Lyssandra dropped the liver carelessly beside the heart. Before the first portal could close, she reached her other hand into a third opening that snapped into existence nearby.
This time, her fingers closed around something soft and spongy. She yanked her hand back.
Held in her grasp was half of a left lung, torn and dripping.
The bandit who had been shouting encouragement earlier stopped mid-stride. His eyes went wide with panicked realization. He clutched desperately at his chest, gasping for air that wouldn't come. Instead of air, blood bubbled from his nose and mouth in thick crimson streams. He collapsed to his knees, choking and convulsing, before toppling sideways, lifeless.
Two down. Three remained.
The bald leader froze, his bluster evaporating as he watched his men fall without even getting within striking distance. Pure, unadulterated terror replaced the fury on his face.
Lyssandra didn't wait. She thrust her now-empty hand into a fourth portal that winked open. This time, her grasp found something long and slippery. She began to pull, slowly.
Slick, dark red intestines emerged, coil after coil, glistening under the dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy.
One of the last two bandit charging her felt a searing pain deep within his gut. He staggered, dropping his crude sword. His hands flew to his abdomen, clutching desperately.
"N-NO!" he shrieked, his voice high-pitched with agony and horror. "M-MY ORGANS! IT'S… IT'S… AAAH!"
He fell to his knees, writhing as Lyssandra continued to pull. More and more intestines slid out, inch after glistening inch. Blood poured from his mouth as he screamed incoherently.
Lyssandra dropped the liver she was still holding onto the pile of organs beside her.
Using both hands now, she continued to pull the intestines from the portal with agonizing slowness, relishing the bandit's prolonged torment.
"AAAAGHHHH!" The bandit's screams grew weaker, fading to choked gurgles as his lifeblood poured onto the forest floor. His struggles ceased.
He collapsed, lifeless, just as the final part of his intestines were pulled free and slapped wetly onto the ground beside her.
The last charging bandit, seeing his companions fall one by one in gruesome, inexplicable ways, finally snapped. With a whimper of pure terror, he spun on his heel and fled, running blindly away from Lyssandra, towards where the bald leader stood frozen.
Lyssandra watched him go with amusement. "Where do you think you're going?" she murmured.
A new portal snapped open near the fleeing bandit. Her hand darted in and closed around something soft and yielding deep within his skull.
The fleeing bandit slammed to a halt mid-stride, as if he'd hit an invisible wall. He dropped to his knees, mere meters away from the paralyzed leader, facing him.
"Now," Lyssandra said, strolling closer, holding the brain matter firmly in her fist. "Let's see… how does this work?" She poked a fingertip gently into a soft fold near the front of the grey tissue.
Instantly, the bandit's left arm jerked upward, stiff as a board, pointing uselessly at the sky. His fingers spasmed open and closed.
"Interesting!" Lyssandra giggled, a bright, cheerful sound utterly at odds with the horrific scene. "How about… this?"
She pressed a little harder into a different spot near the base. The bandit immediately voided his bladder, urine soaking the front of his trousers and puddling beneath him. A humiliating stain spread on the worn fabric.
"Hehe," Lyssandra chortled. "And… this?" She pressed firmly on a small nodule.
The kneeling bandit's eyes rolled violently upward, disappearing beneath his eyelids. Then, they snapped back down and crossed comically, gazing in opposite directions.
Another poke, this time deeper. The bandit's head whipped backward as if jerked by a giant hand gripping his hair. His mouth gaped open, neck straining.
"Fascinating," Lyssandra breathed, truly absorbed in her experiment. She squeezed the entire brain firmly, crushing it within her powerful grasp.
Blood erupted violently from the bandit's mouth, nose, and ears, spraying in arcs onto the forest floor. His eyes bulged, then dulled instantly. He crumpled sideways, a lifeless rag doll.
The bald leader, standing directly in front of the final bandit, saw every moment of the brutal manipulation. He watched the life drain from his last man's eyes, watched the blood gush from his orifices, all while paralyzed by absolute, primal terror.
His mind screamed commands at his trembling body. 'MOVE! MOVE YOU FUCKING COWARD!' he raged internally. 'RUN! KILL HER! ANYTHING BUT JUST STAND HERE!'
