The villagers moved like a wave, swallowing my father in a mess of urgent hands and overlapping voices. Cloth pressed against the wound, someone shouting for a healer, someone else whispering prayers like they might stitch him back together. It wasn’t clean or controlled. It was desperate.

But he was breathing.

I saw his chest rise once, just once, before they carried him out of sight.

That was enough. It had to be.

I stayed where I was, the noise of the crowd pressing in from all sides. Everything felt sharper than it should have been. Too loud. Too clear. Like the world had been scraped raw.

The guards lay where they’d fallen, blood spreading in dark, uneven pools across the stone. People hovered over them too, but it wasn’t the same. The urgency was different. Quieter. Resigned.

Behind them, the hut, what was left of it, had collapsed into itself. Splintered beams and shattered planks scattered across the ground like broken bones.

And the smell.

It wasn’t just in the air anymore. It clung to the back of my throat, thick and sour, something you could almost chew.

I started walking.

A hand caught my arm.

“It’s too dangerous, young man.”

I turned. An older woman, her face tight with concern, her grip stronger than it looked like it should be.

“You might have an Eidolon, but it’s still dangerous. Wait for the Hestia reinforcements to arrive.”

Reinforcements. Wait. Let someone else handle it.

I looked at her hand on my arm, then back at her eyes.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll be alright.”

I pulled free before she could say anything else. No one tried to stop me again.

Kronos receded, not dismissed but withdrawn, like something slipping beneath the surface. The pressure vanished, leaving behind a hollow kind of exhaustion. My body felt drained, every movement just a fraction slower than it should have been. Plasma burned down to threads. Not empty, but close.

Still enough.

I stepped over a broken beam, pushing aside a hanging plank that scraped against my shoulder as I moved through the wreckage.

And then I saw him.

I stopped.

For a moment, my mind refused to process it.

He was still standing.

Dust coated him from head to toe. His clothes were torn open where the impact had landed. Blood ran from his mouth in a slow, steady line.

His chest was wrong. That was the only way to describe it. The shape had collapsed inward, uneven, like something had been crushed and then forced back into place without care for how it should look.

And he was smiling.

“A kid with an Eidolon,” he said, his voice wet and uneven. “This can’t get any more exciting.”

My fingers twitched, something cold settling under my skin.

“Who the hell are you?”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced at the blood like it amused him.

“People who want to make money,” he said. “Just like your father.”

Something shifted.

Not around me. Inside.

“What did my father do?”

The question came out flat, stripped of anything but the need for an answer.

He laughed, the sound low but carrying, echoing strangely off the broken remains of the structure.

“He asked to meet us,” the man said. “Said he had interest. Wanted to trade. A few items.”

His eyes lifted to mine.

“And then he sold us out.”

Each word landed clean.

Precise.

Like he believed it.

I didn’t move. Aldric Heinberg. Merchant. Father. The man who helped me carry a book upstairs, who argued over grain prices like they mattered more than anything else.

That man?

Or this one?

I stepped forward, slow and measured. He didn’t stop me. Didn’t even shift. Just watched, curious, like I was something new.

I passed him, keeping him in my peripheral vision until I was beyond him.

The grass behind the hut was flattened in narrow, half-hidden paths. Easy to miss unless you were looking for them.

I followed.

Branches brushed against my arms, leaves catching against my clothes. The smell lingered even here, clinging to the air like it didn’t want to let go.

Then I saw the stairs.

Narrow. Wooden. Leading up to a back entrance hidden from the main road.

Of course.

I climbed them, each step creaking under my weight. Too loud. Everything felt too loud.

At the top, the door hung open. Not broken. Just left that way, like whoever used it didn’t expect to need to hide anymore.

I stepped inside.

It was dark, but not completely. Thin lines of light cut through from the destroyed front, slicing the room into uneven shapes. Furniture lay scattered—a table overturned, a chair missing a leg, shelves half-empty and rotting. Clothes hung from hooks along the wall.

Normal things.

Arranged in a way that tried to look normal.

But nothing connected. Nothing felt lived in. It was a house in the same way a stage set was a house.

And the smell—

Worse.

Stronger.

Not meat anymore. Something sour. Human. Rotting in a way that wasn’t just physical.

My stomach tightened as I stepped into the living room.

That’s where I saw it.

