than any mortal voice. ‘What have you hidden in your soul?’
The fogged spirit flailed its vaporous arms above its hollow head, anguish whetting the edges of its howl, sharpening the noise into a desolate screech.
Across the walls of the chamber, the many eyes stitched into the stone began to seep. Verdant blood cascaded down in thick rivulets, pooling into the ragged craters etched deep into the floor.
Before long, the eyes melted completely. Their thick, emerald residue sludged across the cavitied ground, converging and soaking into the tattered tangle of vines below the shrieking mist.
‘No!’ the Spirit wailed as the tips of its incorporeal claws crusted over with a scabrous, crimson, skin-like layer. ‘You belong to me!’
The mist’s transformation hastened. Its ephemeral wisps crackled like boots crushing autumn leaves as the scarlet coating spread across its arms and torso. Only its amorphous tail remained uncovered, still tethered to the twitching bundle of regenerating vines.
As the vines squirmed and whipped themselves over the ground, the Spirit hunched over its liberated possession, frantically gouging at its former body.
‘Mine, mine, mine! You belong to me!’ the Spirit barked over and again, as though reciting a twisted maxim. Even as it claimed residency over the coalescing mound of knotted vines, its eviction progressed, its tail slipping further and further away.
The Spirit detached fully, and with a crunch, it fell into the sunken ground. Its tail split down the middle, hardening with coarse, scarlet skin.
Fully coated, the Spirit appeared as though a man caked from head to toe in dry, crusted blood. Absent the back of its head, the creature’s face concaved like a moulded disguise upon a stick at a masquerade. With its newly shaped legs, the Abominable Spirit stood. It twisted its face toward Havoc. The rough folds of red where the Spirit’s eyes should have been, sightlessly seared into Havoc’s chest, a surge of instinctual dread flaring warnings though his mind.
Its seamless face cracked above its chin, the two halves splitting into a serrated maw. And a deep rumble emanated from its open mouth.
‘You…’ the Spirit growled. It stepped toward Havoc, apathetic to a spiked mound of fragmented rock cleaving a path beside it. The mass narrowly missed the Abomination, crashing into a nearby wall with a calamitous impact, sending shards across the chamber.
The Abominable Spirt continued forward. Its feet scratched the rough terrain as black light shimmered in its grip, stretching out with a slight curve, hardening into a pitch-black falchion.
Roiling panic churned in Havoc’s stomach. Instinctively, he stepped back, struggling against the urge to run. He would have fled if he could. He was no hero—he remembered that now. There were no chivalrous notions of bravery, or the honour of a duel keeping Havoc in place—it was the Dungeon’s will. It still lingered in the air like a noxious scent carried by a sullied stream.
His shoulder hung dislocated, his flesh was rend, not a part of his body was without its aches, but it did not matter. The Dungeon’s will was clear and absolute. Both Havoc and the Abominable Spirit still stood—one would need to fall.
Yeah… But it won’t be me, he swore, forcing his doubts into submission. Harmony simmered within his core, and he outstretched his unbroken arm. Ethereal light shimmered in front of his hand. It stretched outward, coalescing into a pointed shard.
At first, the Spirit walked with unsteady steps. It stumbled and swayed like a scrupulous infant finding its bearings. But before long, it settled into a stride—and from its stride, it broke into a sprint.
Hesitation banished, Havoc thrust his arm above his head, launching the shard of light toward the Abomination. A streaking blur, the shard whistled the distance toward the Spirit.
The Spirit’s bladed arm tucked diagonally by its hip. It lowered itself into a crouching stance, as if preparing itself to leap. As the shard whizzed forward, the Spirit unfolded its reach, aiming to intercept the shard with the falchion’s edge. In a blur of movement so fast that it almost seemed as though it had not moved at all, the Spirit cut though the shard. The ethereal light disintegrated under the strike, a noise like shattered glass scattering throughout the chamber.
Time after time, the scene repeated as the Abomination pressed relentlessly toward Havoc. With each intercepting strike, the Spirit’s movements seemed only to sharpen. With minimal effort, it weaved past the shifting spiked stone, which furrowed trenches through the ground, never losing its focus. It persistently hounded Havoc’s path even as he darted—wounded arm flailing behind—through the mercurial maze of razored dunes. It was not long before the Abomination was within striking distance.
Even featureless, the Spirit’s face radiated fury as it readied its falchion, arm raised overhead. Pressed against a wall, there was nowhere for Havoc to turn.
This was the end. In the blink of an eye, the sword would fall like an executioner’s blade, carving Havoc from shoulder to hip, spilling his severed bowels to the floor.
Each time he had faced certain death, serenity had followed. Only when that death became less certain had he the prudence for dread. But as the Spirit leaned forward, as if to smell his fear, the peace he had come to expect never arrived. His heart churned in his chest and the frosted hand of fear gripped his stomach. He was afraid—terrified—but there was more…
Death had never been so certain—inescapable—yet he was not convinced he was going to die. He was a survivor. Somehow, he was going to survive.
The moment came. The sword descended.
Before the cruel bite of the blade reached his throat, the a blur streaked through the air, followed by a sickening crunch.
At the far side of the vast cavern was the Abominable Spirit, imprinted into the wall, cracks spreading out from where it had been flung.
At the centre of the chamber, a wreath of fleshy vines thrashed, each tendril pouring out from beneath a towering, ebony barbed shell. The coned-shaped shell cracked in the middle, parting like a curtain to uncover a solitary, blood-shot eye. Untempered ire gleamed within its gaze. But Havoc was not the target of the creature’s bloodlust—its fury was firmly planted against the Abomination.
A frenzied smile cut across Havoc’s face, and he began to laugh, self-satisfaction and relief vying for dominance within. The Spirit had been fixated on him—a tapestry lost to a single tread. He never lost sight of the bigger picture. He tracked the hurtling stones and reforming vines, noting the former vessel of the Abomination’s recovery, all while ensuring he never strayed too far from the Stone Guardsman. All he needed was a little time—and a bit more luck. For when the tormented creature was free and whole, nothing could be more natural than vengeance.