Shadow stood in his human form, surveying the silent figures before him. The grand mansion of Hlath, once a den of corruption filled with the twisted magic of the hags, now stood purified, its dark enchantments dismantled. What was once a place of horror had been transformed into a sanctuary, now serving as the home of Halsin and Lump. But even in its newfound peace, Shadow had work to do.
Before him, a dozen figures dressed in dark, seamless armor stood eerily still, their faces obscured beneath smooth, featureless masks. Their bodies radiated a sense of quiet menace, waiting with perfect discipline for his command. These were not mere men—they were drones, organic constructs birthed by Alpha, imbued with fragments of his own abilities. Designed with one purpose: to track down and purge the infestation of tadpoles that clung to the minds of the unwitting.
Each of them carried a portion of Alpha’s gifts. Their bodies could heal wounds in moments, their minds could bend the thoughts of others, and their forms could shift like liquid shadow. They were the unseen blades in the dark, the silent executioners of an infection that had plagued the city for far too long.
Shadow could feel their presence humming within the hive mind, their collective consciousness linked to his own. He was their commander, their guiding will. The mission had been set, the parameters clear.
The weight of responsibility settled on his shoulders, but he did not falter. He had been given the order—there was no turning back now.
A single thought pulsed through the shared link, a silent decree that resonated within the minds of his creations.
'Move.'
Without a sound, the figures vanished, swallowed by the shifting darkness. Tendrils of shadow enveloped them, their forms dissolving into the night as they spread out into the city. They would cleanse the minds tainted by the Netherbrain’s influence, ripping the parasites free from their hosts. Some would be saved. Others would not survive.
Shadow exhaled, his crimson eyes lingering on the empty space where his soldiers had stood just moments before. The battle against the Absolute was not yet won, but tonight, the city would begin to heal.
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Alex slithered through the shadows past the temple gate. The Temple of Bhaal was built like a massive cylinder, its towering walls curving upwards into darkness. It bore the same crumbling architecture as the rest of the forsaken ruins Alex had seen. A massive obelisk that once reached for the temple’s ceiling had collapsed, its fractured remains vanishing into the abyss below. Others leaned precariously, barely holding onto their fragile existence, their surfaces slick with the dried remnants of ancient slaughter.
The cavernous interior of the temple reeked of death and decay, the air thick with the stench of dried blood and burnt offerings. Shadows stretched unnaturally along the jagged stone walls, twisting in the flickering glow of sacrificial braziers that burned with a sickly red hue. Every surface bore the marks of agony, from the splintered stone to the grotesque carvings of tormented faces frozen in silent screams.
At the heart of the temple lay a vast, circular platform of blackened stone, its surface engraved with dark, crimson-stained symbols that pulsed with an eerie, malevolent energy.
A long-forgotten altar dominated the center of the platform, a massive obsidian slab slick with congealed blood. Jagged runes, carved by hands long since turned to dust, radiated a silent menace, whispering dark secrets to any who dared to look too closely.
Above it all, carved into the temple’s towering wall, loomed an enormous stone effigy of Bhaal himself. His hollow eyes, dark and empty, seemed to watch over the temple with a hunger that transcended time. The skeletal visage was more than just an idol; it was a promise—death was not an end but a beginning, an eternal passage into the embrace of the Lord of Murder.
A thick, cloying mist, deep red like freshly spilled blood, clung to the temple’s edges, writhing like living tendrils around the cold stone steps that led deeper into the abyss. Every breath felt like an intrusion, an unwelcome presence in a place built for suffering and slaughter.
Beneath the towering effigy, a long, winding hall led deeper into the temple—toward Orin’s sanctum. Alex could feel her mind lurking in the depths beyond. He could hear the murmured conversations of her disciples, hushed voices speaking in reverence and madness. The path was littered with bones, skulls arranged in grotesque patterns, their hollow sockets seeming to watch his every move. The walls were painted in crimson, the dried blood forming obscene murals dedicated to Bhaal’s unending thirst.
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Alex carefully slithered through the shadows, making his way toward Orin's chamber.
From his concealed vantage point, his gaze swept across the grotesque sanctum, taking in the horrors that lay before him.
