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Monster
Chapter 92 - The Heart

Chapter 92 - The Heart

In the span of a heartbeat, my hand closed around the hilt of the blade, and an outpouring of raw power surged up from within its core. The connection was immediate, instinctive… like taking a breath after holding it for too long. Energy flooded through me, not a visible force but an undeniable presence, wrapping itself around me in a cloak of immeasurable strength. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it in the air, in my veins, and the hollow of my bones. This was no ordinary energy; it was alive, beyond time, and boundless.

I stepped forward once, the ground beneath me dissolving into nothing. In that single motion, the world around me shattered like glass, and when it reformed, I was no longer in the silent expanse of Death’s domain.

My presence arrived first, rippling across the space like a shockwave, and for a fleeting moment, I saw the pit before I fully materialized. The chamber was unmistakable, etched into my memory like a scar. The petrified remains of massive bones jutted out of the craggy ground, their grotesque shapes towering like monuments to some forgotten massacre. I recognized it instantly…the place where I had been slain. It hadn’t changed. The suffocating air, the jagged cliffs, and the bleakness of death all screamed familiarity.

Scattered across the chamber were creatures, grotesque and unnatural. The first was a nightmare given form: its yellow-black, acid-scorched skin was as chitinous as a monstrous insect. Its human features were grotesquely warped, twisted into something that barely resembled humanity. It shifted uneasily, its multifaceted eyes gleaming with a flicker of intelligence.

Nearby were others, hunched and prowling on all fours like beasts, their leathery, pallid skin stretched tight over skeletal frames. Wisps of coarse white hair clung to their heads, fluttering like rotting banners in the still air. Their bottom jaws were unnaturally large, packed with blunt, crushing teeth that jutted out from recessed mouths. These were variations of creatures I had faced before… devourers, but something was different. Their forms were leaner, more feral. The mouth was altered.

Myoordrakien’s voice pierced through the haze, not just in my ears but deep within my mind. “See.”

And suddenly, I wasn’t myself anymore. My perception twisted, overtaken by images not my own. I was inside the mind of another… a woman. Through her eyes, I saw the wilderness stretch out before me, wild and untamed as she chased something. A mark. A target. I could feel her determination, her Primeval… our Primeval… fueling her. She was hunting something that radiated power: a vampire, twisted by the influence of Hunger. It was all to locate Hunger… to identify her resting place.

The vision shifted as a pack of creatures burst from the wilderness, their appearance as sudden as a nightmare clawing its way into reality. Five of them surrounded her. “Marrow Feasters,” she called them. Their mouths stretched open, revealing long, prehensile tongues tipped with barbed fangs. Even their anatomy was designed for death; the missing front teeth created a gap, giving those hideous tongues free rein.

Her inner knowledge flowed through time and into my mind. Myoordrakien shared the information with me from a predecessor.

She struck out through the air, a storm of black wings and razor talons. The creatures fell one by one, shredded and torn, their twisted forms no match for her ferocity. Bodies were plucked from the earth and fell from the sky… thudding to the forest floor.

The vision ended abruptly, leaving me reeling. My voice broke the silence as I named them, “Marrow Feasters.” The knowledge of them lingered, a gift… or perhaps a curse… left by Myoordrakien’s memories. His bond with me deepened, passing information from lives long forgotten.

I felt myself slipping through the veil of reality again, my form seeping into the chamber like liquid shadow. When I physically emerged, the air shifted. My boot hit the stone, and the effect was immediate.

The yellow-black creature turned, its gaze locking onto me. It didn’t snarl. It didn’t charge. Instead, it froze, trembling in palpable terror. The noise it made… a guttural, choking squelch that reeked of panic. Whatever power it sensed in me was far beyond anything it had encountered before.

But the marrow feasters reacted differently. Their snarls reverberated through the chamber as they grouped together, their movements fluid and synchronized like a pack of wolves preparing to strike. They formed a deadly arrowhead, all focus trained on me as they charged.

