Fear As The World Turns White

The spreading cracks in the wall went unnoticed by no one. The prisoners, already drowning in fear, erupted into panic as molten hands and monstrous forms began forcing their way out.

Some fell to their knees, wailing in despair, while others, the most foolish among them, turned and bolted toward the other side—directly into the battlefield where the guards still fought against the endless tide of Conflicts.

The lead female guard, perched atop her main beast, had just cleaved through two more monstrosities when she caught sight of the prisoners' reckless dash. Her eyes narrowed. With a single motion, she swung her halberd downward, the weapon striking sparks off the ground in front of the fleeing prisoners.

"You useless rats!" she roared, her voice cutting through the carnage. "Turn back before I run you through myself!"

One prisoner, barely able to form words through his terror, shrieked, "The wall! The wall is breaking! They're coming from the wall!"

The lead guard snapped her gaze toward the rock face, and her stomach twisted. There were cracks on the wall she hadn't seen before, and more and more Conflicts were pouring out. The grotesque figures slithered, crawled, and fell from above, landing amongst the prisoners like demons born from nightmares.

Her grip tightened on her halberd.

"Damn it all," she muttered under her breath, realizing the dire predicament. They were surrounded. Her beasts and surbodinates, already struggling against the horde before them, could not turn back to aid the prisoners. She stole a glance upward, hoping the Runes above had begun to subside. Instead, they multiplied.

Her jaw clenched.

'This is our doom.'

Meanwhile, Tamir stood frozen, his mind struggling to process what he was witnessing. The horror of the Conflicts' arrival had paralyzed him. But Zayne was already moving.

He ignored the agonizing burns searing his wrists and reached towards the corpse he had used earlier. Without hesitation, he gripped the man's leg and ripped—the tendons strained, the flesh resisted, but with a final brutal, superhuman jerk, the limb tore free.

Zayne exhaled sharply, momentarily pausing to glance toward the lead guard who swung and cleaved Conflicts in half with her halberd.

If only I had that kind of power.

The thought flickered in his mind before quickly turning to mockery. He shook his head and muttered under his breath, "Yeah, because that's the first thing I need right now—delusions."

Then, the Conflicts finally fell.

The more humanoid ones crashed into the ground, limbs flailing as they tried to rise, while the appendaged horrors skittered down the rock face like grotesque arachnids. Zayne spotted one dropping directly above a middle-aged man too stunned to move.

He acted on instinct, lunging forward and shoving the man out of the way as the Conflict hit the ground.

Before it could react, Zayne raised the severed leg high and slammed the jagged bone end into the monster's head, with enough for to pin it to the earth. The molten beast writhed, its pitiful screeches sending waves of heat outward.

But Zayne wasn't done.

The man he had just saved stood there, dazed and useless. Zayne's lip curled.

"Stand still, why don't you?" he growled, grabbing the man's head with both hands. Before the prisoner could react, Zayne his neck onto the exposed bone of the severed leg, impaling his throat.

Blood gushed out in thick spurts, coating the pinned Conflict. The monster screeched, its lava darkened by the sudden cooling effect.

Zayne didn't hesitate. In one fluid motion, he yanked the still-bleeding body backward, directing the gory spray toward another Conflict—a spider-like creature descending rapidly from the wall. The blood coated it, cooling its molten exterior just enough to harden sections of its body. Without missing a beat, Zayne ripped the leg free from the first monster, shattering its skull in the process, and turned, driving it like a club into the lava spider, crushing its head against the rock wall.

A burst of molten gore splattered from the impact, sizzling against Zayne's already burned arms.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, standing over the corpses, his breath ragged.

The prisoners who had seen the spectacle stood in stunned silence, unable to comprehend the sheer brutality of what had just happened.

Zayne, drenched in blood, turned toward Tamir with an amused grin, breathing heavily.

"You better get to it if you don't want that brat to die."

Tamir followed his gaze—and his stomach dropped. A lava spider was racing toward his young master, its scalding fangs ready to tear him apart.

Tamir's body finally snapped into motion.

He had no choice.

Tamir's heart pounded as the lava spider skittered toward his young master, its eight molten legs searing the cracked earth beneath it. His body moved before his mind could catch up, throwing himself between the creature and his charge. The young master—weeping uselessly as ever—didn't even attempt to crawl away. It annoyed Tamir, but he didn't have time to dwell on it.

