It was the scent of his father's single-malt whiskey, the cool feel of a crystal tumbler, the panoramic view of a glittering city at night from the penthouse office of a skyscraper that bore their family name. He was young, watching the lights of a rival corporation's headquarters flicker and die as their hostile takeover was finalized.
"A beautiful sight, isn't it?" his father, Alistair, had said, his voice a smooth baritone that could soothe markets and dismantle lives with equal ease. He stood, a titan in a bespoke suit, silhouetted against the city lights. "The natural order of things."
"They had five thousand employees," Damien had replied, a flicker of youthful, un-tempered sentimentality stirring within him. "Families, mortgages… what happens to them?"
Alistair turned from the window, a small, pitying smile on his face. He walked to the grand mahogany desk and tapped a leather-bound ledger. "You're looking at it wrong, Damien. You see people. You see families. That is a weakness. You must learn to see the ledger. Every person, every company, every asset, every single thing in this world fits into one of two columns: asset or liability."
He leaned forward, his eyes locking onto his son's. The fatherly warmth was there, but underneath it lay something as cold and hard as forged steel.
"An employee who generates profit is an asset. The moment his cost outweighs his production, he becomes a liability. The factory he works in? An asset. The day it becomes cheaper to build a new one overseas, it becomes a liability. Sentiment," Alistair said, the word tasting like poison in his mouth, "is the rust that turns assets into liabilities. It convinces you to keep a failing division, to retain an underperforming executive, to feel pity for the five thousand liabilities whose leader was too weak to protect them from me."
He placed a hand on Damien's shoulder, a gesture that felt more like an anointing than a comfort. "Your job, my job, is to be the accountant of reality. We appraise, we acquire, and we grow our assets. And Damien," he squeezed his shoulder, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "you must never, ever hesitate to liquidate a liability. Swiftly, and without remorse. It is the only way to protect what is yours."
THUMP. CRUNCH.
The rhythmic, brutal sound from the world outside dragged him back across the centuries, the ghost of his father's voice fading into the oppressive gloom of the underground. He was no longer a young heir in a sterile tower of glass and steel; he was a king on a throne of bone and dried leather, the monotonous pounding a grim reminder of the first major liability threatening his new, squalid empire.
He had already summoned his council. They stood before him in the repurposed VIP lounge, their faces etched with anxiety, their collective gazes fixed on him. They looked for a plan, for reassurance, for a miracle. He would give them orders.
"Kenji," Damien began, his voice cutting through the tension. "Report on the beast. I want every detail you have observed. Assume I know nothing."
The wiry scout swallowed hard, his eyes darting nervously as if reliving the memory. "Lord, they're called Muscle Maws. They're rare, thank the dust. I've only seen one up close before, when a trade caravan from the Rust Canyons got caught in the open. It… it was a massacre." He paused, gathering his thoughts. "Its hide is like layered plates. Saw it take a direct hit from a caravan's heavy slug thrower, and it just… shrugged. Stumbled a bit. The slug just flattened against its shoulder. But that's not the worst of it."
Kenji's voice dropped lower. "It's the force. It doesn't just bite. It grabs. I saw it catch one of the caravan guards, a big man in full scrap-plate armor. The Maw grabbed him, put its free hand on his helmet, and just… pulled. The sound of his spine separating from his skull… I heard it from two hundred meters away. It tore him in half like he was made of wet paper. Then it started to eat."
Zola, the tanner, shuddered. "I've tried to work a piece of Maw-hide once. A trader brought a scrap. My sharpest flensing knives couldn't score it. It's like trying to skin a rock."
Fred stepped forward. "Bane himself avoided them, sir. He called them 'bad investments.' Said the energy it took to kill one wasn't worth the meat on its bones."
Damien listened, his face an impassive mask. Their fear and awe were data points. A creature impervious to their strongest weapons, a monster even his formidable predecessor avoided. A direct confrontation was not just tactical suicide; it was, as his father would say, an unacceptable expenditure of assets for a questionable return. This required a different approach.
He went silent, his eyes half-lidded as he stared into the middle distance. The council watched him, holding their breath. In the quiet theater of his mind, options were presented and discarded. Small arms are useless... a wide-area explosive is too risky... heat is the answer... a Napalm-Thermite Gel... delivered via a single-shot recoilless launcher... an efficient design. The plan was complete.
