The moment they passed through the archway, the full horror of the altar grounds assaulted them.
The stench was the first thing—blood and voided entrails, thick enough to taste, coating the tongue and lining the throat.
The ground was a gory mosaic of dark-green, crimson, and brown, littered with the corpses of Vrkuka, Vyaghruga, and Ganshka in various states of dismemberment.
Bodies piled on bodies, the dead stacked like cordwood, the dying crawling over the fallen in search of purchase.
In the center, the massive pentagram-shaped altar sat upon its dais, supported by five obsidian columns that seemed to drink the light rather than reflect it.
The structure pulsed with a faint, malevolent glow—the heartbeat of the pocket dimension itself.
The Arashen-rank members froze.
A collective gulp moved through them like a wave.
Some flinched, taking involuntary steps back from the abattoir.
Others simply stared, their minds refusing to process the scale of the slaughter.
Amid the chaos, Ballio's eyes locked onto a familiar form.
Cloe.
She was fighting desperately at the edge of the melee, fending off a pack of Ganshka with claws that moved on instinct alone.
Her movements were slowing, her strikes losing precision. Blood matted her fur from a dozen small wounds.
"Cloe!" Ballio surged forward.
Roderic's hand clamped onto his arm with bruising force. "Get ahold of yourself."
Ballio struggled—muscles straining, teeth gritted—before the fight went out of him.
His shoulders slumped in frustrated anguish, but he didn't try again.
Ashan stood motionless, his hazel eyes flickering with grayish-white hues as he analyzed the battlefield.
His siddhi painted the scene in vectors and probabilities—paths through the chaos, angles of attack, the positions of key players.
Macos at the center, untouched. Serge dying at his feet. Lash locked in combat with Vrkuka and Gnashka.
The pieces are in motion. The thought was calm, detached. Now we see how they fall.
Helma sat on a relatively clean patch of ground with a sigh, her legs folding beneath her.
"Tired already?" Damara asked, a weak attempt at humor in her voice.
"Just conserving energy." Helma waved a hand.
Her yellow eyes reflected the carnage—the furious roars of the Manuga and the ceaseless gnashing of the Ganshka creating a dissonant symphony of death.
Unconsciously, she began to hum. A soft, melancholy tune that seemed out of place amid the slaughter.
Imla moved to stand beside them, her gaze analytical. "Enjoying the music of war?"
"Just remembered something." Helma's expression softened, the hardness of survival momentarily giving way to something else.
"My mother used to sing me a lullaby. This tune." Her voice grew wistful. "It's the only memory I have of her."
A pause.
"Maybe I'll hear it again in the afterlife. If I die here."
"Hmm." Damara's expression turned sour. "Must be nice. To have a mother who sang to you."
She glanced at Helma. "Mine was a prostitute." Another glance, toward Ashan's back. "Like his mother, I think."
Helma stared at her quietly.
"What about you, Imla?" Damara asked.
Imla's green eyes flickered. Her fingers traced old scars on her left wrist—a nervous habit she couldn't control.
"I don't remember," she said flatly. "Nothing before the Order."
A heavy silence fell over the three girls as they watched the slaughter continue.
"Woo!" Dris's laugh cut through the grim atmosphere like a blade. He was practically bouncing on his heels, his eyes fixed on the field of battle.
"So many vestiges to harvest! Look at them—hundreds of bodies, all just waiting for us!"
Roderic's face twitched. "Why is your sin Krodha and not Lobha? You should be in the House of Greed with Ashan."
"One pursues material things." Dris shrugged, still grinning. "The other pursues abstracts like battle and glory. I want the fight and the rewards."
Roderic shook his head, but his gaze drifted to Ashan's back.
Ashan, brother. The thought was quiet, almost private.
There's so much I don't understand about you. Your knowledge, your power, your calm. But I trust your methods. Let's survive this.
Together, as Team 7—no, as brothers and sisters.
He moved to stand beside Ashan. "How bad is it?"
Ashan didn't turn. His eyes never stopped scanning. "Pretty bad." A pause. "Catastrophic might be more accurate."
Dris joined them, his earlier greed momentarily forgotten. "That much is obvious." He nodded at the chaos. "What's the play?"
Ashan finally turned to face the gathered members.
Fear was a palpable aura around them—shaking limbs, pale faces, wide eyes that reflected the horror before them.
But beneath the terror, he saw it: that bitter, desperate hope they had forged into a shield over the past weeks.
He let out a quiet sigh.
"We attack head-on." His voice was calm, neutral—a stark contrast to the hellscape before them.
"Our objective is to find the other eight keys and reach the altar." He paused. "Kill anyone in your way. This is total war."
They straightened. Their backs stiffened. Their expressions hardened.
One voice rang out from the crowd—shaky, but determined. "We gladly die—for a few more moments to live!"
The mantra spread through them like fire through dry grass. A psychic bulwark against the terror.
"We gladly die, for a few more moments to live!"
The chant grew stronger, a wave of defiant resolve that seemed to push back against the stench of death and the roar of battle.
