Desan dragged his legs toward the so-called gates. He wanted to rest—God, he needed to—but that dream—if it even was a dream it had robbed him of what little peace he might've found.
Getting here wasn't easy. The Vowbound were everywhere in these endless, rotting halls. He avoided most of them, slipping through shadow when he could. He avoided as many as he could. Fought only when he had to. Not out of mercy, out of necessity. He needed to conserve what strength he had for whatever poor bastard was guarding the gates.
Still, every time he killed one… something strange happened.
He got less tired. Stronger. As if his will to live grew with each corpse he left behind, like he was feeding off the shreds of what little they had left. Their resolve, their suffering, it all bled into him. Fuel for the fire.
It was disturbing, sure. But this wasn't the time to ask questions. First, beat the guardian. Then he'd start wondering what the hell was happening to him.
His pace was slower than usual. The weight of crossbow bolts and the new armor slowed him down. Velcrith's idea, of course. "You'll get yourself killed running around half-naked in a place like this," the smug bastard had said. And he wasn't wrong.
If Desan hadn't found him, he'd probably be another twitching corpse in the dark by now. He would've thanked him for the help, for showing him the way, maybe even for the voice in his head keeping him from going crazy.
But Velcrith's arrogant tone made it impossible.
And Desan wasn't about to stoop so low as to thank that asshole.
Desan let out a long, tired sigh.
"We're here," Velcrith declared, with all the drama of a self-important narrator.
Desan looked up at the so-called gate. Gate was a generous word. It looked like a regular two-way door—ordinary wood, iron hinges—but it was covered in symbols. Letters? Runes? He couldn't tell. They were etched deep into the surface, curling and jagged like veins of rot, pulsing with something that made his stomach turn.
They were written in a language he didn't recognize. Not that it mattered.
Desan couldn't read. Not even the language he spoke.
And these markings? They were worse than unreadable. His eyes refused to focus on them, like his brain was rejecting the symbols. The more he stared, the more his temples throbbed. Nausea crept in. His vision swam.
"This shit's giving me a headache," he muttered.
Velcrith scoffed. "Trying to read? Oh, wait—you can't read. You're illiterate."
His tone oozed smugness, like this was just more proof that Desan was beneath him.
Desan rolled his shoulder, lips curling. "Yeah? Well, in the real world, who needs to read anyway?"
He stepped up and grabbed the handles, shoving hard.
Nothing. Not even a creak. The doors didn't budge.
"Figures," he muttered.
He pushed again, harder this time.
Velcrith chuckled in his skull. "Oh sure, go ahead—just throw your thin, broken body at it. Brute force always works on ancient, cursed doors, right?"
Desan growled under his breath. "I don't see your smartass opening it."
No response. Just that smug silence.
Fine.
He stepped back, pulled the rusted, half-broken sword from his hip—jagged, blackened, barely holding together. Not much, but it would do.
Desan wedged it into the seam between the doors and leaned in, using it like a crowbar. Metal groaned. His ribs screamed. Sparks burst as the edge grated against stone.
"Come on," he hissed through clenched teeth.
Crack.
Something gave.
With a final push, throwing his full weight behind it, the doors burst open not with magic or grandeur, but with a shrieking groan of rusted hinges and centuries-old dust collapsing inward.
Desan stumbled forward, panting, sweat dripping into his eyes.
He turned his head just slightly, a grin cutting through the pain.
"See didn't need to read shit."
Velcrith didn't answer.
But Desan could feel it.
That flicker.
Small. Quiet.
Almost like… respect.
Desan walked into the room.
It wasn't pitch black—dim lanterns clung to the walls, casting sickly orange glows that barely pierced the gloom. The air was thick, choking with dust and the stench of sulfur, sharp, rancid, like something had been rotting in fire.
Statues of knights stood silent in the gloom, spaced evenly along the walls. Their armor was old, dust-covered, and posed like they were frozen mid-watch.
Long, heavy purple curtains hung from the ceiling to the floor, swaying slightly in air that didn't move.
Something about this place felt like a trap.
But Desan had come too far to turn back.
Velcrith spoke, and for once, his voice carried weight. Serious. Cold."I can feel something."
Drip.
Something wet hit Desan's shoulder—a thick, white fluid. Sticky. Viscous.
He looked up.
A bloated mass of flesh clung to the ceiling, throbbing slightly, like something caught mid-birth. It cracked open with a sickening creak, splitting like an old cocoon. The more it tore apart, the more that milky liquid poured out, running down in heavy globs.
Velcrith hissed. "Move. Now."
Desan jumped back just as a drop hit the floor where he'd stood. The floor sizzled. The liquid ate into it like acid.
His breath caught. That could've been him.
Then, he saw it.
It unfurled slowly, disturbingly graceful. Wings peeled out wide like some malformed butterfly—or a yawning maw emerging from its chrysalis. The creature hung upside-down, suspended like a bat, silent and still. Then it tilted its head and locked on to him.
Velcrith's voice was low. Almost… admiring."What a work of art."
"Art, my ass. It's ugly," Desan muttered under his breath.
Velcrith snorted. "You know I can still hear you."
Desan didn't reply. He couldn't. Not when the thing was descending.
It was terrifying.
Its skin was pale and stretched tight across a thin, elongated body—like it had been shrink-wrapped around its bones. No mouth. No nose. No eyes in the conventional sense. Instead, it had pits—deep, black sockets that pulsed faintly, like open wounds that saw everything.
And it was looking right at him.