The transport shuttle had smelled of sweat and dried blood, a metallic stench that clung to the back of the throat. But that was nothing compared to the smell of the destination.
As the airlock hissed open, Adam Ashbourne was assaulted by the scent of Kazakhar Prison. It was a thick, sickening miasma of stale fear, unwashed bodies, and the sharp, chemical tang of despair. It tasted like rust on the tongue.
Adam's legs were heavy, his side throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache where the demon blade had pierced him. His first steps inside felt less like walking and more like sinking into quicksand. He was pushed forward by the butt of a rifle, stumbling onto a framework that overlooked the heart of the nightmare.
The structure of the prison was a testament to the Yandhaq Empire's architectural cruelty. It was a colossal, cylindrical fortress, dug deep into the crust of a dead moon. It was an inverted tower, a hollow silo descending miles into the dark. From the framework, Adam looked down into the abyss.
Along the curved walls of the cylinder were thousands of cells, stacked row upon row, tier upon tier. And they all faced inward. There were no bars on the outer walls, only on the inner side, forcing every prisoner to look into the center of the pit.
"Keep moving, trash," a guard grunted.
His escort consisted of two hulking demons, their armor scuffed and practical, lacking the ornate flair of the Royal Guard but carrying twice the menace. They dragged him through the labyrinth of metal walkways and dimly lit corridors. The lighting here was oppressive sickly yellow strip lights that flickered with a maddening buzz, casting long, jittery shadows that seemed to claw at the walls.
Adam passed other cells. He saw faces pressed against the energy fields that served as doors, hollowed-out faces. Some screamed. Some wept. Most just stared with the dead eyes of fish on a market slab.
They stopped at a cell on Tier 4. The door didn't swing; it dissolved. The energy field flickered and died with a static hiss.
"Get in," the guard barked, shoving Adam between the shoulder blades.
Adam stumbled into the cramped space, barely catching himself before he hit the opposite wall. The energy field hummed back to life behind him, sealing the room with a terrifying finality.
The cell was a metal box, perhaps ten feet by ten feet. It smelled of recycled air and male sweat. Two sets of bunk beds were bolted to the walls, leaving a narrow strip of floor space in the middle.
Three pairs of eyes turned to him.
For a moment, nobody moved. The air in the cell grew thick, the unspoken hierarchy of prison life instantly assessing the newcomer.
"Right," a voice chirped, breaking the tension like glass. "This is cozy."
A small, bald man hopped down from the top right bunk. He landed with the agility of a gymnast. He was shirtless, revealing a torso that was wiry and scarred, but his most defining feature was his face. A jagged, ugly scar bisected his right eye, running from his forehead to his cheekbone. The eye itself was milky white and blind, but the left one was sharp, blue, and dancing with a manic energy.
"Well, well, looks like we've got fresh meat for the grinder," the man said, grinning to reveal a missing canine. "Welcome to Kazakhar, my friend. I'm Panchenko. And don't worry, the grinder's not as bad as it sounds… unless you're getting ground, of course!" He winked with his good eye.
From the lower bunk of the opposite bed, a different figure emerged from the shadows. He was tall and lanky, his limbs looking too long for his body, like a spider that had been unfolded. He wore thick, taped-up glasses and had a neat bowl cut that seemed absurdly civilized for this place. He was holding a small piece of scrap metal and a twisted wire.
"H-hello," he stammered, wringing his hands nervously. "I'm Harry. Don't… don't mind Panchenko. He thinks everything is a joke. It's a defense mechanism." Harry adjusted his glasses. "It's… it's not so bad, sometimes. I mean, it is bad. It's terrible. But… you learn to live with it, sort of. If the algorithm of survival favors you."
Adam nodded slowly, his mind still reeling from the events of the last few hours. The image of Elena's broken body was still burned onto his retinas. He felt numb, a ghost inhabiting a shell.
His gaze drifted to the third man.
He sat on the lower bunk closest to Adam, an immovable object. He was a mountain of a man, dark-skinned, with a magnificent afro that defied the prison's grime. A stark white tattoo of a human skull was inked onto the side of his neck. He was cleaning his fingernails with a shiv made from a sharpened spoon, his movements slow and deliberate.
He looked up. His eyes were dark, heavy, and held an intensity that made the hair on Adam's arms stand up.
"Jones," he rumbled. The voice was deep, a subsonic vibration that seemed to come from the floor rather than his throat. "And you?"
Adam swallowed, his throat dry as sandpaper. "Adam."
"Adam," Jones repeated, testing the name. "You look like you've been through a beating, Adam."
Adam slumped down against the cold metal wall, sliding until he hit the floor. He drew his knees up, wincing as his side protested. "Something like that."
Panchenko, unable to sit still, perched on the edge of his bunk, swinging his legs like a child. "So, Adam. You're looking a bit… fresh. And by fresh, I mean you still have that look in your eyes. The 'I can't believe this is happening' look. First time in Kazakhar, I take it? Must've done something truly spectacular to earn a one-way ticket to this hellhole. Did you steal a ration bar? Look at a guard the wrong way?"
Adam stared at the floor rivets. He felt the weight of the silence in the room. In a place like this, information was currency, and weakness was death. But looking at these three—the jester, the nervous wreck, and the titan—he felt a strange, impulsive need to speak the truth.
"I killed a demon," Adam said softly.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Harry gasped, the piece of scrap metal clattering from his hands to the floor. Panchenko froze mid-swing, his legs hanging in the air, his manic smile vanishing instantly.
Even Jones stopped. The shiv paused over his thumb. He turned his head slowly, giving Adam his full, undivided attention.
"A demon?" Jones asked. His voice was lower now, dangerous. "You mean a familiar? A construct?"
