The air reeked of fear, anger, and blood. Varak’s cracked exoskeleton and skin shimmered under the dim light of the Farm. Her movements were sluggish as her black ichor blood dripped beneath, and she pressed her brood behind her with trembling clawed hands.

  “Brood…stay,” she rasped, her voice barely audible over the prisoner mob’s jeers. “Hide. Shadowdog protect. Small…smelly man help.”

  Varak’s small children chirped weakly and huddled together in the shadow of her broken body.

  In front of Varak and her children, Rex stood as a bulwark of snarling darkness. The Shadowshroud’s fur stood straight up, daring the mob to come closer. His growls and snaps cracked through the air, a promise of violence the hound barely contained.

  “Kill the monsters!” one prisoner screamed, her face gaunt and hollow from weeks of starvation of torture.

  “That dog’s Abyssal filth too!” another yelled.

  Another spell–a blast of searing light–shot towards Rex. He leapt, intercepting it with his form, barking as he took the impact head on. His returning bark was thunderous, sending the front line of freed prisoners stumbling back, clutching their jarred souls like sacred jewels.

  Varak staggered, her broken leg buckling beneath her. The ichor leaked freely from her gashed wounds as she sank to the ground. Her mouth twitched weakly. “Brood…safe,” she murmured. “Varak…broken.”

  Another stone flew, striking her on the shoulder and cracking her further.

  “Back ye damned fools!” Hathgar roared. His arm gleamed in the dim light as it extended outward. An amalgamation of flesh and black steel. It shifted with a sickening metallic groan, reshaping itself into a pole thrice tall as him. He swept his metal pole arm towards them, sending them back further with his sweep.

  “They’re protecting those monsters!” A man yelled, veins bulging in his neck as he hurled another rock. It struck Hathgar’s chest, leaving behind a dull dent on his transformed skin.

  “I said back!” Hathgar bellowed. He swung the iron pole in a wide arc, air splitting under its weight. The prisoners pressed forward, their faces twisted in fury and despair.

  One man rushed Hathgar, his fist glowing with the faint light of a weak skill. Hathgar swung his pole low, sweeping the man’s legs out from under him.

  The prisoner hit the ground with a thug, but the mob didn’t falter. Another rushed in, forcing Hathgar to retract the pole into a hammer and slam it down into the man’s skull. The prisoner crumpled, dead on impact.

  “Fools,” Hathgar spat. “You’re so bent on rage you’ll get yourselves bloody well killed!”

  Behind him, Varak fell further into her injuries. Her distorted hands scraped weakly against the stone as she tried to rise, shielding her brood as her body began to slip away.

  Her brood’s tiny forms pressed tighter against her as another stone sailed past Hathgar and Rex.

  “Kill them! They’re Abyssal creatures! We need to kill them before they kill us!”

  “They already ruined us!” someone shouted.

  Hathgar’s twisted his wrought iron arm back into its pole form. He looked over his shoulder quickly at Varak, then back to the mob. “Yer too damned stupid to see who your real enemy is,” he growled.

  Another spell shot towards them, but Rex leapt to take the blow. The Shadowshroud trembled from the blow.

  Varak started to shake from the lack of ichor. Her clawed hands reached for her brood. “Master…help...” she whispered, but her voice was barely audible, drowned out by the mob’s bloodlust.

  And then, a voice roared, shaking the very air like a crack of thunder.

  “ENOUGH!”

  The mob froze, their eyes snapping toward the source of the voice. The cavern fell silent, save for the drip of ichor from Varak’s wounds and the sharp echoes of Mitch’s boots against the stone floor.

  Mitch stood at the entrance like a nightmare pulled from the Abyss itself. Shirtless, his body a map of scars and hard muscle. The black tendril connected him permanently to Rex. In one hand, he carried a giant serrated blade that glowed red. Over his shoulder hung the Warden, limp and bloodied and gagged and moaning.

  His red eyes burned like embers as he stepped further into the room. The Warden’s body dropped to the ground with a thud and a grunt.

  “Look at yourself,” Mitch’s voice was low, each word laced with restrained violence. “Starving. Weak. Attacking the only ones keeping you alive.”

  Many shrank back under his red glare. Some clutched their jars tighter, others shifted uneasily. A few glanced at Hathgar and Rex.

  Mitch strode forward, every step deliberate. “You think you’re free?” His voice dripped with disdain for their actions. “Your souls are still trapped in those jars, one step away from the Abyss swallowing them and spitting them back into something of its personal design. And you waste what little strength you have throwing rocks at someone who feeds you. Who heals your wounds.”