The spider lunged. Tamir barely twisted, directing it away from his young master, feeling the intense heat scrape against his side. His eyes darted around, searching for something—anything—to use.

He didn't have Zayne's absurd brutality, couldn't just rip apart somebody and wield them like a club. His gaze fell on a fallen prisoner, their lifeless body crumpled nearby, blood pooling beneath them.

His gut churned at the thought, but he had no choice.

"Damn it!" Tamir snarled, forcing his hands to move. He grabbed the body's limp separated arm, his fingers slick with still-warm blood, and swung it toward the spider's eyes. The crimson spray splattered across its molten face, and for a moment, the creature recoiled, its sizzling exoskeleton darkening as the liquid cooled its temperature just enough to make a difference.

Now!

Tamir grabbed a nearby rock—large, jagged, heavy. He lifted it over his head, every muscle in his body straining, and with a desperate cry, he slammed it down with everything he had. The impact shattered the rock into chunks, but the spider's head caved inward, a mixture of steaming gore and molten innards spilling out as it convulsed, then went still.

Tamir panted, staring at what he'd done. His arms ached, his fingers trembled, but he couldn't stop. Another Conflict—a humanoid one this time—was already approaching. He turned back to the young master, who sat there in shock, clutching his cauterized stump where his foot had been burned away.

"Move it!" Tamir finally snapped, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him up.

The Conflict lunged. Tamir reacted instinctively, kicking the corpse he had nearby towards it. The monster stumbled, and Tamir saw his chance. He grabbed another nearby body—hating every moment of this—and yanked its head back with force, ripping the neck and forcing the blood to spill out in a desperate spray over the advancing creature. The effect was immediate; its burning skin cooled, hardening just enough.

He had no time to waste.

He scrambled for another rock and, with every ounce of effort, slammed it down on the monster's head. It took three hits before the skull cracked, another two before the creature finally stopped moving.

Panting, drenched in sweat and blood, he staggered back. He expected the other prisoners to have caught on by now, to be putting up a fight like he and Zayne had. But when he turned, what he saw instead made his stomach drop.

They were being slaughtered.

Some tried to fight back, even mimicking what he and Zayne had done, but they lacked the strength, the speed, the sheer madness required to wield corpses as weapons. One prisoner attempted to tear off a limb from a fallen body, only for they to realise they were not superhuman and were too weak to finish the task before a Conflict tore them apart. Another tried dousing a monster in their own blood, but it wasn't enough—just a pitiful smear before the creature burned through them like wet paper.

Tamir watched in horror as limbs were torn, flesh was seared, and people screamed in agony. He suddenly realized something.

Zayne shouldn't have been able to do what he had done. Not like this. Not with human limitations. The unbearable heat searing him, the raw strength it took to rip apart a body, to wield its weight like a weapon, to endure it all without hesitation—it wasn't normal.

He wasn't exactly normal either, but he at least knew why.

His gaze flickered to Zayne now, and what he saw was even more disturbing.

Zayne had become a force of nature. He moved like a beast unchained, his motions brutal and precise. He wielded bodies like tools, not as a last resort but as a deliberate strategy. A bisected woman was his latest weapon, her innards thrown onto the Conflicts to cool and harden them before the upper half was used to batter down Conflicts in sickening, wet thuds.

His expression was unreadable, caught somewhere between amusement and efficiency.

He wasn't saving the prisoners.

He was buying time.

With every kill, more blood splattered across the dirt, drenching the ground and cooling the molten monsters' steps. He wasn't trying to rescue anyone—just slowing the monsters down, preventing them from overwhelming him too quickly. Letting the prisoners die to make his work easier.

Tamir swallowed hard.

Meanwhile, Zayne's eyes flickered toward the battlefield ahead, where the lead guard and her remaining soldiers still fought the main horde. He smirked, almost pitying them. They couldn't replicate his tactics—not because they lacked skill, but because they lacked the will.

They wouldn't cut down their own to use as weapons. Wouldn't sacrifice their comrades' blood for an advantage.

"Idiots," he muttered to himself. "They could've used the slaves as blood-bags. Turned them into walking fountains. But no—gotta protect the prisoners because it's your duty, right?"

Zayne chuckled darkly, gripping his latest weapon tighter before slamming it down on another Conflict, reducing it to smoldering pulp.

Then, he noticed something.

The lava was moving.

