The scent of charred flesh clung to the damp dungeon air like a living thing. Adrian flexed his new claws, watching blue embers cascade between the obsidian talons. Each movement sent phantom pains radiating up his arm—memories that weren't his own flickering at the edges of his consciousness. A particularly vivid vision showed Ignarax standing over a different hunter, the demon lord's molten fingers plunging into the man's chest as he whispered, "Burn bright, little moth. The King awaits his kindling."

  The stone floor trembled as Adrian slammed his flaming fist against the wall. Basalt cracked under the impact, molten rock dripping like candle wax. He could still taste Ignarax's essence in the back of his throat—the acrid tang of burning libraries, of memories turning to ash on the tongue.

  Across the cell, Kaelis tightened his bandages with a sharp tug of his teeth. The veteran hunter's breathing was too controlled, too measured—the telltale sign he was hiding severe pain. Adrian's enhanced vision caught the minute tremors in his remaining human fingers, saw how the corruption along his demon arm had spread since yesterday. The black veins now crept past his collarbone, forming intricate patterns that mirrored the brand on Adrian's chest.

  "You're lying," Adrian said abruptly. His voice sounded strange—echoing with an undertone of crackling flames. "This wasn't your first time seeing someone absorb a lord's core." His claws gestured at the dungeon walls covered in scratched tallies, each set of four marks ending with a fifth diagonal slash. "How many hunters have they brought here after a successful hunt? Ten? Twenty?"

  Kaelis' remaining eye gleamed in the dim light. "You're asking the wrong questions, kid." He peeled back his bandages to reveal the wound beneath—not a burn, but a pulsating cavity where blue fire licked at exposed bone. "Ask why the Sanctum's dungeon blocks essence absorption... except for right here." He tapped the floor's center stone, where the remains of previous occupants had worn a smooth depression.

  The realization hit Adrian like a physical blow. This wasn't a prison cell—it was a crucible.

  Before he could respond, the door's warding runes flared crimson. Three Sanctum jailers entered, their featureless white masks reflecting the unstable glow of Adrian's claws in grotesque funhouse distortions. The lead jailer carried a barbed collar that pulsed with the same blue fire Adrian now wielded, its interior lined with human teeth.

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  "Kneel for conditioning," the jailer intoned, voice buzzing with unnatural harmonics.

  Adrian's flames roared to life without conscious thought. The vision came again—Ignarax's final moments, the way his six eyes had widened not in fear, but recognition as Adrian struck the killing blow. That same look now stared back at him from the jailers' masks.

  Kaelis moved first.

  His demon arm morphed into a segmented whip-blade that severed the nearest jailer's legs at the knees. Black ichor sprayed across the stones, sizzling where it touched Adrian's flames. "Left pauldrons!" Kaelis roared as the remaining guards drew crystalline swords that sang with stolen voices.

  Adrian's body moved before his mind could process the command. His claws found the weak point—a faintly glowing gem embedded in the first jailer's shoulder armor. When he crushed it, the entire squad's movements stuttered like puppets with cut strings.

  The dying jailer's mask cracked open, revealing a face that made Adrian's flames gutter—it was the same hollow-eyed initiate who'd welcomed him to the Sanctum just days ago, now aged decades in an instant. Papery skin stretched over a skull that seemed too large, lips withered back from teeth stained blue.

  "They take pieces of what we steal from the lords," the man wheezed, his breath smelling of burnt hair. One skeletal hand grasped Adrian's wrist with surprising strength. "The cores... they're not just power. They're keys. He's been using us to—"

  A thunderous impact cut him off as the entire corridor outside collapsed. Through the dust emerged Inquisitor Vaulk, their skull helmet now split open vertically to reveal a face that stopped Adrian's breath—it was his own, decades older, with the same Abyssal-black right eye but none of the humanity. The left side of Vaulk's face had melted into something resembling Ignarax's molten features, blue fire leaking from the seams.

  "Disappointing," the mirror-image Vaulk said in Adrian's voice—but layered with something deeper, something that vibrated in Adrian's bones. "You always break out too soon. The corruption hasn't reached optimal levels yet."

  Kaelis spat a glob of blackened blood onto the stones. "We're leaving."

  "Are you?" Vaulk's smile showed too many teeth, each one inscribed with tiny runes. "Then you'll want this." They tossed a smoldering parchment at Adrian's feet—a map to the Storm Scar, where lightning lord Veythos waited. The ink moved on its own, sketching and re-sketching a fortress made of frozen lightning.

  As the dungeon ceiling began crumbling, Adrian realized two terrible truths:

  The Sanctum wanted him to hunt the lords.

  And whatever Vaulk truly was, it had been expecting him for a very, very long time.

  Somewhere in the depths of his corrupted mind, Ignarax's voice whispered: "The King's throne has seven seats, hunter. And you've just claimed the first."