  He pointed Galadrith toward the crowd as he stood in front of Varak, “You want to attack us? Kill us? Do it, then.”

  “You’re just another monster!” a woman shrieked, holding her jar like a talisman. “Sent to torment us again!”

  “Your ‘saviors’ are Abyssal demons!” another man yelled, spit flying from his cracked lips. “We won’t be slaves again!”

  The mob surged forward, a storm of raw fury and brittle hope, their battered forms driven by a fear too deep to reason with.

  Mitch’s eyes found Varak, who barely clung to consciousness. The jagged cracks in her skim dripped as her brood clung fearfully to her. His jaw tightened as another spell streaked past her, narrowly missing the children.

  “You see this?!” Mitch growled. “This is what you’re fighting. Not monsters. Not demons. A mother, who you want to break and kill for protecting her children.”

  “She’s an Abyssal monster!” a prisoner bellowed, stepping forward with a jagged rock held high. “She’ll rip us apart the moment she thinks we trust her! You too!”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  A spell shot past Mitch, grazing his arm and fizzling against the wall behind him.

  Rex, come.

  Rex barked once at the prisoners before his form dissolved. The writhing shadow zipped toward Mitch, coiling around his body. The tendrils solidified into jagged plates of blackened armor. Rex had grown again and now formed gauntlets over his wrists and hands, encasing Mitch’s strong form in a menacing, Abyssal shell.

  “Monster!” a prisoner yelled. “You’re just another Abyssal monster!”

  “Back, damn ye!” Hathgar yelled, swinging his metal arm towards the crowd. “Ye don’t know what ye’re talking aboot!”

  Sable burst into the cavern, dragging Mook behind her. The unconscious gnome hung limp in her arms. “Mitch!” she yelled, her eyes dancing between Varak and the mob. “They’re going to kill her!”

  The mob stirred and glanced at themselves. Rocks and weak spells began to fly again, their aim erratic but dangerous.

  Souls within Mitch’s core roared in unison at the display against Mitch. These people did not recognize his power.

  Mitch’s voice cut through the chaos. “You think I’m a monster? Is this how a monster works?”

  He dropped to one knee beside Varak, extending his armored hand toward her dying form. Agony’s Embrace stirred, and a dark tendril of red energy snaked through the Abyssal Binding between him and Varak. The tendril coiled against her wounds, sealing the cracks in her thin exoskeleton with a hiss.

  Black ichor evaporated as her strength returned as she rose to her too many feet. She was once again a scuttling monster with a brood of Abyssal children.

  Settlement Amount: 257 Souls, 338 Beast Souls, 0 Credits, 72(-7) Flesh.

  The prisoners gasped, their fury twisting into unease.

  Varak’s voice clicked. “Master…fix. Varak will live.”

  “You see that?” Mitch said, rising to his full height. His gaze swept over the mob. “Does that look like the work of a monster?”

  “Lies! You wear the Abyss! You heal the Abyss!” a man bellowed, stepping forward. “You’re protecting them because you’re Abyssal filth! A monster who needs to be put down. And those who follow you!” He raised his hand, a spell forming between his fingers.

  Galadrith spoke to him, his voice somber. “Perspective is reality, Mitchell. To them, you are no savior. You are a beast, as is Varak. And beasts must be put down. Their reality is warped. To them, you are the Abyss. They cannot fathom your mercy, only your strength. Show them which is greater.”

  The spell launched toward Sable, red and destructive. She pivoted, but the blast hit the unconscious gnome in her arms instead.

  The gnome convulsed once, and then stopped breathing.

  “No!” Mitch roared. His heart twisted as he reached for the soul with Abyssal Vault. It was too weak. The tendril slipped through his grasp, fading into nothingness. Or back down into the Abyss’s maw. He didn’t know.

  “No,” he muttered, his voice trembling with rage. “No!”

  Another spell shot toward Varak and her brood, who cowered behind Mitch and Hathgar. He didn’t flinch as it struck him square in the chest, dissipating against Rex’s shadow plate.

  “They’re trying to kill my people,” Mitch said, his voice low and dangerous as spells flew and struck him. His gaze turned sharp. “Enough.” The word fell like a hammer, shattering the fragile balance in the cavern. Mitch felt the Abyss surge within him, cold and unrelenting.

  His Abyssal Bind extended, yanking the hidden wills from the cracks and shadows like marionettes on tangled strings. A thousand tiny lives bent under his command.

  Minions: Abyssal Mice: 121(+117), Abyssal Fodder: 3, Abyssal Bugs: 812(+389)

  Mitch stepped forward, his blade raised. “You wanted to fight a monster? Fine.”

