Chapter 33: Escape (a)
Rriiipp!
[-7HP]
[HP // 61/100]
'Just five percent?!'
Even his thoughts sounded strained. He kept pulling.
[Affirmative.]
This was the system's adjustment to the plan. Rotflow wasn't reliable as a core tactic, but keeping it prepped as a last-ditch option? That had merit. The system had already told him: his health didn't matter. One hit from an A-rank demon would paste him, no matter what.
So, he made himself really look the part.
Flesh tore. Chunks peeled. He dug into his scalp, hooked his claws beneath layers of skin, and pulled. The pain nearly blacked him out, but he bit down on it.
Eyes locked on the dissolving corpse near the stairs, he focused. One more.
Rri...iiippp!
[-6HP]
[HP // 26/100]
That was enough. Skin gone from the crown of his head to his stomach. Muscle exposed. Bone peeking through in places. He had to leave enough skin to cover with the undead muk and not risk immediate infection.
'You sure I'm not gonna die from this? Cause it feels like I'm gonna.'
[Positive. User's body now tolerates extreme trauma without standard organic failure. Shock and bleed-out risk minimal.]
He didn't respond.
He stared down at the bubbling corpse, not exactly eager to do what came next.
Kneeling, he dug both hands in and smeared the mess across every inch of remaining skin. No hesitation. Just quick, even strokes. According to his UI, he had twenty minutes left. Should be enough.
'With this much health, I only need to stab myself to drop below ten percent. Not enough skin left to shave it closer, but hurting myself won't be hard.'
By the time he was finished, he looked wrong in a way that went past grotesque. Skin peeled off the top half of his body left raw tissue slick with blood, and the rest was covered in rot-stained muck that reeked of death. It didn't matter. It worked. Nothing that looked like this should still be breathing, let alone walking.
He moved toward the stairs and started down, keeping his movements uneven, matching the undead pace. His claws twitched. His tail flicked. He didn't notice. No skin left to show it, but his jaw was clenched in something that might've been a smile if there had been anything left to stretch.
There was no joy in it. No satisfaction. But somewhere under the layers of pain, growing infection, and focus, something old shifted.
It wasn't pride. It wasn't rage. Those were simpler things. Smaller things.
This was the pressure that made life evolve. The instinct that drove teeth to sharpen and limbs to harden. It was the cold knowledge that to grow, to survive, something else had to die. The feeling was simple. Honest. The struggle. The climb. The truth every thing born in the Maw carried deep in its marrow.
He didn't need hope. He didn't need odds.
He had the hunt. He had his challenge.
At the base of the stairs, the path opened into the courtyard. He spotted the gate and froze. Not from fear. From recognition. That was it. That was the place. Clustered around it stood a loose group of undead, slumped and waiting like broken tools.
A hiding place.
'Perfect.'
He moved with a crooked gait, limbs jerking at odd angles, spine hunched like it had caved in under rot. The apex of his kind, skinned, bloodied, breathing shallow, dragged itself toward the gate.
Each step was a grind of muscle and grit. No ceremony. No hesitation. Unnoticed, wounded, and ready, he settled into place.
And waited.
----
The room stood silent. A lightless void, no walls, no ceiling, no floor. Just an open dark where nothing moved, nothing breathed.
At the center, a fist-sized light pulsed in steady intervals. Timed. Measured. The shard of blood hung there, suspended in the emptiness, untouched and still.
Then, a bloated hand reached out. Gnarled, blackened fingers closed around it. Veins twitched under the stitched skin, pulsing with something not quite alive.
The shard began to radiate a baleful, disturbing light.
From behind the hand, a grin widened, pulling taut across a warped face. Dozens of socketed teeth clicked in sync as Skaal'ar was carried into view, body steaming. He watched the shard pulse in his grasp.
"At last...it's time."
"It still amazes me, even after all these centuries, how easily humans abandon caution once their greed is stroked."
The warlord grunted. Scorched and misaligned limbs shifted beneath his massive cauldron, carrying his mass forward, each step dragging wet meat across stone as he was borne toward the gate, toward Earth.
"Some are not so easily fooled. The sisters will need watching."
From within the swollen sack of his gut, the child pressed its face outward, distorting the patchwork flesh.
"You truly believe they're a threat?"
Skaal'ar's socketed teeth clicked in sequence, each one twitching as if irritated. His grimace deepened.
"You haven't witnessed firsthand what shard-bearers are yet. What that filth they call the Network enables. Every so-called 'quest' might carry some hidden spell or talisman meant to tip the scales. Their strength isn't always obvious. That's the danger."
The child's features pulled into a frown beneath the membrane, withdrawing slightly. To hear even his father, an ancient butcher of the sixth layer, speak with caution about three mortal women stirred something in him. Curiosity. That quiet hunger to understand what power could unsette even a potential demon lord.
Skaal'ar's attention returned to the shard in his palm. A low hum pulsed through it. He could feel the tether...Ellie's essence, still clinging to it like sap to a knife. She hadn't known it, but when he took her finger, he'd taken a piece of her soul with it. That was all he needed. A trace. A lock. A way for the ritual to fix itself to Earth.
