Consciousness returned in pieces.
Aric gasped, choking on the thick, noxious air that filled the cavernous space around him. He gagged as acidic fumes clawed at his lungs. The world around him writhed, as wet walls of flesh pulsed in the dim pale light of the serpents slick and glistening belly. He swore he saw faces, smiling and laughing as they undulated in and out of the wriggling fleshy walls. Beneath his palms, the ground squelched. He looked around and saw corpses half-melted into the bile, their faces twisted in expressions of endless suffering, pale blue souls occasionally manifesting, only to wail in pain before disappearing again..
Death wasn't enough, he thought bitterly. They want me to suffer.
His body, once so mighty, now felt fragile, battered, exhausted, and corroded. His skin burned where the serpent's digestive acids ate through what tatters of clothing still remained and singed his skin.
He sagged to his knees, despair welling up. After all the wars he'd fought, after all the atrocities he'd committed in blind faith to the Tribunal's glory, thousands of the agonized corpses around him had landed here by his own blade. And now... this was how it ended? Not in battle, not even by betrayal alone, but here, dissolving slowly inside a mindless beast's gut. Forgotten. Erased.
A small, broken sound escaped him. A half-sob, half-laugh. How absurd. How pathetic.
But as sorrow filled him, it curdled into rage.
No. he thought.
This isn't how it ends.
Roaring, Aric surged upright, gripping the shattered remains of the sword he'd scavenged from the swamp, now little more than a hilt and a jagged spike. He drove it into the pulsing, slimy walls of the serpent's stomach, stabbing directly at one of the laughing faces. Again. And again. Acid splattered, burning into his forearms and face. When the broken blade slipped from his fingers, he clawed at the walls with his bare hands.
He fought until his body gave out, collapsing into the writhing mess beneath him, breathing raggedly, trembling with rage and exhaustion.
He caught his reflection in the pool of bile below him, hollow-eyed, scarred, dying.
And then the reflection...smiled.
Aric blinked. For a moment, he thought he'd finally gone mad. He touched his own face, half-hoping to confirm he was still real, but the reflection, defied him, instead continuing to grin. Slowly, it twisted, chuckling, as it churned into something... else.
A shadow rose from the mire, coalescing into the figure of a woman cloaked in elegant, tattered silks of black and gilded gold. Her garments flowed like the shroud of a drowned queen, caught on the ebbing current of another realm.
Aric scrambled backward, retrieving the broken hilt of his sword and leveling it at the figure. "Another trick of the gods?" He barked. "Come then, witch!" he spat, almost grateful for the chance to die fighting.
"I won't make it easy," he growled, heat flaring in his chest.
The woman simply hovered above the bile, serene. Her massive black cowl obscured her face, save for a wide, knowing smile. Her body drifted like mist, wisps of black ash trailing every movement. Semi-translucent, a spectre, unbound by flesh and bone.
When she spoke, her voice was velvet and smoke. "Trick? Oh, Aric Duskborne. I am no trick."
"Then what are you?" Aric said, more a warning than a question.
She smiled again, softer, almost pitying. "In a gilded age, I once had a name." The woman lifted her hand, opening it slowly, her shaded expression distant as if recollecting a fond memory. From her palm drifted a soft thrush of golden sand, glowing faintly as it scattered and faded like a forgotten memory. "But those ages have long since tarnished."
"You can call me…" she trailed off, her attention drifting back to Aric as she took a deliberate, hovering step toward him. Her slender, pale legs pushed out from the flowing silk robe with ethereal grace, hips swaying in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. "Your benefactor." she finished, circling him with feline ease, unbothered by his defensive stance and the blade tracing her every step.
Aric narrowed his eyes. "I have no need for more gods."
She laughed softly. "Of course not," she said, stopping in front of him, her smile bemused. "You have... other needs."
She inspected him up and down like a sculptor examining a fine slab of stone, her expression unreadable but intent. Then, without warning, she reached out and seized his wrist. Aric flinched, startled, but he didn't pull away. Whether from exhaustion, curiosity, or something else entirely, he let her touch linger. Her fingers, cool and wispy as smoke, soothing his acid singed skin.
"The Tribunal feared you," she whispered, her gaze fixed on his hand. "And I'm beginning to see why."
"Enough!" Aric growled, snapping from his daze and lunging forward, only to pass through her misty ashen form. She reformed behind him effortlessly.
"No tricks, huh?" he said over his shoulder, voice dry with sarcasm. "I suppose next you'll tell me you're here to help."
"Indeed, Aric. No tricks," she replied, raising her hands playfully in mock surrender. "Only an offer."
Aric glared.
"I can give you what you need," she said, her voice tightening with deliberation. "The means to carve a path back to the world that betrayed you."
"You offer enough power to challenge the Tribunal?" Aric asked bitterly.
"No, my dearest treasure," the benefactor said, her voice slipping into a haunting echo. "Not just power." Her smile returned.
"Salvation."
Aric scoffed. "You offer salvation as if you aren't trapped in this pit with me." He gestured toward a mound of half-dissolved corpses. "Try asking one of them. Maybe they'll worship you in exchange for your so-called salvation."
