Valerius didn't move. He couldn't. He stood in the front row of the crowd, his boots heavy on the cobblestones, watching the man on the platform.
Ruiz was a mess of shaking limbs and loud sobs. His neck was pressed into the notch of the black iron guillotine. "Lord Dempus, please!" he cried out. "I was just sick! I'm still a man! I haven't turned!"
The crowd was dead quiet. Lord Dempus stood above the prisoner like a statue made of cold silver. He didn't look angry; he looked like he was reading a grocery list.
"I have a family!" Ruiz shrieked. His voice was getting higher, more jagged. "Three kids! A wife! Who's going to take care of them if you kill me? This isn't justice! I was getting better!"
Then, something changed. The tears running down Ruiz's face turned thick and red, like old wine. He stopped crying and started to howl. It didn't sound like a person anymore. It sounded like metal grinding against bone. He began to spit curses at the Church, the guards, and everyone watching him.
Valerius felt a shiver run down his spine. He knew what this was. Every kid in Oakhaven grew up hearing stories about the Blood Soul Curse.
The stories said that thousands of years ago, a God of Darkness named Jukthorne got angry at humans. He put a rot into their blood. It stayed there, hidden, passed down from fathers to sons. Most people lived their whole lives and never knew it was there. But if a person got too weak, too sad, or too sick, the curse would wake up. They called it the Slithering Murmur. Once it started, you weren't a human anymore. You became a Fallen One—a monster that just wanted to kill. There was no medicine for it. Only a sharp blade.
"Your wife and kids are already gone," Dempus said. His voice was loud and clear, cutting through the noise like a knife through paper.
Ruiz went dead silent.
"Last night," Dempus continued, "the Murmur took you. You killed them all in their beds. You used their blood to paint the walls of your shack. Do you remember?"
Ruiz's face began to twist. His eyes turned a greasy, solid black. A low, shaking laugh bubbled up from his throat. It was a sound that made Valerius's head throb.
"Quiet, devil," Dempus ordered.
Black smoke began to seep out of Ruiz's pores. His arms and legs started to swell and bend. You could hear the sound of bones snapping and clicking as his body tried to turn into something else. But the silver chains around him started to glow with blue light, keeping the evil trapped inside his skin.
Valerius felt a pull in the back of his mind. He focused his eyes and let the Eye of the Soul wake up.
Suddenly, the world turned sharp. He could see right through people. Inside every person in the crowd was a small, glowing light.
Their souls, Valerius realized.
Most of the people had tiny lights, like a candle flickering in the wind. The guards had lights that were bigger and steadier. But when he looked at Lord Dempus, he almost went blind.
Dempus's soul was a giant ball of white fire. It had five layers, like an onion. Deep in the middle, three strange patterns were locked together. Those were the Soul Elements—the powers he had taken from magical beasts to become a Paragon.
Then, Valerius looked at Ruiz. It was like looking into a sewer. The prisoner's soul was a swirling mess of black smoke. Long, oily tentacles whipped around inside the darkness, and two red eyes stared out from the rot. It was pure madness.
Dempus stepped forward and drew a long silver sword. The blade had holy words carved into the metal. "In the name of the God Tyrell, I, Dempus Bill, kill this flesh. May your soul burn clean."
Valerius waited for someone to look away, but nobody did. Even the kids watched with wide eyes. In a world this hard, watching a monster die was a way to feel safe.
The sword moved faster than a blink.
Shick.
Ruiz's head fell into the iron basin. Dark blood splashed the platform. The heavy, evil feeling in the air vanished instantly.
The crowd started to breathe again, moving away to get back to their lives. But Valerius saw something that no one else did. A ball of thick, black light—the corrupted soul of Ruiz—flew out of the dead head. It didn't go up to the sky. It turned like a heat-seeking missile and flew straight at Valerius.
It slammed into his chest before he could even move.
Valerius froze. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He looked at Dempus, terrified that the High Squire would see what happened. But Dempus was just wiping his sword with a cloth. He didn't see the ghost-light at all.
Valerius waited until the guards started to pile wood around the body to burn it. Then, he ducked his head and checked the red petal in his vision.
His heart nearly stopped. The battery icon, which had been stuck at 7%, had jumped all the way to 16%.
A sudden wave of heat and power rushed through his body. His tired legs felt strong again. He felt like he could run for miles without stopping. He felt like he could punch a hole through a brick wall.
He turned and walked away as fast as he could, his heart thumping against his ribs like a trapped bird.