The memories hit like shrapnel.
Not gentle. Not gradual. They detonated inside Galthor's skull, each one a fragment of someone else's life embedding itself into his consciousness.
ChainLord. The title tasted like ash on a tongue that wasn't his. Noble slave. An oxymoron that would be funny if it wasn't so obscene.
Vorgul Stronghide. His father, no, the host's father had worn that title like a crown of thorns. ChainLord of Shatterpeak Range, a territory built on the broken backs of his own people, rich with rare metals that would never benefit the hands that mined them.
The Barbarians were a majority race. Should have been powerful. Should have been feared.
Instead, they were slaves.
Every major race had gods. Divine patrons who blessed their champions, answered prayers, tipped the scales of fate in their favor. The elves had dozens. The dwarves built cathedrals to theirs.
But the Barbarians?
The Barbarians had emptiness where their god should be.
And nature abhors a vacuum. So other races had filled it with chains.
Galthor's—Luki's—mind reeled. Twenty-two years in a hospital bed had taught him about helplessness. About being at the mercy of systems that didn't care. About watching life happen to other people while you slowly died.
He'd thought he understood what it meant to be trapped.
He'd understood nothing.
This was different. This was an entire race bred into bondage. Generations upon generations who'd never known anything but the weight of shackles and the sting of the whip. People who mined treasures they'd never own, built cities they'd never rule, fought wars for masters who viewed them as livestock.
'Just like me' something bitter whispered in his chest. 'A consciousness trapped in a useless body. Except they had working bodies. They just weren't allowed to use them'
But Vorgul Stronghide had been different.
The memories painted him in broad strokes: a man with iron in his spine and fire in his eyes. He'd played the role of loyal ChainLord perfectly, bowing to the dwarven Overseers, enforcing quotas, maintaining order. All while secretly bleeding resources away from his masters.
Extra rations for the slave villages. Keeping the elderly alive when they were supposed to be culled. Training warriors in essence cultivation, the fundamental power system of this world—when Barbarians were explicitly forbidden from learning it.
Building a hidden base deep in the mines. Gathering strength. Planning rebellion.
It should have been impossible. It was impossible. Vorgul Stronghide had been playing chess against opponents who could flip the board whenever they wanted.
But he'd played anyway. Because what else could he do? Watch his people slowly grind themselves to dust in the darkness?
The dream had been simple, freedom. Absurdly, impossibly simple.
And it had almost worked.
Until....
The memory slammed into Galthor like a fist to the solar plexus.
'The original Galthor. Drunk. Laughing too loud at a dwarven feast, desperate to be included, to be liked, to be anything other than the embarrassment he'd always been'
"Your father's been acting strange," one of the Overseers had said, voice honey-sweet and poisonous. "You'd tell us if something was wrong, wouldn't you? We take care of those who take care of us."
And the words had spilled out. Everything. The hidden training. The stolen rations. The rebellion brewing in the darkness.
Trading his father's dream for approval that would never come.
The rage that followed wasn't entirely Luki's. It was the Barbarian God's fury, ancient and terrible, mixing with the impotent anger of a boy who'd spent twenty-two years unable to change anything.
The dwarven Overseers had acted swiftly. Vorgul's family was butchered as an example. His mother, the host's mother, mutilated before they killed her. His sisters...
Galthor's mind shied away from those memories. Some horrors didn't need to be examined closely.
His brothers had fought. Died with weapons in their hands. Small mercy.
And Vorgul himself? They'd taken their time with him. Then they'd decapitated him and the other rebel leaders, strung their heads on a necklace, and given it to their most loyal servant as a trophy.
The man now standing twenty feet away, blade wreathed in stolen divine fire.
Galthor's hands clenched. The borrowed body wanted to move, to tear, to destroy but Luki's mind held it in check. Barely.
'Focus' he told himself. 'You're not just angry at what happened to them. You're angry because you understand'
He'd been the original Galthor. Different circumstances, different world, but the same fundamental truth: a consciousness trapped in a useless vessel, watching opportunities slip away, too weak to change anything.
The difference was that Luki had never had the option to betray anyone. His body had betrayed him from birth. He'd never had the chance to squander freedom because he'd never had freedom.
But this body, this host, he'd had everything Luki had dreamed of. Family. Strength. The ability to move. And he'd pissed it all away for the approval of people who viewed him as property.
We only truly know the value of things when we've lived without them.
The thought settled over Galthor like armor.
Fine. He'd been reborn into a broken world, into a body with the worst reputation imaginable, into a divine vessel without worshippers or power. He'd gone from one prison to another.
But this time, the prison had a door. And Galthor had a key called divinity.
He turned his attention inward, past the memories, past the borrowed muscle memory, toward something that thrummed at his core like a second heartbeat.
There.
His Divine Core. The seed of godhood, dormant for millennia, now awakening because Luki's soul had crashed into it like a defibrillator shocking a stopped heart.
