[Warning: This chapter contains extreme violence and unsettling imagery.]
Proceed with caution.
Mouse lay slumped on the floor, breath shallow, vision blurred as he came to. He groaned, "D...id we win?"
"Yeah," Lyre answered, voice flat and distant. "Lester got her. And the boy... he came right to us."
"R...r–right..." Mouse muttered, shaking his head as the world spun. "Is... L–Leester oka—"
A sound cut him off.
Not a voice.
Laughter.
Twisted. Unnatural. Like shattered glass dragging across stone.
All eyes snapped toward the shimmering dome. It began to dissipate like smoke in the wind. Lira lay crumpled within, unmoving. Dead.
But Kael—Kael was standing.
Something was wrong.
His right hand was encased in the gauntlet, his arm swallowed by a writhing, tar-like miasma that pulsed with malevolence. His eyes were pits of pure black.
No pupils. No whites. Just void.
A crooked smile twisted his face, inhuman—too wide, too still. Killing intent poured off him in suffocating waves.
"Wh-what... wha–what is that?" Nyss stammered, staring as the last traces of the dome vanished.
Varin's instincts screamed. Earth coiled around his hammer. His feet tried to move—
They didn't.
Cold sweat traced his spine. He couldn't breathe.
The air thickened like tar. Lyre dropped to her knees and vomited, retching violently.
Then—
Silence.
The pressure vanished like it had never existed.
So did Kael.
Nyss gasped for breath, blinking rapidly. "Where'd he—?"
Something flickered at the edge of her vision.
She turned.
The world twisted. Everything tilted—sideways?
Thud_
A limp body lay beside her.
Headless.
Isn't that... my bangle?
Wait—
That's my—
Darkness swallowed her before the thought finished.
Lyre was still heaving when something landed beside her with a wet thud. She turned.
Her sister's head stared back, mouth frozen in a silent scream, eyes wide with terror.
"No... no, no—" Lyre whispered.
A boot crashed down on her neck.
Bone snapped.
Her body jerked once, then crumpled, twitching in a spreading pool of blood and bile.
Varin spun at the sound just in time to see Kael looming over Lyre's corpse, his heel grinding her neck into the floor. The gauntlet glistened, dripping red. Nyss's headless body sprawled behind him like a discarded puppet.
Kael looked up. Met Varin's eyes.
And smiled.
Varin turned and bolted for the door. He managed two steps before he felt something wrong.
He looked down.
A jagged obsidian fist had burst clean through his chest. His heart, still twitching, pulsed in Kael's grip.
Blood frothed in Varin's mouth. "I... I knew some... thing was wr—"
He collapsed.
Kael yanked his hand free, tilting his head in idle curiosity, admiring the ruin he'd made.
Then his gaze shifted to Mouse—
Pathetically crawling backward, dragging his spent body with trembling hands.
Kael stepped toward him, each footfall echoing across the shattered room.
"Where are you going?" Kael asked, voice low and guttural, like a growl scraped through broken stone.
[Bold text indicates the voice of the guantlet]
"P–please… I–I'm so... sorry," Mouse whimpered.
Kael crouched, eyes narrowing.
"Sorry?" he said, tasting the word like it offended him.
He smiled again.
"Pathetic."
In one smooth motion, he swung the gauntlet.
Mouse's legs separated at the knees.
The scream that tore from Mouse's throat was primal, raw. Kael leaned closer, inhaling the sound like a fine aroma.
"Yes," he whispered. "More."
He moved again, faster—slicing off Mouse's remaining limbs in a blur. Flesh split. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed across the floor in steaming arcs.
Mouse could no longer scream. His jaw hung slack, mouthing silent agony. His eyes fluttered.
Kael grabbed him by the gut and ripped him open. Intestines spilled in smoking coils. He watched for a moment, fascinated, then raised his hand and brought it down in a sickening crunch—shattering Mouse's skull into a crimson ruin.
"Disappointing," Kael muttered, standing. "He broke too soon."
He turned to the only one left.
Lester.
Unconscious. Still breathing.
Kael stood over him for a moment, studying.
"That one's already dead inside," he muttered, voice bored.
A flicker of light outside caught his attention.
He walked out of the ruin, stepping over broken bodies, his gauntlet dripping a trail of blood behind him.
Down the road, a peaceful village glowed with warm lanternlight. Laughter drifted on the wind.
Kael grinned.
Not out of hunger.
Not out of rage.
Out of joy.
Finally, he thought.
Finally, something I can destroy.
Without hesitation, he leapt into the night.