Hult didn't dare to believe he had actually escaped until he was sprinting beneath the hill. He refused to recall the horrors of those days trapped in the basement. Every time he heard those agonizing screams from above, a grim certainty would settle in his chest—that was his inevitable fate.
Before his capture, Hult had been a thief in the slums of Dolez City. His life was a never-ending cycle of hunting for prey, fleeing from patrols, and enduring the extortion of local gangs. With a sharp mind and nimble hands, he had managed to avoid the fate of countless others who fell into the patrols' grasp. His proudest achievement? Successfully pickpocketing a warrior apprentice without getting caught. Though the gold coins in that wallet ultimately ended up in the gang's pockets, that single feat had earned him some fame among the slum's thieves.
But fame meant nothing.
He was still just a common thief, not a true professional. One mistake—just one—was all it took to end everything. A single misstep, an unfortunate slip on scattered pebbles, and his life was over.
Dolez City had no mercy for criminals.
The lucky ones spent a few days in jail.
The unlucky ones were executed on the spot.
As for those in between—those whose crimes were not light enough for release but not severe enough for execution? If they didn't have enough gold to buy their way out, they were sold into slavery.
Hult had no gold.
And so, he became a slave.
But his misfortune did not end there—his buyer was an evil mage.
Now, standing in the bleak night, Hult took a deep breath of the foul air. The influence of the abyss still lingered, but to him this air was fresh and wonderful—far better than the suffocating stench of blood in that basement.
Behind him, five or six other escaped slaves stumbled forward, dragging along a young girl. Their bodies were frail and starved, their movements sluggish, but their will to survive kept them going. They had followed Hult's plan, seizing the moment to "capture" the weak-looking girl mage.
The escape had gone unnervingly smoothly.
The little mage, who had used spells to dig their tunnel, had neither screamed nor struggled. She hadn't resisted at all.
But rather than feeling relieved, Hult found himself deeply unsettled.
By the time they reached the foot of the mountain, reality set in—his so-called plan was a joke.
His original idea had been simple: reach the town, scatter into the alleys, and vanish. With the girl as a hostage, the mage would hesitate, buying them precious time. With his years of navigating the city streets, he had even dared to hope for a real escape.
But now, he saw the truth.
The town at the base of the mountain was abandoned.
Due to the abyssal taint in the air, the townsfolk had long since fled.
And as if that weren't enough, a more desperate realization struck—none of them had the strength to run any further.
For over three days, they had been locked in that basement without food or water. Their bodies were weak, their minds clouded with exhaustion. Even the agile Hult felt his limbs turning numb, his vision blurring. If they pushed on, they wouldn't make it to town.
They would simply collapse along the road, dying on the path to "freedom."
Grinding his teeth, Hult made a decision.
They needed to rest.
Ten minutes—just ten minutes in one of those abandoned houses. Maybe they could find some water, something to keep them alive a little longer. At the very least, they wouldn't drop dead from sheer exhaustion.
Punk sat comfortably in the vine-woven chair at the heart of the White Tower's hall, watching the results of his prophecy spell with amusement.
So, those little mice had actually stopped to rest in an abandoned house?
Did they truly think they had escaped death?
Shaking his head, Punk smirked at the sheer ignorance of ordinary people when it came to magic. With a flick of his fingers, he issued a silent command.
In the dead of night, the doors of the White Tower creaked open.
From the darkness emerged a tall humanoid figure, cloaked in tattered gray robes.
Its massive frame moved with unnatural heaviness, each step cracking the dry earth beneath its feet. As the night wind howled through the ruins, the creature's robe shifted, revealing a crimson clawed hand.
Seven eerie red eyes gleamed beneath the hood, burning through the darkness like the gaze of a nightmare.
Then, with a deafening boom, the flesh golem lunged forward.
Its immense body tore through the air, its speed defying its hulking frame. A gray-and-red afterimage streaked down the mountain—a whirlwind of brute force and raw killing intent.
This was a war machine, created solely for combat.
Its first test:
Hunting down a pack of foolish rats.
Bilan sat frozen on the cold wooden floor.
The rotten door creaked in the night wind, its hinges groaning like the whispers of ghosts. Two skeletal figures—slaves barely clinging to life—lay collapsed beside her, their breath so faint they could have passed for corpses.
She had seen these "poor souls" before, back in the basement.
She had known what Punk meant when he ordered her to fetch the "materials."
She had seen the piles of corpses in the corner—their deaths were not only agonizing, but their very souls had been extracted for experimentation.
Bilan had always considered herself kind.
Just.
She could not accept such cruelty.
At first, she told herself there was nothing she could do. She was merely an apprentice. She had no power to defy an official mage.
But when she was "kidnapped" by those desperate slaves—when she heard their whispered plans of escape—she realized she had no excuse to remain silent.
And so, in a moment of reckless justice, she made a decision she now deeply regretted.
She had helped them.
She, a mere apprentice, had gone against a formal mage.
And now, the weight of that choice was suffocating her.
As the rush of adrenaline faded, fear took its place.
The reality of what she had done settled like a crushing weight on her chest.
She had seen what happened to Punk's experimental subjects.
She had seen their twisted corpses.
She knew exactly what fate awaited her.
She trembled violently, pressing herself against the wooden wall, her breath coming in shallow gasps.
She was terrified.
More than anything, she regretted her actions.
And as the night wind howled like a wailing spirit, a single name escaped her trembling lips—so faint that only she could hear it.
"Dicchido…"