Sophia laid her hand on her forehead as she said, “Should've seen that one coming?”

Kade squinted his eyes with the slight squeal of bending metal. He turned towards me and spit, “I thought you were different now. I see that isn’t the case.”

Joan raised her palms towards Kade as eshe said, “He just sucks really, really bad at explaining things. Let Sophia tell you instead.”

Kade calmed slightly before Sophia raised a hand and said, “It will be a surgery, and it may be painful, but if it works out, we will be curing your people of their calcification.”

Kade frowned as he said, “What do you mean curing?”

I chimed in, “Your species dies whenever the iron alloys on your skin fully cover your joints and orifices. We have a way of stopping it’s progression.”

Kade raised an eyebrow and spoke with revived interest, “Hmmm...Alright then. What does it involve?”

I continued, “The insertion of a crystal slice into your spine. It will prevent the flow of multiple souls throughout the spinal fluid, preventing disparate orders from the resonating soul energy and your genetic code.”

Kade blinked, his expression unchanging before Sophia said, “We’ll put a tiny piece of gem in you so that you can control the growth of your iron.”

Kade’s eyes widened as he said, “Are you telling me that you can save us? You can save our people?”

She nodded before saying, “As you can imagine, I doubt we could convince the rest of your tribe from letting us perform the surgery without a successful example supporting us. Deluge told us you were close to death, and since you're the Blackiron leader, the others will follow if you go through with it.”

Kade frowned as he said, “How risky is this...operation?”

I said, “You will not die.”

Kade’s frown deepened as he said, “Somehow, that’s not reassuring.”

Sophia said, “Uh, Jericho can keep you alive is what he means.”

Somehow, Kade’s frown deepened further, transforming into a skeptical scowl as he said, “Call him what he is. The Darkened One.”

I rolled my eyes as I said, “I am known by many names, but most know me as Jericho. That mythical title you spoke of represents something I'm not.”

Joan said, “I don't know. That change earlier was pretty damn horrific.”

I glanced towards her as I said, “You understood what Jack was capable of when you and he decided to court each other.”

She grimaced as she said, “It’s just different when you see it in action. Hard to visualize the turning process.”

I squinted my eyes towards her as I said, “Is it really so disturbing? I am merely reorganizing my flesh.”

She shook her head before glancing down and saying, “Please, let’s just not talk about it anymore.”

I turned towards Kade as I said, “We will be doing the same for you soon.”

Kade snapped back, “Would you mind making promises that aren’t as ominous?”

I raised an eyebrow as I said, “What? That is what we will be doing, though on a smaller scale than my own transformations.”

Sophia sighed long and hard before turning towards a glowing pit of coals. She said, “We will need to bend some of your iron skin out of the way during the procedure. That’s why we decided on performing the operation here.”

Kade grimaced as he said, “That sounds painful.”

I leaned an arm over his shoulder as I grinned and said, “It will be.”

Kade grit his teeth as I walked him towards the set of coals. I said, “I freed your people remember? This is the next step in that process, but I will need your compliance. Otherwise, this technology will never be accepted by the tribes.”

I lifted myself up and grabbed a coal in my hand as I said, “Think of this as purging your taint in fire.”

Kade glanced outside, the barrier around Nelastra reflecting a sublime sheen of orange in the distance. The blacksmith association’s was built on a hill, giving excellent sight of the surrounding area. Kade bit his inner lip, lost in thought before he hit himself in his head three times and said,

“Fuck...Alright. For my people.”

Growing a thick, gray scalpel from my palm, I said, “Hah, hah, hah. Perfect.”

Slice

Kade laid across a steel table, his anxiety palpable. Joan reassured him with a voice that echoed her own unease. As Sophia and I procured the tools and medicinal supplies, Kade’s breathing grew ragged. As I created a set of skin splitters as I called them, Kade said,

“Why would you need something like that?”

I kept forming the tool as I said, “For pulling your skin apart. If I use my hands, there may be far greater injury.” I turned towards him as I said, “Don’t worry. Any tool I make is steril.”

Kade blinked as he said, “You say that as your fingers grind into that gray blob you made.”

I turned back to the tool as I said, “In fact, I do. Sit still, or else this will hurt even more.”

Kade began mouthing the word what right as I stabbed a gray needle through his spine. The sharp spine pierced into the depths of his neck before gouging out the otherside. Orange blood, delicious as juice and thick as syrup, poured from the wound as Kade grunted. I leaned over him as I said,

“That is to hold you still. This won’t take long.”

