Samuel raised his arms like a conductor preparing an orchestra of idiots. And with the confidence only a truly desperate man could muster, he screamed at the top of his lungs:
"HE DIED A HERO!"
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then—
Someone in the crowd pumped a fist.
"He died a hero!"
Another voice joined.
"Yeah! A f***ing hero!"
Then more. Dozens now. A swelling chant, unhinged and glorious.
"HE DIED A HERO!"
"HE DIED A HERO!!"
"HE DIED A HERO!!!"
Lyra, standing just behind Samuel, shouted with mock solemnity,
"He was the bravest man I've ever met! The greatest bandage roller this world has ever seen!"
"HE DIED A HERO!!"
They were screaming it now. Clapping each other on the back.
Foaming at the mouth with adrenaline and madness. You could see it in their eyes—the sudden clarity. The pure, unfiltered logic of people who had nothing left to lose.
If they were going to die anyway…
Might as well go out swinging.
Samuel blinked, mouth slightly ajar. Even he hadn't expected this to work. He turned to Lyra, who was watching the whole thing with the stunned expression of someone witnessing a miracle—or a natural disaster.
"Did I just… start a war rally?"
She nodded slowly. "You… really did."
Samuel scratched his jaw, staring out at the mob of maniacs now charging toward Ravok with a cry that echoed into the heavens.
"...Huh."
He stepped off the rock, sword drawn.
"Well, I guess we're doing this."
Lyra rolled her eyes and followed, her own blade crackling to life.
"Just try not to throw me at the monster next time."
"No promises."
And together, with smoke curling through the trees and Ravok's monstrous shadow looming ever closer, they ran—
Not away.
But straight into the heart of the nightmare.
Because dammit…
He had momentum now.
Samuel didn't know what the hell he was doing.
Truly. Absolutely. Not a damn clue.
He hadn't practiced his abyssal energy control. Not even once. Not properly. Not the breathing, not the channeling, not even the posture.
He was the kind of idiot who skipped the tutorial and pressed start on nightmare difficulty.
All around him, disciples were launching spells—rippling waves of fire, jagged ice spears, wind blades that howled like banshees. Flashy, controlled. Safe distance.
Samuel?
He had a sword, a lot of unresolved trauma, and the regret of a man who definitely should've trained during daylight hours instead of brooding by the fire like some tragic anti-hero in a bad play.
He ducked just in time to avoid a severed tent pole sailing past his head.
"This is insane," he muttered to himself, stumbling sideways through the chaos.
"I'm insane. Everyone here's insane."
Ravok loomed ahead—an avalanche made of meat and rot and hatred. Every step it took cracked the earth like thunder. Its tusks tore through trees like twigs. Its hide was a landscape of scars, tumors, and abyssal pustules.
And its face—
One side had an eye. Glowing red. Watching. Burning.
The other… was a crater.
A gaping socket where something should have been. Big enough to throw a wagon into.
Samuel stared at it.
Stared into it.
And then the thought hit him like a punch in the temple.
"I could… dive into that."
His brain immediately replied:
You could WHAT?
He shook his head. It was always like this.
Ever since he was a kid—back when things were simpler, like dodging fists at factory or climbing rooftops just to steal cooling dumplings—his brain had a nasty habit of serving up the worst possible ideas at the worst possible moments.
Samuel weaved through the chaos like a drunk ghost, dodging falling trees and stray spells that lit up the night in flashes of desperate color. He found Lyra crouched behind a half-burnt tent, hands glowing as she hurled sigils of light into the fray.
He tapped her shoulder.
"Umm… Lyra," he said flatly, like he was asking to borrow a pencil.
"Yes?" she snapped, eyes locked on the Ravok's thunderous form in the distance.
Samuel ducked a flying rock and gestured vaguely.
"Could you, uh… throw me into its eye?"
She froze. Slowly turned her head toward him.
"…What?"
"You know," he shrugged, "just… pick me up and toss me in. The bad eye. The one that's just a hole."
There was a long silence—except for the screaming, the stomping, the thunderbird shrieking in the clouds, and the sound of disciples getting bisected somewhere nearby.
"Are you mad?" she hissed.
"Little bit," Samuel admitted. "But I have a plan. Kind of."
"What are you even going to do in there!?"
He looked at her like it was obvious.
"Stab its brain."
A flaming tree collapsed behind them with a crash.
They both ducked instinctively.
Lyra blinked at him, mouth slightly open.
Samuel gave a thumbs-up.
"…You're insane," she whispered.
He smiled. "Yeah, well. Insane people make history."
Then he squinted toward Ravok.
"...Or get stomped into it."
Lyra sighed.
The sound was soft, almost drowned beneath the distant chaos—beneath the thunderbird's shriek and the crack of falling wood—but Samuel heard it.
Then her face changed.
The doubt drained from her features. Replaced by something cold. Something sharp. She reached for the sword at his side.
