CHAPTER 24: "THE CAPTAIN'S WRATH"

His heterochromatic eyes blazed—one blue, one crimson red. The red one was hungry. It wanted blood. It wanted pain. It wanted to consume everything in this cavern and leave nothing but ash and memory.

Both his katanas raised.

The demonic blade was humming now. Vibrating. Like it could barely contain the power Will was channeling through it.

WILL (internal): A kid just saved you. A KID. You're pathetic.

His legs moved.

Not fast like Speed had moved. Will's speed was different. It was calculated. Practiced. Refined through years of bleeding and dying and coming back for more.

WILL (internal): They're dead because you were too weak.

The creature tried to turn—

Will was already there.

His blade came down.

WILL (internal): You don't deserve to be captain. You don't deserve to live.

The creature's hide cracked under the first blow. Green blood spurted.

It shrieked.

Will didn't pause.

He moved like he was trying to die.

Like killing this thing was the last thing he'd ever do and he was fine with that.

The fight was brutal.

The creature lashed out with six arms simultaneously. Will's blades moved to intercept—once, twice, three times. Each time they connected, orange sparks exploded. Each time, Will positioned himself just right, just barely out of the creature's reach, moving with the kind of precision that came from someone who'd trained his entire life for a moment exactly like this.

The creature's tail whipped around.

Will ducked under it without breaking stride.

The creature's jaw came down.

Will rolled to the side, let it snap at nothing, came up already moving toward the next opening.

The fight was a blur.

Movement and blood and the sound of steel meeting impossible flesh.

Will was bleeding more now. His shoulder was torn. His ribs were probably broken. His left leg was favoring slightly—a wound that might have damaged something vital. But none of that mattered because the demonic blade was singing.

Actually singing.

It was a high-pitched whine that made Speed's teeth ache from across the cavern.

The creature's form was starting to destabilize.

Its surface cracked deeper. The green veins were glowing brighter. The red-black core in its chest was pulsing faster, desperate, aware that its life was ending.

WILL (internal): If I use it now, I might not come back this time.

He knew what came next.

He'd done it before. Against other creatures, other threats. The full consumption. The complete channeling of the demonic blade's hunger.

And every time he did it, a piece of him didn't come back.

But his crew was dead.

Rudo was bleeding out on stone, his hand still reaching for a future he'd never see.

Vex was in pieces, his consciousness probably having existed for one more terrible second after the bisection.

Arlen was impaled, his last words I tried, and Will hadn't tried hard enough to save him.

Keal was crushed under stone, and Will didn't even know if the massive warrior was still alive or if he was already gone.

And a kid—a nineteen-year-old kid who'd arrived in this world less than two days ago—had just saved Will's life.

WILL (internal): But if I don't finish this now, they all died for nothing.

The creature's demonic core was fully exposed now.

The red-black orb was visible through cracks in its form.

Will could see it.

Could see the pulsing. The life force. The thing that made this creature exist in a way that shouldn't be possible.

Will's demonic blade—the red one, the hungry one—extended.

Not extended. It reached.

Like it had a mind of its own, like it wanted something that only this creature could provide.

WILL (voice commanding, filled with power): "Come here."

The creature SHRIEKED.

A sound that shouldn't have existed. A sound that shattered stone around them. A sound of fear, of recognition, of understanding that it had just lost.

Will's blade REACHED DEEPER.

The demonic energy didn't cut the creature.

It consumed it.

The creature's core erupted.

Black smoke poured out—living, writhing, a substance that was somehow both gas and solid and consciousness all at once. It looked like the thing was being unmade at the molecular level.

Will's blade INHALED IT.

All of it.

The red katana drew in the creature's power, its essence, its being, like a vacuum that couldn't be denied. The blade glowed brighter. Brighter. BRIGHTER.

The creature's body collapsed.

It didn't slowly deteriorate. Didn't gradually fade. It just collapsed like someone had removed the skeleton that held it together. The obsidian skin turned to ash. The green veins became smoke. The multiple eyes blinked out one by one.

And then it was gone.

All that remained was ash and blood and the lingering scent of something that shouldn't have existed.

Will lowered his blades.

His entire body was trembling.

Not from exertion. From the effort of not using the blade's full power. Of pulling back at the last moment. Of accepting the burden of surviving.

The red katana CRACKED.

Not small cracks. Deep fractures ran along the blade like someone had struck it with a hammer.

Red light bled from the seams.

The blade was overloaded. Broken. But still functional. Still humming with residual demonic energy.

Will took one shaky breath.

Then another.

He turned to look at the cavern behind him.

At the bodies.

At what was left of his crew.

WILL (internal, his voice becoming hollow): Four minutes. That's all I could manage.

He looked at the space where Rudo had died.

WILL (internal): You promised to keep him alive.

He looked at Vex's remains.

WILL (internal): You brought him into this cavern.

He looked at Arlen, still impaled, his eyes empty.

WILL (internal): You gave the order to go.

He looked at the rocks that had crushed Keal.

WILL (internal): You were supposed to keep them safe. That's what a captain does.

Will sheathed both swords.

The movement was clean. Practiced. The blades slid home smoothly despite the cracks, despite the damage.

His hands were shaking so badly he nearly dropped them.

He coughed.

Blood spattered on his palm.

Internal bleeding. Damaged organs. Something was broken inside that he wasn't going to have time to fix.

He wiped the blood on his pants without looking at it.

When he spoke, his voice was flat.

Empty.

WILL (to himself): "Mission complete."

The Church had wanted the cave cleared.

The cave was clear.

No more Fosslings. No more creatures. No more threats.

The crew was gone.

All of them except Speed. And Speed was barely alive, bleeding from claw wounds that would probably get infected in a world where antibiotics didn't exist.

WILL (internal, distant now, professional, building walls): Three corpses. One kid. One captain still breathing. Mission incomplete.

He looked back at Speed.

The kid was still behind the rock, gasping, his wounds bleeding freely. His eyes were wide. Shocked. Processing what had just happened.

Will didn't have the energy to care.

He just turned toward the cave exit and started walking.

He didn't stop to check on Keal.

Didn't confirm whether Arlen was definitely dead or just dying slowly.

Didn't say any last words to Vex or Rudo.

He just walked.

WILL (internal, final): You survived. That's all that matters now. Survival. Acceptance. The knowledge that you'll do this again and again and again until you don't come back.

The heterochromatic effect was fading from his eyes.

The blue was returning. The red was receding.

His face was becoming stone again.

The captain was reasserting control over the man.

Because the man couldn't afford to feel right now.

The man would break if he felt.

So the captain built walls, and the man buried himself behind them, and they walked out of the cavern together, leaving four bodies behind.