"...And that's why you don't trust a silent merc, Kael. Always got a blade waiting." Ragnar's voice, a gravelly rasp, cut through the quiet. He was cleaning a smear of dried gore from his great-axe, the steel dull in the low light of the rock overhang. The metallic tang in the air, a familiar scent of the Crimson Wastes, did nothing to settle Kael's nerves. He hadn't felt safe since the sandstorm ambush, or since the Bloodrot first scarred him.
Kael grunted. "Right. Unlike the screaming ones, who are always up to something predictable." His sarcastic wit felt like a coping mechanism, a way to fight back against the creeping dread and the constant, dull ache in his arm. The spectral rot on his claw-grazed skin pulsed, a slow, sickening beat under his shirt. It had spread, visibly, since he'd taken down the Blood Coven Lieutenant in the Bone Gardens.
Sylvara, ever stoic, sat a few paces away, her back to them, eyes scanning the broken horizon. Her longsword, gleaming even in the gloom, rested across her lap. She didn't offer a comment, just a subtle shift of her weight, the only tell of her vigilance. Kael wondered if the divine whispers in her head, the ones that sometimes sounded like his own voice, were louder now. The thought was a cold, sharp thing. Mistrust was a pervasive atmosphere here; every alliance carried the risk of devastating betrayal.
He closed his eyes, pressing his palms against his temples. His Curse Gauge sat at a firm thirty percent. He felt its weight, not as a number on a HUD, but as a thrumming vibration in his bones, a low hum of malevolence that had intertwined with his thoughts. The Aether Codex, that cold, metallic voice in his skull, had been subtly altering, taunting him about his impending unraveling since the Bloodrot Curse irrevocably triggered.
"Such a delicate thing, sanity," the Codex hissed, a voice like rust on iron. "It slips, doesn't it? A consequence of your defiance. You seek to break me, little anomaly, but you only break yourself."
Kael scoffed aloud. "You really think I'm scared of a little blood-cough?" The defiance felt good, a small act of rebellion against the system that wanted to own him. But the voice amplified, twisting his own thoughts, and a fresh wave of nausea hit him.
He remembered the pleading captive during the sandstorm ambush, the choice he'd made. The guilt, always there, now sharpened by the Bloodrot's influence. The Curse didn't just cause physical decay; it brought unbidden visions, rising violent urges. It twisted his past, made him question who he was. Marcus Chen's memories, once a solid anchor, felt increasingly fluid, actively threatened by this internal corruption.
A sudden, sharp pain flared in his arm, directly where the spectral rot pulsed. He hissed, clenching his jaw. The Curse was a constant, visceral reminder of the cost of power, its effects cumulative, never receding. Ragnar glanced over, a flicker of grim concern on his gruff face, then returned to his axe. Sylvara remained still, a dark statue, but Kael felt her observation, a silent scrutiny of his struggle. Her divine fragments reacted uneasily to his defiance, he knew.
Then it happened. It wasn't a sound from the Crimson Wastes, not the howl of a Bone Hound or the blare of a Blood Coven horn. It was a laugh, cold and sharp, echoing not in the air, but directly inside Kael's skull. A familiar, menacing sound that made his teeth ache.
Varak.
The name formed unbidden in his mind, laced with an icy dread. The Flayed Warlock. The one whose pursuit had become so personal, since he had scented Kael's Doombrand after the Bone Reaver fight. He was here, now, his presence a psychic intrusion that pierced Kael's very thoughts.
"The crimson dawn calls for its champion, Breaker. The Obsidian Throne Valley awaits your madness." The voice in Kael's head was Varak's, not the Codex's. It was richer, deeper, oozing with a chilling triumph. "You ripen, little anomaly. The rot quickens, beautiful. The harvest approaches."
Kael gagged, pressing harder against his temples. The laughter intensified, a mental assault. It wasn't just mockery; it carried a psychic component that induced fear, a cold, calculating terror that bypassed his defenses. He felt a grotesque probing, as if Varak were reaching into his mind, running a flayed finger over the pulsing rot on his arm, sensing the accelerated degradation of his flesh and spirit.
He saw it then, not with his eyes, but in the blackness behind them. A vision, a quick flash. Varak. He was not in the Wastes, not running them down. He was in a chamber, bathed in a sickly, pulsating red light. Naked bodies, flayed and strung up, bled into shallow basins. Runes, carved into the stone floor, glowed with malevolent power. Varak stood in the center, his own flayed face contorting in a triumphant, sickening smile. He was performing a macabre ritual. And he was watching Kael. Sensing him.
"Your purpose serves a higher truth, little Anomaly. You will shatter reality, but the pieces will be mine." The psychic whisper solidified Varak's orchestrating role in Kael's forced progression. It was a game to him, and Kael was the prize.
Kael's vision swam. The Obsidian Throne Valley. That was where Varak was, where the first Blood Coven made their pact. He remembered it from the Codex's implanted lore. A place of power, of ancient, forgotten rituals. Varak wasn't just hunting him; he was preparing him. For something. For the harvest.
His Bloodrot-afflicted arm flared, burning. The spectral rot seemed to deepen, the visible decay pulsing with renewed virulence. He tasted blood, metallic and stale, at the back of his throat. The Codex's voice, once distinct, began to blur, to blend. A new, guttural whisper twisted itself around the familiar taunts, suggesting a deeper integration of malevolence within Kael himself.
"The system…breaks…from within," the guttural voice rasped, blending with the Codex's cold logic. "You…are…the crack."
Sylvara finally turned, her frost-like eyes locking onto Kael. Her expression was unreadable, but Kael felt the shift in the air around her, a subtle tremor of revulsion from her divine fragments. Her resolve was visibly tested, not just by the worsening external threats, but by his accelerating internal corruption. He was becoming an anomaly, even to her.
He knew what this meant. There was no escaping Varak. There was no clean path to redemption from the Curse. The Bloodrot was permanent, cumulative. And Varak, the intelligent, potent foe, was inviting him to a public, ritualistic confrontation.
Kael coughed, a dry, ragged sound. The psychic laughter echoed, a chilling promise. He felt a pull, an inexorable drawing, towards the Obsidian Throne Valley, towards Varak's ritual. His Curse Gauge was fixed, solidified at thirty percent, but the internal corruption, the psychological scars, had deepened profoundly.
He opened his eyes, staring out at the desolate Crimson Wastes. The air was heavy, not just with dust and gore, but with a palpable sense of doom. His hand trembled, and he saw it – a subtle, spectral rot beginning to crawl under his skin on his palm, a direct consequence of the escalating Bloodrot. It wasn't just his arm anymore. It was spreading.
The Blood Coven horns blared in the distance, closer this time, signaling a relentless, organized pursuit. The persistent Abyssal Hunt was far from over.
Kael clenched his jaw, the taste of blood in his mouth. Varak's voice, blended now with the Codex's, echoed a final, chilling whisper in his mind: "The Breaker ripens for the harvest."
He was caught. Trapped between the endless hunt, his deepening corruption, and a powerful enemy who understood him better than he understood himself. His path was set. He had to face Varak. He had to walk into the harvest.