He sucks in a ragged breath, forcing himself onto his hands and knees. The battlefield erupts around him. Bodies land hard, but they don’t stay down. They get up. Every single one. The moment they hit the ground, they rise some staggering, some immediately sprinting into each other with mindless violence.
Mark’s pulse thunders as he takes in the chaos. This isn’t just a fight for survival. This is a war. And he is at the top of the hit list.
Someone rushes him from behind he barely turns before a fist slams into his ribs, knocking him sideways. He rolls just in time to dodge a knife plunging into the dirt where his head was. Mark snaps his leg out, kicking the attacker’s knee backward with a sickening pop. The man screams, but before he can recover, another body collides with him, dragging him into the dirt.
They aren’t just attacking Mark. They’re attacking each other.
The battlefield is a frenzy of revenge, of rage, of confusion each person consumed by their own unresolved hatred. Some turn their fury onto the nearest body, lashing out, not caring who they kill as long as they take someone down with them. A man tackles another, beating his skull into the ground again and again, his fists turning red with splattered bone and tissue. A woman lunges at someone with her bare hands, gouging at his throat with her nails alone, her face a twisted mask of pure hatred.
Mark barely dodges a blade aimed at his back, twisting into a counter. He slams his elbow into his attacker’s face, grabs their arm, and breaks it in one motion. He has no time to recover before another lunges at him a man with half a jaw missing, blackened veins crawling across his skin, his voice a wet, rattling growl.
Parasites are taking some of them.
The Pit is no longer just the dead it’s the transformed.
Mark hears the first inhuman shriek, one that doesn’t belong to a vengeful soul. He turns just in time to see a figure convulsing, their body contorting violently as something black bores through their flesh. Their scream turns guttural, distorted, as their spine snaps backward, something forcing its way out of their body.
Mark barely dodges as the thing leaps from the corpse, slamming into another fighter and tearing into their chest with blackened claws. The battlefield erupts into madness.
It’s not just revenge anymore it’s a feeding ground.
The lizard part of his brain screams at him to move or die. His instincts take over, every muscle thrumming with adrenaline as he ducks a wild swing, grabs a discarded jagged rock, and slams it into his next attacker’s skull. They collapse, but another takes their place instantly. Another. Another. They will not stop.
Mark sees the pit for what it is now not a trial, not a battlefield, but a goddamn purge. And if he doesn’t get out of it, he is going to be erased like the rest of them.
The thought barely finishes forming before a shadow looms over him a figure twice the size of the rest, its body vaguely human but with a head split down the middle, eyes burning pits of molten gold. Mark grits his teeth, his grip tightening on his rock. The thing grins.
"Your turn, killer."
Then it lunges. Air roars past Mark, burning his skin and flattening his lungs as he twists uncontrollably in freefall. He barely registers the others plummeting beside him before his brain catches up.
He knows these people. Not in passing. Not as strangers. He killed them.
A scarred man tumbles just feet away, his mouth twisting into a snarl despite the wind whipping past him. "YOU!" the man bellows, his voice unmuffled by the rushing air, as if the abyss itself wants Mark to hear him. Mark recognizes him instantly one of the first men he ever put down, a cartel enforcer who had laughed while putting a bullet into someone’s kneecap just for fun. Mark had repaid the favor twice.
His stomach knots as more faces twist toward him, dozens, all snapping their heads in his direction.
A woman’s voice shrieks over the wind, raw with fury. "You’re the bastard who cut my throat!"
Mark’s pulse spikes as he remembers her a human trafficker, someone who had begged for mercy before he slid the blade across her neck. She had deserved it. But that doesn’t matter now.
Another figure tumbles through the void, reaching for him a man whose fingers are still missing from when Mark had broken them before snapping his neck in a back alley. His blackened, lifeless lips peel open, and his voice echoes inside Mark’s skull, not in his ears.
"You think I forgot?"
Mark’s breath catches. This isn’t just falling. It’s a reckoning.
