WARNING: Gore Content Ahead.
Maran shuddered as that voice slithered through the darkness, his spirit pounding with a terror that felt too real for something that no longer possessed flesh.
He cursed his fate… That even in death, he remained chained, humiliated, and owned.
His body—if one could still call this trembling outline a body—quivered under a pain that clung to his very essence.
He wanted to scream, to tear the void apart with the sound of his agony, but the fear of the unknown that surrounded him sealed his throat.
All he could do was freeze and endure.
Slowly, he turned toward the origin of the voice, toward the thing that had so casually called him slave.
The creature itself was not yet visible, but he could see the chains and the ropes of living flame that snaked through the abyss, all stemming from that unseen master.
At the ends of these chains writhed countless entities, grotesque and wrong, each one bound by hooks driven straight into the core of their souls.
Some fluttered like enormous butterflies, their wings black and sickly yellow.
Some were little more than transparent human heads, drifting and twitching without bodies.
And others were shapes so absurd, so revolting, that Maran felt bile rise in a throat he no longer possessed.
These were the beings who had pretended to be human hikers in that tent.
…
But the ones at the ends of the fire-ropes were far worse.
Their bodies never touched the ground, as though the earth rejected them, or they, in their pride and disgust, refused to be defiled by the world.
Their forms blazed like fire, but instead of giving off light, they devoured it.
Dark flames licked through armor-like shells of jagged stone, each plate razor-sharp, forged to restrain the inferno within.
Their shapes varied; some tall, some twisted, some grotesquely thin, but one thing was the same.
Their eyes.
Their eyes burned with a madness sharpened over millennia, the gaze of creatures that had witnessed civilizations crumble and still hungered for more ruin.
These were the fiends who had deceived him earlier by disguising themselves as villagers celebrating a feast.
He realized the feast itself was a lie of horrors; the lavish tables were piles of human bones, arranged neatly like furniture.
Bowls and buckets were crafted from shattered skulls and pelvic bones.
The "delicacies" were eyeballs and human organs, butchered and plated as though they were delicacies.
Maran trembled with disgust, fear, and rage.
"If the controlled ones are this monstrous… then what does the controller look like?" his thought clawed its way through his mind.
…
A crack split through the silence within Maran's soul.
His scattered, suffocated, drowned in terror consciousness snapped back into clarity.
He realized then that he had to flee this place, whatever this abyss truly was.
Suppressing the tremors of dread, he steadied himself.
He crouched, gathered what little strength his spirit-body possessed, and then…
Whoooosh…
Maran sprinted into the night, the darkness swallowing him whole.
He still did not fully understand how a soul could move, yet his body felt light, far far lighter than meat and bone had ever allowed him to be.
"So a spirit really is faster than flesh…" for a brief moment, he felt the tiniest shard of relief.
But it shattered instantly.
Something yanked him backwards, really hard.
The chain tethered to his soul snapped taut.
Brukk...
"Arrghhh…!" The cry tore out of him as his entire essence convulsed.
He slammed into an invisible wall of force, pain ripped through him even though he had no organs, no nerves, only the raw agony etched into his very being.
His body froze, paralyzed from the collision.
Only his eyes could move, forced to stare into a pair of soul-rending lights.
"Do not attempt to run," the voice murmured, smooth and merciless.
"You will obey me…"
Two purple lights hovered before him, tiny suns with no pupils, blazing in the midnight void.
"…I know you are terrified, every low-born human soul trembles before my legion..."
"But despite being a pitiful thing, you did not faint the moment you saw my gaze.
Souls that fixate on a single desire tend to have that… peculiarity." the creature continued, its tone a theatrical sneer.
A slow, elegant laugh curled through the darkness.
"Please, let me introduce myself. I am the one and only Mortgrathiel Morningstar"
Maran did not move, he couldn't move. Confusion, resignation, and a terrible, morbid curiosity churned together in his chest.
"Morningstar? A descendant of Lucifer?..." He swallowed a nonexistent breath.
