Chapter 424 Can't You Hear them Screaming

Without waiting for a response, she grabbed the bars of the cell door and yanked—sturdy wood screeched, bent, then snapped like dry twigs. She stomped out, muttering under her breath, "Fucking goblins. Fucking breeding farms. And Hermit with his fucking guilt complex."

The cave mouth offered a grim vista of the camp, wedged like a scar between the cliffs. The recent cold had gnawed at its edges, leaving behind a skeletal mockery of industry.

The Hatcheries were hidden deep within the caverns—sealed off behind ragged hides and smoldering vents. Goblin eggs needed heat to hatch, and the caves provided it, their depths throbbing with the stench of sulfur and wet rot. Occasionally, a muffled crack echoed from within—another clutch hatching, another handful of lives added to the dwindling stock.

Slave tents dominated the center of the camp, most sagging and empty. A few had been torn apart, their fabric stiff with frost, revealing half-eaten corpses—goblin slaves, frozen mid-struggle, limbs gnawed to the bone. The recent storms had ravaged their numbers, leaving behind only the hardiest... or the luckiest.

Fighting pits stood barren, their blood-stained snow undisturbed. No jeering crowds, no fresh combatants—just the ghosts of past brutality.

A handful of goblin guards clustered near the main gates, feeding a struggling fire with scraps of broken wood. Others lurked in smoke-choked sheds, their roofs leaking thin trails of gray smoke.

And then, the pens.

A cluster of cages lined the far wall, some occupied by shivering figures—broken slaves, kept alive only for torment or twisted amusement. A few goblins loitered nearby, laughing as they poked at the prisoners with rusted spears.

Somewhere in this frozen hell, Kaka and the hatchlings were still breathing.

The cave air grew thicker as they crept forward, the stench of sulfur and spoiled meat clotting in their throats. Suzuka moved like a shadow, her boots silent on the frozen stone, while Hermit’s ragged breathing betrayed his crumbling composure.

The first cavern they slipped into was lined with empty stone cribs, their hollows stained with old blood and flecks of shattered shell. But at the back, piled carelessly near a smoking vent, were tiny, stiffened forms—dozens of dead hatchlings, their skin blue-gray from the cold.

A goblin in a stained apron tossed another onto the heap, grumbling. 

"Useless. Not even worth the stew."

Hermit’s breath hitched. One of the tiny bodies was still curled in its egg’s remains, its half-formed claws clutching at nothing.

"They didn’t even… bury them," he whispered.

Suzuka said nothing as she used her gravity magic to crush the evil goblin before they moved on. Deeper in, the caves opened into a wider chamber where wooden cages hung from the ceiling, their occupants listless and hollow-eyed. Young slaves—some goblin, some mixed-blood—sat in their own filth, their ribs pressing against thin skin as a guard shoved a bucket of reeking gruel into one cage.

"Eat. Faster," the guard barked, jabbing a rusted spike through the bars when a child retched.

Hermit’s hands shook. 

"That’s the slop they fed us. Boiled rot and worms. It—it makes you vomit, but you learn to keep it down. Or they make you lick it back up."

One emaciated hatchling vomited worms onto the snow—a guard laughed and stomped on his fingers for wasting food. A hatchling in the nearest cage looked up—and for a heartbeat, Hermit saw himself in those sunken eyes.

Suzuka yanked him back into the shadows before he could scream. They will come back for them later.

The worst stench came from the next tunnel—copper and bile and something sweetly rotten. Hermit knew that smell. His body knew it.

Inside, chains hung from the ceiling, their cuffs still gripping severed hands. A goblin in a leather apron wiped down a hooked tool, its edge gleaming.

"Another one tore open," the goblin sighed to another.

  "Stupid weak-bodied slaves. At least the eggs took before he died."

Hermit’s knees buckled. Suzuka caught him before he hit the ground, her grip iron-tight.

"That’s the rippers," he gasped.

  "They—they use it when the eggs don’t pass. When they have to cut them out—"

Suzuka’s expression darkened, but she didn’t let him look away.

  "Keep moving. We can't help them now, their dead. We find Kaka and your stupid hatchlings first, the rest will follow after."

Then they saw Kaka, nailed to the wall by his ears. He was strung up in the center of the next chamber. Evil goblin prodded his stomach with a hot iron, laughing as Kaka jerked weakly.

"Wake up, breeder," the goblin sneered. 

"You’re not done yet."

The stench hit them first. Thick and putrid, the reek of infected flesh and spoiled eggs. Then the sounds: wet, labored breathing, punctuated by faint, delirious murmurs.

Kaka hung like a grotesque trophy, his limbless torso swaying slightly, his stomach obscenely distended, the skin stretched taut and mottled with angry veins. Inside, something moved—shifting lumps beneath the surface, pressing against his flesh as the eggs inside him swelled.