His eyes glared full of hatred and brimming with unease before Sophia laid a her small hand across his metal cheek and said,

“It will be fine. I promise.”

Kade’s eyes met hers before his breathing calmed. Kade’s hands twitched before he closed them and murmured, “I’ll hold you to that.”

She smiled as she said, “Good. Keep that stubbornness. It’ll help quite a bit.”

She grabbed my gray scalpel before saying, “Turn him around.”

I turned the exiled saint onto his back, his skin clanking the wood. Kade grunted as I moved him, but he uttered no complaints. Sophia had given him a serenity. I hoped it would stay with him.

I grew talons from my thumb and the first two fingers of my right hand. Using my thumb and middle finger, I pierced a half inch into the nape of his neck. Kade grit his teeth as the talons sunk through his skin and into his flesh.

Taking my other talon, I sliced down the middle of his neck until I reached his spine. Kade’s hands gripped into the iron plated table, mushing the material like squeezing marrow from a bone. His breathing grew unsteady as I said,

“I’ll be spreading the wound for space during the operation. Prepare yourself.”

I grabbed the splitter I made and set it on his neck. Four prongs set onto the length of the wound before I began turning the torque. A spiral screw attached to a hinge, allowing me to turn a wheel and slowly ease the wound open. Without the leverage this tool offered, I’d be able to open his wound without jerking. Otherwise, I may gouge off his neck.

I am unused to using my strength with precision. Jack would be more able with this task.

However, Kade didn’t appreciate the slow, excruciating process. As I turned the screw, the prongs spread along with his wound. Tears fell from his eyes as he bit into a cloth Sophia supplied him earlier. His body convulsed, but the spine prevented him from thrashing his upper body.

I finished opening his wound as Sophia finished washing her hands with an alcohol solution. We used a variant of firewater from one of the tribes mixed with a mild acid. It worked well.

She placed the bladed end of the gray scalpel onto Kade’s open spine, her hand steady and still. With a slow, controlled movement, she slid the blade across the disk connecting his vertebrae. A clear fluid poured from the wound before I sopped the growing pool of blood with my hand.

Joan paced at the far side of the room, her hands darting around without purpose. She chewed her lip while we worked, yet Sophia stayed icy as a glacier. She had a habit of entering a mindset when diving into her work. She would ignore a crying baby and house fire during those times. When she focused with such tenacity, I liked the look in her eyes. It was like staring into a void. No information poured out. Information only streamed in.

That mindset allowed her to pry open the spine of Kade as I held him down. He fought the agony with all his being, but my empowered limbs left him still. He howled with a mired misery, like dog having its nails pulled out, one by one. Sophia heard a cold silence instead.

Without shaking, she grabbed a slice of yellow chrysoberyl, a gem with many of the same qualities of alexandrite. It would hold souls almost as well, but the mineral was far easier to find. Considering how many surgeries she and I would be performing, we needed a more common mineral than alexandrite, so we used chrysoberyl in its place.

She slipped the edge of the paper thin plate of gem into the small slit in Kade’s spine as I held him down. Using all this bodies new strength, I kept Kade still, but he writhed like a cornered animal. All composure left him by now. Tears rained down from his eyes. Patches of his skin shivered. His comprehension of physical agony expanded. Despite this, I wasn’t worried. He had a strong mind. He would hold his sanity, if only by a slither.

Sophia wasn’t worried either. She grabbed a batch of ironoak sap mixed with silk from the molten moths. With a thin brush, she slathered the solution onto the open portion of his spine, sticking the wound in place like a seal. As she removed her hands, I turned the spreader’s torque, giving the wound slack as I sopped up another pool of blood.

After closing the spreader’s legs, I pulled up the tool and set it on a table at our side. I grabbed the alcohol solution and poured a pool into Kade’s injury for only a second. In an instant, I soaked in the alcohol with my hand, preventing him from feeling infinite pain.

Sophia dabbed the brush in the adhesive as I made the razor sharp talons on my finger tips dull. As I pressed the flat claws at the ends of my fingers against the edges of the wound, Sophia dabbed a slight line of the solution onto the edges of Kade’s iron skin. As she ran her brush down the side of his gaping laceration, I pulled his iron skin together.

After setting the wound, she dabbed the solution onto the outer edge of the wound as I grabbed charged sapphires from a bag at my right. The twisted souls of monsters born in ice writhed at their centers, but I quelled my hunger. We needed these souls.