I stood there, unmoving, the image of who I used to be. Blue eyes. Human. Sam Roberts. And yet, the surface was a façade. A show… a mental image of how I saw myself. Something ancient and violent stirred within every cell of my body now… my new body. Myoordrakien’s presence bubbled just beneath the surface, a constant push to let loose, to transform, to slaughter.

But I didn’t.

The blade in my hand hummed with anticipation, almost as if whispering promises of carnage. My fingers tightened around the hilt, the weight of the weapon grounding me in its certainty.

I took a single step forward.

The charging beasts skidded to a halt, their formation breaking apart in disarray. They hesitated for only a second before spinning around, retreating as fast as they had come. Something in them had felt the truth… this was not a fight they wanted. Whatever primal instincts guided them told them one thing: this presence, this power, was untouchable.

And I knew why. This was no longer a battlefield. It was a reckoning.

The murderous rage churned within me, a volcanic force barely held in check. It wasn’t just the Primeval’s power… I felt the blade. The unrelenting draw of Death’s essence surging into me. As I wielded it, my monstrous body drank deeply, savoring the taste of annihilation. We craved it together, a ravenous, insatiable hunger for death that hollowed me out and filled me with raw, destructive intent.

My grip tightened on the hilt, knuckles white with effort. Shadows writhed across the cavern walls, shifting… recoiling from the encroaching doom I had summoned. For a moment, the power flowed through me… an intoxicating rush. Then it faltered, slipping from my grasp like smoke through clenched fingers. I snarled in frustration, straining to seize the invisible force that emanated from the blade. No matter how fiercely I focused, it defied me.

And then, a voice like a rolling thunder, Myoordrakien spoke, “No... like this.”

My arms moved, not by my will, but as though guided by an unseen hand. He wasn’t controlling me… he was teaching me. Adjusting. Shaping. The Primeval and I became one seamless conduit for the blade’s devastating energy. With a guttural roar, we unleashed it, a torrent of dark power ripping forth and surging into the horde of marrow feasters charging toward me.

The force wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It moved with silent precision, a coiled beast snapping forward, a net of pure eradication spreading wide and swallowing the feral monsters whole. They had been too stupid, too blind to recognize the storm descending on them. Their bodies hit the cavern floor like sacks of wet meat, bones cracking… flesh tearing. The sickening symphony echoed through the shadows as they collapsed, dead before they even understood what had struck them.

I felt a shift. A change in the way the blade’s power flowed into me. It wasn’t just feeding me; it was balancing something deeper… something primal. Every ounce of energy I unleashed came with a cost. The more I used, the more the beast within was starved, demanding release to claim lives for itself… to make up the difference. Myoordrakien’s hunger mirrored mine… we were one now… after all. And we were a bottomless pit of craving that threatened to unravel all life if we weren’t careful.

And then I saw the yellowish, bug-like creature scuttering deeper into the pits, recoiling from the carnage. It wasn’t in range of my wide area attack, somehow escaping the destruction and death like a cockroach. It wanted no part of the slaughter; cowardly and pathetic. My gaze returned to the bodies, now scattered and motionless on the petrified floor. I noticed something inside of me next… the hunger hadn’t subsided. It was still there… clamoring for more death.

I moved among the corpses, barely aware of my steps. My still human form passed through them, black claws creeping out of my clenched fists as the urges rose.

A shiver ran through me… a visceral acknowledgment of the exchange at play. Every kill using Death’s blade… his power shifted the flow of the weapon, reducing the power that fed Us. While holding the blade, I was naturally absorbing the power held within. When I gathered and used it… the cravings spiked… feeling the power that got away from my dark urge for death. More of my body turned monstrous… my Primeval body adjusting and seeking more kills on its own to make up the difference. Yet almost instantly… as soon as the power in the immediate area faded, the blade compensated, pulsing Death’s essence back into me as before. My claws retreated, fully returning to my completely human form. It was a cycle, a strange equilibrium I would have to master. I guess it just depended on what I was aiming for. Like Death said… I had options now… and his power came at a cost. Maybe with time… I could master it… I could master this body.