His face was slack, his mouth hanging open as drool and blood dripped onto the frozen ground. His remaining eye—clouded and unseeing—twitched in its socket.

"...no more... no more...hurts... please... no... no more... the dark... the dark is chewing..."

His remaining eyelid fluttered, the pupil beneath dilated unevenly. A wet, wheezing laugh bubbled up from his ruined throat.

"...Muma? Muma, I'll be good... don't let the worms in again..."

A string of bloody drool stretched from his lips as his head lolled.

"...if I'm quiet... if I'm real quiet... they'll think I'm dead... and it stops..."

Then, with sudden terrifying clarity, his clouded eye fixed on nothing:

"...THEY'RE HATCHING INSIDE ME CAN'T YOU HEAR THEM SCREAMING—"

His voice cut off into a gurgle as another contraction wracked his body. The goblin overseer chuckled and kicked his distended belly, making Kaka whimper like a wounded animal.

"...please... just... let me die..."

His words dissolved into wordless, rhythmic keening - the same two notes, over and over, a broken lullaby from some forgotten childhood.

A goblin overseer leaned against the wall nearby, lazily stirring a bucket of foul-smelling sludge.

"Shut up, breeder," it sneered, flinging a handful of the slime at Kaka’s swollen face.

  "You’re not done yet."

For a heartbeat, Hermit didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

Then his body folded in on itself, a guttural, animal noise tearing from his throat. His claws scraped against his own face, drawing blood, as if he could scratch out the sight burned into his mind.

"No… no no no NO—"

He stumbled forward, collapsing at Kaka’s feet, his hands hovering uselessly over his friend’s mutilated body. There was nothing left to save—no limbs to unchain, no mind left to comfort. Just a broken, bloated husk that used to be someone he loved.

"I’m sorry… I’m sorry, I’m sorry—" His voice shattered into sobs.

The goblin overseer's yellow eyes snapped wide as Hermit staggered into view. His lip curled into a sneer, revealing jagged, blackened teeth.

"Hey! Slave! Yeah, I'm talking to you!" he barked, spittle flying.

  "The fuck you doing here? Crawled out your cage like a roach?" 

He grabbed a rusted prod from his belt, stepping forward with a leer.

  "You wanna be next, huh? I'll stuff you full of eggs! Oh, I will make it so you would—"

His threat died in his throat as a blade punched through his chest from behind, the steel glistening red in the torchlight.

Suzuka leaned in close, her breath cold against his ear as she twisted the sword.

  "Oops. My bad, you were saying?"

The goblin gasped, his fingers twitching at the metal jutting from his sternum. He tried to scream—but only a wet gurgle escaped. Then Suzuka yanked the blade upward, splitting him open to the shoulder blades in one brutal swipe.

His body hit the ground, his last expression frozen in stupid, wide-eyed shock.

Suzuka wiped her blade on his tunic, glancing at Hermit. 

"You good? Or do I need to kill the next one slow?"

Hermit didn’t hear her. Didn’t see the dead goblin. Didn’t feel the blood soaking into his knees. His world had narrowed to Kaka’s broken body, the last tether to his own crumbling sanity.

"Kaka… Kaka, it’s me—" 

His voice was a child’s, fragile and desperate. His claws trembled as he grabbed Kaka’s shoulders—and pulled.

A sickening tear.

Kaka’s ruined ears ripped free from the nails, the flesh parting like rotten paper. Hermit stumbled back, the bloody scraps of his father figure dangling from his hands.

For a heartbeat, he just… stared.

Then his legs gave out.

He collapsed forward, cradling Kaka’s mutilated head against his chest, rocking back and forth like he could somehow undo the horror with motion alone. His sobs were raw, wordless—the sound of a soul being flayed alive.

"Nnn—nnno—nnno no no—"

Kaka’s remaining eye rolled toward him, uncomprehending. A weak, wet sound escaped his lips.

Hermit screamed. Not in anger. Not in grief. But in total, absolute surrender to the madness clawing up his spine.

He pressed his forehead against Kaka’s, his voice breaking into a whisper.

"Shhh… shhh, it’s okay… I’m here now…"

His thumbs brushed weakly at Kaka’s cheeks, smearing filth and tears alike.

"Remember… remember the big rocks? Where you taught me to look for food, for tasty bugs? You—you said I was good at it. You… you let me eat the first catch even though you were the most starved of us all. On purpose."

Kaka’s remaining eye flickered—just a tremor, but Hermit saw it. He leaned in closer, pressing their foreheads together.

"And the—the hatchlings… You always… you always let them sleep in your warm embrace. Even when they bit you. Even when they itched. You never pushed them away. Never."

A rattling breath escaped Kaka’s lips. Hermit clung to it like a prayer. Then, softer—a lullaby from a lifetime ago, sung on a trembling exhale.

"Sleep little stone, under the moss…
No more cold, no more loss…"

Kaka’s eyelid fluttered shut.