They shook.
The fire in him flickered—not doused by fear or doubt, but sheer depletion. His chest heaved, ribs crackling with every breath. His vision doubled, the world blurring at the edges. He couldn't hear the wind anymore. Just his heartbeat—faint, slowing.
The power that had filled him moments ago ebbed. Not gone, but distant. Like a tide withdrawing.The dawn of that day arrived not with the usual roar of alarm bells, but in a hush so profound it felt as though the world itself were holding its breath.
For weeks the city of Reprieve had endured siege: the relentless hammering of the hordes of corrupt beasts, the crack of bows and clash of steel, the anguished cries of the wounded.
On every wall and parapet, weary defenders—awakened and mundane alike—had stood shoulder to shoulder, repelling wave after wave of grotesque abominations. Yet on this morning, as the first pale light filtered through the mist-shrouded peaks, even the gargoyles carved into the ramparts seemed suspended in expectant stillness.
Koda stood at the edge of the eastern battlement, his eyes scanning the empty valley below. At his side, Junen bore her sentinel's stance, shield resting on the stone, gaze steady despite the unease curling in her chest. Terron, hammer slung across his back, cracked his neck and let out a low hum with a wry grin.
Beyond them, the immaculate party assembled by Cardinal Veylan watched silently from their ivory tower—robes untouched by ash, weapons gleaming unnaturally white. Their presence, meant to inspire confidence, now felt cold and distant, a reminder of doctrine more than deeds.
For a long moment, no wind stirred the banners. No crows wheeled overhead. The valley's only sound was the eerie susurration of distant trees, as though nature itself paused in trepidation. The defenders shifted in place, arrows loosening in quivers, spears shifting in weary grips. Even the siege engines back toward the city's heart sat idle, their cranks unwound and cords slack.
An oppressive calm pressed against every breastplate and fur-lined coat.
Then it began: a deep subterranean murmur, like the grinding of mountains against each other. It started as a tremor beneath the ground—faint at first, barely perceptible—but grew within seconds to a rolling quake that rattled the battlements.
Stones chipped from the crenellations, and the very earth beneath their boots seemed to pulse. Junen tightened her grip on her shield; Terron set his feet, ready to brace. Koda's hand hovered at the hilt of his blade, every muscle coiled for whatever horror would follow.
Far below, at the base of the sheer cliff face that rose to cradle the city, the rock split in a jagged scar of dust and debris. A geyser of black mist poured forth, billowing upward in silent fury. It was an oily cloud that drank the light, twisting the early sunbeams into sickly shadows. The valley floor fractured as if reality itself had been torn, and from that primeval rift, something immense and corrupt shoved its way into the world above.
It emerged first as a vast silhouette — a hulking shape rising from the fissure like a nightmare made flesh. Taller than any tower, its shoulders stretched wide enough to blot out the sky. Flesh sagged and writhed over bony ridges, slick with viscous ichor that dripped in great rivulets.
Its form was barely human, a mockery of limbs and joints. The air around it stank of sulfur and decay, a smell so foul that some defenders staggered back, retching.
Atop this abomination sat three heads. The central face was a single, cyclopean eye set in a crater of bone, its iris a roiling flame of hatred. It surveyed the city with such malice that hearts pounded in chests, legs wobbled, and the keenest archers froze mid-nock.
To the left, a man's countenance hung slack and expressionless, skin drawn thin over cheekbones, lips parted in eternal apathy—Sloth incarnate, every breath an act of monumental effort.
To the right, a woman's visage gleamed with twisted allure: eyelids half-closed, lips trembling in orgasmic rapture, yet her beauty was cruel—Lust made statue, beckoning only to consume and corrupt.
From its broad shoulders sprouted four arms. One limb clutched a massive spiked club, its head jagged with shards of ruined stone; another arm ended in bone-like talons that scraped the earth with a metallic screech. The remaining two hands hung momentarily idle before flexing in anticipation of violence, as though the creature took sadistic pleasure in its own strength.
Each limb moved with a ponderous deliberation, as if savoring the terror it evoked.
All at once, the Titan's footfalls shook the ground in seismic thuds. Each step buckled the landscape—trees splintered, boulders crumbled into dust, and waves of dark corruption radiated from its form. That miasma was no mere mist; it was a living toxin, slithering into lungs and thoughts alike. Defenders clutched their helmets, groaning as memories of past horrors resurfaced.
