The village was still standing, but nothing inside it was alive anymore.
This was the same desert basin where children had raced through dusty paths just hours ago.
It was a place where fires had burned warmly in hearths,and names were called across the narrow paths by people who believed tomorrow would come exactly as yesterday had.
Now, every door was shut tight.
Frightened eyes hid behind cracked windows,
and every breath was held so carefully it barely qualified as breathing.
The wind had returned, but it carried nothing good—only the thick smell of burning and a fear so heavy it crushed the chest.
It was the specific kind of terror that settles in when danger has already passed through once,and you know it is coming back.
Right in the center of the village,
Jabar walked slowly.
There was no rush, no urgency;
he walked with the steady rhythm of a man moving through a place he already owned.
His long black hair hung loose across his shoulders,and his dark beard fell across his chest.
He wore a torn,black sleeveless robe with dark cloth wrapped tightly around his forearms.
In his right hand,he held his black iron wand, twisted at the top like a broken crown.
The red orb at its tip pulsed slowly,beating like the trapped heart of a soul.
At his chest, a purple locket glowed steadily,like a second heartbeat that did not belong to him.
With every step he took, the ground trembled slightly—not from physical force,but from pure recognition of his terrifying presence.
He stopped.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head,exactly like a man listening to music that no one else in the room could hear.
"Ahhhhh…"
Jabar took a deep, slow inhale.
The shadows beneath his eyes deepened.
"Fear… melting…
trying to hide…".
A faint, satisfied smile spread across his face.
"What a sweet smell…
You can hide…
But how will you hide your soul…?".
Inside the first house,a mother sat in a dark corner.
She pressed her child so hard against her chest that the child had stopped moving—not out of fear,but because her mother's desperate grip had become the only thing in the world that felt real.
Her arms had gone numb an hour ago,but she did not let go.
"Don't make a sound…
Not even a whisper…"
she murmured.
"Ammi…
he's outside… right?"
the little girl whisper-cried.
"He won't come in…
right?".
"No… no… he's gone…"
her mother replied, her voice cracking.
In another house,an old man sat with his eyes closed,murmuring that this was not human,but the shadow of death itself.
Elsewhere, a woman held her front door shut with both hands and her back,the wood groaning behind her.
Her son cried that he wanted to go home,and she replied steadily despite the nightmare,
"This is our home".
In yet another room, a small girl sat alone, pressing a cloth doll to her chest and whispering to it not to be scared,even as her own hands trembled violently.
Outside, Jabar locked onto his target.
The red orb brightened,
its pulse quickening like a compass finding north, pointing directly toward a house.
"Found you…"
he whispered softly.
The Dark Flame Execution began.
He cast a Whisper Hex—a low murmur that crawled through the walls,
shattering the focus of everyone inside and freezing their bodies.
Then came the Dark Mist Release,
sending black smoke spreading through every room to blind them.
Finally, darkness compressed at Jabar's palm,built into something with a singular,lethal purpose, and erupted directly inside the villagers.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
The fire did not burn their clothes.
It burned their bodies and souls together,completely from the inside out.
"This fire is burning from inside!!!"
a woman shrieked.
"AMMIIIIIII!!!
I'M BURNING!!!"
a little girl cried out.
A burning man broke entirely through a wooden wall, crawling outside and leaving black, scorched marks on the dirt with his hands.
"AAAAHHH!!!
DON'T KILL US!!!"
he wailed.
"WHAT HAVE WE DONE!!!".
House after house ignited. Jabar unleashed a Nightmare Pulse, an invisible wave of dark energy that amplified the panic until sheer terror became the only language anyone could speak.
Through the agonizing screams,a half-burned man stopped crawling.
Pushing himself up,he turned and walked toward Jabar,each agonizing step costing him everything.
"Are you listening?!"
the villager rasped, raw and absolute.
"As we burn…
You will burn too! By God's hands —
you will burn!".
Jabar stared at him, cold and quiet.
"The God you speak of…
Does not exist".
He let the words hang in the air. "
If He existed…
He would have come by now".
His voice suddenly amplified, filling the entire ruined village.
"I AM GOD.
I AM THE ONLY RULER OF THIS WORLD".
"No one takes my place.
No one has ever come close".
Around him,the dark flames grew taller,reaching toward the sky,as if the fire itself had learned to worship him.
The screams were finally finished.
The dark flames dimmed—not because they were extinguished,but because they were simply no longer necessary.
The Soul Drain Ritual was completely finished.
At the tip of Jabar's wand, the red orb pulsed brighter than it had all night.
Thousands of agonizing screams had been compressed into something the size of a man's fist,
pressing desperately against the inside of the glowing glass as if they were still trying to break out.
The village was truly dead.
In the oldest part of the village stood an ancient main hall with cracked walls.
Deep inside, two men hid in terrified silence behind an old wooden stage:
Elder Rashid and Elder Musa.
They had sat there for a very long time, paralyzed by the sounds of the massacre outside.
"This all happened because of Sheikh Harun…"
Elder Rashid whispered,his voice trembling in the dark.
Elder Musa gritted his teeth.
"That fool… put the entire village in danger…
For what?
To save himself?".
"He bowed before a devil…
And called it survival…"
Rashid muttered.
"He is no longer human,"
Musa replied grimly.
"Whatever wears his face now — it is not him".
The two elders looked at each other.
