Streaks of red splashed across Yomi’s vision as the world blurred past her. The cries of women came to her in words she couldn’t comprehend, occasionally drowned out by the echoes of a voice spurring her to rip them to shreds.

  ‘They don’t care. It’s all a facade. They’ll betray you like the rest.’

  A clay pot crashed against her side, shattering into pieces and covering her leg in scraps of wood covered with a sticky substance. Pitch? Yomi’s head spun toward the culprit. A woman with a thick head of black hair and eerie red eyes chanted in a bizarre language. Moments later, the pitch on Yomi’s leg ignited.

  ‘It was always going to be like this. No one cares about you. No one.’

  She blinked. A deathly pale arm—my arm?—covered with dustings of violet slashed at the air between her and her attacker, cutting the woman to ribbons.

  As Yomi loomed over the mess of blood and gore around her feet, the desire to feast overwhelmed her. A fleshy, cylindrical appendage extended from her mouth, slurping up the pieces small enough to enter her first mouth.

  ‘She promised she wouldn’t hurt you. Look where that got you.’

  Disturbing languages poured out of the mouths of those around her as she ate. Two sharp sensations struck her from opposite sides.

  ‘The food she served you must have been poisoned. You wouldn’t confess, and she broke her promise.’

  She flicked her tail, easily batting away the two combatants. One crashed against a nearby stall, throwing planks and splinters into the air. The other tumbled across the ground.

  ‘You have the power to take them now. Don’t let them hurt you, too.’

  Her body was urged forward by the voice. Steadily, the skin from her neck down to her pelvis split away, revealing two sets of spines and teeth.

  The woman who had tumbled across the soil blinked her glowing red eyes open, retrieving the sword that had been knocked to her side. She held the sword with trembling hands, her shouts a muffled cacophony of unintelligible words.

  ‘Eat.’

  Yomi’s spines extended outward, raking the woman into the bed of spines and teeth that awaited. The sounds of crunching bone and tearing flesh smothered the screams of her victim, and silence soon followed.

  ‘Does vengeance not taste delicious? This one will never have the chance to betray you again.’

  Seasoned by the fine balance of fear and determination, the flesh was tender and savory. Y…yes… The skin on Yomi’s leg had completely healed over, and a sense of knowing washed over with the departure of her victim’s life.

  ‘There are only a few left. Soon, you will be free.’

  Then, the words of one who hadn’t been there before arrived. Their language was unlike the others. Its voice was deeper, angrier. Worst of all…familiar. A sudden hesitation filled her chest so tightly that she feared it would burst.

  She slowly looked over her shoulder to see a man with a red streak in his brown hair.

  Matt…

  ‘Day 22: A canine-like Defiled emerged from the water’s surface, its fur a sea of endless needles. According to Sanrai, it bore eyes similar to Muna’s.

  Three hours later, when Sanrai went to relieve the guard, Ismet and the Defiled were dead. Muna was nowhere to be found.

  Muna’s mother had the beast’s head in her lap, ignoring the sharp points puncturing her skin. After speaking with Sanrai, she wandered across the sands and vanished to the winds.

  If what Sanrai said is true, then there may be a way to replicate it…’

  -Excerpt from Magni’s Memories

  It was hard to comprehend just what the hell I was looking at. We’d lost the daylight, and the torchlight around the outpost served as the last flickers of any sanity left in this place.

  The Defiled feasting on the catgirl before us was the stuff of nightmares. Spanning at least a dozen feet in length, its torso made up most of its body with an elongated ribcage. We’d arrived just in time to watch it open up to reveal rows of teeth and spines. It walked on four hands, and a tail just as long as its main body flicked behind it. The skin that covered the creature was so damned thin that the bones looked like they were moments away from puncturing through.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked, suddenly aware of my trembling voice. So much blood and viscera coated the ground that I’d smelled it before I saw it.

  “Evil. Pure and simple,” Sam said as she stepped forward to ready her greataxe. “I’d gone into this with the hope of givin’ ya a bit more training, but I think you should stay back. It’s fast, it’s strong, and it’ll snap us in half.”

  “I’m not staying back,” I growled as my upper lip twitched. This had nothing to do with being treated like a child or some fresh-eyed recruit who couldn’t come to grips with reality. I’d just watched this thing chew up a catgirl like a handful of almonds. “If we don’t do this now, everyone else is dead. You need my help.”

  “I shoulda brought backup—”

  “I am your backup, Sam. Let’s do this.”

  “Fine. Add me to your Party. Just don’t do anything reckless,” Sam said with a tone I hadn’t heard before. She had to have been just as spooked as I was. “One wrong move and we’re dead.”

  “Got it.” I swallowed the knot in my throat and tightened my grip around my axe. “IPaw, add Sam to my Party.”

