Chapter 27: Rot
Chapter 27: Rot
Something icy spread from his gut. Tight and crawling up through his chest, out along his limbs. It flooded him. A feeling he knew well, though it didn't make sense here. So he couldn't name the out of place feeling.
Ahead, the small group of imps shambled, slow and mindless. Twitching. Broken. Limbs missing. Skulls split open. Some bent at angles no body should, others almost intact except for one thing: all missing flesh.
Flayed and exposed backs, ribcages bare. Skulls staring and empty as tailbones dangled like snapped cords. The skin wasn't cut—it was ripped away. Like peeled, rotten fruit.
"System..? What am I feeling?"
[User is exhibiting symptoms of anger.]
"Anger? That doesn't make sense. I don't care about them."
[Possible reason: imps are known for low intelligence and irrational behavior.]
He let out a low hiss. Choosing to ignore the system, he crouched behind a massive tooth jutting from the ground, eyes locked on the ruined figures. Nevermind the systems suggestion, he still couldn't figure it out. Why would this make him angry? His claws flexed. Teeth ground together.
"Maybe killing them will help."
He stepped out from cover. Calm. Measured. No real worry. Imps, dead or alive, weren't a threat to him anymore.
The crunch of an old ribcage underfoot drew their attention as they turned. Empty eyes locked.
And they charged.
"Wha–!"
KR-CHNG!
Claw slammed against claw.
'How?!'
He hadn't expected them to move so fast. That alone threw him off. He'd also thought they'd split like brittle bones, but the dead imp's claws met his with solid weight. No give. No break. He kicked hard, rotted ribs shattered. The undead creature flew back with a wet crack.
"Fiendskin!"
[-2SM]
[Fiendskin // Active]
[+5% Damage Reduction // 60 sec]
[SM // 13/15]
Using the recoil from his kick, he jumped back. Mid-air, his forearms split open to summon his weapons, as his skin hardened from his Curse, Butcher's Wrath ripped free. Steam rose as the black metal crawled into his waiting grip.
"Hellfire."
[-1SM]
[Hellfire // Active]
[+10% Damage]
[SM // 12/15]
"System, why are they stronger?!"
WHOOSH!
He twisted hard, barely avoiding another claw. He countered, cleaver roughly chopping through a neck. He felt it then, resistance. The flesh didn't part easy. Even decayed and ruined, they were tougher. More dangerous.
But not enough.
The head tumbled away, body crumpling. He waited, waited for the refuel, but nothing came. No soulmass. He stepped back, scanning. The headless body was dissolving, so it was dead.
[+1Exp]
[Exp // 904/949]
The number blinked up. Mocking him. They were stronger, but less reward. Soulless, empty and worthless. His lip curled. Rage burned hotter than the Hellfire on his blades.
He launched forward, claws digging into ash. Two undead imps met him head-on, claws wide as he chopped one low at the knee. It didn't even scream. Just buckled. He buried the other under his weight, cleaver punching through its ribcage before he finished the other.
[+1exp]
[+1exp]
[Exp // 906/949]
No soulmass. Just gore.
Another lunged. He twisted, slammed it with his tail, cleaver catching it mid-spin. Bone and tendon split, but it clung. He hissed, shaking it off with a wet rip.
[+1exp]
[-1SM // Hellfire Upkeep]
[HP // 70/70]
[SM // 11/15]
[Exp // 907/949]
He swung again, harder. Another head gone. Little gained.
[+1exp]
[Exp // 908/949]
'Hellfire's wasted on this.'
He shut it off mid-swing.
[Hellfire // Deactivated]
The flames died back into his arms. He gripped tighter. Let his muscle do the work.
An imp raked his side.
[-4HP]
[HP // 66/70]
[SM // 11/15]
He turned, ignoring the sting, and carved its arm free. It didn't even flinch, just kept coming. He pinned it down and drove a cleaver through its skull.
[+1Exp]
[Exp // 909/949]
He growled. Another came in. He parried with the flat, shoved it back, then cut it down in two strokes.
