The silence that descended after Ravi's pronouncement in his mind – Sinners will be judged. And the judgment will be… personal – was thick enough to choke on. It pressed down on the narrow, mud-choked alley, heavier than the stench of decay. Gorm and the bulky thug, whose name was Borin, remained frozen, their earlier bravado shattered into a million terrified shards.
Borin, still sprawled inelegantly in the filth, felt a cold sweat prickle his entire body despite the slum's usual oppressive humidity. The scrawny weakling before him hadn't moved much, hadn't uttered a sound aloud, yet the very air around him seemed to warp. It was his eyes – gods, his eyes. They weren't human. They were pits, ancient and cold, reflecting a light that wasn't of this world, promising pain beyond comprehension. The gaze pinned Borin like an insect under a collector's needle, each second an eternity of dawning, primal terror.
"G-Gorm..." Borin whimpered, his voice a pathetic squeak. He tried to scramble further back, his large hands slipping in the muck, his mind a cauldron of panic. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, to put as much distance as possible between himself and that… thing wearing a human face.
Gorm, leaner and perhaps quicker on the uptake when it came to self-preservation, was already moving. He didn't dare turn his back fully, not yet. He stumbled backward, his own weaselly face pale and slick with sweat, his eyes still locked on Ravi. The pressure, that invisible weight emanating from the supposedly crippled man, was suffocating. It felt like his lungs were being squeezed by an iron fist, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
"What... what is he?" Gorm finally choked out, the words barely audible. He'd bullied, beaten, and extorted countless souls in The Pit, seen men die in horrific ways, but this… this was different. This wasn't the fury of a desperate man; it was the cold, calculating intent of something utterly alien.
Ravi remained still, his gaze unwavering. He watched them, a scientist observing particularly repugnant insects. The leaking aura of his divine nature, still heavily suppressed by the mortal shell, was nevertheless potent enough to shatter the nerve of these bottom feeders. He could feel their terror, a sickly sweet tang in the air, and it brought him no satisfaction, only a grim affirmation of the task ahead.
Finally, the primal urge for survival overwhelmed Gorm. With a strangled yelp, he turned and bolted, slipping and sliding in the mud, his earlier swagger replaced by the desperate scramble of a cornered rat. Borin, seeing his companion flee, found a new surge of adrenaline. He heaved his bulk upright, nearly falling again, and then pounded down the alleyway after Gorm, his heavy footfalls splashing fetid water. He didn't look back. He wouldn't have dared.
They ran, their minds replaying those eyes, that chilling pressure. The story they would later stammer out to anyone who would listen – or to their immediate superior if they had one – would be fragmented, bordering on insane. Tales of a demon in human skin, of eyes that held the void, of a cold that froze the marrow. Some would scoff, others, more superstitious or having brushed with the unexplainable horrors of The Pit themselves, might feel a shiver of unease. The seeds of a terrifying legend were sown, watered by pure, unadulterated fear.
Ravi watched them go until their panicked footsteps faded. The immediate threat, such as it was, had passed. He let out a slow breath, the borrowed lungs aching with the effort. The focus of his will, even that minute projection, had taken a toll on this fragile form. He sagged slightly against the grimy wall, the throbbing in his leg intensifying now that the adrenaline – or whatever passed for it in this body when confronted by lesser vermin – had begun to recede.
Alone once more, he took stock.
The body was a disaster. Malnourished, clearly subjected to prior violence judging by the half-healed bruises that littered his torso beneath the rags he wore, and the freshly injured leg felt like it was on fire. He ran a hand over his face – stubble, grime. He felt… disgustingly mortal.
Then, a new sensation, one he hadn't experienced in countless millennia: hunger. A raw, gnawing emptiness in his stomach. It was distracting, an unwelcome anchor to this plane of existence. Food. He needed food. Shelter too. This alley was no place to recover, even for a being whose true form was beyond physical harm.
With a monumental effort of will, Ravi pushed himself off the wall. Each movement sent jolts of pain through his leg, but he locked them away, compartmentalizing the discomfort. His divine consciousness was a fortress; mortal pain was merely a noisy insect buzzing outside its walls. He began to walk, or rather, limp, deeper into the labyrinthine slum.
The Pit was a symphony of human misery, and Ravi, the Creator, was now its unwilling audience member, walking its stage.
