“Not everyone’s dead yet—how could they be allowed to see the best part…”

Murmuring to the tent flap, the middle-aged man let spite pool in his eyes like stagnant tar, his kindly mask twisting like wet paper.

He pressed his chest hard; under his skin, a black current slid like ink in water, and pain folded his face up like crumpled cloth.

A racking cough tore through him; the agony ebbed like a receding tide, the shadows under his skin vanishing like smoke, but a slash of bright red bloomed on his sleeve like a wound.

He stared at the stain on his wide white robe and shook his head, helpless and furious, his pupils holding not just pain but a hate that burned like dry reeds.

A hate that would consume him like an oil fire—when it finally drove his hand to revenge, it would likely be the spark that burned him to ash.

He sighed with a bitter smile and stirred his Arcane Power; the blood smudged into the air like dust in sunlight. Weariness crept up his spine like winter, and he gazed at the tent’s peak as his clouded eyes dimmed like dusk.

In the bunker, three huddled figures sat like stones in a dried riverbed. Aside from the young man, the other two looked hollowed out, hope scraped clean, neither communing with Arcane Power nor lifting a hand to help.

The swing in their attitude chilled the youth like a draft through thin walls. He measured who they’d been against what they were, and the change felt wrong like a note off-key.

They’d escaped ahead of the crowd as if prepared; at the vault’s locking array, Dean had thrown himself in front of the youth, staring down the black miasma like a dog at a wolf. Their will to live hadn’t been this thin—so why now did they sag like cut grass?

“You… you’re just giving up?”

Anxiety tightened first, then action followed; he knew breaking out alone was near impossible, so he probed anyway. Dean, head tucked to his knees, didn’t answer, only muttered like the elder beside him, a broken chant in a hollow room.

Cold crept up the youth’s back like a wet hand. He forced a smile, went to Dean, and shook him, words tumbling like pebbles.

“Hey, don’t mess around. Look at the time—shouldn’t we—”

His words snapped as Dean’s head jerked up like a puppet tugged by string. Confusion clouded his features like fog, his gaze at the youth blank as if they were strangers and their shared peril was a dream burned away by dawn.

The old man stirred too, lifting his head with the same drowned look, their eyes on the youth like two moons gone cold.

Unease flooded the youth like icy water. He was a Hydra, high on the food chain like a mountain cat, yet he felt hunted like a rabbit under a hawk’s shadow. Locking himself in here with them might’ve been a mistake carved in stone.

“You… what’s wrong with you—talk, Dean! Say something! I said talk! Do you hear me!”

His voice shook like a door in a storm. Dean didn’t flinch. He rose and shuffled forward, one small step after another, like a sleepwalker headed for a cliff.

“Dean, say another word or I’m gonna use magic! I’m not joking—talk to me!”

Pressure and fear packed the youth’s chest like stones. He drew up the last of his Arcane Power, coiling it in his palm like a snake, and stared Dean down.

Dean kept coming, silent as a shadow. Fear seeped into the youth layer by layer like dye in cloth, and the Arcane Power in his hand almost slipped like a wet blade.

He wanted to bolt, but their predator’s gaze pinned him like a thorn. One wrong twitch and they’d be on him, shredding him to rags—just like facing the Plague of Beasts.

“Damn it. Damn it! You’re forcing me!”

The taut string in his mind snapped like a bow. His fitted robe tore like old silk, and his frail frame surged into a five-headed Hydra, a tide of scales and muscle that crushed the bunker like a rotten shell. The black miasma, as if it had smelled home, rushed toward him like a swarm.

The Dark Dragon Soldiers ringed the site like iron stakes, ready as if they’d rehearsed it a hundred times. The Hydra’s eruption jostled their line like wind in reeds, but they closed ranks at once, sealing the gaps of a vast array pre-carved into the earth with their own blood like ink, and the spell snapped alive.

Crimson walls of light rose on all sides like cliffs, caging the Hydra youth with the raging black fog like beasts in one pit. Trapped, he bellowed like thunder, hurling his bulk at the lightwall as the miasma gnawed him like acid rain.

His size betrayed him like a heavy coat in a flood. The impact stirred only ripples like wind on water, and the widened body only fed the miasma faster like bellows on a fire.

“Finally showed yourself. If you’d shown your true body earlier, we’d have saved the fuss.”

The middle-aged man stepped from the command tent like a shadow leaving a lantern, a pitch-black silhouette drifting at his heels like a moonless stain. He stood before the lightwall, smiling with a taunt like a blade, eyes bright with a fever he couldn’t hide.

“You bastard—you lied to me!”

The Hydra’s roar slammed the air like a gong, and the Dark Dragon Soldiers clutched their ears like men in a hailstorm. The middle-aged man only scratched his ear, still amused, while the black silhouette behind him didn’t stir, a rock in a black river.

Four other massive heads spat elemental breath like storms, trying to drill through the crimson wall, but the more they breathed, the weaker those heads sagged, a trap tailored for Hydras written into the light like a curse.

“I lied? When did I? I never said you’d walk out alive. That mystery fellow’s sealing array is handy—tweak a seam, and Hydras fold like paper.”

He drew a scroll from his robe and passed it back to the shadow like a baton. The youth hurled himself at the lightwall on that side like a wave, and the barrier threw him back with equal force like a spring.

“You promised me a chance!”

The rebound smashed through his failing strength like a hammer. He crashed, the Hydra form collapsing like a shed skin; he reappeared human, wretched as a drowned cat, not a patch of skin whole. The black miasma clung to him like maggots on bone, draining his stamina and Arcane Power like leeches.

“A chance? Ah, maybe I did say that. Did I say what kind?”

Playing at puzzlement, he paced like a cat, then grinned, leaned to the crimson wall, and tapped it like glass. His gaze on the youth was a lab rat’s doom, cold as winter light, and it prickled the youth’s back like needles.

Rage surged and smothered fear like smoke. He pounded the wall with his fist like a drum, bellowing—his greatest enemy stood an arm’s length away, untouchable as a star.

“I did everything! I poisoned the clan’s water, cracked the concealment array. You’ve got so many of us—why won’t you spare me!”

“Because you lived, I can’t. Look at the black miasma—how it loves the sludge in you. You’re a perfect petty coward, tailor-made as a sacrifice…”

He produced a shabby bottle like a beggar’s gourd and shook it before the youth, the liquid inside glinting like trapped night.

“See? Your clan’s souls are all in here. You’ll join them soon… no, maybe you don’t even deserve their company.”

He cut himself off, stepped from the barrier like a man leaving a stage, and tucked the bottle away like a secret. The black silhouette slid past him, scroll in hand, and slipped through the crimson wall like smoke through a net.

“Sacrifice? What sacrifice! Bastard, let me out! Don’t come near me!”

The youth’s voice cracked like ice. The middle-aged man chuckled, turned his back like a curtain falling, and didn’t watch. He listened instead—bones crushing, muscles tearing, the youth’s screams slicing the air—humming a strange tune like a lullaby to slaughter.

“Soon. It’ll be over soon. The Plague of Beasts incarnate… only one step left.”

Inside the crimson screen sprawled a hell on earth—no human shape left, only that pitch-black figure crouched like a carrion crow, gnawing at something that glistened like wet meat.