The morning routine in Kazakhar Prison was designed to break the spirit through monotony, but for Adam Ashbourne, the silence of the cell block was no longer empty, it was filled with the deafening weight of a secret.
The revelation of Edward Bloodrose, the Kinslayer, crucified in the mythical Level Six, had changed the texture of the air inside Cell 7-3-4. It was no longer just a cage; it was a war room.
Adam sat on the edge of his bunk, watching the dust motes dance in the sliver of light from the corridor. His mind was a battlefield of strategy. Crimson Lake. Scorching Desert. Blazing Hell. Eternal Darkness. He repeated the names of the levels like a mantra, a ladder of pain he had to climb to reach the weapon that could shatter the Empire.
"Check the fletching, Harry," Jones's deep voice rumbled, breaking Adam's trance.
Harry was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his hands trembling as he examined his scavenged arrows. "I-I am. The humidity in the Woods… it warps the wood. I think I can fix this one."
"We need them straight," Jones said, not unkindly. He was running a whetstone over the blade of his double-bitted axe. Shhhk. Shhhk. The rhythmic sound was hypnotic. "If we miss today, we don't eat. Or worse."
Panchenko was doing calisthenics in the small space, hopping from foot to foot. "Or we become the eating! Don't forget that part. I, for one, would make a terrible meal. Too much gristle, and a very bitter aftertaste."
They were trying to act normal. They were failing. The energy in the room was frantic, charged with the electricity of their whispered conspiracy from the night before.
But they had made a mistake. They had assumed that in a place of discarded souls, no one was listening.
Just outside the energy field of their cell, pressed into the shadows of a structural pillar, stood a figure. He was not a human prisoner. He was a Zar'khal, a lower caste of demon used for surveillance and enforcement. His skin was a mottled grey, his eyes large and yellow, with horizontal slit pupils like a goat.
His name was Vex, and his hearing was sensitive enough to hear a heartbeat through a steel door.
Vex stood perfectly still, his ears twitching. He had been tracking this group since the Treant kill. High-performance prisoners were often monitored for recruitment into the gladiatorial pits, but this… this was different.
"...Edward Bloodrose..."
"...escape..."
"...allies..."
Vex's yellow eyes narrowed, smoldering with malicious delight. The words drifted through the ventilation grate, fragmented but damning. Treason. High treason. To speak the name of the Kinslayer was a crime; to plot an escape to the Sealed Level was heresy punishable by soul-shattering.
Vex's clawed hand hovered over his communicator. He could call it in now. The Taskmasters would swarm the cell. Adam and his friends would be dragged to the torture tables before lunch.
But Vex paused. He was a low-level guard, treated like dirt by the High Seats. If he turned them in now, he'd get a pat on the head. But if he waited… if he let them gather their "allies," if he let the conspiracy grow until he had a net full of traitors… the reward would be substantial. A promotion. Maybe a transfer out of this damp, miserable moon.
Vex lowered his hand. He grinned, revealing rows of needle-teeth. Let them run, he thought. Let them fatten themselves on hope. I will be the butcher.
He slipped away into the shadows just as the horn for the daily shift began to wail.
"Alright, lads," Panchenko said, slapping his cheeks as the energy field dropped. "Showtime. Time for round two with our leafy friends. Remember the plan: stick together, conserve energy, and keep an eye out for potential recruits."
They merged into the river of prisoners flowing toward the elevators. The mood was grim. Yesterday's victory against the Treant had bought them respect, but respect painted a target on their backs. Other prisoners eyed them, some with envy, others with calculating hunger.
As they retrieved their weapons from the armory, Adam's notched bastard sword feeling heavier today, he fell into step beside Jones.
"You think Julian will listen?" Adam asked quietly, his eyes scanning the crowd for the redhead's distinctive flame-colored hair. He was nowhere to be seen. Julian often took the last elevator, separating himself from the herd.
Jones grunted, testing the weight of his axe. "He's a survivor. He's strong. He didn't get to be the 'King of Level One' by being stupid. He'll see the logic in numbers, especially if Tom explains the tactical necessity. But he's a lone wolf. Men like that… they don't trust easily. Usually because they've been bitten by the sheep they tried to protect."
