The smell hit him first. Not the salty tang of ocean air or the earthy damp of rain-soaked stone, but the sharp, throat-clawing stench of blood, smoke, and something far worse: desperation.
The kind of smell that crawled up your nose and clung to your soul like a parasite feeding on fear.
Von Ashworth stood at the edge of the massive steel barge, flanked by silent, masked guards with obsidian batons.
The sky above was a dark bruise, clouds roiling like they knew something wicked had just stepped ashore.
Below, The Maw stretched out like the gaping throat of a monster, an island-turned-prison coiled in rings of barbed walls, fortress towers, and jagged stone spires that jutted from the earth like the spines of a dying god.
It was hell, and it was his new home.
The ferry's steel ramp groaned as it lowered, grinding against the obsidian-coated dock.
As Von took his first step onto the blackened ground, he felt an invisible blade slice through his spine.
Snap!
A quiet snap echoed inside his skull, like a cord being cut. His vision blurred for half a heartbeat, then silence settled over his senses.
No hum of power. No pulse of energy. The Severance Field had done its work with surgical precision.
Just like that, every bit of mystical energy in his body, whether born or borrowed, was gone. No gates, no talents, no elemental affinity.
Nothing but raw skill and the strength of bone and sinew. He was mortal now, vulnerable in ways he hadn't been for decades.
At least, the previous owner of this body hadn't.
Von's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Effective," he murmured, his voice carefully neutral while his mind catalogued every guard position, every weapon, every potential threat within a fifty-foot radius.
A guard shoved him forward, but he didn't resist. He didn't even glance back.
Because a true predator never shows teeth until it's time to bite.
Bang! Boom!
The welcome committee consisted of screaming inmates, bloodied concrete, and a full-blown riot erupting across the entry yard.
The instant Von stepped through the massive black iron gates, chaos swallowed him whole.
His eyes swept the courtyard in rapid, calculated movements. The prison's outer compound looked more like an open-world battlefield than any traditional jail.
Rough stone walls towered around the courtyard, scarred with scorch marks, hand-carved etchings, and blood sprays that told stories of violence older than memory.
The sky was now tinged red, reflecting off the glassy surface of the central pit where prisoners were brawling, dying, and laughing all at once.
Von's breathing remained steady, but his hands flexed unconsciously. Without any weapon for self defense, every instinct screamed at him to find cover, assess threats, identify weapons. This wasn't a place for the unprepared.
Then came the real revelation that made his blood run cold.
Explosions of red light tore across the yard. Brief flashes of power bursting from the bodies of inmates like they were lit fuses.
Bang!
Von's eyes narrowed as a shirtless brute the size of a truck smashed a steel door in half with one punch, veins glowing like lava as a red crystal embedded on a chain around his neck blazed bright.
All around him, dozens more flared to life.
Some had the stones at their chest in the form of necklaces, some on their arms as bracelets or bands, and one was even embedded in the tongue of a tattooed woman who screamed like a banshee and tossed three men into a wall like they were made of air!
Von's mind raced. Red core crystals. Highly illegal, extremely unstable, and apparently standard issue in the Maw.
While he was powerless, a lot of inmates were clearly very enhanced. The playing field wasn't just uneven; it was a death trap designed to crush him!
He sidestepped a flying chair with fluid precision, his movements economical and purposeful.
Every step was calculated, every glance a tactical assessment. His eyes tracked the nearest weapons, identified the strongest fighters, mapped escape routes.
This wasn't a tour; it was reconnaissance for survival.
The guards weren't ordinary prison wardens either. These were the Red Wardens, elite enforcers clad in sleek crimson armor that looked like liquid metal, each one wielding a long, rune-etched staff that pulsed with scarlet energy.
Wherever they moved, the ground shook.
Rumble!
One brought his staff down and unleashed a concussive shockwave that flattened a dozen rampaging inmates.
Another leapt ten feet through the air and landed with a thud that cracked the floor beneath his boots.
They operated like a well-oiled machine, breaking bones and extinguishing lives with grim precision.
Von studied them with predatory focus.
'Artificially enhanced, cores inlaid into armor, possibly their staffs as well.'
But he caught the subtle tells: the slight delay in one Warden's strike, the way another favored his left side after a particularly brutal impact.
They were powerful, but not invincible to the prisoners. Every machine had weak points, and Von was already cataloguing them.