The chamber, like the rest of the temple, was a shrine to slaughter. The floor was slick with drying blood, the walls adorned with flayed skin and ancient glyphs scrawled in crimson. Bones, shattered and whole alike, littered the ground, some stacked into macabre arrangements, others left where they had fallen. At the center of the room stood a raised stone platform, atop which a lavish yet nightmarish bed had been erected. It was draped in sheets of stitched-together flesh, its fabric soaked through with the lifeblood of countless victims. The sickly-sweet stench of rot and iron clung to the air, thick enough to choke on.
His eyes moved to the right, where Orin sat on the cold, bloodstained floor. Her knees were drawn to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them, her crimson gaze fixed on the figure before her. The daughter of Bhaal—murderer, predator, monster—looked small in that moment. Broken. Her body, usually poised like a blade ready to strike, was curled inward, shrunken beneath the weight of something that not even she could bear.
And then Alex saw her.
Helena Anchev.
Or what was left of her.
Orin’s mother was a haunting specter of suffering, her frail body encased in a grotesque metal shrine adorned with jagged, blood-rusted spikes that pierced through her emaciated frame. Her flesh, once full of life, had withered into something that barely resembled human skin, stretched thin over fragile bones like translucent parchment. What had once been soft curves and warmth was now little more than a contorted husk, robbed of every semblance of humanity. Her limbs were twisted in an unnatural embrace, her arms crossed over her hollow chest, as if she were still trying to protect herself from the torment that had long since consumed her.
Her face was frozen in an eternal mask of despair. Her sunken eyes, dulled by suffering and resignation, stared unseeingly into the abyss, their luster long since drained by the endless agony of her existence. Her lips, cracked and bloodless, were slightly parted, as though she had tried to cry out but had long ago lost the strength to do so. Her hair, once rich and full, had become brittle, tangled strands of faded silver that clung to her face and shoulders like remnants of a life that had been stolen away.
The shrine itself was a monument of cruelty, constructed of tarnished gold and lined with symbols of death. Skulls were carved into its surface, their hollow sockets staring outward in silent mockery, as if bearing witness to her eternal suffering. At her feet, a pool of congealed blood had formed, an unholy offering to the god of murder. The flickering candlelight cast cruel, elongated shadows across the macabre display, highlighting the sharp edges of the spikes that had long since torn into her flesh. It was both a prison and a display—an altar to her torment.
It was as though the walls themselves mourned her fate, their ancient stones soaked in the screams of those who had perished within this cursed temple.
Yet, for all the horror, there was something deeply tragic about her. Helena Anchev had once been a mother—a woman who had held life within her, who had nurtured and protected. Once, she had loved. Once, she had lived. Now, she was nothing more than a relic of pain, an eternal sacrifice to a god who demanded nothing but death.
Orin did not speak. She did not move. She simply watched, her expression unreadable.
Alex's netherstone embedded in his chromatic orb flashed, and in an instant, they disappeared.
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The void stretched endlessly around them, an expanse of pure white nothingness. There was no ground, no sky—only silence and the two figures suspended in its weightless embrace. Alex stood a short distance away, his expression unreadable, while Orin remained unmoving—knees drawn to her chest, her crimson-stained hands clutching at her arms as if trying to hold herself together.
She was shaking, not with fear or rage, but with something deeper, something that gnawed at the very core of her being. There was no fight left in her, no venom in her gaze. Just a hollow emptiness that had been creeping through her for longer than she dared to admit. Her entire existence had been violence, but now that even her god had forsaken her, there was nothing left. No purpose, no meaning, nothing.
"You took everything from me," Orin whispered, her voice dull and lifeless.
Alex didn’t respond immediately. He simply watched her, his expression impassive.
Orin exhaled a bitter, broken laugh, but there was no humor in it. "I spent my whole life dedicated to Bhaal. Every breath, every kill, every drop of blood spilled—I thought it meant something. That I meant something."
Her nails dug into her arms, carving red crescents into her pale skin as she looked down, staring past her own body as if searching for something that had never been there. "And then he came along. A thing made by the god himself. He wasn’t just a chosen—he was his creation. His masterpiece. And no matter how much I tried, no matter how many I killed, I could never compare."
Her shoulders trembled violently, and when she finally lifted her gaze, her eyes were lost, defeated.