An iron trapdoor set into the floor. Thick. Reinforced. Scratches along the edges like it had been opened and closed too many times.

I moved closer and stopped.

Listened.

At first, nothing.

Then a sound.

Faint.

Metal.

A dull impact. Then another. Irregular. Weak.

Something hitting bars.

Something trying.

My hand closed around the handle. Cold iron against my palm.

I didn’t hesitate.

I pulled.

The door opened with a low, dragging groan, and the smell surged upward, heavier, thicker, like it had been waiting.

I stepped onto the stairs.

And went down.

***

The last step creaked under my weight as I reached the bottom.

The smell hit me fully.

It wasn’t just bad. It was overwhelming. Thick, wet, clinging to the inside of my nose and throat like it wanted to stay there. Rot, iron, something sour and human underneath it all.

I pulled the hem of my undershirt up over my nose and breathed through it. It didn’t help much, but it was something.

The space stretched out ahead of me, dim and uneven. The kind of darkness that swallowed detail. Wooden beams, low ceiling, walls that felt too close even when they weren’t. It looked like some kind of underground living area, or storage. Hard to tell.

But one room stood out.

Light.

Faint, flickering, spilling out through a half-open doorway.

And from it—

A sound.

Metal striking something solid. Slow. Rhythmic. Heavy.

I moved toward it.

Careful. Quiet.

Each step placed with intent, avoiding loose boards, avoiding anything that might give me away. My breathing felt too loud. My heartbeat worse.

I reached the doorway and leaned just enough to see inside.

Then I stopped.

For a moment, I thought I was seeing it wrong.

That my eyes hadn’t adjusted.

That my brain was filling in gaps with something it understood.

Meat.

Everywhere.

Not in cuts. Not clean.

Chunks. Slabs. Piles.

Blood coated the surfaces. The counters. The floor. The walls. Thick in some places, dried in others. Dark streaks dragged across wood like something had been moved, again and again.

The room was arranged like a workspace. A square of counters forming a center area. Knives laid out in neat lines. Hooks. Tools. Bottles filled with cloudy liquids I didn’t want to identify.

And in the middle of it—

A man.

Back turned to me.

Huge.

Not just tall. Though he nearly brushed the ceiling. Thick. Heavy in a way that made the floor feel like it should protest under him.

His belly pressed against the edge of the counter, spilling over it slightly. A dark chemise clung to him, stained. A white apron layered over it, no longer white. Dark trousers. Bare feet planted firmly on the blood-slick floor.

Bald.

Completely.

The blade in his hand rose and fell in steady rhythm, cutting into something on the counter.

Not a slab.

Not clean.

An organ.

My stomach twisted.

It’s an animal.

It has to be.

I stepped closer without meaning to. Just a little. Just enough to see better.

Just enough to know.

No.

No, it wasn’t.

My throat tightened. Heat rose behind my eyes. For a second, I thought I might actually throw up.

Big guy. Butcher.

That’s all.

That’s all this is.

The man outside was the problem. The psycho. The one who snapped.

This—

This is just—

“I know you’re here.”

The voice cut through the room like a blade.

Deep. Calm. Certain.

My body moved before my mind did. I dropped low and slipped behind the central counter, pressing myself into the shadow it cast.

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I was sure he could hear it.

“There’s no use hiding,” he continued.

The knife never stopped moving.

Metal. Flesh. Metal. Flesh.

I didn’t answer. Didn’t move. If I stayed still enough, small enough, maybe—

“I’m just a butcher,” he said. “Preparing my sales for tomorrow morning’s market.”

The words settled into the room.

Sat there.

Rotting.

There’s no point hiding.

He already knew.

I let out a slow breath through the cloth over my mouth and stood up.

Slowly.

Carefully.

He was even bigger from this angle.

I barely reached his waist.

I forced something like a smile onto my face.

“I, uh… got carried away,” I said. My voice sounded off. Too light. Too thin. “That guy in front of the house above us. He kind of stabbed my father, so I broke his ribcage. Hope you don’t mind.”

The knife kept moving.

Steady. Unbothered.

He didn’t turn.

“That man is an idiot,” he said after a moment. “Short temper. He scares away customers instead of bringing them in.”

Another cut.

Clean. Precise.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he added. “You taught him a lesson.”

That was it.

