Blood roiled at his feet, but Zeke could not be bothered to notice. Instead, the whole of his attention was on the monster trying to eat his face. If he’d had the space to think, he probably would have considered that a logical course.

  Instead, he’d fully embraced the fury within. It was the only way he had any chance of overcoming the creature, which looked like a giant salamander, but with enormous teeth that would – had had – ripped him to shreds on more than one occasion. Zeke had lost track of how long he’d fought the monster. Days, at least. Probably closer to weeks since it had ambushed him.

  But the passage of time had ceased to matter. No – the only thing he could let himself care about was surviving one more moment. Because even if the creature wasn’t quite as powerful as the god of greed he’d already bested in the previous Circle of Hell, it certainly was no slouch. It took his full focus just to avoid being eaten, which meant there was no room for other concerns.

  Finally, he saw an opening and dove for it, digging his fingers deep inside the creature’s slimy flesh. It bucked, trying to throw him free. Normally, that would have been enough. But in this instance, Zeke managed to hold on and knife his other hand through the monster’s skin. After that, it was only a matter of time before he’d dug his way through blood and flesh, eventually reaching something vital.

  He ripped the monster’s innards to pieces, overcoming its ability to regenerate before bursting free in a shower of gore. He hit the ground in an exhausted roll before coming to a stop a few feet away from the largest pool he’d yet encountered. The monster fell behind him, hitting with so much force that the impact created a localized earthquake.

  More importantly, the other monsters in the area scattered, their fear of him overwhelming their inherent wrath. That gave him a moment to catch his breath and let [Hand of Divinity] banish any wounds he’d incurred.

  Panting, he looked around. The Bloodlake still loomed in the distance, seeming no closer than it had upon his initial arrival. Whether that was a trick of perspective – it was as large as any sea – or some characteristic of the circle itself, Zeke wasn’t certain. But one thing he knew was that he wouldn’t escape and continue his descent until he reached its shores.

  So, it wasn’t long before he once again rose to his feet and continued his journey across the marshy wetlands that dotted the area. The smell of blood hung heavy in the air, and Zeke remained on the verge of vomiting. At the same time, he reveled in it – or in the aura of constant conflict it represented. Not for the first time, Zeke nearly lost himself to the fury that came with the territory.

  However, he overcame that the same way he’d progressed so far in his descent – by pulsing divine energy and letting it circulate through his body and mind. Without that, he would have long since succumbed.

  Even with it bolstering his mind, he found it difficult to stay on track, and more than once, he found himself veering off course in search of a good battle. He always caught himself, but he knew that it would only take one slip-up, and he’d never escape the Circle of Wrath.

  So, he continuously cycled it, keeping his goal firmly in mind. Days passed as Zeke’s journey continued. Then weeks. Months. By that point, he’d entirely lost track of the passage of time, largely because there were no markers for day and night. The landscape continuously shifted, with powerful storms frequently sweeping through the area and reshaping the terrain. There were plenty of attacks as well – both from the slimy, eel-like monsters as well as other travelers like Zeke. The second either caught sight of him, a fight became inevitable.

  And as much as Zeke knew he should resist such urges, he rarely managed to avoid those battles. Instead, he tore his way across the landscape, toppling anyone who stood in his way.

  Then, just when he had begun to despair that his journey would be neverending, he arrived at the shores of the Bloodlake. And the sight did not disappoint. For a long time, he just stood there, awestruck by what he saw stretching out before him. Kneeling, he dipped his hand in the water, and when he pulled it away, he saw that his fingers had been stained red.

  It was blood, just as the name implied.

  Worlds and worlds of blood. Throughout his journey, Zeke had added plenty of the same to the puddles surrounding the Bloodlake, but this – it was an ocean. If all of humanity – throughout its entire existence – were to be exsanguinated, they still couldn’t have filled such a reservoir.

  But it wasn’t an unbroken expanse of red liquid. Instead, Zeke saw the remnants of old buildings peeking over the waves. In addition, there were pieces of debris – and more bodies than he could count – floating throughout.

  The message was clear. Wrath led to destruction. There were no winners in battle – not really.

  Zeke rejected that notion. Sometimes, violence was the only answer. Maybe it wasn’t pretty. Perhaps it wasn’t honorable. But it was necessary. Without it, everyone would have long since died.

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  Yet, even as that idea swept through his mind, Zeke knew he wasn’t being honest with himself. He’d never really cared about right and wrong. Not more than surface-deep, at least. His primary motivator wasn’t protecting people or doing the right thing. Instead, he’d always fought because, at the core of his very being, he was a fighter. Every other justification only existed in service of that simple facet of his character.

  Of course, there was selfishness in there as well. In the beginning, he’d warred with himself over his skill choices, many of which had been picked because he was so terrified of being alone that he needed to protect those few people who could tolerate his presence.