[+1Exp]
[Exp // 910/949]
Blood and bone split, but the fury didn't. His anger at the sight of them left him confused, his thoughts racing, even the system prompts faded from his focus.
'Why am I mad?'
He dodged another lunge, cleaver scraping bone. Sparks flew, casting fleeting light over ruined skulls.
He snarled and slammed his weight into the next one. It didn't resist properly. Just fell. He hacked its neck twice before the spine gave.
Breath ragged, he stood over it.
'They're just imps. Worthless.'
Another stumbled in, jaws clicking. He watched it for a moment too long before cutting it down at the knee. It crawled, clawing the ash. He finished it with a punch of the blade through the skull.
'They're supposed to be worthless.'
He wiped rotted blood from his face with the back of his hand, but more dripped.
'So why am I angry?'
He avoided another swipe, cut its arm. The stump flapped uselessly. He buried his cleaver in its chest and forced it down.
'They're meat. They're born to die.'
He yanked the blade free, stepping back, watching the corpse twitch.
Its ribs showed clear through ripped flesh, skin hanging in tatters like torn sailcloth. Black ash clung wet to exposed meat. One arm was missing from the elbow down, snapped off jagged. Its head twisted at a wrong angle, half the face peeled back to raw muscle and empty socket.
He felt his jaw tighten until something popped in it.
'But not like this.'
His grip on the cleaver whitened, tendons standing out. He could feel the pulse in his skull, a deep, ugly throb. He lowered the blade just slightly, staring at the thing that wouldn't even stay dead properly. A noise crawled out of his throat. Not a word. Just raw sound.
He stepped forward and slammed the blade down again. Hard. Splitting the twitching face. Making sure.
He didn't want to look at it anymore. He felt heat behind his eyes. Not tears, but pressure.
Another rushed and he met it mid-stride, let his weight carry it to the ground as he drove the blade through its neck until it stopped.
"They're trash. They're food."
He shook his head once, violently.
"But even food deserves to be finished. Deserves to be eaten."
He stayed there, crouched, breath rattling.
'Not left to rot. Not like scraps.'
His eyes narrowed at the writhing shapes rushing in.
'Not wasting the kill.'
He pushed off the corpse, stumbling back into stance.
"I kill to grow. To eat!"
He cut another down with two angry swipes.
"This… this is an insult."
Another. He hacked its spine. Kicked it away.
"If someone kills my kind..."
He stomped another head, feeling the crack in his bones.
"It should be me."
Silence fell. Just him and twitching remains.
He didn't even spit, just turned and walked on. Steam and blood behind him. Bone crunching underfoot. Pain still pulsing through muscle and memory.
None of it left behind.
All of it burned in.
----
He didn't see any more imps. Not a single one.
Just worms.
He killed them along the way. Quick, steady work. Claws sank in, teeth tore, guts spilled. He ate enough to top off his soulmass and health. Nothing more. Just keeping himself going.
[Exp // 931/949]
He was close. Too close. The number sat in his mind, scratching at the inside of his skull.
It pushed him to run harder. His arms and legs dug into the dry, brittle bone. Ash puffed behind him as he sprinted on all fours, moving fast enough he couldn't think of much else.
And he almost missed it, the sound. It started low, too quiet to pick apart from the wind. But it grew. A screeching that crept up through the ground and into his chest.
He slowed. Not much. Just enough to listen.
He knew what it was.
Charon's vision crawled back, unbidden. The Gate. The fortress. And its walls. He shifted direction, climbing. Leaping from rib to cracked tooth to jagged ledge, gaining height.
When he stopped, perched on the highest ridge he could find, he saw it. Black. Hulking. Solid. A fortress built from bone and iron, rising like a wound in the landscape.
Walls covered in pinned bodies. Imps. Their limbs stretched, faces frozen mid-scream. Hundreds of them.
He'd made it, this was the place... his way out of Hell. Where the Gate waited.
Where a Warlord waited.