The Slave(POV)

  The world knew three rules that preceded the Montcroix-Wythe’s invasion speech. Even slave number one-thousand-ten knew them by heart, though he couldn’t say he cared. What he hadn’t known, hanging by his legs strung from the balcony of Dygan Swan'yenns himself, was that the Montcroix-Wythe clan would dare attack the Dygan Syndicate. He sighed, a weary exhale of resignation. They get crazier every generation, he murmured in his thought. Wonder who it is this time?

  Not that he had to wonder for long. With a shudder that seemed to darken the sky itself, the city of towering golden glass spires was plunged into shadow. The slave barely had time to look up before his stomach twisted, almost making him lose hold of his stomach contents - and empty his bladder. The sky was obscured by a black-gold horror that seemed to loom over the city’s fractured towers. He knew the insignia. Every Trueborn, Morphborn, slave, creature, and mind-controlled machine in the city knew it as easily as they knew fear.

  It hung there, oppressive and grotesque: black and dull gold, a crying, swollen infant's face, exaggerated to the point of horror. Golden streams ran down cheeks twisted in a grotesque scream, and hollow, lifeless eyes seemed to look down with a hunger too deep to satisfy. Even the creatures that dotted the sky, ships and vast-winged beasts, once in frenzied motion, stilled under its gaze. The city beneath seemed to hold its breath.

  Then, a voice, gravelly, deep, and tinged with annoyance, rolled through the city, seeping from the walls, the air, the minds of every soul trapped within reach.

  “I hate that I have to say this,” it growled, almost sulking. “Damn it… now you’ll think I’m saying it because of you. I was getting to it, for gods’ sake! As if it matters…”

  The voice shifted, irritation fading into cold indifference.

  “Thy hand of death has come for the Dygan Syndicate.” A pause, dripping with contempt. “Hail Montcroix-Wythe.”

  The thud of fists striking chests echoed—a grim, ceremonial beat. One. Two. Three.

  “Hail the Spiral.” Another set of beats. “Hail the Sombre Remembrance.” The final beats, and then silence.

  “Hail Cipher, the Still Reaper.”

  And then, the sounds of the city vanished, cut off so completely it was as though the world had been plunged into a void where even silence was absent. The slave couldn’t hear his own pulse, couldn’t hear his own thoughts, only felt the panic building in his chest. He looked around, mouth open, unable to scream, as everyone seemed to flail in the deafening nothingness, unable to sense even the trembling of their bones. The reaper had come, and he’d brought death to sound itself.

  “Hail Cipher, the Lurking Dirge.”

  Now, the shadows began to move. Tendrils of darkness crept from the buildings, from beneath walkways and hanging cables, as if alive, coiling in agonised movement, spreading through the city like the limbs of something insatiable. They twisted around creatures and men, sent ships spiralling into their depths, and clawed at every soul that dared to stand under the now-empty, silenced sky. Some citizens fell to their knees, some attempted to scream or flee, but the shadows wove around them, indifferent to life or fear.

  Then, with a final, unshakable weight, the voice closed in, reverberating like an aftershock that made even the slave’s blood run cold as he felt for his thoughts… there was nothing.

  “Montcroix-Wythe has come.” The silence gave way to the soft, mocking whisper of dismay itself: “Despair.”

  The insignia darkened and flared, sealing the city’s fate as the world turned quiet once more.

  Then they came, plummeting from the sky like fallen stars, blazing white-hot as they tore through the clouds. The slave’s gaze tracked their descent, his eyes wide and unblinking, his mind hollow - not by his own choice, but because a Fiend had stripped him of will, leaving only silence. The sight clawed through his ashen skin and settled into his bones like ice.

  In one shattering instant, a vast expanse of spiraling towers collapsed, as if crushed by an unseen hand. Dust and debris rose in thick clouds, swallowing the air, yet no sound followed, as though even chaos itself had been smothered by some merciless will. From his high vantage, the slave could see it all - people, tiny as ants, scrambling over each other, fleeing, vanishing beneath waves of falling stone.

