[COWARD! YOU SICKEN ME!]
"Says the emotional parasite," Alex muttered under his breath, eyes locked on the city gates. "If you don't like how I act with my own body, you're free to find a new head to live in. I'm sure there's a vacant one that needs your misguidance."
[My Liege, ignore the dramatic idiot, You made a sound decision. You outwitted five powerful enemies with nothing but a bluff. Though, I must confess... we were quite surprised when your body flared with that white light. It added significant weight to your words.]
Alex slowed his pace. "I thought one of you did that? To save me?"
[We can assure you, Alex-boy, none of us did that, That was all you.]
Alex frowned, looking inward. "The other one, the smart one, surely he knows what happened, right?"
[Ouch,]
[I apologize, But I have no record of humans producing such a glow. In truth, you are one of the very few humans to ever walk the Pit in the flesh.]
"Well, it doesn't matter," Alex said. "I'm leaving today anyway." looking at the city its all what one would expect from a city built by demons various creatures skulls on various part of the black and purple stone walls.
A large, hulking figure in heavy, tattered robes stood with its back to Alex. Further down, some sort of tiger demon was standing over the body of a rat-man who had a crossbow bolt buried in his chest.
[Don't worry, Alex-boy. This is perfectly normal. Just... keep an eye on the bathrobe in front of you.]
[Major stranger danger. High alert!.]
Alex blinked, looking at the bridge. It was a massive span of obsidian, wide enough for ten people to walk side-by-side without even brushing shoulders.
"Umm... why?" Alex whispered. "The bridge is huge. I can just walk around him. Why do I have to pick a fight for no reason?
[I'm sorry, I must have forgotten, how many centuries have you spent surviving the Abyss again?, Do you think 'polite sidewalk manners' exist here? In the Pit, if you walk around something, you are admitting you're his lesser. Walk through him]
"I could use the intervention of other voices now."
"Nothing? No comment?" Alex asked his own subconscious.
[No comment.]
[...]
"So you really want me to go pick a fight for literally no reason?" Alex sighed, his hands steady even as his heart hammered. "Fine. Fine"
"Excuse me," Alex said.
The robed figure spun around with a dry, rhythmic rattle. The hood fell back to reveal a naked, yellowed skeleton.
"What do you want?" the skeleton gurgled. His jawbone hung low, his empty sockets fixing on Alex. He wasn't just looking at a boy; he was scanning a predator wearing "perfect humanoid skin."
His centuries in the Pit had taught him one thing: the smaller and more "human" a creature looked in the abyss, the higher it sat on the food chain.
In the hierarchy of the deep, bottomless abyss nothing inspired more primal dread than the Skin-Walkers. They were the Pit's most feared and malevolent predators, entities of endless, bottomless malice that existed simply to harvest the suffering of others.
The very origin of the "demon" bad reputation, the source of every nightmare that had ever trickled up to the mortal realm.
The skeleton's sockets flared. To see a creature looking this frail, this "human," in the middle of a bridge was like finding a star fallen in a graveyard, it was either a miracle or, more likely, a death sentence.
"Could you please move away?" Alex asked, trying to keep his voice polite despite the screaming in his head. "I need to get to the gate, and you're... well, you're in the way."
The skeleton looked at the ten feet of empty bridge to his left, then back at Alex. He let out a rattling sigh. He understood perfectly. This was the Classic Pit Gambit. If he moved, he was admitting he was the "Scavenger." If he stayed, he was begging for a fight. There was no "polite" way to exist on this bridge.
"Stop, I can see what you're thinking, and I'm going to make this very simple for both of us. I'm not here to fight you. I'm just trying to get through that gate."
The skeleton's jaw creaked, a dry sound like snapping twigs. He shifted his weight, his bony fingers twitching toward a hidden black dagger in his robes.
"But here is the warning," Alex continued "If I move toward you, or if you try to block me, there is a very high chance you will die."
The skeleton stared at Alex and what he saw was a dirty, barefoot kid with shaking hands making grand threats in the middle of a bridge.
"die?" the skeleton gurgled, a dry, rattling sound that might have been a laugh.
He took a slow, menacing step forward, his hand slipping from his robe to reveal a dagger.
"I smell fear and sweat," the skeleton hissed. "Step aside, little Skin-Walker. Or I'll see if your bones are as lou."
FLASH.
A sudden, violent burst of white light expanded from Alex to a couple of feet around him. The heavy, tattered robes hit the ground with a soft thud, collapsing into a hollow pile of cloth.
The dagger clattered onto the stone a second later, lying still next to the empty hood.