Screams clogged with phlegm, manic laughter slipping from hollow forms and dying beneath the uncontrollable grind of gnashing teeth. Any illusion of solidarity collapsed as they clawed and bled over one another toward Zerin—heedless of pain, heedless of death, heedless of themselves.
There was recognition.
These were not war cries. They were the sounds of unrestrained madness. And in its face, Zerin reacted.
He drove his boot into the corpse beneath him, hurling their dead kin down the stairs. The body crashed into the mob, scattering the mass into a bone‑crunching heap.
Even that only delayed them. They rose again, hysteria scoring ever higher, rage funneled through the stairwell.
Their total absence of restraint was something he could never match—not with the captives as his priority. And if there was one thing he had learned in the Dream Realm, it was that a battle like this was decided by nothing else.
"Zerin!" Her voice cut through the chaos, drowning out the pounding of boots.
He turned just enough to see her—Ecludia, the others close behind. Tina was among them, her arm slung over the older man's shoulder.
"Keep going!" Zerin shouted.
They obeyed, darting behind him. For a heartbeat, he almost followed—then stopped, his gaze snapping back to the writhing valley of gnarled limbs reaching for him.
"Don't stop! I'll catch up!" Zerin barked, leaving no room for argument.
They didn't hesitate. Better than he did, they knew this was no time to falter.
But Zerin couldn't help it.
They continued down the hall to his left. He tore his gaze from them as they passed the half‑collapsed archway, then stepped forward to meet the first line of hags.
If he could thin their numbers safely, now was the time.
He activated his Aspect Ability as the first hag shambled up the steps, squeezing past the others' screams. Zerin dragged his blade across the stone as he charged, black steel screeching before he wrenched it upward, carving a brutal diagonal through the creature's torso.
Schlkk.
The force was catastrophic—far beyond what its body had ever endured. The gouge tore through flesh and muscle, spilling its bowels. The hag clawed uselessly at itself before collapsing into a puddle of misery.
Zerin's fist tightened around the hilt. With the captives moving, he no longer needed restraint.
[You have slain a Dormant beast, Frost Wretch.]
He raised his blade again—slick with cobalt blood—and froze.
He had underestimated them.
The stairwell below crawled with bodies. Like a boiling pot, they surged upward, threatening to spill over.
Zerin backpedaled just in time. The hags exploded into the corridor, one wielding a broken sword that cleaved through its own kin in a desperate bid to reach him.
He met the erratic strike, barely parrying before they swarmed.
In a last‑ditch shove, he forced the hag back. Its blade screeched along his own. He seized the opening and whipped his sword in a single, merciless arc.
Limbs scattered.
Wet bone snapped beneath his edge. Their cries blended with the sound of collapsing bodies. The first line fell into ruin—the gap in strength undeniable, magnified by the five hundred soul fragments he now carried.
[You have slain a Dormant beast, Frost Wretch.]
[You have slain a Dormant beast, Frost Wretch.]
[You have slain a Dormant beast, Frost Wretch.]
[…]
Zerin drew his blade back to his side as the Spell's voice rang in his skull. Blue blood clung to the steel in viscous strands before dripping onto the stone. His sleeve was soaked, chilled beneath the fabric as he rolled his shoulder through the strain.
He reset his stance and lifted his head.
Bodies littered the corridor—already being consumed by motion. Hags climbed over the fallen, slipping in blood, crushing broken limbs, crawling when their legs failed, dragging themselves forward with blackened fingers.
It made no sense. None of it added up. Was this truly the same coven that had captured Ecludia, the one capable of summoning a cyclone to intercept them and raising barriers through runic sorcery?
It couldn't be. What Zerin saw here bore no resemblance to anything like that.
No discipline.
No structure.
Only shared insanity.
Zerin exhaled slowly, retreating one measured step, his grip tightening.
Not because he believed he could hold them—
—but because he already had.
For a breath, hesitation choked the corridor. Their momentum fractured under his retaliation.
Then the pressure returned.
The gap vanished beneath sheer mass. Bodies poured faster than he could manage. The stairwell became a spewing maw, vomiting an endless tide of decrepit flesh.
Zerin's expression hardened.
He could handle fifteen at once. This was at least ten times that. His blood would run dry. The Keeper's blood held him at twenty percent—and even that was fading.
So he pivoted and ran.
Only a fool bled himself dry against numbers.
It was a death wish.
Behind him, the hags gave chase. Their pursuit was deafening: bodies colliding, limbs scraping stone, the passage filled with frenzied flesh.
The corridor ahead stretched wide and empty.
He followed the others' path, passed the half‑collapsed archway, and pushed beyond it, leaving the cells and swarm behind. Light spilled from the far end—proof they had escaped ahead of him.
Zerin accelerated, veering left into a narrow hall lined with doors. After ten steps, something tore him sideways.
A fist seized his collar and dragged him through a doorway. His boots skidded as momentum tore him off course. Zerin slammed his free hand over the grip at his chest and drove his sword upward—
—and stopped.
The Astral Blade hovered an inch from an old, familiar face.
"Easy," the older man murmured.
Zerin's eyes reacted before his body. The crimson faded from them as he forced himself still. "Easy," he echoed, as though issuing a command to his own body.
He drew a sharp breath.
Iron flooded his senses.
The smell was thick—coppery, unmistakable. His head turned only slightly, instinct begging him not to look.
He looked anyway.
Brutality.
Mutilation.
In the corner bodies were piled without care, limbs tangled, torsos split open by deep, deliberate cavities carved into their abdomens. Men and women alike had been violated further—their reproductive organs removed with savage intent.
This was no frenzy.
This was deliberate.
Behind him, the hags thundered past the hall according to plan, their roars shaking stone as they battered uselessly at the doors.
None of it mattered.
The noise. The danger. The monsters rushing by.
All of it was fleeting.
This was not.