As the fire slowly simmered out, the newly created Inānis Mors lazily wandered through the rest of the camp.
The initial explosion had hurled flaming wooden shrapnel in every direction, setting most of the encampment ablaze. Tents lay shredded, corpses half-charred, smoke wafting through the carnage like incense at a funeral pyre. Only one tent remained—furthest from the blast, made of a weaker, tattered fabric full of holes and tears, as if it had already given up long before the fire ever reached it.
Mors walked toward it, each step deliberate. Behind him, the echoes of the dying—the ones too slow to escape their burning shelters—still lingered. Their screams had been a delightful bonus. Reminiscent, even. Like home.
Like Hell.
As he reached the shabby tent, he pulled open its flaps, stepping inside—and was met with a sight both pitiful and absurd.
They were huddled there like vermin: men, women, children, all chained together in clumps. Each group resembled a grotesque mouse king, tangled and fused by cruel shackles. At least ten people per cluster—wounded, filthy, eyes empty of light.
But when they saw the fire burning behind him, through the opening of the flaps, something shifted. Hope, foolish and flickering, sparked in their eyes.
"Sir… have you come to take us?" a shriveled woman asked. Her voice cracked through bruised, bleeding lips, quivering with something—fear, desperation, excitement—Mors didn't know. Or care.
A smile tugged at his lips. Amused.
"If you're asking if I'm with the bandits—no," he said, gesturing to the still-burning camp behind him. "As you can see by my fine work. Truly—art, is it not?"
"S-sir, I beg you… please save us. The bandits—those monsters—"
Before she could finish, others erupted.
Their voices overlapped—pleading, crying, begging:
Help us!
Save us!
Our prayers have been answered!
Please—
Help! Help! Help!
Their desperation rang out like a chorus of chained ghosts.
And Mors?
He laughed.
Long and loud and full of teeth.
"Ha! You want me to save you? How hilarious. How human. And why should I? Is it my duty?" He stepped forward, grin wide and wild. "Why must your pitiful lives be draped across my back? What gave you the idea your suffering was my concern? You pathetic little cowards . You should be saving yourselves. But alas—ignorance has snuffed out even that slim chance. Ha!"
"But you… you killed the bandits," the frail woman muttered again, voice breaking. "Why… won't you help us? What's the point of you being here then? You're despicable… people like you shouldn't even be born."
Mors blinked. His grin didn't falter, but his eyes narrowed in mock confusion.
"…Huh? That's just dumb. What kind of logic is that?" He tilted his head. "Why would I care what you think? I am me. I live for me. I experience my being. So why don't you just go fuck off to Hell already?"
Before anyone could answer, he raised his right palm.
There, nestled in the center of his hand, was a small black dot, like a mole—yet shimmering faintly.
The air around him rippled like disturbed water, and his hand plunged inward as if slipping into a different dimension. He withdrew it, now holding a small orb—an object made of a million writhing souls. Its surface was both smooth and endlessly shifting, faces distorting and vanishing too quickly to name.
He tapped the orb.
At his command, tendrils of black, fleshy chain—formed from the souls themselves—snapped out, slithering through the air and attaching themselves to each slave. They screamed as the tendrils began devouring them, pulling their very souls from their bodies, stripping them clean, and fusing their essence with the Orb of Wailing Flesh.
With another tap, the tendrils retracted. The orb pulsed—fatter now, heavier with despair—but otherwise unchanged.
"They still recognize their king," Mors mused. "Such good toys. So loyal."
He stared at the orb, the flickering light of the distant fire catching in his crimson eyes.
"Hmm. What now? Maybe I'll play with the magic later. But dolor comes first," he muttered to himself, a bright smirk flashing across his pale face. "Can't let these rascals think I'm a joke."
With a final flick of his wrist, the orb vanished—his hand slipping back into the ripple of air like a magician's final trick.
And silence returned to the tent, broken only by the soft crackling of the fires beyond.