Harry whimpered, clutching his bow. "I just hope we don't run into another Treant. My arms still hurt from the last one."
"Or worse," Adam murmured, stepping onto the lift. As the platform shuddered and began its descent into the abyss, a shiver ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the temperature.
The Darkling Woods greeted them with a suffocating embrace.
The environmental controls were glitching today. The artificial fog was thicker, a cold, sickening that tasted of copper and rot. The bioluminescent fungi on the black trees pulsed with a sickly, irregular rhythm, casting long, jittery shadows that seemed to claw at the prisoners' ankles.
They moved in formation: Adam on point, Jones rear guard, Panchenko and Harry flanking Tom in the center.
They hadn't been walking for twenty minutes when the forest woke up.
A low growl echoed from the mist, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere.
"Contacts," Tom whispered, checking his scanner. "Multiple signatures. Fast movers."
Red eyes ignited in the gloom. One pair. Two. Ten.
Gaunt, unnaturally large shapes detached themselves from the darkness. Gloom-Hounds. But these weren't the starving scavengers they had fought yesterday. These were larger, their chitinous armor plates thicker, their spines dripping with a black, viscous ichor.
"They're evolving," Jones growled, stepping up to stand back-to-back with Adam. "Or the Warden turned the difficulty dial up."
"Fast, but they scatter if you hit the alpha," Tom reminded them, his voice trembling but clear. "Look for the silver spines!"
The pack lunged.
The fight was brutal, swift, and messy. There was no glory here, only the desperate mechanics of survival.
Adam didn't think, he flowed. His sword was a steel barrier, deflecting snapping jaws that could crush bone. He sidestepped a lunge, feeling the wind of the beast's claws, and a quick thrust under the ribs.
Squelch.
"Panchenko! Left!" Adam barked.
The one-eyed man didn't hesitate. He dropped to one knee, angling his spear upward just as a hound leapt. The beast impaled itself on the shaft, its momentum carrying it halfway down the wood.
"Eat timber, you ugly mutt!" Panchenko shouted, kicking the corpse off.
Harry, terrified but drilled by necessity, loosed arrow after arrow. He missed twice, but his third shot was perfect, a shaft through the eye of a flanking hound.
"Got him!" Harry yelled, surprised at his own competence.
Jones was a whirlwind of violence. He didn't dodge; he absorbed impacts on the haft of his axe and returned them tenfold. He caught a hound mid-air with a backhand swing that shattered its spine with a sickening crack.
Within minutes, the immediate area was littered with broken bodies. The remaining hounds, sensing the strength of the pack was broken, turned and vanished into the fog, yipping in defeat.
They stood panting, steam rising from their blood-soaked clothes.
"We're getting better," Adam said, wiping slime from his face. "Standard Gloom-Hounds aren't a threat anymore."
"Don't get cocky," Jones warned. "In here, confidence is usually the appetizer before death."
Just as they began to check their wounds, a sound tore through the oppressive atmosphere.
It was a scream. High, piercing, and laced with absolute, primal terror.
"That's Astrid!" Panchenko exclaimed, his head snapping toward the east. The playful intonation was gone from his voice.
"Move!" Adam ordered.
They didn't debate. They ran. They crashed through the undergrowth, ignoring the thorns that tore at their uniforms, sprinting toward the source of the agony.
They burst into a large clearing dominated by a dead, hollowed-out tree. And the sight that greeted them froze the blood in Adam's veins.
Ylva's group was dying.
They were engaged in a frantic, losing battle against a nightmare that had no business being on Level One.
It was a Chimera.
Standing twelve feet tall at the shoulder, it was a biological atrocity. Its body was a muscular, leonine mass covered in shimmering, brass-colored scales. Three heads sprouted from its torso: a massive Lion's head roaring fire and smoke; a twisted Goat's head with obsidian horns that crackled with dark magic; and for a tail, a massive, muscular serpent with a viper's head the size of a human torso, dripping green venom.
