“Miede…” Heacrim’s voice bounces off the walls of the long corridor, his footsteps clanking against the ground. His hand lies limply at his right side with the knife dangling at his fingers, his eyes are sunken into his face. The blow the Shade had dealt him had delivered damage far beyond his expectations.

He was observant, he acted carelessly because he understood that he could, he was arrogant. But the blow of the Shade had betrayed that belief in himself. He felt fearful for the first time in a very, very long time. It was an unfamiliar emotion, quickly replaced by disgust at his own heightened awareness.

“Do you think that hiding behind a bigger and stronger puppet will keep you safe, Miede?” His voice continues to echo.

Down the corridor and within the Ballroom, Miede is laid in the back of the room on a table. Her breathing is heavy, the wounds Heacrim had inflicted were quite severe. The cloak carrying Prose laid behind her, hidden from plain view.

Miede turns to the Shade, her face a combination of pain and confusion. “Why? We tried to harm you, and I was… I would have killed you’ She says with a whisper. “Why would you-”

The Shade turns around, planting its feet onto the ground with a stomp. It gave her no answer, and she could only look weakly at the things back as it looked out into the corridor. Heacrim was now in sight, walking slowly forwards.

Heacrim enters the ballroom, looking around in a show of obvious disregard. “Oh, I might have walked into a trap just now. If your little symbols weren’t busted.” He snickered, his eyes looking past the Shade towards Miede. “So sad. How about you take a stab and draw some more while your puppet here-”

The Shade launches across the room, its right fist grazing Heacrims cheek as he barely dodges it. Heacrim aims a stab at the side of it, but the Shade defies his expectations and drops low, its body fully dropping in a near parallel with the floor. The Shade reaches its hand forwards and grabs the arm of Heacrim.

“Don’t you dare!” Heacrim yells out, and the Shade feels its hand begin to burn away. It grabs the arm with its other hand, and throws Heacrim with all its force across the room, through the skeletal remains of the Bloodsucker, and into the wall of the Ballroom.

The Shade stands back up fully, and turns its palms upwards as it looks down. The wooden flesh that comprised its hands had been partially eaten away, noticeable chunks of its hands were removed. It shook off the pain by a twist of its head left and right. It looked forwards again, towards the direction Heacrim had been thrown.

Heacrim’s body slumped down as he hit the wall, but now he stood tall again. The previous facade of disregard was clearly gone. His face was twisted, his right eye twitching out of anger. “You’re no puppet. You’re just a vile beast, ripe for extermination!” Black energy crawled across the body of Heacrim, visible to the Shade’s eyes. It was the same that emanated from Baat in the village, but this did not eat away at Heacrim’s body. It ate away at everything else, the air around him, the wall behind him, even the ground. It constricted for a moment, before focusing on his knife. “If I don’t kill you first I can’t take my time with Miede. So die quickly, won’t you?”

Heacrim once again shows his explosive speed, the ground beneath his feet shattering. He appears in front of the Shade, slicing a wide arc with his knife.

The Shade was perceptive, and took a step back in the same instant. The blade just nearly missed its chest, but the black energy covering the blade extended the arc. The Shade felt its chest decay in a line matching the curve of the blade.

The Shade’s final extendable arm extended from its body, the clawed appendage found its mark on Heacrims face. Five shallow lines of blood mark its side.

The Shade does not let up, closing its arms on both sides, attempting to crush Heacrim in the middle. Its hands slam together, as Heacrim ducks out of the way. His right hand drops the knife for a moment, his left grabbing it the moment it falls, and cutting across the left shoulder of the Shade.

With a knee to Heacrim’s stomach the Shade backs up. Although the cut was not deep, the energy had made its mark. Its left arm hung limply at his side, no longer usable.

“Step by step, instance by instance. All things break the same. Take it from me, I’m quite proficient at my job as a surgeon.” Heacrim ignores the cuts on his face, taking intense pleasure at the site of the Shade being weakened by its injuries. His eyes glance over to Miede, laying weakly on the table.

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The Shade moves forward at this, and Heacrim instantly turns his head in delight. “You really are a beast, simple and predictable!” Heacrim deftly dodges from another swing of the Shade’s fist, and a series of jabs following it from its right.

Another cut, and the Shade’s right arm is now useless. It jumps back, its body hunched over and its eyes dim. “Don’t you understand, fangs are hidden for a reason. When aggression is obvious, prey will never enter your grasp. And… A greater predator will always take advantage.”

Heacrim walks forwards slowly, his face turning back to a cool expression of dominance. His footsteps were measured and slow, echoing off the ground across the ballroom.

The Shade’s remaining extendable arm wraps itself around his left arm, giving him control over it again. It takes a low stance on the ground, waiting for Heacrim to make his move. The wounds all across its body burned with pain, heightening its perception.