Then, I began to wonder what kind of effect Death's power would have in the real world. I felt the reach it had and the spread that occurred when I sent out the blast of finality that claimed the entire pack of marrow feasters. If I did the same thing around a populated area… casualties would be a certainty.

Another wave of the creatures emerged from the dark recesses of the cavern, their grotesque shapes bounding toward me.

“Take them all!” Myoordrakien boomed in my mind.

I darted into the fray, a blur of speed and precision, the marrow feasters barely registering my presence before I struck. Their grotesque forms lunged and twisted in the blackness of the cavern, claws scraping against stone as they sought to close in. But I was faster… much faster.

The first beast’s maw opened wide, its tongue lashing out like a barbed whip. I sidestepped effortlessly, my blade arcing upward in a clean slice. The tongue severed with a wet snap, spraying black ichor across the stone. A pale hue swept up inside the beast's mouth from the severed flesh of its tongue, and started turning his disgusting flesh a different color. The feaster’s body convulsed, its skull split in two as I drove the blade straight through its forehead, the power of Death surging through it. It crumpled instantly, lifeless before it hit the ground. Its body faded into a pale motionless form… then it turned to dust.

Another leaped at me from the side, claws reaching for my throat. I spun, my blade cutting a low, deadly arc. Its legs were gone in a flash of steel, and before it could howl, I buried the weapon into the base of its skull. The faint glow of Death’s essence pulsed briefly along the blade before the creature collapsed, twitching, then still. Dust particles floated away as the blade claimed every ounce of life the feaster had… leaving only disintegrating piles of ash.

The third was more cautious, circling me with a feral snarl, its eyes glinting with a predatory intelligence. I lunged before it could act, slashing at its tongue mid-strike and stepping into its space. The blade punched through its jaw and into its brain, and as it collapsed, I pulled free, turning fluidly to the next target.

The marrow feasters surrounded me now, their grotesque shapes weaving through the shadows. One came bounding from above, but I was already moving, leaping to meet it mid-air. The blade plunged into its chest, and I twisted it violently, sending the creature’s lifeless body crashing into another that had been charging from behind.

A flurry of motion followed. My blade carved through flesh and bone with surgical precision. One creature lunged… its tongue whipping toward my face, but I caught it mid-snap, cleaving the appendage cleanly before slicing across its throat. Another lunged for my back, but I spun, the tip of the blade finding its eye and skewering it through to the brain.

Each strike was efficient, deliberate… I toyed with them… moving slowly enough to see every move they made and test the limits of my body and power. My blade injected its death sentence into every wound, and the marrow feasters crumpled like puppets with their strings cut. Some collapsed mid-leap, others froze in their tracks as their lives were extinguished with a single slice of the weapon’s edge.

By the time the tenth feaster fell, its body sliding off the blade with a wet thud, the cavern floor was littered with their corpses. Black ichor pooled around my feet, the smell acrid and suffocating. I stood among the carnage, my breaths steady, cold, and collected, the blade still pulsing faintly in my hand. Ashen dust began floating up from where I stood, turning this battleground into a sea of remnant particles. They were all gone… blowing away in a passing draft.

The hunger within me didn’t subside. If anything, it grew, the Primeval’s voice urging me to continue, to feed its insatiable craving for destruction. Yet, for now, the beasts were gone, and the cavern fell eerily silent once more. The blade slowly began to compensate and return its flow into my body.

Familiarity washed over my mind like a honed skill, electric and undeniable. I sent out a pulse of power, letting it reverberate through the husk of hunger. It wasn’t a timid ripple… this was potent, raw, and deliberate; not an echo, but the true sense of Myoordrakien commanded by my intent. It surged outward, bouncing off the jagged stone walls and probing the depths of the cavernous expanse. The pulse raced deeper, further, until it touched something… a chamber buried within the petrified, mountain-like body.