But his legs refused to obey. They were locked in place, frozen not by Lyssandra's magic, but by sheer, overwhelming fear.
His weapon hung uselessly by his side, his hand too numb to even release it.
His bowels felt loose, threatening to betray him. All he could do was stare in horrified silence at the monster who had casually annihilated his entire gang, his face pale as death itself.
Lyssandra slowly circled the bald leader like a predator toying with prey. "Hmm," she mused, tapping a finger thoughtfully against her lips. "What to do with you?"
She stopped directly in front of him, leaning in close until her breath brushed his trembling face.
He tried to speak, to beg, but only a choked whimper escaped his throat. His eyes, wide and bloodshot, darted between her face and the pile of his slaughtered men, then back to her cold, calculating gaze.
"Aww," she cooed, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "Cat got your tongue? That's no fun." She straightened up. "Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you… yet."
The words both offered a sliver of desperate hope and plunged him deeper into terror. 'Yet.' The implication hung heavily in the air.
Faster than his eyes could track, Lyssandra's hands transformed. Smooth, flawless skin gave way to hardened, razor-sharp green slime in the shape of twin katanas.
With blinding speed and terrifying precision, she executed four strikes.
THUD
THUD
THUD
THUD
All four of the bald leader's limbs were cleanly severed at the joints, falling heavily to the ground beside him. Blood sprayed in crimson arcs from the stumps.
"ARHGGGGGG!!!"
He finally found his voice—a deafening, guttural scream of agony that echoed through the forest. The pain was beyond comprehension, overwhelming his terror.
"Oh, do shut up," Lyssandra sighed, rolling her eyes. She extended one slime blade. It lengthened and split into four smaller, snake-like tendrils.
The tendrils whipped out, wrapping tightly around each of the screaming man's stumps. Instantly, the blood flow stopped.
The tendrils constricted, sealing the wounds, then hardened and formed lids over the ends, putting pressure on the raw flesh. Once secure, the tendrils detached from her hand with soft plops.
The shock of amputation, the blood loss, the sheer horror of the past few minutes, it was too much. The bandit leader's scream cut off abruptly. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed onto his back, unconscious.
Lyssandra stared down at the limbless torso. "Fantastic," she groaned, planting her hands on her hips. "Now I have to haul this sack of shit back." She rummaged in her system inventory and produced a length of sturdy rope.
Expertly, she fashioned a noose and looped it around the man's chest, under his armpits. Then, with a grunt of effort, she began to drag the limbless torso across the forest floor, back towards the dungeon.
The rope bit into the man's flesh, and the uneven ground jarred him mercilessly, but he remained oblivious in his enforced sleep.
"Next time," she muttered to herself, dragging the heavy burden, "I'm bringing the goblins." The trail of blood behind her slowly darkened the earth as she made her laborious way home.
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Deep within the Withering Jungle, hidden on a small hill overlooking a murky river, lay the Red Death bandit camp. It was less a camp and more a den of depravity.
The air thick with the scent of unwashed bodies, stale alcohol, rancid meat, and the pervasive stench of sex and fear.
Around a dozen men lounged in various states of undress, some eating greasy hunks of questionable meat, others sleeping off a drunken stupor. But the dominant activity was fucking. It was an orgy of forced submission.
Near the center, on a rough blanket spread over mud, a young woman lay limp and broken.
Her body was coated in sweat, semen, and dried blood from countless hours of abuse.
Three men were using her simultaneously: one pumping furiously into her mouth, choking her; another ramming relentlessly into her cunt; and a third plunging into her ass.
Her hands, trembling and weak, were mechanically jerking off two more men who stood beside her head, their faces contorted with brutal pleasure.
Sperm leaked from her orifices, matting her hair and pooling on the blanket. Her eyes were blank and staring, devoid of any spark of life, only endless suffering reflected in their depths.
Tears had long since dried on her cheeks, mingling with the thick layers of crusted semen coating her face.
This scene was repeated in variations across the camp. Another woman was bent over a crude table, her breasts crushed against the rough wood, as men took turns with her from behind, slapping her raw ass.
The camp echoed with the sounds of smacking flesh, grunts of exertion, cries of pain and humiliation, and the occasional barked orders.