𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑—𝐇𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐑

.ೃ࿐ ᴸᵉᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ᶠᵉᵃˢᵗ ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵉⁿᶜᵉ.

Once essential hunger precautioning him of death, now only superficial desperation. Gluttony. —Palace Of Ulric Labyrinths, Elvira Crest.

|Hezkeil- Date unknown|

"FOLLOW THE instructions given to you by your superiors," came a stringent demand, the voice belonging to the large man who stood at the peak of the kingdom walls, overwatching the horror taking place below them. Black and white battled below, the clashes of metal and blood reverberating the space. His bright brow lifted as he took a glance at the small battalion in waiting just behind him, fingers in rigid salute. Ginger, almost so light you would think he was missing them as the light of the battle before they shun on him. The black robes that cloaked him swayed light against his shins, hair unmoving as the shortly outgrown buzz glared furious in the sunlight, his head adorned with scars of many triumphs of his battles before.

A woman snapped into salute beside him, muttering a single sentence before her lips quivered into a taped close, "Offensive contact has been made with Orcus's Kerr, 2nd general sir!" She hesitantly cleared her throat before continuing, "Four of our units have been demolished, sir, reports say the bodies are not retrievable...they have been secured by enemy personnel and..to be..."

"Yes?"

"Burned and displayed, sir."

"Savages!" an enraged voice broke from the formation, an outcry that was quickly hushed with warning glares from the superior officers stood before the crowd.

No reply was given by the second general, only the slight uplift of the man's lip as he turned back to the fight before them, the weak stroke of wind picking up at the dark robes that bore his Hezkeil crest.

A low hum rumbled low of his throat as he spoke, "Any deserters will be punished with the blood of their families. Whether that is in the form of the Hezkeil front capturing them after the battle as blood traitors or the Orcus brutes claiming your homes, raping and murdering your loved ones and completely wiping our race out of existence." He lifted his hand, reaching up to the endless skies. "Either way, we must hold strong and commence with our mission." A brutal buzz resounded in the air as he dropped his arm to point to the havoc taking place before then in a chopping motion, jumping off both the dead and the living.

"The termination of Kerr Gregn."

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|??|

THE CAVERN respired a sigh of dim secrets, every buffering candle radiating its light upon the weathered stone. A tapestry of disconcerting emblems clung to the rocky walls, a mosaic of a disfigured bull that seemed to leer with malevolent intent. Chains, formidable and unforgiving, melded into the very bedrock of the cave, there hold a relentless grasp on the figure they shackled.

Amidst the darkness, the man endured, a captive spirit yearning to break free from his chains, both physical and metaphysical. As the candles flickered and the symbols twisted in a mocking dance, his mind churned with a maelstrom of rage and obsession. The tales the cultists whispered were his lifeline, a crooked assurance of redemption that he clung to even as his sanity teetered on the trim.

Crimson sobbed out to him as it flooded from the cracks of his now destroyed skin, marring what little remained untouched by the cruelty of himself and those who had imprisoned him. He didn't care for the pattern of feet turning short corners away from where he sat, not completely flat in pace but separate in their strides as his chains stabbed into his body, tugging and keeping him leashed like a mutt.

Insufferable, deplorable, insufficient insects.

There was a sort of freedom that came to obtaining pain and suffering not obtained by his tormentors, a baring that was a consequence of his own. The cave was a lively quiet, allowing the drips of his blood to boom in competition with the gods' own egos.

In the cold embrace of the midnight hour, the man's scarred and partly dismembered fingers dug at the bygone scars of his body, his one unwounded eye glinting with a crazed determination. He had been clawing at his own face, peeling at his skin to eat. His captors had taken measures to try and prevent him from peeling his face bald of skin, from wrapping and binding his hands to cutting off his fingers to nubs, but the man would still find ways to tear away from his constraints or use what little was left of his instruments to harm himself, always finding ways to resume his self-mutilation.