The sensation hit me like an undeniable truth. This chamber was massive, sealed entirely by thick rock, appearing as nothing more than a solid wall to any mortal eyes. But I knew… We knew. I could feel its resonance, a subtle vibration of power within it… Primeval power. Myoordrakien was pointing me like a compass toward the chamber. Death’s blade stirred with purpose, a faint hum of intent reverberating through my hand. It craved the death of whatever lay beyond that enclosure. The heart was there. Hidden. Waiting.

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I didn’t waste time. My body surged forward, a streak of death cutting through the suffocating darkness of the pits. I ignored the creatures lurking in the shadows, their grotesque forms barely registering as I tore past them. My purpose was singular, and I had no intention of being delayed by mindless scavengers. Yet, I didn’t need to engage them directly… my presence alone was enough. The aura of Death that poured from the blade, and the Primeval power my body radiated blanketed the tunnels, a suffocating wave that I surged like a new muscle I had never flexed before. But when I felt it… I flexed it with all my might. The earth shook… and annihilation swept through the tunnels with me. All life in my immediate vicinity was destroyed. Anything that strayed too close… dead. It was easy… so easy to unleash this new force inside… to kill anything unlucky enough to be near me.

Behind me, the bodies piled up, collapsing like puppets whose strings had been severed. The sheer force of my passage left the air heavy with the stench of decay, the pits themselves seemingly mourning the lives claimed in my wake. This place would be forever changed by my reappearance.

As I delved deeper, the blade pulsed in my grip, eager, almost frantic… sensing its goal… the heart becoming closer. But I could feel the cost in every step. The power I had unleashed was immense, and the toll it took began to creep into my being. The blade wasn’t just feeding me anymore… it was pushing me, its hunger to claim lives mingling with my own desire to kill. Finally, I had to make a choice.

I slowed just long enough to release the blade, letting it slip back into its resting place… just out of sight, beyond the veil. I could feel reluctance, its tether to me straining as I let it go, but I couldn’t carry it any further. The Primeval within me was growing, the link between us leaning more in his direction.

But this time, it wasn’t clawing to break free. No, this felt different. It wasn’t something alien forcing its way out… it was me, transforming, expanding, evolving. My bond with Myoordrakien had changed. No longer did he feel like a separate entity caged within me. We were two minds in one body, working in tandem, our purposes aligned. I could feel his thoughts and wants in my mind as I moved us in this human form. If I changed into my monstrous form, I knew I’d still be in control… but I think the lines between us would be blurred.

The memory hit me as I ran. The woman Myoordrakien had shown me… a former wielder. She soared through the sky on black wings, her form radiant and terrible, a smaller echo of the wings Myoordrakien himself once possessed. Back in his time, his wings had blotted out the sun, a harbinger of doom. Hers were smaller, but they carried the same essence, the same promise of destruction.

A pang of envy struck me as I navigated the pits. Wings. If I could sprout them now, this journey would be over in moments. The idea of lifting off, gliding over the desolation below… it made my human feet feel slow and clumsy. But no wings came. I would have to rely on speed, my legs pounding against the uneven, craggy ground as I pressed on.

Wings would have to wait. For now, I had work to do.

I stood before the wall, the barrier marking the entrance to the heart chamber. It towered over me, stretching so high into the cavernous gloom that its peak vanished into the suffocating darkness above. Even my eyes had limits in this place. I couldn’t see all the way to the top from where I was. The air was thick here, oppressive, carrying the weight of ancient power and the faint metallic tang of something long forgotten. I wasn’t at the deepest point of the husk, not quite, but I was close. The sense of being at the precipice of something immense pressed down on me.

Reaching out, I placed my hand against the cold, uneven surface. The rock felt alive, faint vibrations thrumming beneath my fingertips as if the husk was aware of my presence, a living entity recoiling from my touch. The red-hued light surrounded me and amplified to an enormous extent. Useless. Without hesitation, I called the blade back to me. It materialized in my grasp, its otherworldly weight settling with an eagerness that felt almost alive. The jagged edge gleamed faintly in the dim light, a sliver of malice made manifest.

I raised it high and thrust it forward.