I as the solution dried, I placed the arctic gemstones onto the closed wound, leaking their crawling cool into hi injury. Kade’s howls ceased whenever we closed his wound. It was out of exhaustion rather than relief. His feet and hands still twitched at odd intervals. His breathing still lacked the steady pace of someone sleeping.

Still, the worst was over. Whenever he could control himself, Kade would awake with a direct filter preventing Gaia’s corruption from controlling his soul. He would be free from her invasive grasp, like letting a deer’s leg out of a bear trap. He would have his scars, but he would live and learn from them.

Well, either that or die. It mattered little.

His surgery allowed me to introduce the new technology in a way that wasinclusive. Up till now, few of our actions reduced the number of golems. If anything, we’d increased their number, so Aether’s anger over thewas justified. This would be our first step in fulfilling his hard earned wish. He deserved our support. He would have it.

The tribe’s deformities would decrease, and that would wilt people’s fear of the surgery. The surgery allowed the reduction of Gaia’s influence as well while destroying gemchaining and soul forging. In a word, it was a devious solution.

Sophia came up with the idea after hearing of what happened with Petra’s transformation. She believed that if that many souls could be drained into a single body, then surely an owner’s soul could be severed from their own. I believed it horrific at first, but the results differed from what I expected.

The patients ended up like Joan, controlling the momentum and might of their own spirit instead of destroying the souls of others for power. We would be able to obliterate the long held systems of this world without bloodshed. Joan’s unique circumstances allowed for this revolution.

So after tweaking my tools as we waited for Kade’s recovery, he awoke with a swollen neck and choked voice as he said,

“I feel different. Very different.”

Joan nodded before her white scar glowed white as a full moon as she said, “Your like me now.”

Kade blinked as a plume of fierce fire grew in her palm. While we traveled, Joan had practiced her skills, and now she could control her soul as well as she could chain, perhaps better.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“See? Isn't it awesome?”

Kade lifted an arm before pulling it sideways. As he did so, a sword shot across the room. The silver sword stabbed deep into the soot covered wall as he said, “It feels as easy as breathing now. I can't believe it.”

Sophia explained, “The slice of gem acts as a filter, preventing Gaia’s warped soul from controlling your mind and body. From what Jericho told me, you had powers similar to telekinesis, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Then they will increase as you master them further. The fact you where able to access this ability without having yourself operated on is increadible. You should be proud.“

I interjected, “You can control your body as well, to a certain extent. That should prevent you from dying due to your kinds stonification.”

Kade frowned as he said, “What’s the catch?”

I grinned as I said, “You will never feel Gaia again.”

He frowned as he said, “That's another perk.”

Joan nodded and said, “She's not as kind as people make her out to be.”

Kade turned to me as he said, “And you are not as evil as they say either.”

I shrugged and said, “it is relative. I have eaten many humans alive, destroyed a civilization, and created a process for disconnecting a people with their god. To many, I am the end. To others, I am abeginning.”

Kade grinned as he said. “My children will sing songs of you. Our halls will echo your history. The tribes will never forget this kindness.”

I rolled my eyes as I said, “I set out to destroy Gaia. Not help your people. Remember that.”

Kade opened a palm, slow and weak as he said, “But you still helped us.”

Joan grinned as she said, “No problem. It’s what we do.”

I frowned as I said, “Let's leave him. I can't stand his gratitude. It’s like drinking honey. So sweet that it's disgusting.”

As I turned and left, Sophia picked up our tools as Kade said, “Until we meet again, Darkened one.”

I raised a hand without turning away from the door, yet his smile saturated and soaked the air until I could hardly breath. I preffered his hatred. At least I could trust that.

We paced downstairs before devising a plan for making the surgery widespread. We sent several Blackirons to retrieve Kade, and he spoke of the benefits of the surgery, even demonstrating his augmentations. Over the next few hours, we performed dozens f surgeries on other Blackiron warriors until the blackmsith’s association swelled with metal not made for forging.

Several of their shaman’s learned the operation as we showed them. They accepted rather willingly, high off victory and hungry for power. We used the afterglow of their sudden freedom as a way of weakening their skepticism to potent affect. Within less than a day, the tribe worshipped my word like a messiah.

After three more days of converting the iron tribe, we spread knowledge of the miraculous surgery to other tribes. Using Kade as a figurehead, we created a movement that used the afterglow of achievement for converting these heathens. Within a week, all other tribes began the surgery.

Of course we worked ourselves weary during that time. I acted as a bridge between the humans and the tribes. In many respects, the reputation of Jericho remained untarnished since few knew of ,y sins against the church. I left no one alive to tell them.