"By the Void…" Tom whispered, backing up. "That's a Level Four Guardian. Why is it here?"
The situation was catastrophic.
Lee was slumped against a rock, his leg twisted at an unnatural angle, clutching a nunchaku that had been snapped in half.
Ylva was the only one standing firm, but she was favoring her left side heavily. A deep, ragged claw mark ran from her ribs to her hip, bleeding freely. She swung her warhammer, keeping the Lion head at bay, but she was slowing down.
Astrid was moving, but she was limping. Her daggers flashed, but she couldn't get close enough to do damage without being incinerated by the Lion's breath.
And Pao…
Adam felt a surge of nausea. Pao, the gentle, food-obsessed giant, was lying on his back in the center of the clearing. His massive cleaver lay five feet away. A horrific wound had opened his belly, a gash from the Chimera's claws that exposed the inner workings of his body. A crimson pool was spreading beneath him, soaking into the hungry moss. His eyes were wide, staring at the false sky, unseeing.
"Pao!" Panchenko gasped, his voice cracking.
The Chimera roared, a tri-phonic sound of a roar, a bleat, and a hiss that assaulted the ears. It raised a massive paw to crush Ylva.
"NO!" Adam roared.
The unfairness of it, the sheer, rigged cruelty of the system ignited something dark in Adam's chest. The calm strategist vanished. The Berserker returned.
"CHARGE!"
Adam sprinted into the clearing, screaming to draw the beast's attention. Jones was half a step behind him, bellowing a war cry that shook the leaves.
The Chimera turned its Lion head toward the new threat. It opened its maw, and a jet of superheated air and flame erupted.
"Scatter!" Adam yelled, diving into a roll.
The heat singed his hair, blistering the skin on his arm. He came up swinging, aiming for the beast's front leg. His sword sparked against the brass scales. It was like hitting a tank.
"It's too hard!" Adam shouted. "The armor is too thick!"
The Snake-tail lashed out, striking fast as a whip. It caught Panchenko, knocking him backward ten feet. He hit a tree with a breathless grunt.
"Flank it!" Jones yelled. He swung his axe at the Goat head, but the creature twisted, and the obsidian horns caught the axe blade, holding it fast. The Lion head snapped at Jones, its teeth grazing the big man's shoulder.
It was a massacre.
Adam scrambled back, his chest heaving. They couldn't hurt it. Their weapons were scrap metal against a living fortress. Ylva had collapsed to one knee, using her hammer to hold herself up. Astrid was trying to drag Lee away.
The Chimera loomed over Adam, the Lion head drooling magma, the Snake head rearing back to strike the killing blow.
Adam raised his notched sword, bracing for the end. At least I tried, he thought. I tried to descend.
SWISH.
A sound like tearing silk cut through the roar of battle.
A blur of motion faster than the hounds, faster than Adam, faster than thought erupted from the canopy above.
A figure landed lightly on the Chimera's back.
Crimson hair. A black blade.
Julian.
The redhead didn't pause. He didn't scream. He moved with the cold, fluid precision of water flowing downhill.
He spun the black sword in a reverse grip.
Slash.
The Snake-tail, poised to strike Adam, was severed cleanly at the base. It fell to the ground, thrashing and spraying venom.
The Chimera shrieked, rearing up. Julian rode the motion, dancing along the creature's spine.
"Too slow," a voice said, calm and bored.
Julian struck again. This time, his blade glowed with a faint, crimson aura. He drove the sword down into the junction between the Lion's neck and the shoulder.
It didn't bounce. It cut through scales, muscle, and bone as if they were wet paper.
The Chimera's front right leg went limp. The beast collapsed forward.
Julian vaulted off the beast, landing softly in front of its face. The Lion head snapped at him. Julian sidestepped, a movement so minimal it looked like he barely moved at all and brought his blade up in a vertical arc.
The Lion's lower jaw was severed.
The Goat head tried to ram him. Julian pivoted, placing a hand on the horn and vaulting over it, driving his sword through the back of the Goat's skull as he passed.
The massive beast shuddered violently. It tried to rise, but its body was failing.