The razor-sharp point pierced the wall with unnatural ease, petrified bone, and ancient stone splitting apart as if reality itself yielded to the blade’s will. The sound was deafening… a sickening crack followed by a low, resonant groan that echoed through the pits. It wasn’t just the wall that reacted. The entire husk seemed to awaken, a ripple of violent tremors radiating outward from where I stood.

Dust and shards rained down as the wall began to fracture, deep fissures spreading like veins. The ground beneath me shuddered with increasing ferocity, the husk protesting my intrusion. I could feel her… an awareness blooming from the depths. A voice, not spoken but felt, laced with confusion and rage. She knew I was here now, but she didn’t understand how. The blade pulsed in my hand, feeding me a faint whisper of her will, her fear, her fury. She didn’t know how I had breached her sanctum or how I still lived, but she would soon find out.

The shaking intensified. Rocks tumbled from above, clattering around me as the wall began to collapse, revealing what lay beyond. An opening widened, jagged edges framing the void like the gaping maw of some great beast. At first, there was nothing but impenetrable blackness… a darkness so complete it seemed to swallow the faint ambient glow of the pits.

I released the blade again, relinquishing it to the veil with barely a second thought. Pulling it and putting it away was becoming like breathing. I stepped forward, my boots crunching against the rubble. The void seemed to pull at me, an unseen gravity urging me inside. Each step felt heavier, the air growing colder and thicker as I crossed the threshold. Behind me, the last remnants of the wall crumbled, sealing me into the chamber with whatever lay within.

The heart of the husk awaited.

It was a short journey into the heart chamber, my steps echoing with an unrelenting cadence through the darkened stone. Then I saw it… the husk’s core. A sickly, shriveled heart dangled in the void, its form a mockery of power. Strings of sinew barely held it together, a grotesque shadow of what a Primeval heart should be. Where the heart of Annihilation once throbbed with might and fearsome domination, this one was a leaking, strung-out mass of lost blood and drained life force.

At my approach, the heart pulsed brighter, desperate, glowing red like a wound struggling to clot. A voice echoed psionically through the chamber, faint yet pleading.

“Stop. You don’t understand what you’re doing. I told you… we cannot… you cannot kill me yet. I must recover my power.”

A low, guttural laugh tore itself from my throat, primal and raw. It wasn’t entirely my own but a sound born from the Primeval within, a voice that carried the weight of ages past. “Your time is over,” it declared, colder than the void, final as death itself.

Then he emerged. From the shadows at the chamber’s edge, the elder stepped forward… the very one who had sunk his claws into my neck and head, the one who should have ensured my demise. His familiar figure was both maddening and pitiful now.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he hissed, his voice slithering between rage and disbelief.

We barely spared him a glance. Our focus remained fixed on the heart, our purpose unshakable. We wanted to kill him, yes, but the heart was the priority. Its destruction was inevitable, a duty ingrained in our bones.

He snarled, his long brown hair matted with sweat and grime, his body trembling with suppressed fury. “You disregard me after I’ve killed you once? I don’t know how you came back… where you’ve been, but you will not touch her heart!”

With a jerking, animalistic motion, he lunged toward me, his movements unnatural, silent. Mid-air, his body ruptured, skin splitting under the strain of transformation. Flesh tore away like rotted fabric as something monstrous clawed its way out. Chitinous plates erupted from beneath, forming a hardened exoskeleton covered in sparse, bristling hairs.

His humanoid features vanished, replaced by a grotesque arachnid form. Eight legs, jagged and sharp like spears, burst from his twisted torso. The creature loomed larger than life, a massive, nightmarish spider straight out of an apocalyptic hellscape. No trace of humanity remained… only raw, predatory malice.

Time seemed to slow as he soared toward me. Fear was absent, replaced by a chilling calm. My right hand clenched at my side, fingers curling as I reached into the other dimension where the blade resided. With a fluid motion, I swung upward.

Death’s blade appeared mid-arc, materializing as though it had always been there. The weapon responded to my will, its jagged edges elongating and thinning into a razor-sharp scythe. The blade struck true, slicing clean through the spider’s exoskeleton, in the hand of a monstrous slayer cutting through prey.

