Bulz was seething, the kind of rage that didn’t just burn... it clawed. His son lay dead, the metallic scent of blood still clinging to the air, and now the slaves were slipping through his fingers. His cane trembled in his grip, not from fear, but from the weight of pure hatred.
"You don’t want this, bitch," he growled, each word sharp enough to cut. "Trust me, it won’t give you a good ending."
Miasha’s lips curved into a cold smirk. "Oh ho, trust me, fatty, I very much want this. And you? You can’t stop me. You think you’re a man? Deep down, you’re just a pitiful little shithead wrapped in too much flesh."
Veins bulged on Bulz’s forehead, each pulse a drumbeat of fury. "You... you..." The words failed him, swallowed by rage. With a sudden burst, he lunged, cane whistling through the air. Miasha twisted aside in a graceful backflip, her movements a dancer’s mockery of his bulk, then launched forward, driving her knee into his face.
"Aaagh!" His cry was wet with blood, splattering in crimson arcs across the floor.
"Beast summon.... Blue Venom Frog!" Bulz roared, and his mouth split wider than it should have. From the darkness within, a tide of frogs poured out, too many to count. They were the color of poisoned skies, patterned with diseased polka-dots, and each had eyes like pulsing rubies.
They began to hop in frantic unison, a crawling, squelching tide.
Miasha’s lip curled. "Ewww, Disgusting spell."
"Attack!" Bulz screamed, voice cracking with frenzy.
The frogs’ eyes shifted, glowing a deep, drowning blue. They swelled grotesquely, skin stretching as they hissed, and then
streams of thick, blood-colored liquid burst from their skulls, arcing toward Miasha.
"Tch." She slipped between the sprays, her movements razor-sharp. "Acid-type venom," she muttered, almost to herself.
They came from every direction, relentless. Miasha crouched, palm pressed to the cold floor. "Destroy them!"
The floor erupted. Jagged spears of rock burst upward, skewering the entire swarm in a single, brutal heartbeat. Their bodies twitched and split, oozing foul fluids that hissed on the ground.
She barely had time to stand before Bulz was there, a looming shadow in her vision. Her eyes widened.
His kick caught her face, sending her rolling, cheek scraping against the cold corpse of a guard she’d killed earlier.
"Fuck," she spat, blood threading from her lip.
Bulz wrenched a sword from a rack, lunging for her head with all the weight of his fury. She rolled aside, the blade bit into the floor with a screech of steel. Seizing the moment, she coiled her legs around his thick neck and yanked him down, the sudden shift breaking his stance.
From her inventory, she pulled a long blue dagger, its edge breathing cold wind. "Enchantment... Wind Support!"
The blade kissed his throat and tore. Blood sprayed in hot bursts, spattering her jacket, but she didn’t stop. Even after his body slackened, she kept hacking until steel rang on bone. Bulz remained upright for a moment a grotesque marionette before toppling, lifeless.
Miasha rose, her smirk razor-thin.
"Business is finished here. Time to fetch those little puppies."
Blood clung to her clothes like a second skin. In that moment, she looked less like a woman and more like a demoness carved from war.
She stepped into the corridor beyond, unaware that Veythor, Shimi, and Raika were inching forward somewhere ahead. Their steps were careful, each one placed as though the ground itself might bite. The air here was wrong.... heavy with the stink of rot and something sweeter, more rotten still.
Then came the sound. A scream, guttural and wet, like a thing torn between hunger and agony.
Shimi and Raika froze, their spines shivering under an unseen hand. Veythor’s jaw tightened. Even he, unafraid of most things, felt the pressure coil in his gut. They were powerless here. If that sound belonged to what he thought, then death wasn’t a possibility it was the only outcome.
"Tch," he breathed, then turned to them. "Shimi, Raika. From here on, no sound. That scream? It belongs to something we can’t afford to meet."
They nodded, wide-eyed.
Step by step, they crept closer. The sounds shifted the wet crack of chewing, and beneath it, a chuckle. Not a human one. This was a gurgling, devilish amusement, like bones being eaten by something that enjoyed the texture.
Shimi tugged at his shirt... a shirt already painted with blood.
"If it can smell..." she whispered. "It’ll know."
Veythor stripped the shirt halfway off before pausing, an idea striking him. Without a word, he knelt, pressing his palm to the blackened floor. It came away slick with dark dust. He lifted it to his nose.
"Yes... different scent."
"What are you—" Shimi began.
"Later." He smeared the dust over his face, masking the copper tang of blood with something older, fouler.
Ahead loomed a gate, cold and unwelcoming. A warning was carved deep into the steel: No entry without permission. The drawing on it was crude, but the eyes of the monster etched there seemed to follow them. Follow current novels on novel·fire.net
Below, more words: Once the question is asked, you cannot leave. Fail three times, and you will be lost forever in another dimension.
Veythor touched the metal door; the words started forming on its surface:
Invisible threads I silently spin,
Binding the many to where they’ve been.
No hand can grasp, no eye can see,
Yet all are tangled irrevocably.
I am the whisper before the storm,
The silent script that shapes the form.
Neither cruel nor kind in deed,
I plant the root, then watch it seed.
Kings and paupers dance in my hold,
Their paths pre-writ, their stories told.
A golden aura lingered over the words. The three of them stared at the inscription, searching for the answer.
But can they solve it or will they be trapped forever in another dimension? What will our mastermind Veythor do? That remains a question only time will answer.