This shard would open the gate.
It would free him.
"If only…"
Drawn to the unusual tone in his fathers voice, inside, the child stirred again.
"If only what?"
The warlord didn't answer right away. His cauldron carried him through the final bend of the fortress hall, toward the courtyard doors. Through a narrow slit in the wall, the boneyards stretched endlessly, horizons of splintered bone and stagnant ash.
"If only I could claim the Maw."
"That's impossible. One shouldn't waste thought on foolish goals, father. Isn't that what you taught me?"
"It was possible...until it wasn't."
"What are you blabbering? Either it can be or it can't."
Skaal'ar gave no answer for a moment. The mass of limbs carried him forward, the heavy doors of the courtyard just ahead.
"No matter. You're right to think in absolutes. But my path… it leads beyond them."
He shoved the wide double doors open. His smile widened to something feral. Bloodshot eyes darted in every direction, jittering, until they locked forward.
On the gate.
"The season of harvest is upon us."
His voice whispered, then roared.
"Millions of souls! Ripe! Unbound! The gate will open, and from their ruined cities, your birth shall be sung in their screams!"
He raised his arms.
"The Skinsmith comes! Prepare your flesh!"
Laughing, Skaal'ar sloshed in his cauldron, his oversized body shifting with wet, sucking sounds. The rune-lined basin burned red-hot, each symbol flaring and hissing where it met flesh. Beneath, the fused mass groaned and writhed, their skin blistered, joints warped, bodies locked together in a web of pain. Still, they crawled forward, dragging his weight as he shook.
Dark green flames ripped from his lidless eyes, faint green death leaking with each breath. His laughter rose over the sound of grinding bones and splashing oil, high and sharp. It echoed off the cracked courtyard walls, sent a shudder through the towers above.
It wasn't a performance.
It was joy.
"Even Azazel will kneel! His wings broken, horns shattered, crawling through blood. He'll offer his own flesh...willingly! And I will craft your regalia from it! My son… how would it feel? To wear the skin of a demon lord?!"
From deep within his gut, laughter rang out. High, jagged. Like glass dragging across steel. While a dark blue light flared, pushing against the seams of Skaal'ar's swollen form.
"Then what will you wear, father? Shall we flay the others lords too?"
"Why shouldn't we? Once I claim the Black Verge, nothing in all of Hell will be able to stop me."
Now, standing before the gathered undead, before the four gathered soul stones, Skaal'ar felt the confidence settle deep in his gut. Freedom. Power. It was all right there.
He feared no interruption. The rival warlords within the Maw were distant, their locations known. No guards needed to be posted. No threats lurked nearby. As long as the sisters upheld their end, nothing would interfere.
They would complete the ritual, and in return, he would give them what they bargained for. A grimoire once owned by an ancient blood demon, filled with forbidden rites and blood-based incantations. A seed from the Fruit of Ug, torn from the Tree of Death. And lastly, a demon bone soaked in soul energy for over a thousand years.
He had all three. He had promised all three. But they'd never see any of them.
He'd even offered a contract to seal the deal, fully expecting to trap them in its clauses, but the sisters refused. Thinking themselves too clever to sign, yet too naive to realize the danger of doing without. They chose a verbal agreement, thinking it safer. It wasn't. A true demon contract, if written carefully, was the only real way to make one of his kind keep their word. Unless you had their true name.
And they didn't.
Cradling the shard, he waited. When the pulse came, subtle, rhythmic, unmistakable, it would mean the humans had begun their part. But even now, a slow, tight pressure began to build behind his teeth. That same itch. The one that always came when he stood before the unknown, when total control was beyond reach.
"Stay alert. The crossing will disorient you, but if the system slaves plan to try anything, they'll do it the moment we arrive."
The unborn within didn't answer, but Skaal'ar felt him settle, coiled and focused. Pleased with his response, the Warlord stepped in front of the gate, backhanding a cluster of undead aside without thought.
He scanned the demonic script scorched into the earth, double-checked the placement of each soul stone. Then...he felt it—the pulse!
"Yeessss… predictable mortal fools. They've begun. I can hear her...such a tender voice. A child, struggling so desperately to be brave. So precious..."
He raised his hand. The blood-red shard floated above his palm, its light throbbing.
"So naive."
The shard cracked! Light and sound exploded, warping the air, screaming as its fragments spiraled outward, each one snapping into place along the stone gate's frame.
Then came the voice, sounding out from across time and space. Low. Whispered. Ancient. One speaker became two. Then three...then four. Until the chant rose, layer by layer, into a violent crescendo.
And then...a sharp crack! Like the hammer of a god striking the world, immediately followed by one final sound–
A pained scream.
Skaal'ar stepped back. His aura surged. Imps around him hit the ground all at once, most crushed into wet pulp beneath the weight of it.
"Tonight, I feast! Open the way! To claim what's rightfully mine!"
The soul stones ignited.
And the gate to Earth opened.