There was sheer terror in both pairs of eyes,
but beneath that fear lay a heavy, sickening guilt.
It was the guilt of men who had watched their people burn and had not moved a single muscle to help them.
Suddenly, the air froze.
The space in the hall compressed as darkness condensed at a single point right in front of them.
Jabar was there.
He hadn't walked in or broken through the door; he was simply already there.
"He… he's here…
" Elder Rashid whispered, shrinking back.
"…Devil…"
Musa stammered, entirely paralyzed by the sheer weight of the presence.
Jabar looked down at both of them.
The purple locket at his chest pulsed once in the dim light.
"Out of you two…"
Jabar's voice was frighteningly calm and cold.
"Who wishes to live under me?".
Rage suddenly overcame Musa's fear.
"We will NEVER become your slaves!!!"
he spat.
"You are not God —
you are a DEVIL!!!".
Jabar didn't even blink.
He unleashed a Shadow Bolt at point-blank range with absolutely no warning.
BOOM!!!
Elder Musa's head exploded.
Blood sprayed violently across the walls,
the wooden floor, and directly onto Elder Rashid's horrified face.
A deafening silence filled the room.
All dignity vanished from Rashid.
"Don't kill me!!!"
he shrieked, falling to his knees.
"I will be your servant!!! ANYTHING —
PLEASE—!!!".
Jabar stepped forward and delivered a Dark Slash straight across the elder's neck,
just deep enough to make the blood flow.
He grabbed Rashid by his hair and lifted him brutally off the ground.
As Rashid choked and gasped,Jabar forced a Dark Aura Injection directly into the man's mouth.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"
Rashid screamed in pure agony.
His face swelled grotesquely,
and his eyes rolled back into his skull.
His entire body convulsed and shook violently as the dark energy systematically rewrote every internal system that had ever made him human.
When the horrific process was finally done,
his ruined body collapsed lifelessly to the floor.
Only his severed head remained floating in the air.
A monster was born.
Huba Huba,the Devil Head.
It possessed dark grey,cracked goblin skin and a wide,torn mouth filled with sharp,uneven, crooked teeth.
Its face was twisted and distorted,illuminated by glowing yellow eyes with piercing red core pupils.
Small bat wings sprouted from both sides of its skull,
and a long, grotesque tongue hung loosely from its jaws.
The severed head floated upward and began to laugh a sickening,high-pitched laugh.
"Hehehe…
My lord… what have you made of me…"
Huba Huba hissed.
The creature tested its new bat wings,
tasted the blood-soaked air with its long tongue, and floated in a slow, eerie circle around the room.
"Something worthy of you,
I hope…"
the Devil Head mused.
"Though a little more suffering would have been appreciated…
I was just getting comfortable in that body…".
Jabar just looked at him.
He said absolutely nothing.
Not far from the village,
mountains rose from the desert floor like broken teeth.
WOOOOOOSH!!!
The wind tore between them.
The rocks trembled.
Not from the wind, but from something heavier moving through the area.
And in the side of one mountain — a dark cave. Not safe. Not protected.
Just hidden.
The kind of place fear leads people to when they have run out of better ideas.
Inside — Zayd, Zainab, Imran, and Hashim.
tap… tap… tap…
Water dripped.
Each drop was as loud as a heartbeat,acting as a countdown no one wanted to reach the end of.
"This cave… there is something about this place…
An old energy…
something that might protect us…"
Imran said in a low, controlled voice.
Zainab grabbed his arm tightly.
"IMRAN. Don't lie to me right now.
I need the truth."
"What would
I gain from lying…
We are safe here…"
Imran replied, his voice cracking.
Hashim looked up through his tears. "Abbu…
Those people we saw…
They were really burning…
weren't they…"
"Hashim…
Not every truth needs to be carried right now,"
Imran answered.
"I'm scared, Abbu…"
Hashim cried.
"Ammi…
What if it already knows we're here…"
Zayd whispered.
"NO,"
Zainab declared, pulling both boys fiercely to her.
"I am right here. Nothing is touching you. Nothing."
She closed her eyes and whispered a desperate prayer.
"God… Just these two children…
Keep them alive…
That's all I ask…"
Suddenly,
the temperature dropped and their breath became visible.
"SHHH—"
Imran whispered in a panic, his eyes going wide.
"Something… changed…"
Outside,
Jabar stood between the mountains, darkness moving around him like water around a stone.
Huba Huba floated beside him, rotating slowly as his yellow eyes scanned the area.
His Dark Scan Eye activated—
Huba Huba's eyes blazed bright,
scanning the mountainside,
reading heat signatures,
reading fear frequencies,
reading the specific trembling of people trying very hard not to be found.
"Found them,
my lord,"
Huba Huba announced,
pointing forward.
"Cave.
North side.
Four people.
Two children.
One woman.
One man."
He licked his lips.
"Drenched in fear.
Absolutely delicious."
"And in the forest…
More running prey.
Fresh fear."
"The cave — go,"
Jabar ordered coldly.
"Break them slowly.
I want to hear their screams from the forest."
"The rest… I hunt myself."
His body dissolved into shadows and disappeared into the forest.
Huba Huba hung in the air, staring directly at the cave entrance.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
he shrieked.
"RUN!!!
HIDE!!!
CRY!!!
BECAUSE — I. AM. COMING."
He shot toward the cave at lightning speed.