  But he could have accomplished the same thing by simply settling down in Beacon and only fighting when necessary. If he’d chosen that route, perhaps he and Abby would have remained together. Maybe they would have started a family and had children. They could have been happy.

  Or at least that was what they would have told themselves. However, Zeke was introspective enough to recognize that he could never be happy living a peaceful life. He needed goals. He needed hardship. He needed a battle. Otherwise, he’d be lost.

  Maybe that was what had happened to his father.

  It wasn’t difficult to draw the parallels between that man’s life and what Zeke imagined would have awaited if he’d chosen to settle down with Abby. Would he have turned to alcohol or other inebriants, never satisfied with the life he’d chosen?

  Perhaps.

  And that realization only made him all the angrier.

  If it kept him from confronting that fate, he would slaughter whole civilizations. Entire worlds, even. He would destroy all of existence to avoid becoming anything like his father.

  A pulse of divine energy flowed through him unprompted, and his rage cooled. Only then did he realize that he was on the verge of diving into the Bloodlake in search of something to kill. And while that might have been a necessary step in order to traverse the Circle of Wrath, doing so under the influence of so much rage would not have had great results.

  But where had that energy come from?

  He hadn’t summoned it. He certainly hadn’t guided it. Instead, it had emerged from his core entirely on its own, circulating through him without any conscious direction. What’s more, it was more powerful than any pulse he’d ever experienced, though the volume wasn’t any greater than at any other point.

  It was a mystery, and try as he might, Zeke was incapable of solving it.

  So, he moved on – both literally and figuratively.

  At first, he just circled the Bloodlake, but as the days passed and nothing changed, Zeke began to realize that there was only way to escape the Circle of Wrath. Only a week later, he decided it was time. He waded into the blood, and for a while, it rose no higher than his knees.

  However, a few hundred yards out, the bottom plummeted, and he found himself swimming in the stuff. Waves crashed down, threatening to drown him. But if Zeke could survive the Tempest, he had nothing to fear from the comparatively miniscule waves.

  The moment that reality settled into his thoughts, Zeke found himself falling.

  Not through blood, as he might have expected. Instead, the waters of the Bloodlake had retreated entirely, revealing a vast battlefield far below. Zeke fell for almost five minutes, and with each passing second, he saw that the fighters were far larger than he’d initially suspected. Then, when he finally landed among them, he realized that he’d been thrust into a war between giants.

  Most of them were recognizably human, though they were all grievously wounded. Moreover, they seemed to have come from wildly disparate eras. Zeke saw Roman legionnaires locked in battle against what appeared to be modern soldiers. Gunfire filled the air, accompanying the twang of snapping bow strings.

  Only a few feet away, an enormous boulder hit the ground, bounced, then destroyed a thirty-foot-tall medieval knight. Zeke had no more time to take in the sights before something tackled him to the muddy ground. A second later, and his side played host to a dozen puncture wounds, and his attacker seemed hellbent on adding more to the count.

  Zeke grabbed his attacker – who looked like a Spanish conquistador – by the breastplate, and threw him as far as he could manage. And given Zeke’s incredible strength, that was a long way indeed. He didn’t even see where he landed. Instead, he focused on his surroundings.

  In addition to the enormous warriors, there were millions of normal-sized fighters doing battle across the muddy ground. Miles away, he saw what looked like a blood-red wall, and it actually took him a few seconds to realize that the Bloodlake had parted.

  The terrain itself was characterized by bloody mud and shattered buildings. Zeke had seen plenty of warzones in his time – both during his own campaign against the Radiant Host and on television and in movies back on Earth. And the ruined cityscape matched those images, except that everything seemed to be coated in a red sheen.

  Zeke didn’t have time to truly appreciate it before he was once again attacked. This time, by a samurai. Zeke blocked the man’s sword strikes with his forearms before lashing out with a punch that went right through his lacquered armor.

  After that, Zeke was too busy to focus on anything but survival. The smaller fighters were nothing special. Sure, they’d likely dominate any battlefield back in the Eternal Realm, but against Zeke, they were mere fodder. The larger warriors were far more dangerous, and more than once, Zeke found himself on the losing end of one exchange or another against one of their ilk.

  But as he’d already established, Zeke was a difficult man to permanently put down. He fought, and he lost more battles than he won. However, he always got back up, his body being reformed by [Hand of Divinity] each time. The real fight wasn’t with the men – and scattered women – all around him. Rather, he warred with himself as much as any other fighter as he tried to overcome the urge to lose himself amidst the wrath threatening to flood his mind.

  If that happened, he’d be just like all the others.

  And Zeke couldn’t allow that to happen. Instead, he needed to keep his wits about him so he could figure out a way through the Bloodlake and to the next Circle. For once, it wasn’t enough to simply outlast the circle. Sinking into a battle haze was precisely what it wanted from him, after all.

  So, practically crippled by his inability to fully commit to any fight, Zeke stumbled ahead in an attempt to overcome his own nature.