From the walls, it had looked like a casual walk.
Koda's steps were measured, unwavering, the stillness he left in his wake surreal. A moment of divine calm in the storm of Wrath's siege.
But as he ascended the long path back toward the city gates, his knees nearly gave. His silver eyes dulled at the edges, every footstep heavier than the last.
The others met him at the wall. None spoke. They only nodded—Junen with a firm hand on his shoulder, Terron a quiet grunt of approval, Thessa barely keeping her awe in check.
He returned the gesture with a faint, exhausted smile, then turned without a word and began the slow walk to their house, tucked among the rows of stone dwellings that housed the city's chosen defenders.
Maia was waiting.
She had left the triage lines only moments before, something in her spirit telling her he would need her. When she found him, his shoulders were slack, every motion dragging.
She took his hand in silence, her fingers lacing with his as if she were anchoring him.
"Koda," she said gently, voice low, "let me help."
He didn't protest.
Together they stepped into the quiet sanctuary of their shared home. He barely made it through the threshold before the Shadow Armor dispelled in a whisper of dark mist, leaving him bare-chested and pale with exertion.
She guided him to the basin, warmed the cloth herself. Helped him clean the grime and sweat from his skin. Reverent, patient.
When she pulled the sheets back and laid beside him, he was already half-asleep.
By the time his head hit the pillow, Koda was gone—sinking into the first rest he'd allowed himself in days.
Maia remained at his side, watching over him as the weight of divine mercy finally gave way to dreamless sleep.
At first.
Several hours passed. Koda's body lay still, breathing soft beneath the weight of blankets. But his mind had already been stolen away, drawn into that timeless hollow between sleep and vision.
And there… something waited.
No warmth. No sound. No air.
Just pressure. Thick. Wet. Ravenous.
The void sloshed forward with a noise like grinding bone beneath wet meat. Koda found himself standing ankle-deep in gore—sinew and half-melted corpses stretching like rotting paste beneath his boots.
Then came the sound: chewing. Choking. The wet gasp of something swallowing more than it could hold.
He looked up.
It was a thing of folds, not flesh. A creature swollen beyond reason, its mouth a jagged hole across an overstuffed gut. Arms ended in twisted ladles, scooping ruined limbs from the battlefield and jamming them between blood-cracked lips. Veins pulsed visibly beneath translucent skin stretched far past tearing. Every breath sounded like sobbing—except there was no sorrow, only hunger.
Koda stepped back, but the thing didn't stop. A thousand hands reached from within its belly—human hands, familiar hands—grasping at him. Screaming. Begging. Faces of those he couldn't save stared out from under the creature's skin.
And still it fed.
A voice bubbled from its core, wet and infantile:
"You cannot starve the hunger of sacrifice. You give and give and give, and still it asks for more. Let go. Let it take you too."
Koda blinked—and the gore underfoot hardened, crystallizing into gold.
The air thickened with the clink of coins.
A figure stepped forward.
Not a beast, but a man—tall, cloaked in robes stitched with ledger lines and chains of molten silver. His face bore Koda's own likeness, but his eyes were yellowed and pupil-less.
Every movement left a trail of gold-dust and ash.
He held a scale in one hand, and on it—Koda's armor, his team's lives, the children, the cities, his future. In the other hand? A key.
"You see?" He rasped, tilting the scale until the key outweighed it all. "You could end this, if only you took more. Seized it. Made the world pay you for what it demands."
Koda reached for the key—but his hand turned skeletal before it could touch metal.
"Still playing martyr," the figure mocked. "You don't serve them. You hoard their approval. That's your treasure."
The scale shattered. The gold melted.
And the eyes returned.
Hundreds of them. No creature. No body. Just faces—dozens, then hundreds—pressed into the dark like masks, surrounding him in a circle that tightened with every breath.
Each face wore a different emotion: joy, awe, disappointment, hate.
But every eye burned the same sickly green.
They whispered:
"Why you?"
"Why always you?"
"I trained harder."
"I gave more."
"She loved me first."
"He should have died, not us."
Some voices he didn't recognize.
Others… he did.
One was Terron's. Another, Junen's. Then—Maia's.
Their tones twisted, jealous, snarling. Wrong.
They surged toward him—not to attack—but to consume, clawing at his skin, trying to become him. Every hand that touched him stole a memory, a skill, a moment. He felt himself being rewritten in real time, diluted by stolen pieces.
And then the eyes blinked out, replaced by moans.
Desire took no form at first—only sensation. A rise in temperature. The phantom press of bodies. The memory of gasps, the look in Thessa's eyes, the sound of Wren's breath catching, the memory of Maia's skin under moonlight.
Then it took shape.
A figure made of silk and the crimson moon, its face changing with each blink—familiar, beautiful, terrible.
It purred.
"Desire is the only truth," it whispered, circling him like a lover. "Not duty. Not virtue. You saw them, touched them… tasted their want. So why do you hide from what you are?"