"MOVE IT, FRESH MEAT!" barked a nearby Warden, shoving Von aside as a screaming gang of bald, tattooed inmates charged forward.
One of them had four Red Crystals embedded across his torso, practically glowing like a furnace.
'FOUR? Isn't that cheating?' Von thought in alarm.
He watched the man barrel toward a Warden, fists ablaze, screaming something about "The Crimson Fangs will rise!"—only to get speared through the chest by a red staff.
The Warden didn't even blink. The inmate spasmed, choked, and slumped.
"Apparently not."
Chaos raged around him, but his focus remained laser-sharp. A metal siren wailed in the distance while gangs screamed their faction names like battle cries.
Fires sparked from nowhere, and the ground trembled under the weight of endless violence. Every scream, every impact, every death taught him something about this place.
Von moved through the battlefield like a ghost, staying close to walls, avoiding the main combat zones while his eyes tracked every detail.
He finally reached a shattered column, positioning himself with his back to solid stone while scanning the full scope of the yard.
From this angle, he could see the command tower rising in the distance. Obsidian black, ribbed with red lights that blinked like a mechanical heartbeat.
It loomed over the yard like an executioner's axe, and Von could feel the weight of observation pressing down on him from those heights.
They were watching, analyzing, probably wondering why he wasn't panicking or joining the fray. Good. Let them underestimate him while he learned their weaknesses.
A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision made every muscle in his body tense.
Swish!
A lean man with dirty blond hair, crooked nose, and a manic grin was charging straight at him with a broken pipe. "New meat! Your face is MINE!"
Von's body moved before his conscious mind engaged. He stepped forward with surgical precision, letting the man's momentum carry him off-balance.
As the attacker stumbled, Von's hand shot out like a striking snake, grabbing the man's wrist and twisting with enough force to snap bone.
Clang!
The pipe clattered to the ground. In the same fluid motion, Von drove his knee into the man's solar plexus, doubling him over, then brought his elbow down on the back of his neck.
Bang!
The man crumpled, gasping and twitching but still breathing.
Von picked up the pipe and drove it into the man's kneecap with clinical efficiency. The scream was sharp and immediate.
"Nothing personal," Von said quietly, his voice carrying the cold finality of winter frost. "But weakness invites predators, and I'm not weak."
He left the man writhing and stepped back into the shadows, pulse steady, breathing controlled. Every eye that had witnessed the brief encounter would spread the word: the new prisoner wasn't easy prey.
Then came the silence, sudden and absolute.
The riot didn't end; it was terminated. Von pressed himself against the pillar as the center of the yard erupted in a dome of red light.
Every Warden now stood in formation, their staffs pointed upward. From the tips, threads of red energy connected, forming a massive, glowing net that swept outward like a shockwave.
When the pulse passed through the inmates, their Red Crystals shattered like glass.
Power flickered, men dropped, and dozens collapsed like puppets with severed strings.
It was a reset button for the entire yard, and Von realized with cold clarity that the Wardens could end any uprising whenever they chose.
The energy wave washed over him, and his muscles tensed instinctively, but he felt only a brief tingle. His lack of power, for once, was an advantage.
Smoke drifted through the air. Corpses twitched with final spasms, and above it all, that command tower blinked like a predator's eye marking its territory.
The guards began rounding up survivors. Shackles clicked, inmates groaned, and the courtyard transformed into a gallery of broken bones, burned stone, and cooling bodies.
Von remained motionless in the shadows, cataloguing faces, identifying the survivors, noting which gangs had taken the heaviest losses.
This was the Maw. The worst place on the continent, the pit where they threw monsters too dangerous for regular prisons.
A place so merciless it had become its own ecosystem of violence. No magic, no outside contact, no rescue. Just war, survival, and the brutal mathematics of predator and prey.
A place that was destined for destruction in exactly three months time.
Von's hand tightened around the pipe he'd claimed. His first weapon in what would undoubtedly be a long campaign.
The riot had been instructive, but it was just the opening move in a game where failure meant death.
He looked up at the smog-choked sky, his expression carved from stone.
Blood had splattered his shoes, and his knuckles bore the first marks of violence to come.
When a guard gestured for him to move toward the processing chambers, Von walked forward with measured steps, every sense alert, every muscle ready.
"Interesting," he murmured under his breath, his voice carrying the promise of calculated retribution.
As the last embers flickered out behind him, Von Ashworth smiled the cold smile of a hunter who had just found himself in a forest full of wolves.
Welcome to the Maw.