"Fucking animal," a man's rough voice spat, finally revealing the owner of the once incoming footsteps, now looking down at the sight before him. Their prisoner's fingers were growing back, though not mature enough to form new fingers, it was still enough to see the bones protruding from the meat of the open wound nubs. He had used the opportunity of this new growth to peel at this face, rip his skin and chew on it like it were his reward for having to wait out for the expiration of his previous amputation. "Have mercy."

"It's clearly not working," another voice pipped up behind them, a young girl their prisoner assumed, late teens at best. Her mask was angled in a way he could tell she had her sights on him, and without a doubt, if her mask was off, disgust and fear would be all that would be left on display for the disgruntled male on the floor.

He couldn't see their faces behind their disfigured animal masks, but their voices gave details away. He would spend his hours in confinement defining and structuring their faces in his head, anything to match with the voices of the people who had spent years dunking water upon his wounded and tattered skin for cleansing, bound and held him down for feeding, dragged him by the throat for defecation. He had built them.

"Yeah, clearly," the elder captor spat back in reply, annoyance more directed at the man on the floor than it was his younger companion. "But what choice do we have? We need him conscious." He placed the metallic tray of hard bread and green-looking soup on the floor, standing tall and using the toe of his boot to push it away from the chained man. "Meralida, go get the knife," he said, not looking away from the man who chewed away at the flakes of his own skin in between his teeth, smiling up at him, deranged.

He had been here for years, the details of his past a jigsaw puzzle he struggled with and had quickly thought to give up assembling. But now, in the depths of despair, he found a strange kind of clarity—an understanding of myths, tales, the key to his survival.

Breakage.

There was silence as she remained in her spot, only eyeing the captive man. Her companion turned sharply to her, "Meralida," he hissed, suggesting with a nod of his head to the other side of the room. "Knife."

"You wanna know," came that strangled voice, one they hadn't heard for the many nights which had expired since they had found themselves here, overlooking the scarred man before him. A faint gasp came from the back of the room, where Meralida stood, palm open and no longer clasping the knife that was previously in her hold which found the stone floor below them with a resounding clatter.

"What did you just say?" came the shocked whisper from the man behind the animal mask, body still and his brain wracked to actualize the words and voice of their prisoner before him. He crouched before the man, close but still towering as he bent from the knees. Nobody spoke for a bit, their prisoner no longer willing to grace them with his voice.

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"Bastard," the older capture hissed, striking the other man in the face, the dents and curves of open wounds leaving a strange sensation on his palm as he grabbed the man by his hair, yanking him up with a nasty tug as he said, "Fucking say it again, speak!"

"He said," spoke a new and foreign voice, startling the crouched man into a stood attention, his eyes falling to the pool of blood that was streaming across the stone. Meralida. "Would you like to know?"

"What..." the masked man muttered, both not understanding the regurgitated question and how he had not heard the departure of his younger friend. That's...it's not...Meralida isn't weak, I would've heard. I would have...

"What's wrong, Semon?" the voice lopped around him, tying him in place with unseen binds of his own. A portion of him felt sick at that voice, the one he was so desperate to hear again some moments ago, though now it looked over him, left no place for muttered sorrow as it pretended some time ago.

"Kerr," Semon blurted out in dread, quickly turning and stumbling back at the sight of the man now standing tall behind him, chains no longer connected to his beat body and limbs no longer showing signs of amputation.

That's not possible, Semon thought in a panic to himself, they were just growing in. I saw it with my own eyes, that's not possible; it's not—

"That's not possible," he mumbled out without thought, eyes glued to Kerr Gregn's now grown fingers, looking as if they had never been cut in their entire life. Enraged tears were forming behind his mask, voice cracking as his eyes found Kerr's own again. "How long..."