"…I used to curse my bosses as demons, now I'm actually a slave of a real one?
Unbelievable…"
"…Why must my fate always rot like this? If only… if only this was just a nightmare." Maran hoped in desperate.
"From the hardships of your past life, to the whispers that lured you here… to the puzzle of your suffering…"
"…Corruption and the sins of humanity are the nature of my game.
All for the evolution of my power." Mr. Morningstar explained.
"So you're the one behind all my misery in the human world?" Maran spat, anger igniting despite the fear.
He didn't care if this was a dream or not.
He had always wanted to punch the source of his torment.
Thunder cracked from every direction, as though the cosmos itself resented his accusation.
"I merely whisper, In the end, humans choose their own downfall." Mortgrathiel replied, amused.
"You carried burdens far beyond your capacity, even when it was meaningless. Is that not your own choice?"
"You cursed creature, you bastard!!" Maran snarled.
He lunged, charging at the demon three times his size, determined to tear him apart in any way he could.
…
What came next was agony.
"Aarrggghhhh… no, what… Fuuuuuck!!"
Maran froze in shock as the chain around him flared to life.
"This is the Cursed Chain of Souls, blame yourself… for all the years you demeaned and diminished your own spirit. That is where its power was born." Mortgrathiel said calmly.
Lightning surged through the chain, the fire-black flames licking his soul.
There was no mercy.
Mortgrathiel raised his trident and began striking Maran—again and again—relentless, rhythmic, almost ritualistic.
Each blow carved agony into the essence of his being.
…
With a flick of his clawed hand, the demon conjured a mirror out of thin air.
"Look at yourself now. Understand what you are."
Maran staggered upright, rage boiling, old resentments exploding to the surface like a dam bursting.
"You vile… bastard!" Maran swung with all his strength.
Something unseen stopped his fist.
From the right side, a small scythe moving faster than a blink, sliced through Maran's right arm.
He hadn't even seen it coming.
His limb fell away.
No blood.
Only searing spiritual pain.
Then the world vanished.
Maran collapsed into unconsciousness.
…
He didn't know how many days had passed.
The sun beat harshly above him, hanging at an angle that suggested a late morning, its warmth did nothing to soothe him.
His soul still ached—a deep, tearing soreness that pulsed through every fragment of his being.
He forced his remaining arm to move, testing his body.
He felt holes, hollow wounds punched through him.
Cracks where parts of his soul had been gouged out.
A twisted feeling washed over him, a miserable blend of sorrow and relief.
"If parts of me are missing… maybe I really can disappear for good," he muttered, trembling.
He looked down and saw the mirror Mortgrathiel had conjured still lying beside him.
In it, he saw himself
or rather, whatever was left of himself.
A transparent figure, faintly humanoid, with streaks of crimson etched across his face like a brand
beginning at his forehead, running down past his eye, and curving across his left cheek.
And his right arm—gone, torn away cleanly.
"So it's true… I'm just a ghost now, a chained spirit, a cursed soul," he whispered, staring at the chains still wrapped around him.
Mortgrathiel was gone.
The legion of horrors was gone.
But the chain remained stretching endlessly toward the east, toward wherever the demon had wandered.
…
A burst of emotion rose in his hollow chest when he spotted movement in the distance… living humans.
A group of hikers making their way up the mountain, laughing, chatting, carrying real bags, wearing real clothes… alive.
For a brief, fragile moment, Maran felt something warm inside him.
Hope.
…
"Kill them." the voice slithered into his mind like a knife dipped in oil.
Maran stiffened.
The voice didn't come from behind him, nor from the chain or air.
It came from inside his soul.
He was certain it wasn't his own thought.
Never ever had he wished harm on innocent people.
"Kill them all!" the voice repeated, lingering with an oily resonance.
"For the glory of the highest peak… tell me who you are, and by what madness you command me to slaughter innocents?" Maran growled, his temper sparking despite his fear.
Lightning snapped along the chain.
Black fire crawled across his spiritual flesh, scorching him with silent screams.