Her fingers curled into her hair, pulling as her breath hitched. "But even now, as I clutch the last fragments of my god’s existence, he says nothing. He doesn’t care. He never did. I was nothing more than a shadow, chasing after something I could never be."
Her body shuddered, and for the first time, she let the tears fall. They streaked her bloodstained face, cutting through the filth and madness like fragile, broken glass. "My whole life… I was nothing."
Her breath came in ragged sobs now, her body rocking slightly as if she were a child, lost and abandoned. "All I wanted was to be seen," she whispered. "To be something. To matter. But I never did. I never… I never will."
Alex watched her, his expression as still as the void around them. A part of him felt the faintest tinge of pity, a hollow echo of understanding. But it was not enough. Not for what she had done. Not for the lives she had stolen, for the countless innocents butchered under her blade.
She had been too far gone for salvation long before this moment. And she knew it.
Orin choked on another sob, her head tilting back as a hollow, broken laugh escaped her lips. "There’s nothing left. No god to answer. No future to chase. Only you. And death."
She threw him her dagger, where the netherstone that granted her regeneration lay embedded.
Alex caught it and slowly extracted the netherstone. His chest split open, and the stone drifted into his chromatic orb, drawn by the other. As soon as they met, they clicked together, fusing into one.
Orin closed her eyes, her body shuddering as the last of her tears fell.
Alex exhaled, his gaze dark and resolute. The weight of justice, of mercy, of inevitability pressed down on him as he stepped forward. He did not relish this. He did not hate her. But he would grant her the only mercy left to give.
The void swallowed the sound of his approach. And then, in a single, fluid motion, the blade struck true.
Her head fell to the floor, her eyes closed.
And Orin, daughter of Bhaal, was no more.
Alex stood over Orin’s crumpled body, his gaze impassive as a faint wisp of energy—her soul—rose from the corpse. It drifted upward, flickering weakly like a dying ember in the void that surrounded them. He raised his hand, and the wisp floated toward him, hovering just above his palm. A soft golden and silvery aura wrapped around it, pulsating with fragile remnants of life and identity. For a moment, Alex simply observed it, feeling the weight of what it represented—the final essence of a life spent in blood and madness.
Then, without a word, he lifted his hand, releasing the soul. It drifted away, fading into the abyss before vanishing entirely. Without hesitation, Alex placed a hand on Orin’s lifeless body, and from his arms, dark tendrils of flesh sprouted, writhing like starving serpents. They coiled around her remains, absorbing them into the endless abyss of his being. The husk of Bhaal’s chosen daughter disappeared, leaving nothing behind.
A portal split open before him, its swirling depths void-black, devouring the light .
Rising to his feet, Alex stepped through the portal.
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He emerged into a fractured, desolate plane—an expanse of blackened rock floating in a sea of absolute darkness. The platform beneath him was cracked and barely stable, barely spanning a few dozen meters. Beyond it, nothing but void stretched in every direction. The air was thick with an oppressive silence, heavy and suffocating, as if the very concept of life had been drained from this place.
And before him stood Bhaal.
The god of murder was a wretched husk of his former self, a walking corpse barely clinging to existence. His form was emaciated beyond mortal comprehension, as though the centuries of neglect and dwindling worship had hollowed him from the inside out. His skin was like ancient parchment—cracked, dry, stretched too thin over brittle bones. Deep fissures marred his withered flesh, leaking the last remnants of divine essence like sluggish, congealed blood. The skeletal contours of his ribs and spine jutted grotesquely beneath the frail remnants of his being, as though his body had already begun the slow process of unraveling into dust.
His eyes, once burning pits of smoldering crimson, were now dim and flickering, reduced to dying embers swallowed by an encroaching abyss. The arrogance that had once defined him, the unholy confidence of a god who reveled in carnage, had long since rotted away, leaving only a feral desperation—a cruel, hollow thing grasping for a power that had long abandoned him. His long, tattered hair, once flowing like a river of darkness and blood, hung in greasy, unkempt strands around his skeletal face, matted with the filth of ages.