The benefactor smiled wider, a low chuckle escaping her lips. That chuckle tumbled into a bout of laughter, and then into a fit of ecstatic hysterics. She threw her head back, laughing gleefully into the dark, fingers brushing delicately across her own neck in a strange, euphoric stupor. "Oh yes..." she purred to herself, eyes gleaming. "This one is perfect."
Then, turning to Aric, her voice calmed. "I do not seek your worship. And no beast so trivial as this could ever imprison me."
Aric stared. "Why me? What makes me so lucky?"
"That is simple, dear treasure..." she said, drifting toward him. Her hand cupped his chin, lifting his gaze to meet hers. "Only you possess the resolve required to see my desires fulfilled."
Her golden eyes, like molten metal, bored into his. Aric felt the world slip away for a moment, lost in her hypnotic gaze.
"What... task?" he asked, his voice melting.
She leaned in close, nearly embracing him as she whispered, her breath icy against his ear. "Kill the gods."
Aric's eyes widened.
He pulled back, blinking in disbelief. "Kill... the gods?" he repeated, almost laughing at the sheer madness of it. "Are you insane?" His gaze dropped to his own ruined body, a husk of the man he once was. Burnt, singed, smote, and abandoned, he was lower now than even when he'd been a starving child, scraping for crumbs on the streets. How could he, of all people, accomplish something so impossible?
"You ask, this, to kill the gods?" He said bitterly. "I couldn't even kill this serpent."
"Ah, yes... that is true. You and I are kindred souls," she purred, stepping toward him before dissolving into ash. Her voice echoed from everywhere all at once, ethereal and booming. "Both wronged by the Tribunal, both betrayed by those who owed us everything." Her voice reverberated, growing louder as the world around Aric began to shift. "But has your fire really flickered out?" she continued, her tone dripping with challenge.
Suddenly, Aric found himself back in the Tribunal's grand hall, only now he watched from above, a spectator to his own destruction. He saw the gods looming high upon their thrones, masked and unfeeling as they cast their judgment. He watched himself in chains, defiant but broken, and in the radiant light of their verdict, he saw the countless lives he'd ended in their name, the false promises of mercy, the hollow blessings delivered to the faithful. A tide of regret and fury welled up in his chest, and his fists clenched tightly.
"Perhaps you have accepted your fate," her voice cooed, soft and mocking.
"Or perhaps..."
Reality snapped back. Aric was once again inside the serpent's belly, slumped against the fleshy walls. He shook his head, vision swimming as he realized he had collapsed to the floor. A perfect pale hand reached out, cutting through the darkness, and he looked up to see her standing over him ,elegant, ethereal, and smiling. Her hand remained outstretched, palm open, inviting.
"You're merely in need of some help..." she finished, voice velvet-smooth and sincere.
"So, I ask again." she added sweetly, eyes gleaming with mischief. "Will you accept my accord.?""
Aric looked down at his scarred hands, riddled with calluses and markings, every inch earned through blood, pain, and sacrifice. All that suffering, all that torment had led him here. His gaze drifted back to her, and without another word, he took her hand. Her grip was cool, impossibly light, yet firm as steel. "I accept," he said, as she pulled him to his feet. His voice hardened with grim resolve. "I'll kill them, all of them." He paused, locking eyes with her, unyielding. "But know this," he growled, voice dripping with defiance. "If you expect a lapdog, you'll get none."
He straightened, shoulders set. "From this point forward, no one commands my blade."
His grip tightened, the tension palpable. "Not ever again."
Her golden eyes shimmered with delight, a grin spreading across her lips as she watched him with a reverence bordering on awe. Then a bubbling, melodic laughter burst from her, echoing through the serpent's gut like a hymn of gleeful madness.
"Oh, little flame," she said, her grin lingering even as her form began to unravel into black and gold mist. Her voice deepened, distorted into something vast and terrible, filling the serpent's stomach like the call of creation itself.
"You truly are perfect."
The mist surged forward, swallowing him in a whirlwind of breathless ash. Aric staggered, gasping as the essence of his benefactor coiled around him, tearing through flesh, and latching onto his soul. Searing pain ignited across his body. Fingers turned to cinders. Arms crumbled into smoke. The vortex devoured him, molecule by molecule.
But Aric did not cry out.
He grit his teeth. When they shattered, he glared. And when his eyes burst into embers and the world around him went dark, he answered the void with a blaze of defiance.
Then, through the maelstrom, came stillness.
Ash and flame drew inward. The storm that had unmade him now reformed him. Flesh returned, tempered and healed. And upon the back of his left hand, like an artisans signature carved into steel, burned a sigil. Black ash and gold ink, a spiral of ruination, glowing as if fresh from the forge.
He panted, sweat glistening on his brow.
The mist was gone.
His benefactor had vanished.
Aric looked down at the brand, its glow fading.
Then a shimmering screen unfurled from the sigil, written in an odd, but orderly font.
Welcome to the Sin System.
Salvation Awaits.
Do you accept it?
[Yes] [No]
He stared, and a grim, almost hysterical smile crept across his lips.
This wasn't over.
Not yet.