The parchment hovered before him, an obscene demand carved into the twisted script and written in blood. The incessant scratching had finally ceased. The real trap had finally sprung.

  Choose. One must perish, or all must perish.

  Mitch could feel the parchment link with his mind. All he had to do was choose one of his comrades, trapped in Abyssal Pods, and they would be extinguished. He was able to choose who would take the fall. or they all would.

  His gaze lifted from the blood-scrawled words to his trapped squadmates. They floated in their pods of energy. The reality of the choice clawed at him, digging deep into his resolve.

  “What does it say?” Warrick asked from his pod, muted behind the energy wall, fear clear on his expression.

  Mitch ignored the question and ran towards the pulsating stone at the room’s center. A feral snarl escaped his lips as he whirled and brought the blade down against the purple rock. The sword connected with a sickening, dull thud, its edge bouncing back as though it had struck solid iron.

  He let out a shout of frustration, casting his sword aside, and switched to his firsts. Flesh connected against the stone’s unyielding surface until his knuckles split. Yet the stone remained unscathed, dark purple veins of energy thrumming. Mocking him.

  “What does it say!? I can feel it taking something from me!” Urgar screamed in his own cage as he failed to crack the surface with his axe.

  Mitch’s hands dropped from the stone, bloodied and trembling. His pulse hammered in his ears, drawing out thought. For a moment he didn’t dare look at them.

  It’s going to take one of them. This is because of me. Isn’t it? It can’t be chance that I was left out.

  But Sable’s voice cut through, soft yet demanding. “Mitch. What. Does. It. Say?”

  He swallowed. His throat was dry as the weight of their stares pressed into him like stone itself. There was no way to soften it. No words to make this easier.

  “It says…one of you has to die,” he choked out. “One of you, or we all do.”

  No one spoke for a moment. Then Sable broke the silence, her tone calm but laced with resignation.

  “So that’s it then.” She forced a thin, wavering smile. “The Abyss has demanded its toll.”

  “Bloody hell…” Urgar barked, his face paling as he pressed his hand against the energy that surrounded him. “This can’t be happening. There’s got to be another damned way, right!?”

  But Mitch shook his head slowly, eyes fixed on the pulsating stone. “I…tried. I can feel it in my head. The choice is there, waiting.”

  Warrick’s jaw clenched, stoic voice wavering between anger and terror. “So what now? You just…pick one of us? Leave the choice to you?” His eyes bore into Mitch, fierce and accusatory. “Or are we picking?”

  “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Warrick,” Sable said quietly. She looked at Mitch, and met his gaze with a sad look that sent a shiver down his spine. “You have to do it. And if someone has to go, make it me. I fucked up and brought us here anyways.”

  “No!” Mitch’s voice cracked, heart pounding painfully in his chest. “No…I can’t.”

  “Yes. You can.” Her expression softened. “I’ve seen it in you. Warrick has to. You can make decisions like this. For some of us to survive, you have to,” her face grew darker. “I'm the leader. I got us into this mess…I’m…I’m a hollow shell anyways.”

  The clench of tears made Mitch’s chest even tighter. She had a point, a part of him knew. As a Patchling, Sable’s body did not possess a soul. And Mitch knew all too well that Souls could feel.

  I have to do this.

  But something about her words lingered. She still carried herself like there was something left to find.

  “Don’t you dare,” Warrick interrupted, his voice fierce as he glared at her. “This isn’t about who’s ‘hollow’ or whatever crap you’re spouting. You think I want to die? I don’t. But if this is how it ends, we go down fighting. Together.”

  Mitch’s head swam. He didn’t want to die either. Contrary to Warrick’s point, when faced with the deal of one versus four, the choice was simple for him. He didn’t want to choose, but he absolutely would. “This isn’t fair…” he moaned.

  “Ain’t nothing fair.” Urgar’s voice cut through the haze.

  “Not in the Abyss.” Sable said, unwavering. “You can make a choice that lets most of us live. That’s worth something.”