Samuel didn't stop her.
Her fingers curled around the hilt, and for a moment, the world seemed to still.
Then—she breathed in. A long, slow inhale.
And the air shifted.
Black mist coiled around her wrist like a serpent awakened from sleep. The blade responded, trembling faintly in her grasp as something ancient stirred within it. Not hers. Not his. But watching.
Samuel's eyes widened.
Abyssal energy.
She looked at him then. Just looked. And finally said, almost gently:
"Don't die."
Samuel blinked at her. Just once. Then he nodded.
Without another word, they ran.
Branches whipped past. Ash swirled like angry snow. The camp was collapsing behind them—but all he could hear was the pounding of Ravok's footsteps ahead, steady and slow, like war drums echoing in his bones.
He knew this was stupid.
Knew it from the marrow outward.
But if he was going to die—then at least let it be while doing something stupid enough to matter. Something memorable. Something suicidal enough to give him a damn chance.
Somewhere deep inside, a voice whispered that he was bluffing—that this was a joke without a punchline—but he ignored it. He always had.
They reached the edge of the treeline behind Ravok.
There, Samuel paused—eyes catching on something: a coil of rope half-buried beneath a collapsed tent. He snatched it up without thinking, fast fingers working as he tied one end to his sword… and the other around his waist.
With no time left, they climbed.
The tree groaned beneath their weight, branches cracking softly as they inched upward—higher, ever higher—until they were just above the corrupted beast's back.
Black. Rotting. Titanic.
A blighted god that wore the skin of a beast.
Lyra glanced at him, her face pale beneath the flickering shadows. Her voice came quiet, but sharp. "Are you sure?"
Samuel didn't answer with words. He just nodded, once. Firm. Final.
Her lips tightened. She turned her hand, summoned the abyss.
It answered.
Darkness spiraled around her arm, not wild, but focused—sharp as a blade, cold as regret. It wrapped around her like a shroud, strengthening the muscles in her arm, anchoring her stance.
Then—without warning—she grabbed him.
Samuel barely had time to suck in a breath before she hurled him through the air like a man-shaped javelin of poor decision-making.
The wind screamed in his ears.
The world spun.
And then—
WHUMP.
He landed on Ravok's back with all the grace of a dropped potato sack—thud, bounce, slide.
Then stillness.
Pain flared across his ribs like lightning under his skin.
His sword had slipped from his grip during the throw, but the rope was still tied—looped through the hilt and his belt. He clawed at the hide beneath him, scrambling for grip on flesh that felt more like moving stone than anything living.
Beneath his hands, the beast pulsed—hot and wrong, like a furnace made of meat.
Samuel didn't scream.
Mostly because he was too busy holding on for dear life.
Then, Ravok noticed.
The giant beast shuddered, a low bellow rising from deep in its gut.
Samuel felt the change—muscles bunching beneath him, tension coiling.
The trunk came first.
A great, grotesque length of rotted sinew, covered in cracked bark-like skin and moss. It swung up behind the beast, aiming to swat whatever had the audacity to cling to it.
Samuel barely rolled away in time, the trunk missing him by a hand's width.
He found himself on the move—feet skidding, breath ragged—running across the beast's spine like a lunatic crossing a collapsing bridge.
"Shit, shit, shit—"
The trunk came again. He leapt.
But Ravok was smarter than he looked.
This time, the tail followed also.
A slab of muscle the size of a tree trunk, rising like a whip.
Samuel turned his head, mid-sprint.
"Oh, come on—"
The tail descended like a guillotine forged from nightmares.
Samuel didn't think—he reacted. His body twisted, muscles screaming in protest, as he flung himself to the side. The tail slammed into the spot he'd occupied moments before.
The hide shifted beneath him—groaning, rippling muscle and sinew. Ravok was moving, furious now. Each twitch of the monster's body threatened to throw him off like a tick.
Samuel crawled.
There was no grace to it. No heroism.
Just mud-slicked palms and clenched teeth.
He clawed forward, dragging himself over ridges of twisted flesh, ducking under snapping tendrils of bone that jutted like malformed thorns. Every movement sent lightning through his bruised ribs. His knees scraped raw. Blood smeared where his hands slipped.
A shadow loomed.
The trunk again—this time aiming to crush.
Samuel flattened himself, pressed into the creature's flesh, heart stammering in his chest. The trunk passed overhead like a mountain swinging on a hinge, the wind of it nearly peeling him off.
He didn't scream. He couldn't. His voice was somewhere between his lungs and the abyss.
Then—he saw it.
The eye.
A crater in the monster's skull. Milky white, almost glowing. The other had long since rotted out, leaving a festering hole—but this one still burned, bloodshot and pulsing.
It was close.
Samuel blinked sweat from his eyes, coughed, and staggered up. The sword in his hand buzzed with Lyra's abyssal energy—cold, unnatural, whispering.
"Okay," he muttered. "Big stupid idea part two."
***