  He was void of thought, but in some buried corner of his mind, something shuddered, a primal fear pushing against the emptiness, clawing to escape the invisible grip of the Montcroix-Wythe’s Fiend. The wind whipped him about, dust and debris brushing his skin like an afterthought.

  The slave watched as the Syndicate forces surged toward the landing site from every direction, sky, ground, all cardinal points converging in a coordinated rush. His gaze caught on a single figure moving among them: a bulky man with brown hair, striding forward with brutal intent. Even in his dazed state, the slave’s fists clenched, his cold eyes following the man with strange, desperate focus. Then he saw her, a woman with almost no clothing, gliding behind the man like a shadow. Something flared in his chest at the sight, a flame that made his teeth grind. Even through his empty mind, he could feel his hate burn as he squeezed his hands so tightly they bled, his teeth scraping against each other, yet he could only watch.

  But his heart skipped, and a wave of dread overtook him as he saw another figure, a familiar old man descending from the clouds, though he was not part of the Montcroix-Wythe forces.

  Through the void of thoughts and sound that Cipher Montcroix-Wythe had summoned, the voice of the old man tore through it like a cruel saviour. Though all others were bound by Cipher's suffocating silence, the old man seemed above it, his words rippling through the air as if defying the very laws of reality.

  “Still nursing petty grudges, boy?” The old man’s voice, though frail, carried an ancient weight that reverberated through the city like a distant earthquake. Sun-golden robes hung motionless as he drifted down from the heavens, untouched by the swirling winds that now clawed at the world. “I see you’ve reached the fifth rank. But to what end? Revenge? Foolishness. The Dygan Syndicate will not fall with me, child. Turn back while you still can.”

  The sky itself seemed to recoil from the weight of his words, rippling like disturbed water. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, writhing as if alive, twisting toward where Cipher had landed.

  “Enough of your empty proclamations, old man,” Cipher replied, his voice a low, precise whisper that struck like a dagger. The air froze with his words, and the shadows around him writhed violently, coiling like serpents hungry for blood. “Run, and perhaps the Shagus will grant you the mercy of a swift death.”

  The old man’s golden robes flared with a sudden burst of light, his fury palpable. “You! Since when did the Montcroix-Wythe stoop so low as to wield the powers of the Spiral? Is your pride so thoroughly broken?” His roar was like thunder, cracking the sky apart as streaks of light slashed through the clouds.

  Cipher's reply took a while to come as if considering if the old man was worthy of his words. “Pride is the epitaph of fools,” he said, his voice rippling through the air like the whispered secrets of a nightmare. The shadows surged upward in response. “And you, old man, have carved yours in the stars. I am merely here to deliver the end you have long since written for yourself.”

  The slave, bound by terror, felt his body tremble uncontrollably. His blood froze as the clash of these two forces churned the very fabric of the world above.

  Then, like a tidal wave, thought came rushing back, crashing against the walls of his mind and the impenetrable silence that enveloped the world. What should I do? What should I do? But then he remembered…

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  There were three rules that always accompanied the Montcroix-Wythe invasion.

  One. Fear no oaths or masters, for only truth matters before thy hand.

  I owe no loyalty to Dygan; I’m no enemy! he screamed within, and as if in reply, he felt a subtle nod - a dark acknowledgment.

  Two. Lie, and death awaits you and your blood.

  Before him, men, women, and children began to twist and warp, tearing apart in horrific spirals of gore.

  Three. Sinners shall know the sweetness of pain and the shadow of death.

  Across the sprawling city, the slave saw the chosen few writhing in agony, but the Dygan members were hit hardest. The old man flicked his fingers, and the chaos stilled.

