Valerius was ripped from the rift and hurled into a world unlike anything he had ever known. The moment his feet touched the scorched stone, a crushing force slammed him face-first to the ground. His bones creaked under the impossible weight, breath torn from his lungs. He gasped, eyes bulging, every muscle screaming in agony.
"Yelleen! Yelleen—what's happening?!" he roared into the stifling, blood-red air. But there was no answer. Nothing but silence, thick and oppressive.
Around him stretched a hellscape of nightmare proportions: towering mountains loomed like the jagged ribs of a dead titan, clawing into a sky that glowed an ominous, pulsating crimson. The earth was split and broken, endless trenches carving the land, craters kilometers wide still glowing with molten fury. Rivers and waterfalls of lava slithered through the darkness, casting shifting, sullen light across the shattered plain.
Cyclonic storms howled in the distance, birthing lightning so sharp and silent it carved the sky like a blade. Toxic, iron-scented mist hung heavy, every breath burning his throat and eyes. The ground shuddered unpredictably, gravity spiking and fading without warning—one moment pinning him with crushing force, the next making him lurch weightlessly inches above the stone.
All around, obsidian spikes jutted like the teeth of some colossal predator, and in the edges of the flickering lava-light, massive shapes prowled—beasts so vast they blurred the line between creature and nightmare.
Valerius strained, veins standing out on his neck as he tried to rise, pushing with every ounce of strength—yet the gravity kept him flattened, helpless. Then, rising through the toxic air, came the pounding of countless footsteps—a horde of beasts, shadows thundering toward him with feral snarls.
"Yelleen!" he shouted again, raw panic tearing at his voice. "Yelleen, answer me!"
But the only reply was a cold, whispering voice slithering through the choking mist: No one is coming.
The horde drew closer, eyes glowing, maws slavering. A massive beast lunged ahead of the pack, its mouth a cavern of glistening fangs, jaw unhinging as it dove straight for Valerius's pinned body. His eyes went wide as he stared into the dripping abyss of its throat. Fuck, he thought, bracing for the end—
—BANG.
A blur of pale fury slammed into the beast's skull, sending it careening across the plain like a rag doll. Flesh and bone exploded in a spray of gore. The figure didn't stop—it hurtled into the horde like a living storm, tearing, ripping, biting.
It wasn't a creature. It was a man.
Long, wild white hair streamed behind him, whipping through the toxic winds—so long it dragged across the ground twice his height. A beard like ragged snow reached his knees, matted with fresh blood. His eyes burned with savage, unhinged light. He was shirtless, skin caked in filth, muscles rippling under the crushing gravity. Torn, filthy trousers clung to his scarred legs as he moved with impossible speed—seventy meters per second, blurring across the broken terrain.
He smashed into beasts with his bare hands, each blow pulverizing monsters many times his size. He tore them apart with his teeth, biting into their flesh, gnawing bones with a feral snarl. Chunks of steaming meat disappeared into his mouth as he devoured them mid-battle, blood and gore dripping from his beard.
The man howled like a beast himself, eyes rolling in wild ecstasy as he ripped spines free, sundered skulls with his fists, and bathed in the crimson spray of his prey. Each roar drowned out the thunder of the approaching storm.
In this place of nightmares, he was a predator—and he had noticed Valerius.
While gnawing the charred flank of a fallen beast, the savage man's gaze flicked toward Valerius. His chewing stopped. Slowly, he spat a steaming hunk of flesh onto the scorched stone. Rising to his full, towering height of nearly eleven feet, he stretched, vertebrae cracking audibly. His gray irises gleamed like polished steel under the crimson sky. Pointed ears twitched, and his dark brown skin shimmered with sweat and blood, stretched tight over a lean, muscular frame. Though time had etched lines into his angular face, he carried the terrible vitality of a predator in his prime.
He began to stride toward Valerius, each footstep would have made the ground quake slightly under the heavy, erratic gravity, but the ground was just as hard to cater for the extreme gravity. His bare feet—callused and caked with blood—came to a stop just inches from Valerius's head.
Valerius's wide eyes darted up, seeing only the dark soles of massive feet. "Hello?" he croaked, voice ragged with fear. "Who's there?"
The man tilted his head like an animal studying curious prey. Then he crouched down, joints popping, his face lowering until their eyes nearly met. His breath smelled of raw meat.
"Help me," Valerius whispered, desperation cracking his voice. He tried to add please—but the instant he formed the word in his mind, the being watching through his eyes roared like a storm: "WE DO NOT… BEG." The word caught in his throat, strangled before it could escape.