Bodies collide mid-air, some vanishing in and out of existence, some breaking apart before reassembling in flickers of sickly, unnatural light. A man sails past him, arms flailing. Instead of falling down, his body whips sideways, bending unnaturally as if gravity can’t decide where to put him. He twists, spirals, and snaps into nothingness.
A woman flickers in front of him a victim from his past, someone he had burned alive in a warehouse fire. Her skin cracks like dry wood, her mouth stretching into a silent, melting scream. Then she explodes into ash, and her scream lingers, not vanishing, just drifting, as if her pain refuses to be forgotten.
A hand clamps onto Mark’s wrist. Cold. Tight. Too strong.
"Not this time," the voice snarls.
The man pulling on him is still missing half his face because Mark shot it off. Mark kicks off his attacker, breaking free, but more hands reach for him, faces snapping toward him with fury, teeth bared, eyes burning with recognition. They don’t forget. None of them do.
Mark doesn’t have time to react before the ground slams into him like a hammer. Pain explodes through his ribs, knocking the wind from his lungs. He rolls, momentum throwing him across the jagged ground, skin tearing as he skids over rock and dirt. His mind reels, blinking stars out of his vision as his muscles scream in protest.
Then the howls start.
He sucks in a ragged breath, forcing himself onto his hands and knees. The battlefield erupts around him. Bodies land hard, but they don’t stay down. They get up. Every single one. The moment they hit the ground, they rise some staggering, some immediately sprinting into each other with mindless violence.
Mark’s pulse thunders as he takes in the chaos. This isn’t just a fight for survival. This is a war. And he is at the top of the hit list.
Someone rushes him from behind he barely turns before a fist slams into his ribs, knocking him sideways. He rolls just in time to dodge a jagged rock being brought down toward his skull. Mark snaps his leg out, kicking his attacker’s knee backward, but before he can recover, another body collides with him, dragging him into the dirt.
They aren’t just attacking Mark. They’re attacking each other.
The battlefield is a frenzy of revenge, of rage, of confusion each person consumed by their own unresolved hatred. Some turn their fury onto the nearest body, lashing out, not caring who they kill as long as they take someone down with them. A man tackles another, beating his skull into the ground again and again, his fists turning red with splattered bone and tissue. A woman lunges at someone with her bare hands, gouging at his throat with her nails alone, her face a twisted mask of pure hatred.
Mark barely dodges a body part swung at him a severed arm, still dripping, its jagged bone sharpened like a crude weapon. Someone grabs his shoulder. Mark whips around, seizing a chunk of shattered rib bone from a corpse beside him, and drives it into the man’s throat.
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The battlefield stinks of blood, bile, and decay. Some of the corpses aren’t staying dead.
A parasite burrows through a man’s exposed ribcage, the flesh bloating, warping before something twitches beneath his skin. Mark doesn’t wait. He grabs the nearest piece of a shattered jawbone, using the jagged teeth like a makeshift knife. The first creature that lunges at him gets it rammed into its temple. It shudders but doesn’t go down.
Mark twists the bone deeper, feeling the crunch of the skull caving in. The thing gurgles and collapses, but there’s another one already rushing him. No pause. No break. Just kill, kill, kill.
A woman shrieks as her own spine is ripped out of her back, used like a club by one of the other damned. A man tackles another to the ground, smashing his face into the jagged terrain repeatedly until there’s nothing left but pulp.
Mark barely dodges a rock being hurled at his face. He turns too late.
A heavy chunk of someone’s shattered rib cage smashes into the side of his head. His vision blackens as his body slams back into the dirt. Boots stomp toward him. Through the haze, he sees a towering figure standing over him, its body twice the size of the rest, eyes burning pits of molten gold. It grins.
"Your turn, killer."
Then it lunges.
"Well, this is going splendidly."
Mark whirls, heart pounding so hard he feels it in his skull.
Above the carnage, a figure floats lazily, arms crossed over his chest, his expression one of mild amusement. He doesn’t dodge the chaos not because he’s untouchable, but because nothing is trying to kill him.