At first, it was subtle—small puddles shifting ever so slightly. But soon, it became obvious. Every molten pool left behind by a fallen Conflict began to crawl away, slithering like liquid serpents toward a singular point.

Zayne's gaze snapped toward the battlefield ahead. The lava was converging toward the lead guard and her men.

He grinned and turned toward Tamir.

"If you like your feet, I'd start moving," he called out.

Tamir, still breathless from his fight, looked up at him, confused at first. Then he followed Zayne's gaze and saw the lava creeping away from them, gathering into something bigger—something worse.

He didn't need to be told twice.

Grabbing his barely-conscious young master, he stumbled back toward the wall, the few remaining prisoners following in panicked, ragged movements. They all watched, frozen in fear, as the shifting lava slithered toward the main horde like a predator returning to its master.

The battlefield had changed.

The chaos of battle was slowing, shifting into something uncanny. The lava that had surged and consumed everything in its path was no longer an unstoppable tide. It was… retreating.

The guards, battle-worn and barely holding their ground, felt it before they saw it. At first, it was just a flicker—something odd about how the molten creatures they struck down weren't reforming as fast. Then, it became undeniable. The lava's steady creep slowed, then reversed, pooling away from them as if being pulled by an unseen force. One of the guards, clutching the stump of his missing arm, fell to his knees, barely able to comprehend it.

"It's… it's stopping?" another guard muttered in disbelief, their voice trembling from exhaustion and shock. Relief spread like wildfire among the survivors. The beasts still standing let out victorious roars, as if they too could sense the shift. A ragged cheer broke from a few guards who had been seconds from death. They had survived. Against all odds, they had survived.

But the lead female guard did not cheer. Instead, she watched in silence, her fingers tightening around the haft of her halberd. This… was unexpected.

Her eyes snapped to the backline where the prisoners had been abandoned to die. And yet—there were survivors. Far fewer than before, only a handful remained standing, but the fact that any of them were still alive was shocking.

She inhaled sharply. This… This was proof of the Emperor's will. Proof that he had seen her efforts and deemed them worthy. He had spared them, not because the prisoners mattered, but because she had followed his will, fighting until the last moment. To turn her back on them, to abandon her duty, would have been blasphemy—treason even. That was why she fought to the bitter end. And now, the Emperor had ensured that it was not for naught.

She exhaled, her chest rising and falling as she prepared to take full control of the situation again. But then—

Her eyes locked onto something—or rather, someone—that stole the air from her lungs.

The crimson and black haired teen.

Standing amidst the handful of survivors, his entire body drenched in blood and burnt flesh, his chest rising and falling from exertion, his lips curled into a grin that sent a chill down her spine.

But it was not his presence alone that rattled her—it was the chains.

His hands and feet were unbound.

Her grip on her weapon tightened as panic flared inside her. How?! When?! His neck and stomach were still shackled, but he had freed his limbs. This was dangerous. This was unacceptable. This creature had not been freed for a reason.

Their eyes met.

His grin widened.

She moved, instinctively preparing her halberd to put him down before he could act.

And then—

A crushing, suffocating pressure descended upon them all.

It wasn't heat, nor was it fear. It was something greater, something deeper. An existential dread unlike anything they had ever felt before.

Everyone—guards, prisoners, even Zayne—turned their heads upwards.

The sky was wrong.

The countless runes that had gathered above them, multicolored and shifting, had merged together, forming a massive, radiant dome of rainbow light. If one looked closely, they could still see the individual runes, each one glowing with an ominous energy, countless in number. It was unnatural. It was beyond comprehension.

And then—it moved.

The dome collapsed inward, condensing into a singular stream of light, twisting and falling like a divine hammer toward the very place where the retreating lava had converged.

A pit formed in Zayne's stomach for the first time.

This isn't right.

The world itself seemed to warp, twisting in ways it shouldn't. The world folded, bent, as if something beyond mortal understanding was pressing against existence itself. The unease clawed at their very souls, whispering in tongues they could not comprehend.

The light crashed into the lava.

For a moment, there was silence.

The lava darkened, almost as if it had cooled into obsidian.

A breath of relief started to form in Tamir's throat.

"Zayne… is it over?"

He never got his answer.

Because at that moment, an explosion of heat unlike anything they had ever known erupted from the earth, swallowing all in its infernal embrace.

And everything turned white-hot.