Julian walked to the front of the dying monster. He looked into the remaining eye of the Lion.
"Silence," Julian whispered.
He thrust the blade through the eye, piercing the brain.
The Chimera collapsed with a final, earth-shaking thud.
Silence rushed back into the clearing, heavier than before.
Adam lowered his sword, his arms shaking from exertion and shock. He stared at Julian. The gap between them wasn't just skill, it was astronomical. Adam was fighting a physical battle, Julian was conducting a symphony.
Julian flicked his sword, sending a spray of black blood onto the moss, and sheathed it in one fluid motion. He didn't look at the dead Boss. He turned his ruby eyes toward the survivors.
He scanned Adam, Jones, and Panchenko, noting their survival. Then he looked at Ylva's group.
His expression hardened.
He walked over to where Pao lay. Astrid was kneeling in the blood, weeping silently, her hands pressing uselessly against the ruin of Pao's stomach.
Pao's breathing was shallow, wet rasps. His face was grey.
Julian knelt. He touched Pao's forehead. Then he stood up and turned toward the tree line.
"Guard!" Julian's voice wasn't a shout, but it carried absolute command.
From the shadows, Vex, the Zar'khal spy, emerged. He was flanked by two larger demon enforcers. Vex was smiling, a cruel, twist of lips.
"Impressive show, Red," Vex sneered. "You saved the meat. For now."
"These prisoners are incapacitated," Julian said, his voice cold as liquid nitrogen. "Code 4 Medical Emergency. That man," he pointed to Pao, "needs a stasis pod and a bio-weaver. Now."
Vex chuckled. The sound was like grinding glass. He looked at Pao's gutted form with detached amusement.
"Medical supplies are for assets, prisoner. Not for… liabilities."
"He is dying," Adam stepped forward, his fury overriding his pain. "He needs help!"
"Then let him die," Vex spat. "Let it be a lesson. This is what happens when weaklings try to play hero. Level One is a filter. He has been filtered."
Vex looked directly at Adam, his yellow eyes narrowing.
"Besides," Vex hissed, low enough that only the front group could hear, "traitors don't deserve medicine. We are watching you, scum."
The demon turned his back. "Shift ends in two minutes. If the fat one isn't on the elevator, he stays for the scavengers."
The guards vanished into the mist.
Adam stood trembling, his knuckles white on his sword hilt. He wanted to scream. He wanted to charge.
But Julian didn't move. He stood staring at the empty space where the demon had been. His hand hovered over his sword hilt, twitching.
Then, a low, resonant bell rang through the forest. DOOOOOM.
The shift was over.
Julian turned back to the group. The cold mask slipped for a second, revealing a profound, ancient weariness.
"He can't walk," Julian said softly.
Jones stepped forward, sheathing his axe. "Then I carry him."
The giant walked over to Pao. With gentle hands that belied his size, he scooped the dying man up into his arms like a child.
"Hang on, Pao," Jones whispered. "We're going up to dinner."
Pao's eyes fluttered. "Stew…" he wheezed, blood bubbling on his lips. "Is there… stew?"
"Yeah, buddy," Panchenko said, his voice thick with tears. "The best stew. All the chunks you want."
They formed a procession. Broken, bleeding, and carrying their dying friend, they walked toward the elevators.
Adam fell into step beside Julian.
"You saved us," Adam said.
Julian didn't look at him. He kept his eyes forward, burning with a red light that matched the hellscape around them.
"I didn't save him," Julian said, gesturing to Pao. "I was too slow."
"You're strong," Adam said. "Stronger than anything here. We have a plan, Julian. A way to stop this. To stop them from looking at us like we're meat."
Julian stopped. He turned to face Adam. For the first time, Adam saw the full weight of the Kinslayer's legacy reflected in this man's eyes, the hunger for something more than survival.
"Stop them?" Julian asked quietly.
"Kill them," Adam corrected. "All of them. We're going to Level Six."
Julian stared at him for a long, silent heartbeat. Then, he gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
"Keep your friend alive," Julian said. "Then we talk."
He walked ahead, clearing the path, a god of war leading the damned out of the underworld.