  He knew he was about the snap. The pressure mounting from the Pit, the Farm, and now the escaped prisoners. Mitch tried to shove the rising anger into Devoid.

  It was too full. He had locked far too many emotions into the small drawer of his emotions. All the pain from his past life. The shame, and the anger, and the fear. It was cracking, and his emotions were cracking through.

  He was about to pop.

  Sable’s voice cracked as she shouted, her gaze darting between the chaos and Mitch. “Mitch, please! This isn’t the way!” Sable’s voice cracked as her eyes darted between the mob and Varak’s brood. “They’re scared—they don’t know what they’re doing!” Her grip tightened around the lifeless gnome in her arms, her voice trembling. “This isn’t you. You’re better than this. Please, Mitch. If not for them…then for me.”

  A prisoner charged, desperation in his eyes.

  Mitch tried to squeeze his Devoid box of emotions shut. But it wouldn't close. Instead, with a crack that he felt within his core, the emotions spilled out.

  Every feeling that Mitch had tried to shove away and hide from himself, and from the world spilled forth. They coalesced into something dark and viscous. An emotion ripped through him. The backlash had finally come. He had locked far too many twisted thoughts away, and the due of Devoid had come.

  It could only be described as icey wrath.

  He didn’t stop himself from moving. Mitch met him with one brutal stroke. Galadrith sliced through the man’s body like ripe fruit. Blood sprayed across the cavern as the man’s torso hit the ground in two thuds. The man’s jarred soul followed, clattering against the ground. Mitch reached for the soul, but he couldn’t reach it behind the glass. It was gone before he knew it.

  Mitch stared at the jar as its faint glow dimmed, the soul slipping away beyond his grasp. He reached out with Abyssal Vault once more, desperate, but the barrier of glass mocked his efforts.

  It was the same every time. No matter how strong he became, the Abyss always took.

  “They’re trying to kill my people,” Mitch growled back at Sable. His voice was cold, heavy with the weight of unrelenting fury.

  “Lad! They’re going to overrun us!” Hathgar bellowed, swinging his iron-formed arm to deflect an incoming spell. “Acting like damned animals, ye lot! Ye’ve forgotten yer humanity in yer fear!”

  Another prisoner lunged for Hathgar, but the dwarf twisted his iron arm into a spiked shield, slamming it into the attacker’s chest. The man crumpled, gasping for air. “Bloody fools!” Hathgar roared. “Yer fightin’ the wrong battle, and it’ll be yer last!”

  The mob moved as one. Spells crackled and stones flew through the air. Their shouts rose into a deafening roar as they rushed forward, a chaotic horde of jagged rocks, glowing fists, clinking jars that held their souls, and gaunt faces driven by fear and fury.

  “This is where you must learn honor, Mitchell,” Galadrith said in his mind. “When they rise against what is yours, they are your enemy. Show them the strength of a man who will not falter before the masses’ demands.”

  Mitch’s blade dripped with blood as he turned to face the oncoming wave. The cavern swarmed with movement—bugs and mice rushing towards the prisoners that ran at him in a frenzy, their jarred souls glowing faintly in the dim light. Yet not all of the prisoners charged.

  A few stayed back, clutching their jars, eyes wide with something that bordered on understanding. Mitch caught the gaze of two—a gnome man with a crooked arm and an elf woman watching seriously as she pressed her jar to her chest. They didn’t speak. They only watched as the horde of people threw themselves into the fray.

  Mitch’s voice boomed, his words directed at them as much as the crowd surging toward him. “Look away,” he roared, “or watch and learn what happens when you cross me.”

  But even as the words left his lips, doubt twisted in his chest. He didn’t want this. These weren’t soldiers, they were broken people. Yet their rage and anguish left no room for reason. Not in a place that was plagued by the Abyss.

  Mitch’s presence loomed like a dark monolith with bleached white hair. Unyielding against the tide of desperation that rushed towards him with their sliced bodies. He would try to save as many souls as possible. But if they were trying to kill him or his small faction, they would learn. And if they wanted a monster, they would face one.

  With Galadrith in hand, Hathgar and Sable by his side, Rex covering him, and his minions waiting for his command, Mitch stepped forward to meet the onslaught of people turned feral.

  The weight of his choices pressed down on him like the Abyss itself. He didn’t want to kill them, not all of them, but if they wouldn’t stop…

  He raised his blade, his voice a quiet rumble. “Last chance. Stand down, or face what you’ve made me become.”

  The crowd hit him. He let the wrath overcome him.