The sword came so close to his chest that, for a moment, he forgot he couldn't die.
Then, It stopped.
Fear, awe, and suffocating desperation coiled around his senses—tight, overwhelming, inescapable.
Desan felt the heat of its eyes burning into him—not just looking, but searching, like it already knew what it was trying to find.
Voice low, deliberate, almost amused.
"Are you a pilgrim…? Strange place to wander, don't you think?"
A pause.
"What exactly are you hoping to find out here?"
Like he already knew the answer. And was just waiting to watch Desan realize it too—too late.
Desan didn't answer right away.
The figure stood motionless, sword still at the ready, like a priest waiting for a confession.
Then Velcrith, ever-helpful, piped up in a strained, high-pitched mockery of innocence, just as a spike of pain lanced through Desan's skull.
"Say something like—'I was a lost sheep, guided here by God.' Maybe he'll bless you before he guts you."
Desan clenched his teeth, riding the wave of the headache.
"I…"
"I know you must be in shock after what I just did."
The voice was gentle. Too gentle. Like it knew the tone it should use to sound human, but couldn't quite pull it off. There was something hollow behind the words. A cadence rehearsed too many times.
"Breathe. Collect your thoughts," it said, each word deliberate, soothing in the way one might speak to a frightened animal. "You'll want to be honest when you answer."
Desan didn't reply. His chest tightened.
It wasn't just the words—it was the space between them. That heavy, expectant pause. Like it was listening to more than just his voice. Like it could hear his heartbeat, his doubt, the fractures forming in his mind.
Then, like he'd suddenly remembered how to act human, the figure stepped back slightly and dipped his head.
"Oh, where are my manners? I'm Ser Caldus Mire—Twenty-Seventh Paladin of the New Order of Truth."
A beat.
"The Twelfth Blade of Order," one of the others muttered, voice clipped—almost spitting the words. There was no hiding the disgust he felt for Desan, like just standing near him left a stain.
Mire didn't flinch. His voice had that edge—an undertone of something cold and wrong. Too polished. Too precise. Like he wasn't speaking with Desan, but at him. Like he was reading from a script he didn't understand but was told to memorize.
It wasn't human.
Or maybe… it was just barely trying to be.
Desan, under normal circumstances, would've caught on. His instincts were sharp. Always reading too deep into things and always seeing too much.
But right now?
But reading people meant knowing what normal was.
Mire stared at him, waiting, silent, unmoving. That kind of presence didn't need to speak twice.
Desan didn't answer right away. He could feel the weight of that gaze, like it peeled layers off him, inch by inch. The man's presence was overwhelming, like gravity cranked too high. It took effort just to breathe.
His name was...
Desan Mourn.
He thought it, felt it echo in the space behind his eyes. Was that really it?
"Is it too hard to say your own name?" Velcrith's voice buzzed in his skull, dry as ever.
His name.
He repeated it in his head, trying to test it, to taste it, like it was something he could chew and spit out.
Desan Mourn.
That wasn't the name he meant to say. That wasn't what he was going to call himself.
"Wait… that's not my name," he said softly. "It's… Desan Mourn."
Again. The same words, automatic, like a reflex.
Something about it stuck. Heavy. Familiar. Like it was sewn into the meat of his soul, whether he liked it or not.
Boom.
The windows blew out. The doors shattered open. Vowbound poured out like ants from a disturbed nest—desperate, violent, endless.
Some didn't even care where they were coming from. Second floor? Third? Didn't matter. They hurled themselves out, limbs flailing, hitting the ground with sickening cracks just to swarm faster.
"Tell me your name later," Mire said, and then—vanished. Gone like a shadow in wind.
Behind him, the other two sprinted after him, chanting prayers under their breath. Vowbound leapt at them from every direction, shrieking and howling—
But none made it through.
The attackers hit something invisible, something wrong. A barrier, maybe. Holy? Cursed? Desan couldn't tell.
All he knew was that whatever protected them wasn't going to protect him.
Most of the Vowbound surged toward Mire like animals chasing a storm they didn't understand. The rest? They splintered off.
Lucky Desan.
His boots skidded across cracked stone as the first two came swinging. Limbs twitching like broken marionettes, eyes hollow, jerking forward with mindless hunger.
He ducked under a wide slash, buried his sword into the gap just under the ribs, twisted. Heard the meat tear.
One down.
Another lunged from the side. Desan turned with it—too slow. Fist slammed into his ribs like a sledgehammer. Breath left his body in a hiss. He staggered, rolled off the impact, came up with the nail-toed boot and drove it into the thing's knee. A wet snap. It dropped.
Velcrith muttered in his skull, "Graceful as ever. Like watching a drunk stab dance his way through a butcher shop."
"Shut up," Desan spat, slicing the thing's throat open as it reached for him.
That was two. Then three. Then more.
More.
He didn't stop moving. Couldn't. His mind went quiet. Body on reflex. Slash. Parry. Duck. Ram. Every breath was ragged. Every strike hurt. His fingers were raw against the hilt. Legs felt like rusted iron, but he pushed.
That's the trick, right?
You don't have to be fast. Just keep going when the rest stop breathing.
Still, numbers were stacking. Four, five, seven. Eight?
That's when things went bad.
They closed in from all sides. No time to think, only kill. One slashed his back open—he felt the burn. Another grabbed his arm, fingernails like hooks. Desan turned with it, elbowed its skull into pulp, but another was already swinging.
"Outnumbered," Velcrith said flatly.
He turned heel, broke away in a dash, weaving through the stone rubble. Found another pocket of space. Waited. Baited.
They came. Again.
This time, he was ready.
He used the broken rubble as cover. Slid low. Came up under the lead one, stabbing up through its chin and out the top of its skull. Pulled the sword out with a squelch.
Another tackled him. They hit the ground hard. Desan rolled with it, wrapped an arm around its neck, and drove a broken belt hook through the back of its head.
They kept coming.
He moved like a ghost through the wreckage. Cut a few down. Ran. Came back. Repeat. Four at a time. Never five. Five was a gamble.
Blood coated his arms. His shoulder throbbed. He barely noticed.
But it was when he looked up—looked at Mire—that it hit him.
The bastard didn't even look like he was fighting. Each motion was deliberate, clean. A hand gesture. A whisper of metal. Vowbound fell apart like paper dolls. And those twin zealots? Untouched.
Desan ducked another strike. Slammed his sword into the stomach. Ripped it free. Brain buzzing. Lungs fire. Still breathing.
Barely.
"This is getting real poetic," Velcrith sighed. "Maybe you should pray sometime."
Desan growled, spitting blood.
His blade was dull now. Not rusted. Not chipped. Just… tired. Like him.
Dead bodies blanketed the ground like spilled guilt.
Desan's body screamed with pain. Every movement, every breath, a reminder.
He hated it.
Pain meant you were real. Pain meant you could still bleed, still break. That you mattered just enough to suffer.
But for Desan, pain was something else.
It was a leash.
A reminder he was still a puppet—fragile, disposable, breakable. A bastard child of Death, caught between suffering and survival.
"Three" deaths.
He'd died "three" times already, and each one scraped away something vital. Not just strength, but the illusion of control.
He wasn't a warrior.
He was bait—left alive to squirm. Watched like some sick joke from the gods above. Their entertainment.
He felt it. That bitter resentment. That quiet hate in the way the world bent around him.
His palms twitched again. Tingling.