That was all.

I stood there, staring at his back, at the slow rise and fall of his shoulders, at the way his hand worked the blade like this was just another morning.

Just another task.

Just another day.

A sorry.

That’s what this was worth.

A sorry.

He stopped cutting as if something had quietly interrupted him. The knife rested against the meat for a moment before he turned away and walked toward a door on his left, moving with the same slow certainty he had shown from the beginning. He had to lower his head slightly to pass through the frame, his shoulder brushing the wood with a dull creak as he disappeared into the next room.

I stayed where I was, listening.

There was movement beyond the doorway. Heavy footsteps, something being shifted, something dragged across a surface. The smell changed as the door remained open, growing thicker, more concentrated, as though whatever was producing it had been uncovered. It pressed into my lungs with every breath, making it harder to ignore even through the cloth I held over my nose.

I coughed, turning slightly, trying to steady myself.

What is this place?

My eyes drifted across the room again, searching for something that made sense. The counters were arranged with intent. The knives were organized, cleaned well enough to be reused. There were tools, hooks, bottles of cloudy liquids, all placed with purpose. It could still pass as a butcher’s workspace if I forced the idea hard enough.

It had to be that.

It had to be something explainable.

Then he came back.

He was holding something by the legs, carrying it upside down with casual ease. For a brief moment, my mind tried to reshape what I was seeing into something harmless. An animal carcass, something butchered and prepared, something that belonged in a place like this.

That illusion broke almost immediately.

It was a body.

Not dressed. Not preserved. Skinned in a way that was neither clean nor complete. Parts of the flesh were fully exposed while strips of skin still clung in uneven patches, as though the process had been interrupted or simply didn’t require precision. The surface looked raw and uneven, the kind of sight that made your stomach tighten before you even had time to process it.

There were two legs and two arms.

There was no mistaking the shape.

Human.

Long black hair hung downward, tangled and heavy, the ends darkened where it had absorbed blood. The frame of the body was unmistakably female.

My breath caught before I could stop it.

Her eyes were open.

They were not clouded or lifeless.

They were red.

Not the red of irritation or injury, but something deeper, more unnatural. They caught the dim light and reflected it back in a way that didn’t belong in a human face.

She was staring.

Not at him.

Not at anything in particular.

But there was awareness in that gaze.

That was enough.

My body reacted before my thoughts could catch up. I turned sharply and vomited, the force of it pulling everything out of me as I struggled to breathe through the overwhelming smell. The sound echoed against the walls, loud and ugly, and my shoulders shook as I tried to steady myself.

My head hit the counter behind me as I leaned back too far, the impact sharp but distant compared to everything else. Something slid off the surface above and landed beside me with a heavy, wet sound.

I did not look at it.

I forced myself to breathe, drawing air in slowly despite the way it burned my throat. My chest felt tight, each inhale scraping against something raw inside me.

Even before all of this, even when I was older, I would not have been able to handle something like this.

I pushed myself upright, the room tilting slightly before settling back into place.

When I looked again, he had already placed the body on the counter.

He had done it carefully.

That detail stood out more than anything else. There was no rush in his movements, no carelessness. He handled her with the same precision he had used for everything else in the room, as if what he was doing required attention and control rather than restraint.

He picked up his knife again and adjusted his grip, the blade catching what little light there was as he raised it toward her leg.

Then her head moved.

I froze where I stood, unable to convince myself that I had imagined it.

The movement was slow and deliberate, not a reflex or a spasm. Her head turned just enough for her gaze to find mine.

Her eyes locked onto me.

She was alive.

There was no longer any space for doubt or denial. No explanation left that could turn this into something else.

Her expression did not change, but her lips trembled slightly, struggling to form a word that never came. The effort was there, visible, desperate in a way that made it worse.

Then a tear formed in her left eye. It gathered slowly before slipping free and tracing a path down her face. When it fell, it disappeared into the blood already covering the counter.

Something inside me gave way.

“They’re not an animal,” I said, my voice unsteady at first before I forced it to hold. “They’re still alive. They’re a human.”

He did not respond. He did not even pause.

The knife began to descend.

“If that knife lands on them,” I said, and this time my voice came out steady and cold, stripped of everything but intent, “I will blow your insides out.”

The blade stopped mid-motion.

The room fell completely silent.