Jack regained. Consciousness after the second week had passed. Much of the chaos had passed, and the tribes and saints already filled the void left behind by the palisade and king.

Kade recovers after his first week, and his iron skin retreated until he regained his human face. He acted as the leader of the tribes, and he quelled their booming bloodlust. His influence turned this red revolution into a humane one. In the end, the tribes acted with a consideration and kindness the humans never gave them.

The Bloodglaciers hunted down any living members of the royal family or Donovans while living in luxury at bastion’s castle. They created a cold haven for themselves at the center of Nelastra, accepting the surgery as a way of gaining their lost humanity.

The Titanic tribe stayed outside the barrier and rejected the surgery. Their kind’s intelligence never increased. Instead, they relied on the strength of their backs and the might of their arms amidst the forest. They enslaved a large portion of the humans along them when they left. A fitting end for such. A close minded people.

The beast runners grew close with the humans left in Nelastra. In exchange for their unique skills, humans formed close knit communities with them. They maintained the rich resource the other tribes forgoed. They kept the knowledge of Bastion’s capital alive.

Another tribe rose to prominence amidst the chaos as well, the wormwoods. They used decaying corpses for fueling their twisted abominations. Considering the state of Nelastra’s populace, they had plenty of fuel for their monsters. I considered destroying them, but they looked towards The Darkened One with reverence. They never gave me a concrete reason for their decimation, so I left the. I regretted that deely.

Solomon left the city after several days of wandering. We wouldn't see him until much later, surrounded by a monster made of dreams and nightmares. Ara rejoined the Bloodglaciers, relishing in the Donovan’s destruction. She drank the dark liquor of hatred until drunk, just as Jack had.

Many of the saints showed a demeanor unfitting for supposed saviors. Saint Talos, the giver of light used his power over luminescence for creating caves that noble Nelastrains would hide in for exorbitant prices. Saint Theis, the kindred forgiver sold each of his cures for heavy prices. Even Saint Naomi, healer of hearts used her control of love as a narcotic.

Desperation leaked into every facet of Nelastrian’s lives. Many died. Others evolved. Without the protection of society, the nobles turned to sponges waiting for a good squeeze. Every tribe used them. Many tortured their tormentors. Others gave mercy befitting the saints who skulk through the city.

The city stabilized within weeks, so since Jack deemed himself responsible for the turmoil that ensued, we would stay until order returned. We toiled and labored each and every hour from sunrise till sunset, ensuring the city stayed livable for humans and tribesmen alike.

During my own excursions, I discovered a lingering part of the palisade. While we’d decimated their ranks, a few survived the ordeal and escaped. They carried their experiments with them. I’d wondered who would take them in, but I found their caregivers quickly.

The Wormwoods worshipped the palisades experimentation with holy fervor. They viewed the manipulation of the body as a natural evolution. The palisade disagreed, but after skulking through Nelastra at night, I discovered signs.

Viens spread across a portion of earth above their little cave. They hid under the earth, biding their time till they could come out and ravage this city. The situation could devolve , so I discussed the matter with Jack. He responded poorly.

Within minutes, we visited the Wormwood’s lair at the southeastern corner of the city, near the palisades abandoned stronghold. The decay, death, and desolation here proved perfect for their needs. They scrounged and molded bodies into hulking mounds, each of them plastered like balls of rotting ground beef. With a little sorcery as they called it, they’d animate these balls of flesh into giant guardians. In my eyes, they proved interesting.

Jack found them far less than fascinating.

In fact, you could even say I found them repulsive, but it’s all perspective anyway. I passed through the ruins of Nelastra, amazed at the city’s tenacity. The torches still burned, powered by souls that still lingered within them. The phosphorescent fauna gleamed and glowed. The golems of before maintained their previous work routes, oblivious of the destruction around them.

Most of the city’s functions had been automated in a sense, not needing any maintenance or care for their continued function. That kept Nelastrians rich with resources outside of food, which they traded for their skills with the tribes. The noble’s blatant abuse of their pricing stopped after the fall as they called it.

I strutted past an abandoned alley, the windows of each house shattered and drops of blood scabbed onto the sides of each building. A tiny body hung from the edge of a window. The empty eyes glared at me with a pale face behind them, yet I no pang of guilt stabbed my side. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I couldn’t care.

After taking on the barrier’s energy, I felt less for those around me. I numbed and froze and forgot about those around me. The shock heightened my sense of touch, yet destroyed my empathy. Either that or the sheer volume of pain I experienced let me discount the pain of those around me.