Mark grits his teeth, his fingers tightening around the slick, blood-coated stone in his hand. The battlefield is hell, but this asshole seems unbothered, relaxed, as if watching people get ripped apart by their own rage is nothing more than cheap entertainment.
The figure tilts his head, watching Mark scramble to stay alive. "Hello, person to be named later," he announces. His voice is too clear, too sharp, cutting through the air like a blade. "You are in the Astral Wasteland. The goal is to survive if you can, though I doubt you will."
Mark doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have the time.
Something snarls behind him.
He twists, barely dodging a jagged hunk of bone swung at his skull. The attacker a man with half his torso missing lunges again, his mouth stretching too wide, his teeth grinding together like a broken animal.
Mark grabs the nearest weapon a piece of shattered femur and drives it into the bastard’s throat. The man gurgles but doesn’t go down. His fingers wrap around Mark’s wrist, black veins spreading from the wound as his body tries to stitch itself back together. Mark grits his teeth and twists the bone, forcing it deeper, breaking past whatever is trying to pull itself back together. The man collapses, but Mark knows better than to assume it’s over.
He turns just in time to see another figure a woman whose skull has been caved in on one side charging at him with a broken spine, the jagged vertebrae clutched like a serrated blade. Mark dodges, barely, but her free hand snatches his shoulder, her nails digging into his flesh. She opens her mouth to scream, but instead of words, all that comes out is raw, choking black sludge.
Mark snarls and slams his knee into her gut, twisting away. He grabs a rock, a heavy, jagged thing, and brings it down on her skull again and again until her body finally stops twitching. His chest heaves. He barely notices that the floating man is still watching him with amusement.
Mark wipes blood from his eyes, his breathing ragged.
"Are you done yet?" the man asks, sounding bored.
Mark glares, every muscle in his body screaming. "Who the hell are you?"
"Me?" The man grins, flashing teeth that are too sharp, too white for someone standing in the middle of all this death. "Name’s Donovan."
Mark adjusts his grip on his makeshift weapon.
Donovan lifts his hands. "Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just here to watch. Maybe even take bets."
Mark clenches his jaw. More movement in the distance. More of them are getting up.
"You don’t seem worried," Mark grunts.
Donovan shrugs. "Why would I be? They don’t care about me."
Mark narrows his eyes. That’s true. None of the crazed, vengeful bastards around them are even looking at Donovan. It’s as if he doesn’t exist.
Mark doesn’t get the luxury of thinking about it for long. A howl erupts from the battlefield, guttural and wet. Mark turns toward the noise, and his stomach drops.
A massive figure barrels through the fray, its movements too fast for something so large. The ground trembles with every impact, broken bodies shoved aside, torn apart some used as weapons against the others. It’s big. Bigger than the rest. And it’s looking at Mark.
"Well, that’s unfortunate," Donovan muses. "Looks like something bigger wants in on the fun."
Mark barely has time to react before it moves. The thing grabs one of the fighters, lifts him like a ragdoll, and slams him into the ground so hard that bones explode outward in a spray of blood. Mark backs up, heart hammering.
The thing isn’t human anymore, but it once was. Its body is elongated, thick cords of muscle twisting unnaturally beneath pale, scarred flesh. Four massive arms, each tipped with bone-shard claws, flex, ready to tear into flesh. Its head is barely recognizable, the face stretched, the mouth far too wide, its teeth a jagged mess of shattered enamel and exposed bone.
And then it speaks.
"Bosco."
The voice is so low, so guttural that it shakes Mark’s bones. Mark’s pulse slows, his grip tightening around his stone.
"Shit," Donovan mutters. "You really pissed off the big guy."
The creature lunges. Mark dodges barely the ground splitting beneath the impact as claws rip into the dirt where he stood. The thing is too fast. Too strong.
Mark moves, his mind going blank, his body reacting on instinct alone. If he stops moving, he’s already dead.
Donovan watches from above, resting his chin on his hand as if enjoying a casual street performance.
Mark rolls away from another attack, using the dead bodies around him as obstacles. The creature doesn’t care. It plows through them, tearing limbs from torsos, using a severed head like a flail, swinging it toward Mark with sickening force.