His eyes snapped open, his focus returning to the room. "The beast will be liquidated," he announced, his voice ringing with absolute finality. He gave no details of the weapon, no explanation of the science. To explain would be to invite discussion, and their opinions were irrelevant. He was the Awakened. He was the weapon.
"Jonas," his gaze pinned the mechanic. "The rubble wall. I require a stable firing port, sixty centimeters in diameter, cleared at the coordinates I will provide. It must be reinforced to withstand significant backblast."
"Aye, Lord. I can do that," Jonas replied.
"Kenji. The service vents in the garage ceiling. You will position yourself above the designated kill zone. On my signal, and not a second before, you will create a sustained auditory distraction."
Kenji gave a sharp, terrified nod.
"Zola. You will provide Jonas with fire-retardant blankets. Fred. Secure the perimeter. Nothing gets in or out." He looked at them all. "Bane may have considered this beast a bad investment. I consider it a liability that is actively damaging my property. It will be removed from the ledger. Now go."
As they scrambled to obey, Damien remained on the throne, gathering his focus. He would create the ammunition first. He closed his eyes, drawing on the reservoir of power within him. He built the weapon in his mind—a perfect, three-dimensional blueprint. The air in front of him shimmered as motes of light coalesced, weaving themselves into a complex, metallic form. After a full, grueling minute of intense concentration, a sleek, olive-drab rocket, nearly a meter long, clattered onto the stone floor with a heavy, solid thud.
The moment it was complete, Damien slumped back into the throne, a profound exhaustion washing over him. It wasn't physical tiredness; it was a deep, hollowing drain of his core energy, a mental fog that made the world seem distant and muted.
While he recovered, his breathing slow and measured, Fred approached, holding a small leather pouch. "Lord. The beast cores from the dead Ratamons."
Damien took the pouch. Inside were half a dozen small, crystalline stones, each pulsing with a faint, internal light. He could feel the familiar thrum of origin energy radiating from them. Batteries of some kind. An asset to be appraised later. He set them aside just as Elara appeared.
She moved with the silent, fluid grace of a cat, a wooden platter held in her hands. "I thought my Lord might require sustenance after such an impressive expenditure of his power," she murmured, her voice a low, intimate counterpoint to the distant sounds of labor. As she placed the platter on a table beside him, her fingers brushed the bone armrest, a touch that lingered a fraction of a second too long. "Roasted Ratamon and steamed Glimmer Root, to restore your strength."
As Damien ate, Fred returned, his expression troubled. "Lord, a matter has arisen. In sweeping the command level, we found Bane's private chambers. They were sealed. Inside are the other three captives. The women who were part of your group."
Damien paused, a piece of the nutty-tasting root halfway to his lips. The image flashed in his mind: the five young men, the three middle-aged women, all of them captured together. He remembered the looks on their faces as they were separated, the women dragged away to an unknown but easily imagined fate. It was a brief, unwelcome flicker of shared history, of shared victimhood. He crushed the feeling before it could take root. Sentiment was rust. They were not his companions; they were survivors. Like him.
"They are survivors, not prisoners," he said, his voice flat. "Their ordeal is over. See that Elara speaks with them. Find them quarters among the other women. Once they are settled, they will be processed into the labor pool like everyone else."
"At once, Lord," Fred said, relieved.
Damien finished his meal, feeling his internal energy slowly replenish. He stood and focused again, the drain less severe this time but still significant, and conjured the launcher—a simple, shoulder-fired tube with a rudimentary targeting sight. The weapon system was now complete. There was one last piece of old business to liquidate.
"Fred," Damien's voice echoed in the now-quiet chamber. "The pit. Where I was held. I want it cleaned. Scrub the blood from the walls. Get rid of the bodies. That room will be repurposed."
An hour passed. The firing port was ready. The team was moving into position. The shelter held its collective breath. The rhythmic pounding from the Muscle Maw was the only constant.
Suddenly, Fred sprinted back into the throne room, his face ashen, his composure shattered. He stopped before the throne, gasping for breath, his eyes wide with a fear that was different from before. It was the fear of the unnatural, the impossible.
"Lord…" he stammered, his voice trembling.
"Report," Damien commanded, his voice low and dangerous.
"The pit, Lord," Fred said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. "It's clean. The… the other men, their bodies were there. We moved them to the Heat Chute." He took another shaky breath, finally forcing himself to look up at Damien, his face a mask of disbelief and terror.
"But Lord Bane's body… it's gone."