Our footsteps echoed hollowly through the cold, wet mine, a rhythmic tapping against the suffocating silence. In the distance, the first grey rays of surface light began to bleed through the gloom.

  “What a completely fucked-up trip…” Corbin muttered, his voice raspy with exhaustion.

  Honestly, that was an understatement. The unnatural mutant was a massive riddle on its own, but the true mystery was the voice from the Void. ‘We will be waiting for you here, brother.’ The sentence looped in my head endlessly.

  If that hadn't been a dream… what was it? A vision? A warning? A promise?

  Uncertain, bone-tired, and starving, I trudged the last few meters through the mine and stepped out into the crisp spring air.

  As soon as we were outside, Otis stretched extensively, his joints popping like dry wood. In the daylight, the full, terrifying splendor of his new weapon was revealed. Hollow Thirst gleamed with an unnatural, dark red sheen, as if the metal itself had been soaked in fresh blood. The asymmetrical spikes and razor-sharp edges gave it a nightmarish silhouette against the pale sky.

  Corbin let out a low whistle of appreciation. He slowly circled Otis—or rather, the axe—taking a long pull from a silver flask.

  “You could get a damn good price for that,” Corbin said thoughtfully, wiping his mouth. “There’s definitely some eccentric noble in Aegis who would pay a fortune to put that in their collection. Or a high-ranking adventurer who wouldn't just swing it around in some third-rate village dungeon.”

  Otis’s expression immediately fell. The proud posture vanished, replaced by a slump of shame and regret.

  “No offense intended,” Corbin added quickly, pursing his lips.

  Otis just waved a massive hand dismissively, giving a slow nod. “You’re not wrong. I’ve let myself go these past few years. I ain't the man I used to be.”

  Before anyone could say anything to lighten the mood, a sound tore through the quiet forest.

  It was the bone-chilling, blood-curdling scream of a woman.

  A shiver raced down my spine. Panic flared instantly. Corbin, Otis, and I whipped our heads around. The exhaustion vanished from their faces, replaced by stone-cold focus. They meant business.

  A threatening flame shrieked to life in Corbin’s palm. It looked like a focused blowtorch, but tiny, erratic blue sparks danced around the roaring orange fire. It looked incredibly unstable and violently powerful. Beside him, Otis looked no less dangerous. His muscles bulged under his dirty tunic, his grip tightening on the Nightmare Steel axe. He looked like a man who could cleave an ox in half with a flick of his wrist.

  But where did the scream come from?!

  I ground my teeth, my eyes scanning the dense treeline, but I couldn't pinpoint the direction through the echoes. A feeling of helpless, boiling rage began to spread in my gut. I had heard that specific kind of scream once before. Not far from here.

  And then, an idea hit me. Voidseeker’s Gaze.

  I focused mana into my eyes, forcing the blessing to awaken. The world shifted. Color bled out of the forest, replaced by the stark, monochromatic twilight of silver lines and deep shadows.

  But something had changed since I used it in the mine.

  Otis’s entire body glowed with a soft, pulsing light—the ambient mana in his cells. The red mist radiating from his new axe was vastly more pronounced, curling around him like hungry smoke. But what truly shocked me was Corbin. He didn't just glow; he radiated. The air—no, the mana—trembled violently around him. A faint, luminous smoke was drifting off his skin. Was that his raw power leaking into the atmosphere?

  Ignoring the urgent circumstances for a split second, I raised my own hand and pushed mana into it. Sure enough, the same luminous smoke drifted from my skin, though it was tinged with a strange, sickly grey hue I hadn't noticed before.

  I scanned the surroundings. Through the trees, I could see faint, glowing silhouettes. Deer and boars grazing peacefully, holding tiny amounts of natural mana.

  But then, further out, I saw it. A chaotic, twitching mass of jagged auras. That had to be it.

  I dropped the Gaze. The colors of the world rushed back in. I didn't hesitate. I focused my mana, flooding my body with Augmentation Magic, but I held it back. I kept the volatile power tightly coiled inside my muscles like a drawn bowstring, ready to be unleashed. My boots dug into the forest floor as I broke into a heavy run.

  “OVER THERE!” I roared.

  Corbin quickly caught up, falling into step beside me, while Otis simply trotted along. With his massive two-meter frame and impossibly long strides, our frantic sprint was nothing more than a comfortable jog for him.

  As we tore through the underbrush, the silhouettes began to separate and solidify.

  My worst fear was confirmed. It was a woman, pinned to the ground by a handful of goblins. Several of the filthy creatures were fighting to hold her thrashing limbs down, while another was tearing at her clothes, preparing to violate her.

  Images of the marketplace in Millstone flashed violently in my mind. The empty, glassy eyes of the mutilated woman on the cross.

  That exact same fate awaited this woman if I didn't act now.