His robes—once resplendent in the dark majesty of a death god—were now little more than rotted, blackened rags clinging to his wasted frame. The fabric, once soaked in the blood of uncountable sacrifices, had lost its strength, sagging limply over his bony shoulders, failing to conceal the grotesque decay beneath. His hands, once the dreaded instruments of massacre, had deteriorated into skeletal claws, the elongated nails jagged and uneven, coated in the dried remnants of forgotten slaughter. They trembled as they hung at his sides—not in fear, but in weakness.
Bhaal was no longer a god. He was a remnant, a decayed echo of past horrors, clawing at the edges of oblivion, desperately seeking something—anything—to keep himself from being erased completely.
He was dying.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and absolute.
Bhaal’s smoldering, sunken eyes lifted to meet Alex’s gaze, a twisted smirk pulling at the ragged corners of his lips. His voice, once a booming command of death itself, now came as a whisper—a dry, rasping hiss like brittle bones scraping against stone.
"You... you think you’ve won?" Bhaal croaked, his voice barely more than a sigh of wind through a graveyard. "You stand before me… before the God of Murder… and believe you have the right to end me?" A wet, hacking laugh rattled from his hollow chest, sending flecks of blackened ichor dripping from his lips. "Fool. Murder never dies. I am in every blade, every whisper of treachery, every hand that spills blood in anger."
Alex took a slow step forward, the platform beneath them cracking underfoot as if the realm itself rejected Bhaal’s continued presence. He regarded the god with cold indifference. "You are nothing more than a corpse clinging to the echoes of slaughter long past. Your own creation turned against you. Your daughter sought your favor and found nothing. Your faithful will abandon you. You are just another name in the dirt."
Bhaal’s body trembled, a mixture of rage and something deeper—fear. "You... cannot erase me," he spat. "As long as blood is spilled, I will find a way back." His voice wavered, the bravado crumbling as his own frailty betrayed him. "I will return. You cannot stop the tide of slaughter. You cannot—"
"No," he said simply. "You won’t."
The chromatic orb embedded in his chest pulsed, radiating a wave of ethereal energy that hungrily latched onto Bhaal. The god's hollow eyes widened in horror as the last remnants of his essence were pulled from his decayed form, siphoned into the abyss within the orb. He tried to flee, tried to grasp at anything, but his strength had long since waned. His body quivered, then collapsed onto his knees. His fingers clawed weakly at the void, at existence itself, but there was nothing left to hold onto.
A final, wretched scream tore from his throat as his body withered into dust, swept away by the currents of oblivion.
For the first time in untold centuries, the God of Murder was no more.
Alex reappeared in Orin’s chamber, his form materializing like a specter of doom. His steps were slow, deliberate, as he ascended the central platform of the temple. His gaze swept the vast chamber, taking in the gathering of Bhaal’s faithful. They surrounded him, poised like ravenous beasts ready to tear into their prey.
From the higher balconies, archers nocked arrows, crossbowmen steadied their arbalests, their steel tips trained on him. Below, robed acolytes wove deadly spells between their fingers, dark incantations coiling in the air like serpents ready to strike. The grand stone doors of the temple shook with the force of panicked fists, desperate hands clawing at its surface. Yet no matter how hard they pounded, the exit remained sealed. Trapped.
Alex looked upon them—not with anger, nor with pity, but with a chilling finality. His eyes, twin voids of endless night, glowed with an eerie, inescapable fate. The silence stretched, thick with the scent of old blood and burning tallow.
Then, in a voice as cold and absolute as the grave, he spoke but a single word.
“Die.”
It was not a command. It was a verdict.
The moment the syllable left his lips, the air in the temple turned heavy, oppressive, as though the hand of death itself had settled upon the congregation. A heartbeat passed in eerie stillness—then bodies collapsed like marionettes with their strings severed. Warriors, priests, assassins—none were spared. The spellcasters’ lips parted, their incantations dying unfinished as their bodies hit the bloodstained stone. Arrows and bolts fell harmlessly from lifeless fingers.
The temple, once a place of ceaseless bloodshed and whispered prayers to Bhaal, was now silent. The god they had worshiped was gone, and with his fall, so too did his chosen perish.
The shadows at Alex’s feet writhed, coiling like living things, and in a single breath, they surged upward, swallowing him whole. When the darkness receded, he was gone—only the corpses remained, left to rot in the temple of a dead god.