"Commence the attack!" Ashan's arm sliced forward.
A unified roar erupted from the human ranks.
"WAAA!"
They charged into the fray.
Like vermin in the walls, they scratched and clung. They poured into the battlefield with the desperate fury of those who had nothing left to lose.
Volleys of [Elemental Bolts] and [Combat Bolts] streaked across the field, their vibrant hues a brief, beautiful counterpoint to the gore.
The sudden arrival of a third faction threw the already chaotic war into absolute pandemonium.
The Ganshka, smelling fresh meat, gnashed their teeth with renewed frenzy. The Manuga roared in fury at this new threat.
But the humans did not break.
They retaliated with everything they had, pouring the last dregs of their prana into kiriyas and their atmic into mantras.
The profane syllables of Asurain twisted in the air, words of power that shaped reality to their will.
Some underwent [Totem Beast Transformation], their bodies twisting into hybrid forms to fight claw-to-claw, tooth-to-tooth in the same primal dance of death that surrounded them.
A wet, gurgling cough racked Serge's body.
Blood fountained from his mouth, spraying across the blood-soaked ground.
His chest was a ruined cavity—clawed open, organs exposed, life pouring out with each desperate heartbeat.
In his fading vision, the bloody reverse pentagram on Macos's chest pulsed like a malevolent heart.
The symbol glowed with each beat, drawing power from something Serge couldn't see.
Macos stood over him, impassive.
His golden fur was untouched by blood. His breathing was steady. His eyes held no emotion at all.
He brought his foot down on Serge's snout.
Crunch.
Again.
Crunch.
And again.
Crunch.
He stopped only when Serge's face was an unrecognizable pulp of bone and flesh. Not a breath remained. Not a thought. Not a memory.
Macos's whiskers twitched.
His deep green eyes scanned the battlefield, cataloguing the positions of his remaining forces, the scattered Vrkuka, the dwindling Ganshka.
His gaze landed on the struggling humans.
"Perfect." He murmured the word, lightly touching the pulsing symbol on his chest. "More sacrifices."
He made no move to join the fray. He simply observed from beside his rival's corpse like a ghoul at a feast.
Though their chief was dead, the Vrkuka did not flee.
A wave of mournful howls rose from the wolf-beings—a sound of grief so profound it seemed to shake the very trees.
Then the howls transformed, shifting register, becoming something else entirely.
A frenzy of pure, vengeful rage.
"Kill the cats!"
"Avenge the Chief!"
They threw themselves at the Vyaghruga with renewed ferocity, trading their lives for wounds, their wounds for kills.
The battle intensified, if such a thing was possible.
In Macos's cold gaze, he saw his son.
Lash was locked in combat with two human boys—one with tiger-striped features, the other with the sharp angles of a peacock.
They moved well together, covering each other's weaknesses, pressing their advantage.
"You fucking human brats!" Lash spat, deflecting their swords with his claws. Blood dripped from a dozen small wounds on his arms and chest.
The boys rolled back, prana surging through their bodies to reinforce their limbs.
The tiger-boy—Dris—smirked through his muzzle. "A cat shouldn't curse!" He launched a ferocious thrust, all his weight behind the blade.
The peacock-boy—Roderic—moved in perfect sync, delivering a vertical slash to pin Lash down.
Lash twisted, avoiding Dris's blade and parrying Roderic's.
The force pushed them back, but only for a moment. With a roar of fury, he swiped his claws, sending a trio of fiery projectiles at them.
Dris did something insane.
He rolled toward the attack, his body passing through the space the fiery claws had just occupied.
The heat seared the air around him, but he emerged unscathed, already mid-lunge.
Lash's eyes widened. "You crazy brat!"
Dris's hands morphed fully into tiger claws as he closed the distance. He slashed at Lash, who met him claw-to-claw.
The impact shook both of them.
It was the opening Roderic needed.
He sprinted forward and drove his sword deep into Lash's gut.
Lash's breath escaped in a wet gasp.
His strength faltered.
Dris gripped him with both clawed hands, holding him fast as Roderic withdrew and stabbed again.
And again.
Blood loss and exhaustion finally took their toll.
I wanted... to be Chief. The thought was faint, fading. I wanted... to be...
His body hit the bloody ground.
Dris's hands returned to normal, the claws retracting. "Nice assist, Roderic."
Roderic shook the blood from his blade. "Yeah—"
His voice caught in his throat.
His body went rigid.
Beside him, Dris froze too.
A deep, guttural snarl vibrated through them—a sound so primal, so predatory, that it seemed to bypass their ears and resonate directly in their spines.
The pressure of a hunter's gaze locked them in place, paralysis spreading from their cores outward.
"You killed my son, brats."
Macos stepped toward them, his tall form casting a long shadow that swallowed them both.
His tail lashed behind him like a whip. In his eyes, there was no grief—only a profound, chilling disappointment.
He didn't even glance at Lash's corpse.
Dris gulped. His bravado, his constant joking, his relentless confidence—all of it cracked.
"That's..." His voice was barely a whisper. "That's a pretty big-ass cat."