  Ai’s voice echoed in my head. ‘Sam has been added to your Party.’

  Sam squinted and put one foot forward toward the Defiled. The monster’s head perked up and looked over its shoulder. A head of silver hair framed a pale face with whites for eyes and horns where a catgirl’s ears would be. Its lower jaw was missing, replaced by a long, fleshy appendage that snaked from side to side.

  With its back turned to us, the Defiled whipped its tail through the air with lightning speed. Sam stepped to her left to intercept the attack, holding the edge of her greataxe toward the tail. The appendage slammed into the blade and split clean in half, spilling a bizarre mix of red and violet blood that resembled a mixture of water and oil.

  The Defiled retracted its tail and spun around, standing up on its hind hands. A disturbing cracking sound followed, and four orifices gradually opened halfway up its body. Two more pairs of arms slithered out of the Goddamned holes, their nails curved and pointed and still growing.

  “[Bound by War].” Sam extended her hand toward me.

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  My muscles tensed as a surge of renewed vigor filled them. The exhaustion I’d felt earlier was wiped clean, and my mind cleared. “What is this?”

  “Hit the Defiled and you’ll know.”

  The Defiled screeched and lunged forward, crawling across the ground at an alarming speed as it swiped through the air with its forearms at Sam. Sam blocked the first attack with the flat of her blade, then swiftly ducked under the second strike, swinging her axe at the creature’s throat.

  The creature’s neck lurched to the side with a sickening bend, evading Sam’s blow. Then it whipped the lower half of its body toward her. Sam raised her armored arm and dug her heels into the ground just before the Defiled’s body slammed into her.

  Sam was sent several yards back on the balls of her feet, creating large divots in the ground.

  Damn, the girl could take a blow.

  “[Beckon the Storm]!” Her greataxe briefly glowed white, and she moved to engage the Defiled again.

  Seeing an opportunity, I kept a close eye on the remaining half of the Defiled’s tail and moved in to deliver a strike to its rear. It flicked its tail toward me, and, taking notes from Sam’s movement, I weaved under the attack and slammed the blade of my axe against the base of its tail. I sucked the air through my teeth in horror as it absorbed the blow. The skin was so much more malleable than it appeared.

  The neck twisted around until its two white eyes bore into mine. My muscles tensed, and my energy surged again. I knew this feeling well. It was the same feeling I got whenever I threw points into my [Strength] Stat. I hefted the axe free from the creature’s tail and slammed into it again, this time driving a deeper cut. The same sensation filled my veins a third time.

  That’s what [Bound by War] does, I thought as the realization hit me, it increases my [Strength] every time I land a hit.

  I barely had time to think when the Defiled’s tube-like appendage in its mouth swelled. I’d seen this type of underhanded trick before, and I dodged to my right preemptively. A large wad of pale green goo flew out of the creature’s orifice and into the wall of a nearby stand behind me. I glanced over my shoulder as I completed my maneuver, sucking the air between my teeth when I saw the goo had already dissolved half of the wooden beam it struck.

  Shit!

  I’d have to find an opening. Any opening. And like every Defiled we’d fought so far, this one had more to it than meets the eye. I felt woefully lacking for the fight, but there had to be something I could do to help.

  “Move!” Sam bellowed.

  My attention reverted back to the Defiled as the top half of its body twisted around to level with its head. As it reared up on its hind arms, the middle portion of its body cracked open to reveal the rows of spines I’d seen from the side earlier. Looking at it directly, though…

  Where the hell is the back of this thing?

  Fear dried my mouth as I took a step back, then pivoted to my right to evade the embrace. I was too slow, though, and as I watched the creature’s teeth wrap around me, I heard Sam’s desperate cry ring out.

  “[Provoking Roar]!”

  The Defiled suddenly jerked to its side, clumsily falling over its hands, teeth, and wild appendages. Swiping through the air to its right, it caught a flat-footed Sam, clawing deep cuts across her bare arm and cutting away a strap of the breastplate in the process.

  Sam didn’t yelp or cry or back off, though. She embraced the pain, snatched one of the Defiled’s open hands, and swiped her greataxe at the claw that had struck her. The hand was cleaved from its wrist, and I could feel my [Strength] increasing once more.

  But I didn’t—

  It didn’t matter. Sam needed my help. I drove the blade of my axe into the side of the creature, gasping when the bones shifted under the skin so that the points faced me. Anticipating another thorny embrace, I threw my shielded arm in front of me while backing away. The bones snapped and contorted, jutting out of the skin toward me. They sliced through the gaps of my defense with ease, drawing blood across my arm and digging holes into my shield.

  There was no blocking this thing.