It was hollow Empty. A battery with no charge. Without worshippers, without faith, feeding it, he was functionally a Lesser Spirit, the lowest rung on the divine ladder. Barely more powerful than a talented mortal.
In a few days, without any faith to sustain him, this body would wither. The Divine Core would go dormant again. He'd die. Again.
But gods didn't work like mortals. Even an empty vessel was still a vessel.
Galthor's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile.
I spent twenty-two years in a body that didn't work. Let's see what I can do with one that does.
"—Why are you so stubborn?"
Galthor's attention snapped back to the present. The red-haired warrior was still talking, voice dripping with false camaraderie.
"You're already a Master essence user, Brakthar. If you submit and join the Scourgers, you'll advance further. You may even receive a blessing."
Scourgers. The word tasted like bile even secondhand. Barbarians who served their oppressors. Kin-killers. Turncoats given just enough power to keep their own people in line.
Brakthar's response was immediate: "Scourger? Kin-killers. Betrayers. You enslave your own people. You want me to join you?"
His voice dropped into something primal.
"Over my mother's grave."
The red-haired warrior's expression flattened. All pretense of negotiation evaporated. A crimson aura began to bleed from his skin, essence, Galthor recognized from the borrowed memories. Spiritual energy weaponized into pure violence.
It thickened the air, mixing with the poison still lingering in the tunnel. The temperature rose. Bloodlust pressed down like a physical weight.
"Then you leave me no choice."
Behind him, the seven other warriors tensed. The hound-beasts growled, venom dripping from their fangs. But when the red-haired leader raised his sword and barked, "Do not interfere. This is a battle between essence masters," they all flinched back.
Even the monsters obeyed. That told Galthor everything he needed to know about the man's power.
Brakthar's grip tightened on his massive blade. His own essence flared—not as strong, not as refined, but steady. Determined. "Come. Test yourself against me."
The leader laughed. It echoed off the tunnel walls like breaking glass. "Then as Barbarians, let us fight in our way. Brakthar, I will meet you with my full strength!"
And then he began to pray.
The words came fast, tumbling over each other in a language that scraped against Galthor's ears. The warrior's head bowed low, posture subservient, and Galthor felt something twist in his chest.
Jealousy.
Pure, visceral jealousy.
Because as the prayer continued, something appeared. A thread of silver light, gossamer-thin, stretching from the warrior's chest into the distance. Through stone. Through reality itself.
Divine connection. The link between worshipper and god.
Only divine beings could see it. It was invisible to mortals. But Galthor's borrowed eyes tracked it easily, and something about it made his skin crawl.
It was wrong. Tainted. Like looking at a color that shouldn't exist.
Before he could analyze further, the thread blazed. Power surged along it, flowing from some distant deity into the red-haired warrior's body. He straightened, threw his head back, and roared
"God Emberhand! Grant me your blessing!"
His sword ignited.
Not metaphorically. The blade erupted into liquid fire, white-hot and hungry, so bright Galthor had to squint. The tunnel's air blistered. Stone walls began to crack from the heat. The temperature spiked so fast it felt like standing next to an opened furnace.
That's not Barbarian power, Galthor realized. That's dwarven. A dwarven god blessing a Barbarian to keep other Barbarians in line.
The sheer obscenity of it made his blood boil.
Brakthar's face twisted into something ugly. "You bow to a foreign god? I spit on you."
"What does it matter?" The warrior's grin was all teeth, no warmth. "We Barbarians worship strength above all. Is this not strength?"
"Strength comes from our own hands!" Brakthar's voice cracked like a whip.
"Fool!" The warrior gestured with his burning blade, casual as if discussing the weather. "When our god still walked this land, we received blessings like any other race. But he is dead, and we are slaves. Should we let our best warriors rot for a dead god's pride?"
He spun the sword, flame trailing behind it in lazy spirals.
"No. We seize power where we can. I bow to a dwarven god and wield his might. Let us see if your principles can stand against divine fire."
Brakthar tensed, jaw tight, essence flaring brighter. But Galthor could feel it, the way a god could instinctively measure power and knew with absolute certainty:
Brakthar is going to die.
Not might. Will. The divine blessing had tilted the scales too far. This wasn't a fight between essence masters anymore. It was an armed soldier against a civilian.
And Galthor needed Brakthar alive.
Not out of sentiment. Pure pragmatism. The warrior was loyal to the Stronghide family, loyal enough to die for the traitorous son standing ten feet away. If Galthor could convert that loyalty into worship, he'd have his first follower. His first trickle of faith.
Without it, this divine body would starve. He'd die within days.
When would I get another chance like this?
The two warriors' auras clashed, red against red, the air between them warping from the pressure. Brakthar shifted into a fighting stance. The red-haired warrior grinned, flames dancing along his blade.
And Galthor stepped forward.
"Why don't you fight me instead?"