Flesh and Flame
The Puppets fell one by one, twitching and convulsing in torn heaps of bone and sinew.
Luke's blade slid deep into another's throat, twisting, grinding. Blood gushed—and the thing went limp. Not a twitch, not a whisper.
"Blood…"
Luke's eyes widened. "They need blood to move—when it stops, so do they."
That revelation changed everything.
They didn't need to crush them entirely—just bleed them dry.
---
Now locked into a tight, blood-slicked formation, the six of them moved like a single entity—grimy, wounded, relentless.
One mistake, and they'd all die.
So no one made one.
---
Luke – The Point
_
At the front, Luke was a wall of steel and instinct.
His stance was low—fencer's discipline.
Each thrust of his short sword targeted arteries, joints, and open veins. He no longer fought to kill—he fought to make them bleed out.
"Knees, neck, inner arms—make them leak!"
Every breath he took tasted of copper. But he stood firm, even as his left arm hung useless at his side.
---
Elarin – The Shadow
-
Elarin flitted in and out of gaps like a storm of razors.
She parried a clawed swipe aimed for Luke's throat—then disappear, only to
reappear under a puppet's ribcage, two daggers driving upward and severing its spine. She kicked it off and tossed a spare blade over her shoulder—
—straight into a puppet lunging at Mira's flank.
"Stay with me," she barked.
"You fall—we all fall."
---
Caelan – The Warden
-
Caelan never left his corner. The double swords he carried blurred with savage precision—cleaving, slashing, blocking.
One puppet leapt overhead—Caelan kicked it mid-air, then split it down the center
before it hit the ground.
"Mira, duck!" he barked, and Mira dropped—just in time for his blade to whistle over her head and decapitate a leaping puppet.
He stood like a tower of muscle and fury, breathing slow and rhythmic—eyes scanning three moves ahead.
---
Singnet – The Mauler
-
Singnet Daresval had long lost his noble poise.
His hands were blistered. His axe dented. His teeth bared.
He swung like a madman—but with surgical timing. He covered Caelan's flank, breaking the knees of crawling puppets before they could slip under the guard.
A puppet tried to grab his ankle—he lifted his foot and stomped its head in.
"I refuse to die with these things! And most importantly I refuse to die with these peasants!" he roared, wild-eyed, as he swung his axe in a gory arc that knocked two bodies away.
---
Mira – The Heartbeat
-
Mira had stopped crying.
Her face was blank—dirt, blood, and tears all streaked together.
She held her spiked club tightly, arms shaking, and stuck close behind Elarin. She didn't fight well—but she hit when told, moved when guided, and never ran.
A puppet crawled toward Luke's back—Mira leapt and slammed her club into its skull, pulping it in one strike.
Elarin gave a short nod.
"Good girl. Again."
---
The Gray-Haired Boy – The Silent Storm
At the rear, the gray-haired boy stood as silent retribution.
His brass knuckles were now black with gore, skin unmarred, expression unreadable.
A puppet crept from the blind corner—he turned, and drove his fist through its chest, spine cracking like twigs.
When another aimed for Mira, he stepped forward and shattered its jaw with one blow, catching its fall with his shoulder and tossing it aside like trash.
He never spoke.
He never needed to.
---
Stillness
Then—
The screeching stopped.
No more dragging.
No more sobbing voices.
No more laughter or whispering.
The puppets… were gone.
Around them, the floor was layered in flesh.
Torn limbs. Open throats. Coils of intestine still twitching.
The room looked like the inside of a slaughtered whale.
Their torches hissed softly in the silence.
Mira began to cry again.
"It's over…?"
"No," Luke muttered.
Then the light began to die.
The torches flickered—one by one—until only the flames near them remained.
And then—
THMP…
THMP…
THMP.
The sound of something massive, approaching with deliberate weight.
From the darkness beyond the corridor came a shape.
It scraped the ceiling.
A thing of mass, of meat, of mouths.
The Maw.
A bloated, fleshy colossus, stitched from thousands of bodies.
Its surface writhed—faces formed and dissolved across its skin.
Its stomach split open like a mouth, and from within, hundreds more puppets spilled out.
Some crawled.
Some walked.
Others simply screamed.
The six stood in their circle—bloodied, breathless, weapons low.
Their limbs trembled.
Their eyes flickered between hope and collapse.
Even Caelan faltered.
Even Luke said nothing.
The Maw did not charge.
It only watched.
Smiling.
The only thing holding back total darkness was a single row of torches—weak, flickering.
The pressure exuded by The Maw was suffocating, like an invisible hand squeezing the air from their lungs.
Each breath burned.
Each heartbeat sounded like war drums in their ears.
And in that suffocating void of despair, the silence was finally broken—
Singnet Daresval stepped forward—legs shaking, blood running from a gash over his eye.
He held his bent axe in both hands, lips trembling, but his voice erupted from deep inside the fractured remnants of his pride.
"COME AT ME, YOU FUCKING MONSTERS!!"
"I—SINGNET DARESVAL—refuse to BOW to FREAKS stitched from corpses and lies!"
His voice cracked—desperation showing.
But it didn't matter.
In that instant, his ego became fire—and they all felt it.
The Spark
Caelan clenched his jaw.
Mira wiped her tears.
Elarin exhaled slow and low.