  The Augmentation Magic flooded my body like a bursting dam. My muscles screamed, threatening to tear themselves apart as an immense power surged through my veins.

  My boots cratered the earth with every step, and my speed exploded. The world blurred into green and brown streaks. In seconds, I reached the clearing.

  The goblins were fighting bitterly to hold the woman. One clamped a hand over her screaming mouth; others pinned her arms and forced her legs apart.

  Something inside me snapped.

  It was a feeling as old as the world itself, infinitely powerful, and unimaginably malicious. It whispered in my ear, urging me to let go.

  Driven by blind, absolute fury, my boots tore through the underbrush. My gaze locked onto the goblin looming directly over her. As the final meter between us vanished, a violent surge of Gravity Magic flooded my right leg, multiplying its mass dozenfold.

  “FUCK OOOOOOFFF!” I roared.

  The air warped around my leg. With an ear-splitting CRACK, my boot collided with the goblin’s torso. The repulsive green bastard literally folded around my foot before the kinetic energy blasted him away. He shot through the air like a cannonball, crashing through the trunks of two young pine trees before tearing apart somewhere in the distant undergrowth.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  But I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

  The remaining goblins had barely registered the explosion of their comrade when I spun. I delivered a brutal, augmented backhand. My iron-knuckle glove caved in the face of the next goblin. Bone shattered. Blood and teeth sprayed in a wide arc. The creature was launched several meters, hitting the ground dead.

  The goblin holding the woman’s arms finally reacted, releasing her and leaping at me with a rusted dagger.

  I didn't even blink. I sidestepped the clumsy lunge. As the goblin sailed past me, I shot my hand out, grabbing its ankle in an iron grip. Using its own momentum and my augmented strength, I whipped it through the air and slammed it headfirst into the hard earth.

  Its neck snapped with a sickening crunch. Bone splinters tore through the skin of its throat, and the hateful light vanished from its eyes instantly.

  I was panting heavily, my chest heaving, but a restless, unyielding obsession drove my eyes to seek the next victim.

  Another goblin abandoned the woman, letting out a high-pitched squeak of pure terror. It stumbled, scrambling on all fours before finding its feet, running as fast as its short legs could carry it toward the treeline.

  A manic, twisted grin forced its way onto my lips. My hands shot forward, palms open.

  “ROAAARING FLAAAAAAMES!”

  A gigantic, blinding torrent of fire erupted from my hands. The screeching roar of the flames drowned out every other sound in the forest—the woman’s sobbing, the birds, the wind. Everything was consumed by the heat until I finally cut the spell.

  A thirty-meter-long, five-meter-wide scar of blackened, smoking earth and ash now cut through the pristine forest. There was nothing left of the fleeing goblin.

  My head snapped around.

  One goblin remained.

  He was standing near the woman, his crude club dropped to the ground. His spindly legs were shaking violently. His green face had lost all its color, turning a sickly pale, and actual tears were streaming down his cheeks.

  What a pathetic, miserable weakling.

  I drowned out everything besides the goblin. My augmented legs coiled, and I launched myself. I flew across the clearing. My left hand snapped around his throat like an iron vise. I drove him backward, slamming him brutally into the forest floor.

  His eyes widened in absolute terror as he looked up at me. A desperate, death-filled scream tore from his throat as I brought my face closer. He struggled with all his meager strength, clawing uselessly at my armored arm. The tears poured from his eyes.

  I threw my head back and let out a manic, hysterical laugh. But the madness was quickly replaced by a quiet, cold indifference. My gaze hardened into ice.

  “Die, maggot.”

  My right arm pulled back, the muscles groaning under the strain of the magic, and exploded downward.

  My iron-knuckle glove buried itself deep into his face, shattering his skull on the first impact. Blood, bone, and grey matter splashed across my armor.

  But I didn't stop. My fist rose and fell again.

  THUMP.

  THUMP.

  THUMP.

  More and more blood sprayed outward, splattering across my face and stinging my eyes. The world turned a hazy, beautiful red. My fist came down like an anvil, over and over, driving the remains of the goblin explosively into the dirt.

  THUMP.

  THUMP.

  THUMP.

  My consciousness began to drift, slipping away into the rhythmic, wet sounds of the slaughter. Pure ecstasy consumed me. A godlike high surged through my veins, bringing with it the intoxicating certainty that I could tear the entire world to pieces and remake it in ash. A mad, bubbling laugh tore its way out of my throat.

  But at the very edge of my awareness, something scratched at the door. Something I couldn't explain. Tears were streaming down my own cheeks, mixing with the goblin’s blood, even as I laughed manically and continued to pound the ruined corpse. The world before my eyes was fading to black. All I heard was the rhythmic pounding.

  THUMP.

  THUMP.

  THUMP.

  Suddenly, I felt myself being violently ripped backward.

  The loss of control was infuriating. Frantically, I struggled with everything I had. I punched the air, I kicked wildly, I snapped my teeth. I screamed. I cried. WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME?!