Regardless, I found the change unsettling. Even Deluge remarked about the sudden shift in mentality. Instead of walking around with genuine concern for my fellow man, I peered with a cold, creeping stare, like glancing at a doll instead of a human. I moved out of a sense of duty instead of concern, a piece of what I once was. In that child’s empty stare, I found my own two eyes staring back, just as empty and lifeless and void.

Still, I tread past the alleyway and down a set of stairs with purpose behind each step. I had set out to make this world a better place, and I hadn’t lost sight of that just yet. If I followed my feelings from the beginning, I’d have died a slave.

No, I conquered these emotions of mine. That’s why I walked with thumping steps towards the Wormwood’s little hideout. They must of thought I was a fool for letting them gather so many corpses, for letting them create so many monsters. They knew nothing.

I let them clean the decay from Nelastra to a single point before tearing them apart. I learned from the Palisade that letting uncontrollable elements remain causes more harm than it prevents.

With that in mind, I reached over a hill that reached a golem’s roadway. These traced all through Nelastra in giant circles, each carved into the hillside and covered in bricks wedged tighter than a beggar’s pocket. The Wormwoods removed some of these brick and burrowed into the hillside while using bones for supporting their cavern. So scary.

I hunched over as I walked under the short roof, my form casting a long, dark shadow into the cavern. As I reached fifteen feet inside, a short white goblin of a man walked up and said,

“Who dares tread inside our lair? We will...ah...The Darkened One.”

I rolled my eyes as I said, “Yes, the one and only. I’m here to discuss important matters with the head of your tribe.”

The pale goblin man blinked before saying, “We haven’t heard from any messengers about this. What are these important matters you speak of?”

I sighed before rearing back a palm. The goblin man’s eyes opened wide right as I swung forward and clapped his skull against the side of the cavern. A loud crunch echoed across the chasm along with the scent of fresh flesh. Without thinking, my joints cracked and popped into place as I prepared my body for combat.

With a sarcastic tone, Deluge said in my mind, “Why not try talking your way through things? We did it that way before.”

I replied, “That was when it was necessary. These mongrels are continuing the palisades work. You’ve heard.”

“Using the writhing mutants left behind by the palisade was a rather unsettling sign. I find their work fascinating, however.”

“I do not. They will all die.”

“I remember the ignorant child who’d have let these worms live.”

“I am a child no longer.”

“You are a human no longer.”

It pained me, but I couldn’t disagree. Without replying, I stomped further into the cavern, the bones shivering around me with each step. By the time I reached the inside of the cavern, these mongrels ran around in their dark cave, hidden in darkness.

As they scurried around the entrance, I grabbed the edge of the wall, crunching a femur as I said, “I am The Darkened One. Did you believe the darkness would stop me?”

Like a bloodhound, I used sound and scent as I dashed forward towards the closest blot of smell. My hand wrapped around soft meat before blood erupted in the air. Screams bounced across the walls before I mushed my hands through his body like a child squishing clay.

Without waiting, I shot towards the next closest tribesman, my growl causing them to howl. I slashed a five clawed hand through the cluster of smell, the wet slosh of blood spraying across my arm.

My skin absorbed the wet as I darted around, coating the room with entrails. Bodies lay sliced and slivered and skinned. Their whole clan lay deformed and lifeless, their heritage ended. Shocked screams shot through the air,

“Get the guardians. He has turned on us. The Darkened One has forsaken us.”

I growled in reply, “I must be a convenient excuse for your obsessions with death.”

Within minutes, the room’s only sounds were my own breathing and the squirting blood from arteries as stragglers bled out. Grabbing a fire opal, I lit the room, revealing the carnage. White and red lay humped on the floor. Several corpses smeared against the wall, like balloons full of blood.

Passing the massacre, a deep grumbling grew from within the cavern as I skulked downwards. Rumors floated around about what the Wormwoods had done. Their hunger for dead flesh outgrew their supply, so they killed for their twisted passions. The palisade worked with them, using the Wormwood’s knowledge as a catalyst for their own experiments. I wouldn’t allow it any longer.

They lived as shadows of the palisade, and I would end them.

So I sprinted through hallways line with bones. As I descended deeper, familiar signs showed themselves. Wrapping around the bones, gargantuan arteries pumped and drained blood from fresh bodies. They must of been the source for Petra’s transformation. All the more reason to kill them.

That anger swelled in my chest and infected my mind. I hated these monsters. I despised them. I wanted to see the light in their eyes dim. I wanted their blood out of their bodies and on the floor and across the walls and splattered on broken bones.