The gray-haired boy cracked his knuckles—no expression, just ready.
Luke stepped to the front.
"GET READY FOR THE WORST!"
From the abyss, the Maw laughed—a sound like wet meat grinding in a throat too wide.
"Mmmmm... CHIIIILDRREEEN..."
Its massive chest opened, revealing rows of teeth, intestines hanging like garlands, twitching and alive.
"MARCH... HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!"
They came.
Hundreds of Puppets—howling, crying, screeching.
Running, crawling, dragging each other.
A hundred voices screamed.
"BROTHER, COME PLAY WITH MEEE!"
"DON'T LEAVE, DADDY'S HERE!"
"I MISSSS YOUUUUUUUU!"
"HUUG MEEE HUGGGG MEEE!"
A tidal wave of limbs, gore, and madness.
Luke's group held their line—six souls, broken and bruised.
Luke braced his blade, his eyes fixed ahead.
"I WILL SURVIVE…"
He whispered it. To himself. Not as a boast.
But a promise.
A curse.
A vow.
They didn't retreat.
They charged.
Six shattered bodies against a crawling
hell.
A hundred puppets screamed for them—arms out, jaws agape, tendons twitching.
And the six responded with steel, grit, and madness.
---
Luke surged forward first, his shortsword flashing like lightning. He moved with controlled fury, stabbing necks, eyes, inner thighs—anywhere that would make the puppets bleed.
One puppet leapt for his throat.
CLANG!
Caelan's blade chopped its arm off mid-air.
Luke nodded.
"Thanks."
But a second puppet latched onto his shoulder—biting into the muscle.
CRUNCH!
He screamed, rammed his sword through its gut, and kicked it off, his shoulder now slick with blood.
"Still breathing…"
Elarin danced through chaos.
Her daggers were an extension of her thoughts.
She slashed a puppet's leg, causing it to stumble—then flipped over its back and severed its spine.
One came at her from the blindside—
WHACK!
Mira's club came down, crushing its jaw before it could touch Elarin.
"Behind you!" Mira yelled.
Elarin smiled, bleeding from a shallow cut near her temple.
"Good eyes."
But another puppet slashed across her thigh before she could react—flesh tearing.
She hissed, staggered—but stayed up.
Caelan's twin swords never stopped.
He carved through the puppets with brutal, wide arcs—focusing on mobility kills, disarming, slicing tendons.
When Luke stumbled back, Caelan shoved forward, taking his place.
"Rotate!" he barked.
Two puppets latched onto his legs.
He stabbed downward—once into a throat, once into a skull.
Blood splattered over his face, but his expression never changed.
A puppet jumped onto his back.
Singnet's axe came crashing down, cleaving it in half.
"Watch your rear, Sentinel," Singnet panted.
Caelan gave a nod—his side now covered in bites and torn fabric.
---
Singnet was a whirlwind of rage, swinging his blunt, chipped axe in wide, reckless arcs.
He struck low when Caelan struck high.
He covered flanks, crushed necks, snapped spines.
But the weight of battle showed—his arms shook, and his swings began to slow.
One puppet slashed across his chest—he grunted, fell to a knee—
Elarin stabbed it in the eye before it could finish him.
"Stay on your feet, noble."
"Shut… up, lowly halfling" he gasped, staggering upright.
Blood oozed from beneath his armor, soaking into the earth.
Mira's arms trembled with every swing of her spiked club.
But she stayed behind the stronger ones—watching, listening, and striking with perfect timing.
When a puppet crawled beneath the defense line, she smashed its skull from the side.
SPLORTCH.
When another tried to sneak behind Luke, she grabbed a dropped dagger and jammed it into its chest, shrieking.
A puppet knocked her down—
The gray-haired boy appeared like a ghost, punching through its head, lifting her up in silence.
She was bruised, bleeding, crying—but standing.
The Gray-Haired Boy
He didn't speak.
He simply fought.
His brass knuckles reduced faces to mush. He moved like a reaper, slipping through chaos, appearing behind puppets and breaking necks, smashing jaws, caving in skulls.
A puppet clamped onto Elarin's leg—he gripped its skull and crushed it before it could bite.
Another was climbing over Singnet—he ripped its spine out from behind.
The others were bleeding, staggering.
He was, too—gashes along his back, a chunk of flesh torn from his forearm—but he never made a sound.
Now they stood in the center of the corpse pile—a hill of twitching meat and torn cloth.
Each of them was wounded.
Luke's shoulder bled freely.
Elarin's thigh slowed her movement.
Caelan's arms were covered in bites.
Singnet's chest was heaving, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
Mira was limping, her arm purple.
The gray-haired boy was soaked in blood, unmoving—but standing.
And still, the puppets came.
Until—
They stopped.
All of them.
Mid-crawl. Mid-charge. Mid-lunge.
They froze.
Then they backed away.
---
And Then… The Maw Stepped Forward
The Maw had seen enough.
Its body twisted, mouths opening, laughter gurgling from every orifice.
"MMMMM... NOT BAD... RATS WITH TEETH…"
"BUT LET US SEE HOW LONG YOU LAST… AGAINST A HUNTER."
From within its own mass, something began to shift.
A new form. Larger. Faster. Crafted from
stronger bodies.
A new breed.
A predator.