  Mitch could feel the choice weighing heavily against him. Souls in his core huddled back, unhelpful. Rex seemed none the wiser, only caring for his master. He needed help. Something to push his decision.

  “You need to figure it out, Mitch. I can feel this thing already draining me,” Sable said quietly. Warrick and Urgar confirmed her point.

  He gave into his desire. Activating Devoid, the cold, calculated rational mind blanketed much of his emotion.

  Sable was, by her own admission, the leader and already empty and lacking. A husk of a person without a soul. It was logical. The clear choice. But even through the haze of Devoid, watching her sacrifice…he knew it was a weight he would barely be able to bear.

  “This is insane,” Urgar spat at the wall of energy. “You don’t think I’ve got something to live for? Just pick somebody else. Not me…I ain’t done yet.”

  “None of us are,” Warrick snapped, tone heavy with defiance.

  Mitch’s gaze lingered on each of them–Urgar’s desperate, self-preserving fear. Warrick’s well-intentioned suspicion. Sable’s resigned acceptance. Even with Devoid, the choice felt heavy and merciless. It was one thing to stomp a Grimmer that was trying to kill you. Choosing someone to die so that you could live instead was quite another.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Whatever you choose, Mitch…” Sable’s voice softened. “I understand. I won’t hold it against you. None of us will.”

  “Fuck that!” Urgar shouted from his pod. Warrick gave an annoyed glare to the dwarf.

  As her words settled, Mitch felt something inside him harden. The choice was pressing on him now. If he didn’t choose soon, they would all perish. Like an hourglass ticking down in his mind. He was running out of time.

  He tightened his firsts, feeling the sting of his own bloodied knuckles. If he was to choose this, he deserved worse. It would haunt him forever. But he would choose–for him, as well as them. His voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of his decision.

  “Then…it’s you, Sable.”

  A flicker of relief crossed her face. She offered him one last, bittersweet smile. Mitch felt the brutal scrape of guilt and anger whisper out from the shroud of Devoid. He confirmed the decision in his mind, and witnessed the parchment dissolve.

  The light around Sable’s pod darkened, swallowing her in a sinister shadow.

  Warrick and Urgar’s pods burst open, purple tendrils retracting back to the stone. They fell to the ground, gasping as they scrambled to their feet.

  Mitch barely recognized their freedom. His focus was consumed with Sable’s fading figure, her face hidden by the contained encroaching darkness.

  But it wasn’t quick. Not the way he’d thought it would be. Sable wasn’t just going to disappear or fade in silence.

  Inside her pod, she began to convulse. Her face twisted with pain and then horror. The threads that held her Patchling form together began to unravel like fraying rope. Dark energy clawed her arms first, tearing and untwisting the black threads.

  Her fingers stiffened, and Mitch saw each strand of her being plucked apart with agonizing slowness. She yelled behind the walls of her pod, terror muted as if she spoke through a cup. Her ears distorted, warping, and then one was plucked clean off her head. The threads had been fully unwound.

  Warrick’s voice was a roar, “You didn’t say she would suffer!” He lunged at Mitch.

  The fist connected with his face, and Mitch let himself take it. It sent him sprawling onto the jagged stone floor. Blood trickled from his split lip as he looked up, tears in his eyes as he met Warrick’s wild gaze. He didn’t resist.

  “You coward.” Warrick's voice trembled with rage. “You chose her because it was easy. Because she was—”

  “Enough,” Urgar interrupted softly. His tone was flat. “He had no choice. None of us did.”

  Mitch’s mind spun. Filled with a desperate, sickening regret. Devoid couldn’t keep back all of his emotion. Whether it was the correct decision or not, it was too late to argue.

  He could feel the souls within him scrambling. Each one felt like a muted whisper. Through the fog of his choice, he felt them gather around the serpent’s soul.

  They pressed it forward like an offering. Mitch heard Sable’s screams of pain as he wondered what the souls were getting at.

  He didn’t understand. Didn’t know what they were trying to tell him. But he reached for it anyways.

  Anything to stop this.