That hatred blinded me as I tread onwards while using Deluge’s preferred form. I’d practiced using it since Deluge defeated Krakowah and Ara. Without the extra limbs, we’d have perished then, so I practiced until I sweat tears and leaked blood. Along with the ability of storing souls in my form’s flesh, I wielded a power I’d never known.

The power was malevolent, crawling, and ugly, yet Solomon and Aether fought a fight I would never be able to. Instead of just striking, they destroyed. Instead of battling, they obliterated. With a new avenue for augmentation, I could come closer, if only by an inch. Otherwise, I’d amount to mere fodder in any meaningful clash.

The souls gave and gained in the process. Each time I stored another new soul, a set of voices grew in my mind. I could feel their emotions tearing into my psyche whenever I held them despite all my efforts for containing them. Instead of dealing with pain, I faced a fierce storm of hatred and loathing and anger. Fighting grew ever more difficult because of this, but I imagined it as if wielding a larger sword.

It was heavier and harder to use, yet its destructive potential was higher. I boiled the process down to a single phrase, power through dominance. If I overwhelmed the wills within me, they’d give me their strength. That was the time to use it.

So I gathered five souls, holding them without a struggle. Imagine sharing several people’s mind within your own. It provided a desperate hassle at times, yet I found myself with a will harder than glass and infectious as evil. You’d be amazed how simple it is to oppress. If you push, most tend to bend.

And so I bended the souls and the bodies of the wormwoods, submerged in my anger. I could drown in my rage, endless and abominable, so I breathed it in. I crawled through a tunnel, my upper arms scraping the tunnel’s top. The air turned dryer till Deluge said,

“Incredible. The veins are sapping the nearby moisture.”

As a vein pulsed beside me, I said, “It seems as though they’ve created another Petra.”

“They’ve created more than just one.”

My steps turned to stomps. My calm trot transformed into a berserker’s charge. I smashed through a door of bones before tearing another room into slithers. More mush remained than limbs or fully formed organs. I crushed the carcasses. I smashed each and every of them, from their elders to their newborn babies.

I found a home in that darkness around me. No one would know who, what, or why I did what I did besides myself. That was a dark time in my life. The Wormwoods held the unfortunate circumstances of setting me off at the wrong time.

By the time I reached the darkest depths of their little base, the brown and black walls of dirt seeped crimson with a deep dye of red. I bathed in red without smothering. I loved the gush and squish and snap and smash of retribution. It almost disgusts me how much I enjoyed it. Almost.

The bones gave way to pillars wrapped in veins of all sizes. They pumped and pulsed every few seconds, living like a beating heart in your hand. Bits of metal between the pulsing organs reflected an orange light from torches nearby. Within clear tubes full of pus and floating gems, several withered corpses sat within, gray and withered.

As I neared them, I tapped the glass. A set of the eyes opened from within. The eyes opened wider as my eyes met theirs. They must have expected a heroic rescuer from all the noise coming from above. I wasn’t so sad that I disappointed them. Being a saint’s far harder than being a monster.

You see, there are no saints in this world. Just demons who’ve half hidden how harrowing their souls are. I, in particular, hid mine rather poorly.

Still, I winced at the sight of how dilapidated these living corpses kept alive. Deluge murmured, “They rival our own tenacity, don’t they?”

I reached a hand back before clapping my hands together. His skull squished into pulp while I said, “ as Deluge absorbed the souls within the gems and the body. The heads of the other withered corpses turned to me, some looking fearful but most looking relieved. If I’d had my soul milked, I’d be wilted and weak as well.

I gave them what little mercy I could. As I killed the final storage pod, a white light popped into view. The center of the room lit, revealing the kneeling form of a muscled man. The extra light revealed the veins ending at the tubes. Jutting from each tube, a set of covered cords dug into this man’s back, his form heaving.

As I approached, the sheen of sweat and dirt on the man revealed his utter exhaustion. Even without stepping beside him, the smell of body odor and grease permeated from him. Two cords pulled at his arms apart as he glanced up at the light. The black cloth covering his face muffled his groaning.

I already knew who he was by then. I’d smelled him before. I walked up and said,

“Like father like daughter then.”

He roared at the top of his lungs as I ripped his mask off. He glanced towards me, drool dripping from a ravenous and vengeful scowl. He howled with all his heart and soul until his voice grew hoarse. As he quieted, I leaned down towards him and said with a distorted voice,

“Hello, Gallen.”