A smile sat on the other man's face. "A year," he said as a matter of fact, devouring the incoherent mumbles leaving his captor. "A year of me letting you cut me, letting you degrade me, a year of watching." He huffed out amused, eyes falling to the anonymous man watching the scene from behind the pair. "A year of me not killing you, a year of me remembering. A year of grace. Can you even comprehend such control?"

Kerr strode forward, towering taller than Semon who seemed to be short-circuiting at the revelation of such deception. "I-I don't understand. I-I—"

"I-I," Kerr cut him off in mock, smiling grand, shattering his space. "You don't understand because you're nothing," he said, clasping to the throat of the shorter man who seemed to only now register the closed distance and danger that was on him, crushing his throat with a titanium grip as he withered in his hold, shoes scraping and scratching against the floors. Kerr kept his grip on Semon's throat for some minutes, watching the struggle until he could feel the other man growing limp in his hold, dying.

Wouldn't be fair to waste...

In a smooth motion, he flicked the mask off Semon's face, watching the brown and ashen locks that had been held in place by the mask flood his face. An annoyed grumble fell Kerr's lips as he took in the man's face. Damn it.

"I imagined him to be a little more pleasant to look at," Kerr spoke out, letting the dead body of Semon drop to the floor with a thump. "But he does have a streak of disappointing. I have only myself to blame," he finished, lifting his head from the dead and to the man in the corner who watched the scene unmoved.

"I'll tell you what never disappoints," the mysterious man piped, strolling closer to the scene, not bothered by the killing machine which stood before. "The excellence and success of Kerr Gregn."

"Flattery only works on those who care," Kerr shot back, striding closer to the man. "And I hate to break it to you, but I rarely care about anything."

Similar to how he had done with Semon, Kerr towered over the man, shadows veiling the man in Kerr's own craft of darkness. "Is that why you fought against Hezkeil's men? Because you didn't care?"

"I fought in that war because I was famished," Kerr spoke slick, watching the man before him hesitate as he digested the answer. He wasn't a fool, if he knew of Kerr Gregn, there's no doubt he understood the meaning behind Kerr's claimed hunger.

The man let free a chuckle in his head, eyeing Kerr. How surreal...Kerr Gregn, the humanity devourer.

"Is that all?"

Silence.

"I don't think I can fit the two of you in my stomach in one sitting," Kerr declared, staring him down with a dark scowl. "What do you want?"

"I'm a third general under the second section of the Ignatius Regime," the man revealed, pulling a small and lazy salute at the man. Kerr didn't reply, only waiting for him to elaborate. Ignatius, I haven't heard of such. "We were established by Gothic Mortimer, with the sole purpose of establishing our solar system from the hands of Sevgi and its partnering planets under the Calignes system. You see, I'm under the understanding that you are in disfavour with the Calignes treaty."

"Sevgi."

"Yes, Sevgi. Along with a few other planets. They've claimed the majority sovereignty after the fall of Orcus," the man spoke, taking in the dark rumble that left Kerr's throat at the mention of his destroyed home planet. "Ignatius was founded for the sole purpose of reinstating the original goal of Orcus and scraping the Calignes treaty which is, to no surprise, governed by Sevgi."

"How do I link into this? I'm no longer a First General. My people are gone, my army wasted."

"Yeah, and my being here is not a mere coincidence," said the man, pulling back his mask and revealing his face. Kerr didn't have the energy to hide his surprise, his teeth cracking into an amused smile as he took in the sight. The man's face was severely burned and scarred, skin-tight and trapping his face as skin stuck wrong. Ghastly, yet intriguing. "I've come to offer you a general position in Ignatius by orders of those above me, to help us finish what your people started."

Again, silence.

"One condition," spoke Kerr, eyes glinting.

"My companions and I have contemplated this beforehand," said the burned man, discreetly pulling back down his mask as his eyes fell on the deceased body of Semon. "Consider your condition accepted."

Kerr's smile cut. "Brilliant," he stressed in glee, smiling at the man. "You know, it would have been a real shame if I had to kill you, toasty; a deal that involves the eradication of Sevgi scum is always too good to turn down."