Each word peeled away his defenses. Robes dissolved. Armor broke off in flakes. His skin flushed with false hunger.
All around him, illusions bloomed—his team, his loved ones, writhing together, calling his name, reaching for him.
"Give in, be whole."
He nearly did.
But then—
The pleasure sank. The warmth soured.
And the world slowed.
Apothy fell like fog over a field.
He couldn't breathe. Not because he was restrained, but because his will simply stopped working. He collapsed to his knees—bones suddenly too heavy.
From the horizon, it approached.
It had no legs, no urgency. It drifted like mold on water, its form a limp mass of half-formed limbs and lazy smiles. A voice droned, not loud, but omnipresent.
"Let it end. Let everything end. You've done enough. Let someone else try. The world won't change. So why die trying?"
His limbs gave out. His vision faded.
Even his heartbeat slowed.
The darkness wrapped around him. He knew he had the power to move. But he didn't want to.
Didn't care.
And then—
It twisted.
Sloth and Lust and something more. Something furious.
The shadows that had lulled him began to thrash, the silk turning to barbed wire. The moans warped into screams.
It rose from the amalgam like a crownless monarch—its body half-limp, half-rigid, eyes rolling back in pleasure even as its mouth screamed. Screamed with anger. With hate. With carnal desire.
It was wrath in gestation.
A stillborn god being born from indulgence denied.
It turned its gaze on Koda.
And everything changed.
Suddenly, he was on the wall.
Watching the city burn.
Maia, on her knees, hands bloodied and trembling over dead children.
Terron's hammer shattered beneath a hulking beast.
Junen screaming as she fought back-to-back with Deker, only to be pulled into the horde.
Wren—pinned, sigils dim.
Thessa—mouth open in a silent sob, the church hospital collapsing behind her.
And then himself, standing at the center, powerless, knees shaking, silver eyes wide as—
He arrived.
Not the precursor. The real thing.
It landed in fire, in screams, in loss. Its very presence made the air bleed. Buildings detonated in waves from the pressure of its steps. It didn't rage—it enforced. Every breath it took demanded destruction.
And then Maia looked at him, through the ash, and whispered:
"Why didn't you stop it?"
He tried to run.
Tried to scream.
Tried to die—
The fire faded. The screams dissolved.
But the shame remained—thick, suffocating, staining everything it touched.
Koda stood once more in the void. Alone.
Or so he thought.
A sound broke the silence—a low, dry chuckle, like splintered wood grinding against wet stone.
Then—
"Well done."
The voice slithered.
From the dark, a figure emerged.
No footsteps. No breath. Just motion—liquid shadow shaped vaguely like a man, taller than anyone should be, shoulders narrow, hands long.
Its grin came first—unnaturally wide, filled with too many teeth. Not fanged, but flat and endless, like a smile carved into a corpse that forgot what joy meant.
No eyes. Just that smile.
It didn't speak again. It didn't need to.
The chuckle deepened. Boastful.
Then the thing leaned forward, as if to whisper—
And that's when it all shattered.
And that's when he heard a voice.
Soft.
Close.
"Koda."
Warm fingers on his face.
"Wake up."
Maia.
His sanctuary.
The dream shattered.
But the smile lingered in his memory.
———
Maia watched him stir.
She had felt it long before his eyes opened—the tension in his chest, the way his hands curled into the sheets like they were gripping steel. A storm held behind his ribs.
And then he gasped. Not a scream, not a cry—just a sharp, broken gasp, like he'd breached the surface after drowning in something black and deep.
He sat upright too fast. His skin was clammy with sweat, his silver eyes glassy and unfocused.
"Koda," she whispered, reaching for his hand.
He didn't flinch—but he didn't look at her either.
His gaze was locked on the far wall. Silent. Haunted.
She had seen this look before.
Not in him—but in survivors.
The ones who returned from fragments bearing more than just wounds.
"Koda," she said again, firmer now. Her other hand found his cheek. "You're here. You're safe. With me."
It took a moment, but his breathing slowed—one long inhale, then another. Still not calm. But real.
"I saw it," he murmured. "All of them. Again. And something more…"
She felt his fingers tighten in hers.
"Sloth… lust… envy…" His voice thinned. "But there was something else at the end. A meld. Wrath in them, through them. And something smiling back."
Her heart clenched. She wiped the sweat from his brow.
"You don't have to carry this alone," she said gently.
Koda's eyes finally met hers. There was no gold fire in them now. No storm. Only exhaustion. The kind that came from the soul out.
"…I think Wrath has already found its shape," he whispered. "It's not just rage. It's… Sloth—Lust—Twisted. Broken."
Maia didn't answer. She didn't need to.
She just pulled him close, guiding him back down, cradling him against her as his breathing steadied, and the dawn outside the window crept in.
He didn't sleep again.
But he didn't let go either.
The Unholy beast, driven by Wrath, was drawing near.