The man's cracked lips curled into a grin that split his gaunt face. Without hesitation, he seized Valerius's wrist. Valerius had only a heartbeat to gasp before—CHOMP—the man bit clean through, severing his hand with horrifying ease. Agony exploded through Valerius's body as he screamed, a ragged, hopeless wail that echoed across the broken plain.
The man chewed slowly, eyes glazing with an almost holy rapture. When he swallowed, his head tipped back, mouth opening to the red sky. Tears slipped down his cheeks as he trembled. This… this exquisite taste, he thought deliriously. Such potent Vitalis… His shoulders began to shake, a bubbling laugh rising from his chest, torn and uneven.
He looked up to the crimson heavens, voice cracking with raw emotion. "After all these years… all this suffering… you haven't abandoned me," he rasped, tears streaming down his face. "You… you stayed true to your word…"
His laughter turned shrill and mad. He lunged forward, tearing Valerius's clothes with claw-like hands. His teeth sank into Valerius's back, ripping a chunk of flesh free. Blood sprayed across the stone, steaming in the toxic air. Valerius screamed again, voice hoarse and broken.
As he swallowed, the man's eyes rolled with savage pleasure. I will savor this, he thought, licking his bloodstained lips.
He grabbed Valerius's ankle with one massive hand, lifting him like a rag doll. Valerius's head lolled limply as he was dragged backward, skull bouncing and scraping across the jagged stone.
Valerius bled, voice weak and ragged. "Yelleen… Yelleen…!"
Each time his head struck the ground under the crushing gravity, sharp stone split his scalp, fresh blood smearing a red trail behind him as he was pulled deeper into the crimson nightmare.
---
Back at the campfire, the flames crackled softly, throwing shifting shadows across the weary faces of the raiders. Zee looked up from her knife, eyes narrowing. "Where's the kid?" she asked, scanning the darkness beyond their circle. "He's been gone a while now."
Auri lifted her head, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "He must be… attending to nature," she said dryly, but a note of worry crept into her voice. She closed her eyes, whispering softly. "Search."
A pulse of magic flared from her, spreading in a shimmering ripple across the dark plains—a detection field reaching eight hundred meters in every direction. Auri's eyes snapped open, troubled. "Guys… he's not here."
Kurgan's heavy brow furrowed, his voice a low growl. "What do you mean he's not here? He should know better than to wander off alone in No Man's Land."
Auri's gaze darted to Luthar. "Luthar, you search. Your detection magic reaches farther than mine."
Luthar snorted, folding his arms with a scowl. "Why should I? If he's gone, good riddance."
Mira's eyes flashed, her voice sharp with frustration. "Come on, Luthar—what do you have against him?"
Luthar's lip curled. "I just don't like him. He's bad luck."
Zee sighed, rolling her eyes. "It's just Luthar being Luthar." She stood, slipping her daggers into her belt. "Come on, Auri—let's find him before something does."
Auri nodded, rising as well. She pointed across the dirt. "His footprints are over there," she said quietly. "Let's follow them."
They slipped into the dark, Auri's spell-light bobbing in her palm like a tiny star. The cold wind moaned over the hills as they tracked the prints. Zee glanced at the glowing orb, envy in her eyes. "Magic is so damn handy," she muttered. "I wish I was a caster like you."
Auri chuckled softly. "What's wrong with being an Augmenter? I wish I was as strong as you."
They pressed on until they reached the roaring waterfall, mist sparkling under the moonlight. The footprints led them into the shadowed cave behind the torrent's curtain.
Zee stepped inside first, eyes sweeping the dark stone walls. "Why would he come here?" she asked, her voice hushed, uneasy. "This place feels… wrong."
Auri frowned, glancing around. "What's off about it?"
Zee rested a hand on the damp stone, shivers crawling down her spine. "Call it instinct," she murmured.
Auri's eyes caught on something in the air—a faint, shimmering distortion twisting reality itself. "Uh… Zee? Come look at this."
Zee stepped beside her, eyes widening at the pulsing ripple. "What the…?" she whispered.
Auri look at the distortion, brow furrowed. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"
"Nope," Zee said flatly.
Auri scanned the ground near the rift, heart sinking. "The tracks… they end right here. He must have gone inside."
Zee swallowed hard. "Wanna go after him?" she asked, voice low.
Auri hesitated, her eyes lingering on the shifting rift. "What? No. We don't know what's on the other side."
Zee exhaled shakily, trying to mask her relief. "I liked him, sure—but not enough to risk my life for the kid. It just felt… nice, not being the youngest in the team anymore."
Auri let out a dry laugh, shaking her head. "Don't give me that crap. Look at me—I'm twice your age, but I still look like a child. Even getting into a bar is impossible."