"I'm glad we came to an understanding," the other man replied, ignoring the insulting nickname as he nodded his head. He started to depart, steadily stepping over Meralida's pooling blood as he made his way out of the room. "I'll be waiting for you outside."

"Now," Kerr spoke aloud and to nobody, turning his gaze away from the space of the now gone general and to the dead body before him. "Before you become too icy for my favour."

Insufferable, delicate, delectable, oh, how he had missed the taste of flesh other than his own...

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Ignatius's third general remained stood at the city market, pushed close to the wall as other Ignatius soldiers patrolled the area, ensuring both his safety and the obedience of the townspeople surrounding them. God, how he hated Than. The only pleasant portion of the filthy planet was the inner part of the central city, where the royals and high class sat living under their golden chandeliers and overlooking sights that he was jealous of just imagining sitting before his own base window back in Hezkeil. A smirk grazed his lips, thinking about Kerr Gregn once again. He was currently wondering about the reaction of the man so many considered inhuman and merely a beast, a monster. Would he be pleased to find out about Ignatius's occupation of the nation his people hated to such great lengths? Would he even willingly step foot there?

Nothing compared to the hate they have for Sevgi, the general joked to himself in his thoughts, that's for sure.

"General Dormank," came a meek voice, turning his attention to a masked soldier who stood in attention for his approval. They all looked alike, the only distinction between the wheels being their voices. A boy. He nodded his head for him to continue. He took some steps to the side, allowing the man to see the sight that the young soldier had deemed urgently in need of his attention.

Kerr Gregn was strolling his way towards them, blood coating his mouth, making a trail down his throat whilst covering the entirety of his now healed chest, stomach and hands. He was smiling, content with whatever had taken place inside the cave at his own doing, dormank didn't care to think about it though as the man stopped to stand beside him, still colossal in size no matter the stranger.

"I hope you're full," spoke the general, standing up straight from his slouched position and retaining his tree-straight posture. Kerr only eyed the space around him, taking in the stray stares of the townspeople, the scent of the flourishing market, and the soldiers who patrolled around them. Given how many years he’s been locked up, Dormank thought as he viewed the streets surrounding him as well. It’s only reasonable.

A voice caught Kerr’s attention, distant but still booming as it spanned out in the distance.

"And in first place is the woman assassin they call 'The Tempest'. Her pricing has risen since our last broadcast, now at double digit millions just at live capture. Not only would you be rewarded by my father, King Oswald, but you would be paid a generous reward from our good friends at Ignatius." Kerr's eyes hopped to the general beside him who held a smug expression on his face, as if he knew something all other listening ear could not decipher through the broadcast.

At first he had assumed it was live, but the faint hums gave it away. A recording.

'My father, King Oswald', Kerr thought back the words. A prince he assumes by the voice. And just as he thought he'd escaped royalty. A part of him soured, upset at the fact that they hadn't gone extinct during his containment.

"What planet is this?" Asked Kerr, gaze cowering until it landed on a large projector hovering some feet down from where they stood, swarmed by a crowd of people who scanned and took in the list before them. Some of the people were dressed in nothing outstanding, clothes of villagers and farmers. The other half, however, were armed, grouped and engrossed for reasons Kerr knew too well.

Hunters.

"Than," the other man finally replied. He scanned Kerr over before saying, "Well, are you?"

"Pardon?"

“Are you full?”

"I don't understand how that concerns you."

"I sure hope you are; it will be a while till we get back to Hezkeil," the general said, watching the shock glow on Kerr's face for a quick second before he shut down any tell of expression or feeling, leaving nothing to take in.

"Hezkeil?"

"Recently gained, believe it or not." There it was, that smug expression again. "Don't want you treating yourself to our soldiers; they're off-limits," the general finished, trailing off further into the city, his soldiers following after him.

A smile cracked on Kerr's face.