Adam looked up, meeting Jones's gaze. "I mean a Taskmaster. High-ranking. Name was Xy'lar. I put a pickaxe through his neck."
A stunned silence filled the cell, heavy and suffocating. In the hierarchy of the universe, slaves did not kill demons. It was a physical and societal impossibility. To claim it was madness; to have done it was a miracle.
"Damn," Jones finally breathed, a low whistle escaping his lips. "That's a death sentence, usually. Public execution. Denounce. You're lucky to be here, in a twisted kind of way."
Panchenko slid off the bunk, approaching Adam with a new expression—curiosity mixed with a grim respect. "Oh, this is going to be good! A demon-slayer, eh? We haven't had one of those in Sector 7 in… well, ever. Tell us, Slayer. What was the glorious act?"
Adam closed his eyes. He didn't want to relive it, but he knew he had to. He recounted the events—the mines, Xy'lar cornering Elena, the rage that took him over, the trial, and the deaths of Karl and Elena. He spoke with a flat, detached voice, dissecting the tragedy as if he were reading an autopsy report.
When he finished, the room felt colder.
"They died fighting," Harry whispered, looking at his hands. "That's… that's brave."
"They always say," Panchenko mused, the humor gone from his voice, "that only the worst of the worst end up in Kazakhar. Murderers, thieves, traitors. But sometimes, it's just the ones who fight back too hard. You, my friend, are one of the latter." He squatted down in front of Adam. "So. Welcome to Level One: The Darkling Woods."
Adam frowned, the name striking a discordant note. "The Darkling Woods? This is a prison, not a landscape."
Harry, emboldened by the camaraderie of shared trauma, spoke up from his bunk. "Yeah. See, Adam, Kazakhar isn't just a prison. It's… it's an arena. It's a reality show for the demons upstairs."
Adam looked at him, confused. "What?"
"The cylinder," Jones rumbled, gesturing vaguely to the door. "All the cells face inward. The center of the cylinder, the bottom of the pit… that's the stage."
"You're lucky to be on Level One," Harry continued, adjusting his glasses nervously. "It's the 'easiest,' statistically speaking. Every day, the energy fields drop at 1300 hours. From 1 PM to 6 PM, we are forced out of our cells and onto the platforms that lower us into the center. That's the Woods."
Jones leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "It's a massive, twisting forest. Not real trees—bio-engineered black carbon. Hard as steel, sharp as glass. It's pitch dark down there, save for the spotlights the wardens use to track the action. And it's full of mindless monsters. Chimeras. Twisted genetic experiments that just want to tear you apart and eat the pieces."
Adam felt a cold dread settle in his stomach, heavier than the ore he used to mine. He had survived the political cruelty of the demons, but now he was to be thrown into a gladiator pit against monsters?
"But," Panchenko added, regaining a slice of his theatrical style, "they do let us pick a weapon! Isn't that generous? Anything you can find in the armory before the gates close. Swords, spears, bows, axes… rusted junk, mostly. Whatever you can scavenge or craft. It's supposed to be 'fair' combat practice, to keep us… 'fit'." He chuckled darkly. "More like, to thin the herd so they don't have to feed as many mouths."
"And that's just the first level, isn't it?" Adam asked, looking between them. "You said Level One."
"You catch on quick, Slayer," Jones grunted approvingly. "The prison goes down. Five levels. If you survive the Darkling Woods long enough, or if you kill a Boss creature, you get offered a 'promotion.' You can choose to stay here, or go down to Level Two."
"Level Two: Crimson Lake," Harry recited, shuddering. "It's a boiling red lake. Smells like sulfur and rotten eggs. Small islands of rock. We're forced to swim between them. The water is full of… things. Eels with teeth like needles. Amphibious horrors."
Panchenko nodded. "Then Level Three: Scorching Desert. Below the humidity of the lake, it's an inferno. Artificial suns that bake the skin. Giant worm-like monsters that ambush you from beneath the sand. Tremors, but worse. Again, 1 PM to 6 PM. Five hours of hell."
"And Level Four?" Adam asked.
"Blazing Hell," Jones said. "Volcanoes. Magma flows. The air is smoke. Huge bird-like monsters—Harpies, Phoenixes—dive-bombing you from the ash clouds."
"And the last level?" Adam asked, a morbid curiosity taking hold. He needed to know the full shape of the cage.
Jones's expression grew serious. The other two went quiet.
"Level Five," Jones said softly. "Eternal Darkness. It's the bottom of the silo. No light. None. The only light comes from the bioluminescent monsters themselves—creatures of the deep trench, evolved to hunt by sound and smell. You get a torch, but it barely helps. It's where they send the ones who break the most. Or the ones who are just too dangerous to put anywhere else."
"Nobody comes back from Level Five," Harry whispered.
A heavy silence descended once more. Adam looked at his hands. They were shaking, just slightly.
He looked at his new cellmates. Panchenko, the jester masking his terror. Harry, the genius trying to solve an equation that equaled death. Jones, the warrior enduring the unendurable.
And him. Adam. The man who had nothing left but a promise.
He thought of Malakor, the High Justicar. He thought of the system that built this inverted tower of suffering.
If he wanted to burn it down, he couldn't just survive. He had to conquer it. He had to descend.
"So," Panchenko said, breaking the quiet, a faint, twisted smile on his face. He hopped off the bed and walked to the cell door, looking out at the vast, dark emptiness of the central shaft. "What'll it be, Adam? Sword, spear, bow, or axe? Because sunrise comes early here, and tomorrow… you're going to meet the Darkling Woods."
Adam stood up. The pain in his side flared, but he pushed it down, turning it into fuel. He walked to the door and stood beside Panchenko, looking into the abyss.
"I'll take a sword," Adam said, his voice cold and steady. "I have a lot of work to do."