Mark ducks, the head missing him by inches. He barely has time to react before the thing grabs him and hurls him like a ragdoll.
Mark slams into the ground, his ribs screaming in agony. He spits blood, rolling onto his side. His vision swims, the world tilting, but he knows he has to get up. Now.
"Alright, I’m intrigued," Donovan comments. "I give you... maybe two more minutes before you get turned into paste."
Mark pushes himself up, every fiber of his being on fire. The creature is already coming for him.
"Fine," Donovan says, floating slightly lower. "Let’s see if you last five minutes before I have to give your eulogy."
The thing lunges, all four arms raised. Mark doesn’t run. He charges forward.
A deep, guttural howl rips through the battlefield, louder and more resonant than anything else before it. A war cry. A challenge. A promise of death.
Mark freezes, his muscles locking on instinct. The smaller attackers immediately scatter, backing away as if something far worse has arrived. And it has.
The ground trembles.
The jagged edge of the pit explodes outward as a hulking four-armed beast launches itself down, slamming into the blood-soaked terrain with a force that sends shockwaves of dust and bone fragments into the air.
Mark doesn’t need to analyze it he knows it's hunting him.
The thing is a nightmare made flesh. Its body is thick with sinew, muscle wrapped too tight, its flesh a sickly grayish hue covered in jagged scars. Each of its four arms ends in sharpened bone, as if it has long since lost its hands and grown to accept that its limbs are now weapons. Its head is split slightly down the middle, the jaw unhinging just a little too wide, revealing rows of jagged, uneven teeth. Its glowing, ember-like eyes fix on Mark, and in the darkness of the pit, they are the only light.
The thing doesn't roar this time. It grins. Then it charges.
Mark moves before he even realizes it, hurling himself aside just as one massive claw arcs through the air, cutting so close that he feels the wind pressure whip against his face. A second claw follows immediately after, forcing him to roll, dirt and blood smearing across his body as he barely escapes being gutted.
The creature doesn’t stop. It moves fast too fast for something that big. Mark lunges back, raising his jagged shard, and stabs directly into its side. The shard breaks.
Mark barely has time to register the lack of pain from the creature before it backhands him with enough force to send him skidding across the ground. His vision blackens at the edges, the taste of copper filling his mouth. He’s on his back, body aching, when he sees it.
The creature doesn’t even glance at the wound. It reaches down and pulls the broken shard from its flesh, observing it like one might inspect a splinter. Then it laughs a low, rattling growl, full of amusement.
Mark spits blood and forces himself up. He doesn’t have time to process the absurdity of it. He moves. He dodges another swipe, barely staying ahead of the tornado of slashing limbs. A claw rakes across his side, cutting deep, pain exploding through his ribs. His vision flashes red, but he doesn’t stop. Stopping is death.
The beast snaps one of its arms forward, grabbing a half-mutilated body from the ground and hurling it at Mark like a projectile. Mark ducks, barely avoiding the corpse slamming into the rocks behind him. He scrambles, grabbing a jagged bone from the dirt, and hurls it toward the creature’s face.
The creature tilts its head slightly, letting the projectile glance off harmlessly, before taking another thundering step forward. Mark can barely catch his breath, can barely think, but his mind latches onto one thing the pit’s edge.
Mark moves before the thought fully forms, sprinting toward the sharp, jagged outcropping of rock. The creature sees what he’s doing. It roars an actual roar this time, full of rage and barrels after him. Mark throws himself into a slide, barely dodging as one of the beast’s claws slams into the dirt beside him, gouging out a trench where his legs had been seconds ago. He grabs a handful of gravel and dirt, whipping it into the creature’s face.
It snarls, momentarily blinded, but it’s not enough. The thing swipes wildly, and Mark feels it connect.
Pain tears through his shoulder, a deep gash ripping open as he’s thrown sideways. His body slams into the jagged rock formation he was aiming for; hard. His ribs protest, his vision swims, but he doesn’t stop. He can’t.
The creature is already recovering.