Some flinched as if struck, even without physical blow.
Koda did not flinch. His breath came slow and even, silver eyes narrowing against the surge of sin. He had faced fragments of the dead god before—Lust's beguiling whisper, Sloth's numbing weight, Wrath's unbridled fury—but never had they manifested as one. Never had he felt all at once, colliding within a single titan's presence.
Across the battlement, Junen raised her shield in instinctive defense, her voice steady as she barked orders to the soldiers: "Hold the line! Stand firm!"
Terron, hammer drawn, grinned through clenched teeth. "Well," he rumbled, "at least he skipped the polite introductions." And yet even his dry humor faltered under the oppressive aura radiating from the behemoth.
In the opposite tower, the party of the Eternal Guide remained statuesque—neither offering aid nor taking flight. Their silence was as damning as any retreat, a testament to doctrine's hollowness when faced with primal terror. Koda's gaze flicked to them, then back to the Titan below.
He made his decision in a heartbeat. Drawing his twin blades of will, he vaulted from the wall's edge, landing with the whisper of displaced air upon a lower platform. Junen and Terron followed without hesitation. The defenders rallied, straightening ranks as they prepared to unleash a volley of arrows, horns sounding the call to arms.
But Koda did not wait for the volleys. His blades ignited with the Guide's black light, humming with purpose. The world seemed to slow—the Titan's three heads turned as one toward him, eyes blazing. All at once, anger, apathy, and desire directed their gaze upon a single mortal.
And in that frozen instant, Koda leapt.
His body a conduit of divine conviction, he soared through the choking miasma, twin blades raised. Below, Terron's hammer fell in echoes of defiance. Junen's shield blazed with protective light. The defenders held their breath.
Their world had fractured open—and now, at the very brink of nightmare, a single mortal flew to meet it.
The wind howled around him as he fell.
Koda's silhouette carved through the light—no wings, no tricks, no salvation. Just raw velocity, gravity pulling him toward a nightmare that waited with open arms. The sun bore down, casting long shadows over the ravaged valley floor, but the light didn't reach the depths where Wrath stood.
It was already there—his target, his ending.
The titan loomed. Not even the scorched earth dared to breathe beneath its weight. Its form was barely human—a grotesque mockery of limbs and joints. Sulfur and rot choked the air, curling up through the rising heat like smoke from a funeral pyre. Koda's eyes watered, lungs burning—but he didn't blink, didn't flinch.
Koda was already moving faster than thought.
The ground rushed toward him. Four arms extended from Wrath's massive shoulders. One gripped a spiked club like a monument to ruin—stone jagged with the teeth of crushed buildings. Another ended in talons of bone, long enough to shear towers from the skyline. The remaining two flexed—almost casual—tensing with the twitch of sadistic anticipation.
It moved.
Faster than any titan should have.
The taloned arm swung upward to meet him like a hammer catching a nail mid-flight.
Koda twisted in the air, light bursting around his frame—Aegis Flare igniting mid-fall, not as a shield but as a spearpoint. His blade glowed white-hot, cutting an arc through the rising claw. The impact jarred his whole body—metal shrieking against bone—but the light held. Sparks rained around him as he deflected just enough to slip past.
He slammed down onto the creature's shoulder with brutal force, boots cracking sinew and bone as he landed in a crouch. No hesitation. No time.
He struck.
The blades carved downward, aiming for the seam where arm met torso. Flame burst from the gash, steam erupting from corrupted flesh. Wrath lurched, but didn't stagger. Instead, one of the lower arms lashed back, catching Koda mid-swing and hurling him off its frame like a swatted gnat.
He hit the ground hard—hard enough that his teeth clacked, hard enough to feel ribs shift. Dust clouded the air. His sword skidded a few feet away, humming as it cooled. Blood filled his mouth. He spat.
Wrath turned.
Not with urgency. But with inevitability.
Koda rolled, snatched up the sword, and barely got to one knee before the spiked club descended.
He braced—Aegis Flare bursting to full power, light cocooning his form—and the club came down like judgment itself. The impact cratered the earth around him, rock liquefying beneath the blow. Light cracked. Pain speared through Koda's spine as he was driven into the ground.
But he was not gone.
The shield held—barely. A fine web of golden fissures spread through the glowing barrier.