  Pure adrenaline coursed through my veins with the pain. I ripped a portion of the spine out of my arm that had snuck through and snapped off in the process. Glistening tendrils erupted from its back, catching the torchlight and my attention. I dropped the spine and dove to the side just as three tendrils whipped through the air where I had stood moments before. Predicting that the attacks would keep coming, I rolled to my feet, launched into a sprint, then pivoted to my side and cut apart the fleshy tentacles that were close enough to hit.

  “To me!” Sam bellowed.

  I continued my attack as I retreated from the Defiled, swiping through the air like a madman. Each point of [Strength] I gained from the onslaught of attacks urged me on, renewed my [Energy], and made every attack easier and quicker than the last.

  When I was at last beside Sam, she put a hand on my shoulder, never taking her eyes off the beast, and said, “[Mend Flesh].”

  The cuts along my arm vanished within seconds. The scars that would’ve been left behind by the wounds disappeared with them, and the sense that my [Health Points] were being restored poured through every inch of my body.

  “This is addicting,” I breathed.

  “Isn’t it?” Sam murmured. Her grip tightened around the shaft of her axe, and the leather squeaked with it. “[Refuse to Kneel].”

  A bizarre sense of indifference swept over me. The fear that I had felt, the unassuredness of my attacks, the shaking of my hands…all of it disappeared in a flash.

  “Now we have fun,” Sam said. “[Bound by Hatred].”

  The corners of my vision turned red. Something stronger than adrenaline, more terrifying than the Defiled, rushed through my veins. I glanced at Sam to see her lips twisted into a toothy grin that bordered on insane. Her muscles were glistening with sweat, and her teeth were clenching so tightly that I could hear the enamel squeaking.

  Fury. Hatred. I could feel nothing else. What was more, only one desire filled my being: to see this beast brought low.

  “Incoming!” Sam cried.

  The Defiled swiped the remainder of its tail toward us. I leaped up and landed on the beast’s flank while Sam dug her axe into the ground. The tail whipped into Sam’s axe, and another portion of it fell limp to the ground. I held on for dear life, striking the creature with every ounce of [Strength] I had.

  It was intoxicating. Where I should’ve grown tired with every additional swing, instead, the sight of blood, the empowered feeling I experienced in my veins, and the thrill of the fight kept me going.

  The Defiled screeched and flung me off. I tumbled across the ground into a nearby bonfire. To my surprise, the fire had no effect on me or my clothes, and I rose to my feet feeling even better than before. I ran a hand down my face and pulled it away to see it coated in blood.

  And then I laughed. What the hell had come over me?

  A tendril lashed toward me. I effortlessly moved to my left, evading the attack, and swiped my axe through the air, cleaving a chunk away. I breathed through my clenched teeth as I caught the next tendril with my hand, hauled the monster down, and pinned it to the ground with the heel of my boot.

  “Now!” I screamed to Sam as the Defiled desperately tried to retract its tendril to escape.

  “I got it! [Decimate]!” Sam’s greataxe flickered with a white light. I blinked, and she was inches away from the Defiled. She struck the creature from the side, carving a large gash halfway through its body. Then she took one step back and cried, “[Crackling Grasp]!”

  The Defiled gurgled and shook as some strange force paralyzed it.

  Sam readjusted the grip around her weapon, growled, “[Decisive Blow],” and cleaved the Defiled’s body clean in half, severing it just under where the first pair of arms were.

  The tendril I had locked in place with my heel shook and began to shrivel up, so I released it. It retracted into what remained of its body while the top portion that Sam had severed mewled and crawled away from us. She easily caught up to its side, pinned the creature to the ground with the long point of her axe, then gestured me over with a flick of her head.

  I came to her side, my eye twitching at the sight of the monster at my feet. It looked up at me with its soulless white eyes, and I was suddenly reminded of what I was fighting for.

  “Would you like to do the honors?” Sam asked.

  I nodded and came closer. Sam kept her axe in place while the monster and I observed one another for a time. Red and violet blood pooled around its body, and entrails spilled out behind it. If not for Sam’s [Battleguard] and [Berserker] Skills, I was sure that I’d be vomiting right about now.

  I was starting to understand what Sam meant. Anger, fury, hatred. It wasn’t that it was bad; it just needed to be applied in the right way. Toward those who deserved it. Creatures like the Defiled. I felt none of the uneasiness or clumsiness that came with being angry and filled with adrenaline. In fact…my mind had never been clearer.

  I raised my axe. “Go back to hell.”

  “Where am I…?”

  “Home, Yomi. You are safe here.”

  “Belial! I… I hurt them! Where’s Ruyah?!”

  “She is safe.”

  “I-I c-can’t… All of those girls, the outpost, Matt, everyone… What have I done?”

  “You were used, Yomi. Let your regrets be ash on their tongues. I only ask your forgiveness.”

  “Belial—”

  “I could not protect you, and I will never allow that to happen again. You have my word.”

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