  Above all, a single truth hung in the air, unspoken yet undeniable, like the Sword of Damocles:

  To the prey, escape is not granted. To the prey, begging is futile. To the prey, hope is lost. To the prey, life is forsaken. To the prey, only hopelessness is afforded.

  “Close your eyes,” came a chilling, soothing voice, a whisper, soft yet deliberate, just loud enough to be heard but impossible to pinpoint. It was different from the earlier voice, Cipher. The slave guessed.

  He didn’t hesitate. Reaching for his thoughts, he found them absent once more. Obediently, he closed his eyes, and the world went mad.

  A tempest tore through him, flinging his body like a tattered rag caught in the fury of an unseen storm. Though his eyes remained shut, flashes of blinding light pierced through his lids, and the world shattered with deafening crashes that destroyed the dense silence that had ruled everything. Time lost all meaning in the chaos.

  Suddenly, he felt his bond wrenched free from the balcony. The howling winds dragged him violently, slamming him against the cold spire behind him. The force knocked the air from his lungs, leaving him gasping soundlessly, his instincts screaming to open his eyes. But something deeper - primal and gut-wrenching - held them tightly shut.

  A vicious updraft hurled him skyward, his body weightless caught in the reach of powers beyond imagination. His mouth opened in a silent scream, the cacophony around him swallowing every sound. The crashing roars grew closer and more frequent, his terror echoing in the hollow emptiness of his mind.

  Flailing wildly, his fingers searched desperately for anything to hold on to. By some strange twist of fate, they found purchase—something gripped his hands. He couldn’t think, couldn’t process what it was, but he clung to it with every ounce of strength.

  The wind roared, a force that seemed alive, shifting and writhing around him. Or perhaps it was him moving through the storm. His thoughts had abandoned him entirely; only instinct remained, raw and unrelenting, guiding his trembling hands and hammering heart.

  And then came a silence so immediate the slave felt the cursed stillness of the Montcroix-Wythe had descended once more. He strained against it, only to realise he could hear his own breathing, faint and shallow. Then, a whisper echoed in his mind. By Umyhar. He thought the words, but they felt hollow, stripped of the reverence they once carried.

  Umyhar. The old man, bred into his mind as a God, eternal, untouchable, the one whose presence was said to hold the Syndicate’s stars in place, had been confronted.

  And... he felt as though the worlds had gone mad. The air itself seemed heavier, warped. But no - it wasn’t just a feeling. They really had.

  “Lad!” shouted a gravelly voice, tired and filled with frustration. “He’s fucking terrified, this generation has truly gone weak. Open your blasted eyes, cunt…”

  The slave recognized the voice, his eyes snapping open as his body recoiled. His hand was trapped in the man’s firm, unyielding grip.

  The slave's breath caught in his throat as his gaze climbed to the man’s face - or what served as one. Staring back at him was a mask, plain and cold, carved from pale porcelain marble. A single claw mark ran jaggedly from the top right to the lower left, as though something primal had once tried to tear the soul from within. Behind the masked face of the man floated a pulsing halo of white light, its intensity searing into the edges of his vision, as if it sought to brand itself into the depths of his mind.

  The man was draped in a white coat that flowed unnaturally, its movement like liquid silver caught in an unseen current. Beneath it, a black suit clung to his body, its surface embroidered with intricate golden patterns that writhed like living sigils - demonic, blasphemous, and ancient. It was armor not meant to protect, but to declare dominion. Around him radiated an aura so palpable, so suffocating, it twisted the very air into a pale white steam that coiled and writhed with malicious intent. It wasn’t merely power - it was a weight, pressing against the fabric of reality itself, as though daring it to break.

  “Lad! You’re not thinking of stealing my clothes, are you, little shit?” The man’s voice came in waves, gravelly and guttural, each word crashing like a tidal force against the slave’s battered senses. It wasn’t the sound that terrified him, it was the vibration, the primal dread it carried, as if his very essence trembled under its weight.