He shoved upward, forcing himself to his feet even as the air screamed in his lungs. Wrath's club rose again, already beginning the next swing. He couldn't block again—not directly.
So he moved.
He sprinted toward the giant beast's left leg, dodging the next blow by inches. The shockwave lifted him off his feet, but he landed in a roll, and came up slicing.
The blade bit deep into the back of the titan's knee—muscle split, sinew snapped—and finally, Wrath's stance faltered. One leg buckled, and for the first time, its balance tipped.
Koda didn't hesitate.
He climbed.
Up the calf. Along the hamstring. Every step, fueled by sheer will, by Diligence carved into every fiber of his soul. The blade in his hand pulsed with the echoes of his allies—not in body, but in memory.
Flame: Thessa's fury.
A radiant pulse: Junen's recovery.
Weight behind every step: Terron's silent strength.
And in the wind itself, movement where none should be—Wren's guidance.
Koda used none of their power directly. But through Kindness, their touch remained.
He ascended the titan like a mountain of sin.
Halfway up, the Sloth head turned to him. No movement, no words. Just a stare so heavy it nearly dragged him off the beast.
Koda felt exhaustion bloom behind his eyes—false exhaustion, seeded by Sloth's gaze.
"This is pointless," the thought came. Not his voice, but close. "Rest. Let go."
He screamed—not from fear, but defiance—and drove his sword into the creature's side to anchor himself. Light borrowed from Maia's sanctuary exploded outward, breaking the illusion's grip.
Above him, Lust's lips curled in a mockery of approval.
Then her mouth opened—not to speak, but to exhale a breath of scentless vapor. It rolled downward like silk, like a sigh made flesh. It touched his skin and he staggered—vision doubling, thoughts spinning. For the briefest moment, the world shimmered not with horror, but with promise.
He stood not on a monster's back, but in a sunlit field. A voice—her voice, impossibly familiar—whispered beside his ear.
"You don't have to keep hurting."
His hand loosened on the hilt. The warmth of the illusion bled into his bones, soft and golden. The scent of wildflowers. The illusion offered rest. Peace. A lie, but a beautiful one.
Koda clenched his jaw until blood rose on his tongue.
"You're not her," he growled.
The field cracked.
"You're nothing."
It shattered.
Lust's enchantment broke like glass underfoot, and suddenly he was back—clinging to a tower of rot and rage, the heat of the creature's body boiling off the blade still sunk into its flank. Above him, the three-headed abomination screamed.
Not with sound.
With presence.
Wrath didn't speak in words. It imposed. Hatred like gravity crashed down on him in waves. Its central eye fixed on him—glowing, lidless, alive with a fury not born from reason but from endless, boiling pain.
The upper arm swung toward him.
He ripped his sword free and leapt.
The talons tore through the space he'd just occupied, gouging a trench down the creature's own side in the process. Koda flipped, barely caught hold of a bony ridge on its back, and hauled himself higher. His legs burned. His lungs felt filled with ash. But he climbed.
And Wrath moved.
The whole body twisted, an impossible convulsion of muscle and hate. The terrain of its flesh shifted beneath his hands. Koda slipped—and caught a spike of bone with one arm. The impact nearly dislocated his shoulder, but he didn't let go. Couldn't.
Below, a second arm reached up—too fast. It crashed against the ridge, splintering it entirely. Koda launched himself upward with the momentum, and the blast of movement carried him high—just high enough to clear the beast's back and land on the curve of its shoulder again.
He slammed the blade down. This time, not to wound—but to anchor.
The creature spun, trying to shake him loose, but the sword held. Koda braced himself against the wind, the stench, the sheer force of motion, and focused.
Unbroken Vow.
The runes along his arms lit—dull gold turned blinding. Wards flared beneath his skin, every one forged by discipline, engraved by suffering. Pain lanced through him as the spell took hold. It was a contract: as long as he stood, he would not fall.
The backlash made his nose bleed instantly. His heart skipped—then doubled its pace. Power hummed inside his bones, loud enough to drown thought.
Wrath's eye turned to him again.
There was no mercy in that gaze.
Only recognition.
And rage.
The club rose again—this time not to strike him directly, but to bring ruin to everything below. The valley. The cliffs. The city beyond.
It would break the world to bury him.
Koda moved.
He ran up the beast's neck, sword tearing free behind him in a shower of flame. The Sloth head tried to speak again, but Koda slashed through its throat before it could. Black ichor sprayed across his chest, hissing where it struck his armor. The head didn't die—it sagged, leaking apathy like blood.