Heacrim appeared again in front of it, this time not relying on explosive speed but simple dexterity. The Shade delivered a kick forwards with its left leg, missing again. Heacrim aimed for a slash, but missed as the Shade again relied on its insane flexibility, dodging out of the way and accounting for the extended range of the blade.

Heacrim decided he was willing to part with more damage, any cost was sufficient if it meant killing the beast in front of him. He gripped the knife in a simple straightforward grip, and shot forwards.

The Shade hadn’t expected such a move, but it reacted in time nonetheless. Its left arm gouged into the left side of Heacrim, at the same moment Heacrim’s knife stabbed into its chest.

“It doesn’t matter the form, destroy the core and it’ll crumble. Now, you’ll die!” Heacrim yelled out in assurance of his victory, pumping as much of the black energy as he could into the Shade. Nothing had ever survived a sustained effort from him before.

His thoughts quickly turned to disarray, as the Shade’s face began to unfold in front of him. The inner light shone brighter, revealing a set of razor sharp sharpened wooden spikes hidden inside. It was the Shade’s mouth.

Heacrim looked in shock, and attempted to withdraw his knife and move back, regardless of the damage done to himself from the arm embedded in his side. But the moment he moved to take action, he felt himself freeze.

Miede weakly looked over to him from the table she was on, her eyes constricted and her body pale. Heacrim could only stare in shock as the approaching mouth came to him, preparing to devour him.

He believed he could not die like this, but he had overextended himself in his attack on the Shade’s body. He had no power to resist the spell of Miede, and could only watch in horror as the maw approached him.

As it settled around him, and the wooden fangs began to sink themselves in, he could only curse ever coming to this castle, he refused to believe he’d die at the hands of this thing in front of him, but he had no ability to stop the situation.

The fangs pierced in, but only at a surface level. The damage done to the Shade was too considerable, and its body tumbled to the ground, unable to commit to the final blow it had begun. Miede’s eyes closed as she saw the scene play out in front of her, and she accepted her incoming fate.

Heacrim looks down to the Shade, and rips out the arm from his side. His face is filled with shock and confusion, but it's quickly replaced by exhalation.

Heacrim let out heavy breaths, looking down at the Shade. The breaths quickly turned to a frantic laugh, mixing with exhaustive breaths. “Hahaha! That’s what you get, you stupid beast!” He rips the dagger out of its chest, and turns to face Miede.

“And you, you really thought you had me there, didn’t you!” He waits to walk over and takes deep controlled breaths. The black energy begins to cover his wounds, and quickly the color begins to return to his face, the power returns to his body. The wounds close, the damage mitigated to the extent he could now walk with ease again.

He opens his eyes, their golden glow accentuated by the terrible look on his face. He walks over to Miede, standing in front of the table she is on. The scene looks like that of a man standing over a sacrificial altar. Miede’s body is accentuated by the moonlight filtering into the room. Heacrim looks upwards, out into the darkness. “Oh Miede, Miede. You knew, did you not? You must have had some suspicion after my disappearance, that something was not right.”

Miede looks weakly up to him, she has no ability to resist. “My only thought was that you were no doctor at all, just an insane fanatic” She attacked his pride, in a last act of defiance. But Heacrim took no mind to it.

“But that’s not true, don’t you see? Any who is a skilled surgeon such as myself can only go by the name of a doctor, a true physician. You’re a great example, in your sleep I performed a great procedure on you. I placed that errant flesh in your body, and I expected great transformations to occur. Your physique is special, and I expected great things from you! But…But…!” Heacrim seemed to descend into madness with each word, his right hand cutting through the air carelessly with his knife.

Miede looked up at him weakly, a thought dawning on her as she thought of the evil piece of flesh that had been embedded in her. Heacrim continued his speech.

“How’d you do it? How’d you remove it from your heart? I thought it’d twist at you, corrupt you. But it left, and there’s no trace of it anymore! Miede, oh Miede, Where has it gone? Tell me, tell me now and I won’t make you suffer.” Heacrim bent over, looking her in the eyes.

A moment of silence filled the ballroom, before Miede released a beautiful smile. “I gave it away.”

Heacrim’s eye twitched. ‘To whom, to whom! Speak Miede!” He slammed the knife down into her stomach, twisting the blade. “Speak, and you can pass on, free of pain!”

She convulsed under the pain, but her smile stayed. “I gave it away, to someone you could never take it from. He’s much stronger than you, and his looks are more refined than yours. He’s someone you could never hope to match, you fake doctor.”

Heacrim sighed, pulling the knife out. “I’ve told you already, I’m a real doctor. Being vague will only make the pain much worse, can’t you see that? Ah… Miede, why must you betray my expectations?”

Heacrim raises his knife high, preparing to deliver another strike to Miede in an effort to make her speak. But he was interrupted as the ground beneath his feet began to shake.

Something had awakened below, and it was quickly making its way upwards.