  Then, a single word cut through the madness and anchored me back to reality.

  “…M-monster.”

  My world was flooded with light, and color violently returned.

  Standing a few meters away was a young, terrified blonde woman. Behind her was Corbin. He had draped his heavy cloak over her shivering shoulders. He was staring at me, his face pale, his eyes wide with unadulterated shock.

  But it was the woman’s eyes that brought my frantically beating heart to a dead stop.

  There was nothing but pure, unfiltered terror in her gaze as she looked at me. She was looking at me as if Hell itself had cracked open and spilled onto the earth.

  Dazed, my gaze drifted downward.

  My legs were dangling uselessly in the air. I was absolutely drenched in blood and gore. Pinned across my chest was a thick, black steel pole—the handle of an axe. And holding that pole, pressing it against me to restrain me, were two massive, muscular arms.

  Confused, I looked over my shoulder. Otis.

  He was holding me in a bear hug, restraining me with the shaft of Hollow Thirst. His face was a mirror of Corbin’s—etched with deep concern and profound shock.

  My vision blurred. Hot, shameful tears gathered in my eyes, and I fought with every ounce of willpower to hold them back.

  I felt my feet gently touch the ground as Otis slowly released the pressure on my chest. I looked at him through a watery veil, then, overwhelmed by shame, my gaze fell to my own hands.

  The tears finally spilled over, clearing my vision. They dripped silently onto my armored gloves, washing away small streaks of the thick, clotting blood and brain matter that coated them.

  Wh-what just happened to me?

  A system notification flashed in my mind’s eye, and my hands fell limply to my sides. I swallowed hard, fighting an agonizing battle not to collapse into a sobbing heap right there in the dirt.

  “C-could you please take her to the village…” I mumbled, my hands shaking uncontrollably at my sides. I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to suppress the violent tremor that was now wracking my entire body. “I-I still have to… take care of something. I’ll go get the Claybornes… and then… I’ll come… we’ll meet in Millsto—”

  The words came out in broken, jagged pieces. My mind was in ruins. Thoroughly disoriented, I turned and put one foot in front of the other, just needing to get away from their eyes.

  A heavy hand landed on my shoulder.

  Reflexively, I swatted it away with brutal force. I turned to see Otis, his hand outstretched, but his eyes were wide with apprehension.

  “I-I’m sorry…” I choked out.

  And with that, I ran.

  My boots thundered against the earth with every step. My lungs burned, and my head threatened to split open. The helpless, suffocating madness began to wash over me again. That rage. That bottomless hatred. The world threatened to plunge back into darkness.

  But I fought it. I gritted my teeth and fought the energy that was trying to corrupt my soul with everything I had.

  Gradually, my steps slowed. The darkness retreating from the edges of my vision.

  I stood there, staring at the ground, my fists clenched in fury. My chest heaved like the bellows of a forge. My teeth ground together menacingly.

  When I finally raised my gaze, I saw it.

  The entrance to the cursed irregular dungeon we had just escaped. Emerging from the deep, black hole was a fresh pack of goblins. They stopped dead in their tracks, staring at me nervously.

  I raised a trembling index finger and pointed it directly at the mine.

  “I will destroy you,” I growled, my voice thick with hatred, “if it’s the last thing I do…”

  My hand fell. Then, fueled by an impotent, towering rage, I raised both hands high into the air. I concentrated every single ounce of mana I could summon—every drop of power left in my core—into my palms. My hands looked like trembling claws.

  I’m ending this.

  Magic shot from my hands, saturating the world with an unnatural, leaden weight. The air hummed menacingly, and a second later, the earth responded with a deep, grinding groan. Birds burst from the canopy in panicked flocks. The goblins whined in naked fear as the first loose stones began to hail down the slope like shrapnel.

  I grabbed the invisible threads of Gravity Magic that I had woven into the very structure of the mountain face, and with a violent, agonizing jerk, I ripped my hands downward.

  The world tilted.

  The horizon seemed to unhinge as the mountain groaned under the impossible, localized weight. A bone-chilling crunch of shattering bedrock echoed across the valley.

  Then, the flank gave way.

  Like a tin can being crushed under a titan’s boot, the rock face folded in on itself. A massive, apocalyptic cloud of dust swallowed the sky as thousands of tons of debris cascaded downward, sealing the entrance to the mine in an eternal, impenetrable tomb of stone.

  Shocked, I stared at my handiwork as the dust washed over me.

  Was that really me?

  It felt incredible to wield such cataclysmic power. But the price for it was immense, and I had nearly paid it with my humanity.

  Shaking my head, I turned away. With a heavy, sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, I began the long walk toward the Clayborne farm. My thoughts drifted back to the notification that had flashed before my eyes just moments ago.

  < Attempted corruption by Spark of the Filthborn temporarily resisted >