Then he was there.
At the base of the cyclopean eye.
It saw him—not as prey, but as the threat he was. The iris convulsed, flame spiraling inward, preparing some unholy burst of power. Koda had only a second.
He stabbed straight into the eye.
The blade sank to the hilt.
Light erupted.
Not flame. Not healing. A raw surge of essence, drawn not from him but through him—from the fragments of every bond, every act of kindness and perseverance that made him who he was. Not power stolen, but shared.
The titan screamed.
This time with sound.
A thousand mouths across its body opened at once, vomiting curses in tongues not meant for mortal ears. The ground ruptured. The sky wept blood. The smell of burning heaven and frozen sin filled the air. Wrath buckled—arms flailing wildly, each strike strong enough to fell mountains.
Koda was thrown.
The backlash hit him like a hurricane. The sword ripped free of the eye, and he went tumbling—end over end—into the sky.
The light died.
Then he fell.
He hit the ground in a heap, vision white, nerves screaming. He couldn't move. Couldn't even breathe. The Unbroken Vow had shattered. He tasted iron and fire. His limbs twitched with phantom commands that wouldn't obey.
Wrath stumbled.
Its eye half-blind, ichor steaming from the wound. The Sloth head hung limp. Lust's face dripped something too thick to be blood.
But it was still standing.
It turned toward him—slowly. Not with urgency.
But with certainty.
Koda tried to rise. One elbow beneath him. A foot digging for purchase.
His body wouldn't respond.
Not enough.
Not fast enough.
Wrath took a step.
The club scraped against the ground, carving a molten trench in its wake.
Another step.
And now Koda could feel it—the pressure. The spiritual weight of its hatred dragging across the landscape like a god's shadow.
The breath in his lungs, shallow. Failing.
Wrath raised the club.
Above him, the sun dimmed.
The sheer enormity of the weapon blotted out the sky, its surface glowing with friction—stone bleeding sparks as it carved the wind. Koda didn't rise. Couldn't. He pulled one knee beneath him, but his body was no longer obeying commands. It twitched. Staggered. His fingers spasmed around the hilt of the blade, still half-sunk in ruin.
The club came down.
He rolled—too late.
The edge caught him, not full force, but enough. The shock hit first, jarring every bone out of harmony. Then the pain. It snapped through his ribs like lightning, and the world spun. Something inside him broke—something deep, essential. He hit the ground hard, dragged through debris like a corpse behind a chariot.
Blood burst from his mouth. Vision doubled.
The earth stilled.
And Wrath advanced.
Not rushing. No flourish. Just absolute, inevitable motion. Like gravity. Like time. Its taloned hand flexed once, then again, curling and uncurling as if savoring the moment before it closed.
Koda tried to rise.
His legs betrayed him.
Sloth's gaze returned—passive, consuming. It didn't speak, but its presence did: Enough. You've done enough. Let it end.
He forced air into crushed lungs. A ragged breath, more whimper than defiance. Wrath's footfalls cracked the stone in perfect rhythm with his heartbeat—both slowing.
The Lust head twitched. Lips parted. A whisper escaped.
You fought for love. Where is it now?
Koda's hand trembled on the swords' grip.
His thoughts frayed. Too much noise. Too much blood. Too much failure.
Wrath loomed over him—an eclipse of sin.
The world folded inward.
Not from the sky—not from weight or sound—but from within his own skull. Something tore into Koda's mind with a force that no blade could match, no scream could outrun. Wrath's true weapon wasn't its club or claws.
It was concept.
Terror bloomed like rot, fast and thick. Not fear of death, but of uselessness. Fear that he'd failed, that he'd always fail, that all his kindness and effort had meant nothing.
Then the rage came.
It exploded through him like a red tide, so sudden it blanked his thoughts. No language, no purpose—just the drive to destroy. To kill. To break what broke him.
His body twitched, then convulsed. Something behind his ribs snapped—not physically, but deeper. The source of his control, his clarity, buckled under the weight of that fury.
But in that collapse—underneath the haze—came understanding.
This was Wrath.
This was what it meant: not power, not purpose. Just the annihilation of restraint. The mind blank, filled only with need—need to retaliate, to punish, to lash out.
And through the storm, another part of him stirred. A deeper root.
Kindness.