  He closed his eyes on the ground and reached deep into his Abyssal Vault. The serpent’s soul was writhing beneath his touch. It pulsed with raw, untamed power. Far more viscous than the subdued souls within him.

  The weight of it strained against him. Clawing to be unleashed in any way possible. Mitch’s memories knew that one could never truly tame a beast soul. Not without breaking the beast within it.

  With a flex of aguish, he drew on it. Pulling the foul energy into himself, he felt it seethe through his body and stomach. Something unlocked within him. Born of desperation and sacrifice.

  Affliction Skill Gained

  Deathhowl

  Level 1

  Relinquish Beastial Souls in a torrent of power.

  He barely had time to think. Sable’s screams began to grow fainter as she was being unraveled before them in a display of horror. Desperation coiled into something primal as he felt the dark energy well up inside. A bubbling force that thrashed against his very core.

  Unfathomable heat seared his throat. He opened his mouth, and with a guttural, agonized cry, Deathhowl tore out of him.

  With a primal shout, he directed the energy toward the pulsing stone that held her.

  Red light poured from his eyes and mouth, and Deathhowl thundered forth. An ear-splitting, bestial roar laced with despair and rage. It was not just a shout; it was a raw, feral scream that shook the air, scraping against stone. The sound carried the serpent’s fury, an oily, echoing wail that clung to the chamber walls. The room trembled as the tortured cry reverberated, seeming to drain the air itself.

  The ball of crackling energy ripped forward, blasting toward the pulsing stone with unstoppable force.

  Settlement Amount: 37 Souls, 0 Beast Soul (-1), 0 Credits, 108 Flesh

  The impact knocked him back, a torrent of bestial energy surging through the chamber, too wild and powerful to be contained.

  It connected with the stone in a shattering explosion. Obliterating it in a single blast. Purple shards flew in all directions, nicking and drawing blood from Warrick, Urgar, and Mitch’s exposed skin.

  Sable’s pod cracked open, and she fell to the ground gasping and trembling. Her tattered form was barely holding together. Her threads were frayed, her limbs slack. She was barely alive.

  Mitch rose and stumbled. He tried to get to her, barely able to keep his balance. Warrick and Urgar stared slack jawed at the display of raw power. Even Rex had gone silent, coiled within Mitch, stunned by the unleashed fury.

  His vision swam, his body rebelling against the power he had just unleashed.

  “Sable…” Mitch choked through a strained throat, stumbling towards her. Finally, he reached her, and crouched near her side.

  Her yellow eye blinked. Weak, but alive. Her mouth moved, forming silent words. There was a glint of something in her eye, more than pain—determination. The spark of life lingered, against impossible odds. She was still there, even as her body struggled to hold its shape.

  But before she could speak, the ground beneath them rumbled deeply.

  Mitch looked down, just in time to see cracks spreading from where the stone had once been. Lines of dark purple energy spiraling towards them like spreading blood.

  The floor beneath Sable gave way with a deep, low groan, and the stone crumbled inward. She let out a faint cry, a sound that echoed around him, haunting, and he barely had time to reach for her before she vanished. Swallowed by the Abyss below.

  “No!” Mitch shouted as his heart seized. In a flash, Sable had vanished.

  He didn’t hesitate, and leapt into the bottomless hole after her.

  “Don’t!” Warrick’s shout rang out behind him.

  He ignored it. He fell, plummeting into the boundless, cold darkness. An unforgiving void devoured him whole. Below, he caught the faintest glimpse of her. A dim silhouette of her falling form. Out of reach.

  Hold on. Just hold on.

  Terror and rage coursed through him as he fell. Sable, so much more than a Patchling. Her desperation to survive, the quiet acceptance of her fate. Her natural ability to lead. Her tenderness. She was more than she let on.

  Much more.

  Desperation clawed at him as he fell faster, feeling the ache of every sacrifice and mistake he had made thus far.

  Should've chose Warrick.

  Something in his memories told him the bottomless pit was in fact not endless.

  No. I’m not letting you fall alone.