The creature’s body split apart mid-flight, its internal organs spilling in a torrent of reds and greens. Blood sprayed like a storm, painting the chamber with gore. The sound of tearing flesh and snapping bone echoed, deafening in the confined space.

Two halves of his grotesque form tumbled to the ground, legs skittering in separate directions. His remains landed with a wet slap, his shattered body coming to rest at the base of the heart.

The oldest of the Elders was dead… bisected by the reaping edge of Death’s blade, wielded by my hand, guided by Myoordrakien, the Primeval of Annihilation.

“No... no! You cannot do this! How are you even here? How are you not dead?” The Primeval of Hunger’s voice flailed and shrieked, the raw panic of her fragmented mind spilling into the chamber. Her words reverberated, less a command and more a desperate plea.

Then I saw him… another figure standing beside me. My breath hitched, instincts flaring. How had something gotten so close without me noticing? But then realization struck, chilling and surreal. It wasn’t someone else. It was me… a monstrous reflection of my own form. Black-eyed, clawed, and shadow-wreathed, Myoordrakien stood beside me, his presence undeniable yet incomprehensible. Was he real? Was he an extension of my mind, born from this warped body? The answer didn’t matter. His being here felt both unnatural and completely right.

His voice cut through the chamber, ancient and venomous… rolling like grave thunder. “You betrayed me once, sister. And again, you dare. But it doesn’t matter. You will fall… like the rest. You cannot kill me because I am unkillable… bound to the End itself. And the End… will claim you.”

The End? My mind turned the phrase over, the weight of its implication settling deep. Was this how the Primevals spoke of Death? A force beyond even them?

Myoordrakien extended his hand toward me, palm open and commanding. The blade. He wanted the blade. I hesitated, only for a moment, uncertain if he could truly hold it. What was he, really? A shadow? A projection from my mind? But instinct crushed doubt. I handed the blade over, and his fingers curled around its handle. Solid. Real. His grip exuded an authority that left no question.

He stepped forward, his pace deliberate and ominous, each footfall sending shivers through the withering heart chamber. The heart itself recoiled at his approach, shriveling further, the pulsing remnants of its form quaking with terror. He ascended the crumbling platform where the Primeval of Hunger had once ruled, her throne forgotten and her dominion reduced to ruins. Her schemes at hiding and dispersing her power amongst her children only succeeded in weakening and reducing her to this sad excuse of a Primeval.

His left hand contorted, black talons extending grotesquely, thicker and more jagged than my own transformations had ever produced. They were wicked implements of raw destruction, dripping with shadowed malice. Without hesitation, he swung his arm, claws raking across the heart’s surface. Flesh tore in violent ribbons, flaying wide as sinew snapped and hung grotesquely from its form. It wasn’t to kill… it was to hurt, a brutal display of dominance and punishment.

The heart’s mental wailing escalated, but Myoordrakien wasn’t done. His right hand, blade in its grip, rose high before plunging downward with ferocious precision. The weapon pierced the heart in a single motion, sinking deep, its jagged edge ripping through layers of ancient, thick tissue. The sound was sickening… a wet, tearing squelch that echoed like a gong of death.

He didn’t stop. The blade drove deeper, forcing his entire arm into the heart’s flesh until it sank past his elbow, his shoulder disappearing into the quivering mass. He snarled, fangs bared, his expression a grotesque mix of rage and triumph. Red ribbons of light began to spill from the heart’s surface, twisting and curling like living things desperate to escape.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the spider-elder’s corpse twitch. Its ruptured body expelled clusters of the same red light, streams of energy writhing and fleeing in every direction. The ribbons scattered across the chamber, frantic, searching for refuge. But there was none. No other elder to claim the power. No heart to house them. They found nothing, and with a final shriek of despair, they shot upward, streaking into the cavern’s ceiling and vanishing into the dark.

The ground beneath my feet began to quake violently, the entire chamber trembling with the death throes of Hunger itself. Stones cracked and fell, walls buckled, and the oppressive weight of the pits seemed to shift and groan.