  Cowardicelore. The name slammed into his thoughts like a hammer on brittle glass, shattering his fragile composure. His mind recoiled at the weight of the name alone, his heart racing as though it sought to escape his chest. This was not a man, this was something far greater, a force dressed in human form. He was part of the Montcroix-Wythe clan, yes, but no mere part, he was an extension of their cruelty, their dominion, their terror. The aura was blinding white, yet there was no comfort in it, only an abyssal horror, a light that didn’t illuminate but instead burned, stripping away all pretense of safety.

  The slave's mind was cast in utter horror, his thoughts a tumultuous churn, his mouth a gaping mess. Why? What? Why is he talking to me? Why? What's going on?

  “Poor boys out of his depth” Another voice came from his side purring.

  The slave’s head snapped to the side, and his breath hitched. She stood there, a vision of allure and terror, her form clad in flowing garments that shimmered like liquid shadow, laced with crimson patterns that pulsed like molten veins. Plum leaves swirled lazily around her, dissolving into mist as her aura radiated power, an intoxicating mix of beauty and devastation.

  Her glowing dark abyssal and predatory eyes held cruel amusement, and her deep red lips curved into a knowing smirk. Two obsidian horns crowned her head, her lush black hair shimmering as if alive. The air around her shimmered, oppressive yet inviting, her presence a maddening pull of lust and dread - a siren’s call laced with ruin.

  “What? Isn't he getting too full of himself?” Came the gravelly voice of cowardicelore.

  “Darling, his got every right to me be so, reaching the fifth rank is no joke and besides,” The woman who held the slave's attention like a pet on a leach, looked towards him. She's my goddess, she's everything. “He needs us to keep an eye on someone… interesting.”

  I'll do anything… Wait… no, I'll, No! The slave closed his eyes, a deep rage flaring within him, he felt his eyes grow moist, he hated everything at that one moment, but still his hate for himself stood above all, his weakness irritated him and it had been so for as long as he could remember. But what choice do I have? It was a sad thought but one that had followed his every move.

  He opened his eyes to find both figures looking at him.

  “Interesting indeed.” Said Cowardicelore. The woman nodded her head, her face contemplative.

  “It’s gone,” the slave whispered, his voice breaking as a bitter laugh clawed its way out. Tears streamed down his face, unbidden and hot. Cowardicelore finally let go of his hands.

  “The city… it’s gone. Damned them all. Damned them!” Then he saw it - the body of Swan'yenns, the cause of his nightmares, of his self-loathing. His laughter and tears kept flowing. I’m free…

  Cowardicelore let out a sharp, humourless chuckle. “That’s right, Bloodline Patriarch,” he said, each word like a blade carving the truth into the slave’s soul. “Cipher offers you a place within the Spiral - at the side of his unborn kin.”

  The slave froze, his laughter dying in his throat as the weight of the words slammed into him. His breaths came shallow and frantic, as though the very air around him had turned to ash.

  He looked out over the ruins of what had once been his prison. The city was no more, reduced to rubble and scars upon the earth. Yet amidst the devastation, there were signs of life - figures moving against the backdrop of annihilation, faint and blurred by the haze. The sound of distant battles rolled across the horizon, a haunting reminder that destruction was not truly over.

  The slave’s knees buckled as the magnitude of it all crushed him, Bloodline Patriarch? Me. His tears turned to trembling sobs, his hands gripping the shattered ground as though it might anchor him to a reality that was slipping further and further away.

  “Why me?” he whispered hoarsely, his voice cracking under the strain of his despair. “Why is it always me?”

  Cowardicelore tilted his head, his masked face impassive and cold. “You should be honored, lad. This is no curse, it's an opportunity. Don’t disappoint him.”

  The woman at his side smiled, her expression both amused and pitiless. She said nothing, only watched as the slave wrestled with the chains tightening invisibly around him.

  The slave’s trembling lips moved in a whisper, a prayer or perhaps a curse. “Damn me. Damn us all.”