They stood in silence, the rift pulsing softly before them. Finally, Auri sighed, turning her back. "Well, that's it for me. If he comes back—hooray. If he doesn't… too bad. We leave without him."
She paused at the cave's mouth, glancing back at the swirling rift one last time. "What a shame," she murmured, voice almost wistful. "I wanted to ask him so many questions."
Zee lingered a moment, then turned to follow. Their footsteps echoed quietly as they disappeared into the dark, leaving the cave—and the ominous distortion—behind.
---
Zee and Auri emerged from the darkness, returning to the campfire. The flames hissed softly, casting their tired faces in shifting orange light. Kurgan raised his head, eyes sharp. "Did you find him?" he asked, voice low but edged with hope.
Zee shook her head, face drawn. Auri's shoulders sagged. "He's gone," she said quietly. "He… entered some kind of portal or something."
The guide, sitting a little apart from the group, his scarred face unreadable in the firelight, narrowed his eyes. "Portal?" he echoed darkly.
Auri nodded, voice firm but hushed. "Yeah. It looked like a distortion in the air—his tracks ended right there. It had to be a portal."
Mira's face fell, her voice barely a whisper. "So… he's gone."
"Yep," Zee confirmed, dropping heavily onto a log.
Kurgan let out a long sigh, stabbing at the roasting meat with a sharpened stick. "Thought he'd be a good addition to the team," he grunted. "Too bad."
He tore off a chunk of meat, chewing as he pointed a greasy bone at Luthar. "We'll take turns standing watch—one hour each. Luthar, you're first. Then Mira, then me."
Across the fire, the guide tilted his head back to study the cold stars scattered across the night sky, his eyes narrowed, voice low. "You're really unlucky, kid," he murmured under his breath, almost to himself. "To stumble into one of those…"
---
Far away, on the other side of the world, the long-haired man trudged through the lifeless terrain. He carried Valerius like a sack of meat, his steps eerily light even under the crushing gravity. At last, he reached his home—if it could be called that.
The shelter rose like a grotesque monument from the barren land: a twisted structure of bones, tusks, and skulls, all taken from fallen beasts of impossible size. Massive rib bones formed arching walls. Jagged spines and tusks jutted like spears from the roof, arranged in savage, chaotic symmetry. Pelts of dark, matted fur were lashed together to block the fierce red winds, while claws and fangs dangled from sinew cords, clinking together like macabre chimes.
The ground around the dwelling was littered with bones, some cracked open and gnawed clean, others still stained with dark, dried blood. A narrow entrance gaped like a yawning maw, shadows thick inside.
The man carried Valerius to the center of his lair, laying him out atop an immense, bleached thigh bone as wide as a wagon. Valerius's chest heaved shallowly, eyes unfocused, pain etched into every line of his face.
Moving with deliberate calm, the man stepped to a far corner and retrieved a massive skull, its eye sockets dark and hollow—repurposed into a drinking bowl. He returned to Valerius, seizing his wrist with a vice-like grip. Blood began to drain from Valerius's torn stump into the skull-bowl below. Valerius screamed hoarsely, voice cracking in agony.
The man hummed softly as he worked, voice deep and ragged. With a strip of dried beast skin, he bound Valerius's bleeding wrist tight. "Can't have you dying on me," he crooned, his smile wide and sinister.
He lifted Valerius's left leg, his gray irises glittering in the shifting light. Valerius's eyes widened in horror, lips trembling. The man's grin only deepened. Then, with a single savage pull, he tore the leg clean off at the thigh.
Valerius's scream echoed through the bones of the grotesque house, rising high into the bloody sky.
The man calmly bound the stump with more dried skin, stopping the worst of the bleeding. He stripped the clothes from the severed leg and laid it reverently atop a flat, black rock. Beside it, he arranged sharpened beast bones—a fork and a knife, each polished to a deadly sheen.
Pushing a large, flat stone closer to the rock, he sat down heavily. He tied a napkin of stiff, dried hide around his neck with practiced care. Picking up the bone fork and knife, he glanced sideways at Valerius with a glint of dark amusement. "Even like this," he said softly, voice cracking with a strange mix of nostalgia and madness, "I used to be a noble. And I'm still a bit… civilized."
With slow, deliberate motions, he carved tender strips of meat from the leg, each slice perfect and neat. He raised a piece to his mouth, eyes fluttering closed as he chewed. "Mmm… mmm…" he moaned softly, head tilting side to side in rapture. "Truly exquisite."
He reached for the skull of fresh blood, lifting it to his lips. Dark red liquid ran down his chin as he drank deeply, eyes gleaming with savage delight. A low, shuddering laugh bubbled from his chest, echoing through the house of bones as he dined in monstrous peace.
---
To Be Continued...