"Do it. By my order, and by my supremacy." came the cold reply.
"Huff… huff… sigh… Of course. A command like that could only come from you, you damned creature." Maran clenched his teeth.
"But… why does your voice sound different?" His mind trembled as he asked.
Their exchange became a psychic echo, soul to soul, mind to mind.
If the demon could communicate this way… could it also read his thoughts?
"Do not question what your meager intellect can never grasp, filth. Obey."
"Do it yourself if you're so powerful, you lazy, commanding, arrogant bastard." Maran snapped back.
The chain reacted instantly.
It constricted around him like a colossal python, crushing, tightening, suffocating.
"Uhk… So this body without flesh… can still feel pain? Even this kind of pain?" Maran gasped.
"Go ahead, kill me again. Send me back to my Creator, you wretched demon," he snarled.
Mortgrathiel chuckled, a soft, mirthless sound.
"How amusing, even as a broken piece of trash, you still think death is an escape..."
"…Fool, you truly believe death can save you from me…?"
"…I will not release you. You will be my punching bag for a million years, or you will serve me, and I will free you… in a thousand..."
"…You cannot escape the bond in your soul, weak, pitiful creature." Mr. Morningstar said it clearly upset as he made the chains tightened further.
"Just keep torturing me,"
"Push me past my limit. Maybe one day I'll die for good and escape you." Maran spat.
Mortgrathiel paused.
He understood exactly what Maran was trying to do.
But he also knew that souls did not break as easily as flesh.
He had tortured thousands, no, tens of thousands, over millennia.
He knew precisely how to destroy a spirit without letting it die.
The chain suddenly hurled Maran over the edge of a cliff.
A forest of sharp, twisted roots waited below.
Maran's body struck them, again and again.
Each impact punched holes through him.
Each collision jolted him with black fire, thunder, and raw torment.
His consciousness slipped, returned, slipped again, while the torture continued endlessly.
Roots pierced his torso, his legs, even his head.
He was nothing more than a ragged, hollow echo of a man, a torn ghost clinging to shape.
No blood spilled, but the emptiness left behind was worse.
…
Maran awakened when the sun was gone again, the world drenched in blue-black twilight.
He lay exactly where he had first awakened as a spirit.
He couldn't move, his pain was beyond words—a shredding sensation that refused to fade.
With great effort, he reached up with his remaining arm, touching his broken form.
He could feel the holes, so many holes.
He let out a trembling laugh, broken, hopeless, strangely relieved.
"A few more torments…and I'll really die," he whispered.
A voice cut through him like a blade.
"Do not entertain foolish thoughts."
The chain slithered up—and wrapped around his left eye.
"If only one eye of yours remains… then your entire soul will be confined within that single orb" Mortgrathiel said.
Pain erupted, the eye tore away from his face.. floating, screaming silently.
Maran couldn't feel the rest of his body anymore.
Only the chain.
Black fire consumed the eye.
"Please, God, anyone, please… stop this!"
Maran cried, his voice devolving into pitiful, desperate whimpers, the sound of a dying animal.
"Now you understand, even if I move your soul into a mosquito… or any object in existence… you will never escape my grasp."
…
"What do I need to do…? Please… anything… Just stop this… I don't deserve Hell here…" Maran pleaded, utterly broken.
A soul that retains its humanity inevitably experiences the full spectrum of human agony; fear, despair, humiliation, hopelessness.
"Complete my task, filthy creature. Serve me for a thousand years, and I will release you." Mortgrathiel declared.
"I will not repeat myself. Think clearly, this is the greatest mercy you will ever receive."
The eye returned to Maran's body, his vision glowing now with a deep, infernal crimson.
"With this, you may gaze into the hearts of humans. Your whispers will pierce directly into their souls," Mortgrathiel said.
"Whisper chaos, let this city devour itself, let doubt rot their trust, let greed drive them to rob, assault, and murder…"
"…Bring forth civil war among them, let them kill each other."
That was the command.
That was his mission.