Not as weakness, but as echo. His soul listened, and from the overwhelming surge of sin, it learned. It reflected.
His hands clenched into fists so tight they bled. Not from his wounds, but from new growth—muscle swelling with impossible strength, tendons thickened by borrowed power.
Not mimicked. Mirrored.
Koda rose, not by will but by wrath.
He screamed—a sound torn from bone, not throat—and launched upward.
The club came down.
Koda met it mid-arc.
His blade ignited in his grip, not with light but fire so intense it warped the air. He caught the descending ruin, steel shrieking against stone, and held it.
The valley buckled.
Wrath's arms shuddered from the impact, joints twisting as Koda forced the club wide, redirecting the blow into the dirt with a seismic crack.
Then he moved.
No plan. No restraint. Just fury.
He charged the titan like a storm given form. He leapt, spun, struck—once, twice, again—driving his sword into corrupted flesh, dragging it through muscle as though carving trenches in a battlefield.
Wrath bellowed—soundless, but deafening. Its talons slashed, but he was gone. Already at its side. Already climbing.
He didn't dodge. He collided.
He bit.
Koda's teeth sank into the sinew of Wrath's forearm as he stabbed again, and again, and again—blood that wasn't blood spraying in ropes of steaming black fluid. The Sloth head tried to meet his eyes, but he didn't look. He couldn't look. There was no room left in him for hesitation.
The Lust head whispered. He tore it off.
Not cleanly. Not surgically.
With a sound like a thousand veils ripping, he ripped the head from the beast's shoulder and cast it down like garbage. It hit the earth and boiled.
Wrath staggered. For the first time.
Koda landed on its back, blade shearing down its spine in a streak of molten light. Every muscle in him sang with rage. Every heartbeat was a war drum.
But something… cracked.
The fire burned too hot.
His thoughts blurred. His breath grew ragged. Rage curled inward, turning on its host. He lashed out blindly, cleaving muscle from bone, but his eyes were unfocused. His mind drifting.
He was becoming it.
"More," Wrath seemed to whisper—though no voice came. "More. This is what you were. This is what you are."
Then—
Light.
Not blinding. Not loud.
Warm.
A whisper in his chest, like breath through tall grass. Familiar.
Maia.
Not her voice, not her face. But the feeling.
The sanctuary of the heart.
Koda froze.
A single moment suspended between agony and annihilation.
He heard the beat of his own heart—no longer a drum, but a bell.
Slow.
The fires dimmed.
Not gone—but tamed.
He inhaled. Exhaled. And in that breath, time itself bent around him.
The Sloth head tried again to meet his gaze.
Too slow.
Koda turned, his vision clear, his mind sharp again for the first time in what felt like eternity. His blade flicked forward in a straight, decisive arc—and the head dropped, severed at the neck.
Wrath reeled.
The last of its heads fell away, crashing into the shattered valley below in a heap of steaming sinew. Its remaining limbs swung wide, uncoordinated—no longer driven by thought or sin, only instinct. Its massive frame buckled, balance lost, as black ichor streamed from a dozen gaping wounds.
Koda didn't pause.
He drove forward with what strength he had left, carving upward through its midsection, dragging his blade through corrupted muscle until the hilt caught in cracked bone. He twisted, flame bursting through the breach—then wrenched the sword free with a roar that left blood in his throat.
Wrath staggered back, its spiked club slipping from ruined fingers. The weapon fell like a monument toppling, crushing what little ground remained beneath them. The titan dropped to one knee, then another. Its body convulsed, spasming, hunched forward over its wounds.
Still, Koda kept moving. He climbed its shoulder one last time, planting a foot beside the crater where the central eye had watched him with endless hate. He raised his blade—ready to end it.
But his arms didn't rise.
He tried again.
His blade lifted an inch—then fell.
Koda dropped to one knee, not in reverence but in collapse. Blood streamed from his mouth. His lungs refused to fill. The wound along his side pulsed with every beat, and now there was no rage left to ignore it.
Below him, Wrath writhed—not dead, not whole, but bleeding and broken.
Koda's hand slipped from his hilt.
He fell beside it.
The titan's corpse twitched once, a shiver running through the wreck of its frame.
Neither of them moved again.
Beneath the hush of settling dust, beneath the stench of blood and scorched flesh, a whisper stirred the silence.
Not that Koda noticed.
Level up. Level 68.