I glanced upward nervously, my thoughts flashing to the city above. The devastation below had to be sending shockwaves upward. Would the surface hold? Death had claimed it wouldn’t, but I doubted everything now as the chaos raged around me.

But there was no time to dwell on those fears. My thoughts turned sharp and focused. This wasn’t over. Myoordrakien had delivered the killing blow, but I wasn’t about to let Hunger die without feeling my vengeance in her last moments. Not after what she had her elder do to me. Even if it was part of Death’s designs.

This creature had killed me. Lied to me. Manipulated Alex and who knew how many others with her venomous whispers. Fury coiled in my gut, and I stepped forward, intent on delivering my own retribution before her existence was snuffed out completely.

As Myoordrakien snarled over the dying heart, I readied myself, my claws itching for one last strike. Hunger would suffer for every lie, every betrayal, and every life she had stolen. This was only the beginning of her end.

I walked up beside my reflection, the monstrous shadow of myself standing with quiet resolve. Placing a hand on his shoulder, I felt the surge of understanding between us; no words were needed. The boundary between us blurred, and in an instant, we were one again. My hand, black-taloned and unnervingly steady, was plunged deep into the heart.

I felt its grotesque texture against my skin; the slick, pulsating mass of ancient flesh, oozing viscous fluids that clung to my arm as I pulled it free. The blade tightened in my grasp, its presence undeniable, its purpose absolute. Blood, thick and dark, spilled in torrents over my hand, cascading like a waterfall. Yet, the blade remained untouched. The blood recoiled, rejected by its edge, sliding off in beads that evaporated before they could stain it. Within seconds, the weapon gleamed pristine, an unyielding testament to its nature.

I bared my teeth, a feral grin etched on my face, and drove the blade back in with brutality. The heart trembled under my assault, but I was methodical, unhurried. Each strike was deliberate, each plunge deeper, twisting and tearing through the ancient organ. Time ceased to matter as I worked, the chamber echoing with the wet, visceral sounds of destruction. I lost myself in the motion, my arm rising and falling, relentless and unwavering.

The heart’s surface became a tapestry of destruction… slashed, gouged, and ravaged beyond recognition. Blood and ichor painted the room, pooling at my feet in rivers that flowed sluggishly across the stone. My arm grew slightly heavy, a rare sensation, but I didn’t stop. This body… this power was inexhaustible. Each thrust of the blade carried the weight of millennia of betrayal, vengeance, and justice.

When I finally stepped back, the heart was a mangled, shredded ruin… reduced to lifeless pulp. I exhaled slowly, my breath steady despite the carnage. My fingers flexed, still gripping the hilt of the blade. The silence that followed was profound, the quaking earth beneath my feet easing into a deathly stillness.

The transformation of the chamber was subtle at first. The walls of petrified bone began to gray, their once-living essence draining away. The grotesque organic textures hardened further, turning to stone, the last remnants of life fading into cold rock. This place, once alive with malevolence, had become a tomb. The husk of Hunger hardened, sealed permanently in its final form, never to open again.

If anything had survived down here, it would remain entombed. And if it somehow escaped, it would never dare return to this cold stone hole. This place was dead, in every sense of the word.

I straightened, my thoughts shifting to the remaining Elders. The red wisps of energy that had fled the heart would not vanish… they would empower the others, dispersing equally among them. And Alex... she would grow stronger too. That realization sent a flicker of urgency through me. I had to find her, speak to her. She needed to know she would be okay… that she could cast off this power if she wanted to. I didn’t yet know how exactly, but I would find a way.

I had forged a stronger connection with Myoordrakien, and even with Death itself. The lines between worlds and forces felt more open now, more navigable. Whatever came next, I wouldn’t face it in ignorance.

I looked down at the blade in my hand, its hum resonating with quiet power. It felt like an extension of myself now; purposeful and unshakable.

Without hesitation, I stepped forward, my body instinctively moving as Myoordrakien’s knowledge guided me. Shadows enveloped me as I slipped into the veil, leaving the dead heart and its ruined chamber behind.