Every narrow, twisting passage assaulted his senses. The reek of uncollected garbage, human waste, and despair was a physical entity, clinging to the back of his throat. Rickety shacks, cobbled together from rusted metal sheets, rotting planks, and stretched hides, leaned precariously against each other, threatening to collapse. Filthy children with vacant eyes and distended bellies sat in doorways, too apathetic to even beg. He saw a woman, no older than a girl, her face a mask of bruises, being dragged by her hair by a hulking brute whose possessive sneer made Ravi's ancient anger simmer at a near-boiling point. He saw men gambling with crude, carved dice for scraps of moldy bread, their eyes feral. He heard the wet, hacking coughs of the diseased, the hopeless sobs from within darkened hovels, the occasional sharp scream cut short.
This was His creation. This was what they had wrought.
Each sight, each sound, each smell was a fresh indictment, a searing brand on His borrowed consciousness, solidifying the righteousness of His descent, the necessity of His coming judgment. There was no pity in his observation, only a vast, cold fury and a weary disgust that settled deep within the core of His being. This place, and the countless others like it across this world, had to be purged.
His limping gait eventually brought him to what passed for a thoroughfare in The Pit – a slightly wider, mud-clogged path where a few pathetic stalls were set up. One sold murky water from a questionable barrel. Another offered shriveled, unidentifiable roots. A third, run by a gaunt old woman with eyes that had seen too much, displayed a few pieces of stale, rock-hard bread.
It was here that Ravi witnessed the next casual cruelty.
A lanky youth, all swagger and cheap menace, wearing a faded gang marking on his leather vest, sauntered up to the old woman's bread stall. He was perhaps sixteen, but his eyes held the deadness of someone twice that age, someone who had learned early that taking was easier than earning.
"Granny Melle," the youth sneered, his voice cracking with false authority. "Collection time. Boss Fenrir expects his due."
The old woman flinched, her wrinkled hands trembling as she clutched a small, grimy pouch to her chest. "Fenrir took his share yesterday, young Kael," she whispered, her voice frail. "There's barely enough left for me to buy flour for tomorrow."
Kael scoffed, grabbing a piece of bread and taking a bite, chewing with open-mouthed disdain. "Old hag, you think Fenrir cares about your flour? He cares about coin. And respect. You're short on both." He gestured with the half-eaten bread. "Pay up, or maybe I'll have to teach you a lesson about holding out on the Red Fangs."
His eyes glinted with a petty malice as he looked around, enjoying the fear he inspired in the few onlookers, who quickly averted their gazes.
Ravi watched, his expressionless face a mask. Another sinner. Another insignificant tyrant in a kingdom of filth. The arrogance, the casual cruelty over something so pitiful as a few copper coins and a piece of bread – it was a microcosm of the world's greater evils.
He could have ignored it. This body was weak. He needed to conserve energy, find sustenance. But the Creator within, the very essence of Order and Justice, stirred. This was not a calculated decision. It was an instinct, an imperative that overrode the weakness of the flesh. Judgment.
As Kael reached out to snatch the pouch from Granny Melle's trembling grasp, his face contorting into a cruel smirk when she resisted, Ravi moved.
His limp was still pronounced, but there was an unnatural fluidity to his movement, a directness that belied his apparent frailty. He didn't rush. He simply arrived next to Kael just as the youth's fingers closed around the old woman's wrist.
"That's enough," Ravi said.
His voice was quiet, almost devoid of inflection, yet it cut through the slum's ambient noise like a shard of ice.
Kael, startled, whirled around, annoyance flashing across his face. "Who the hell are you? Mind your own damn business, cripple, unless you want some of what she's getting!" He sized Ravi up – the rags, the limp, the gaunt face. Contempt curled his lip. An easy mark, or at least, not a threat.
Ravi's eyes met Kael's.
And Kael froze.
It was the same sensation Borin and Gorm had experienced, but perhaps amplified by Ravi's focused intent. A bone-deep chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. A pressure that made the air feel thick and hard to breathe. Kael felt like he was staring into the eyes of death itself, an ancient, implacable force that saw right through his bravado, into the rotten core of his being. His smirk faltered, replaced by a flicker of confusion, then dawning unease. This wasn't the look of a slum dweller.
"I said," Ravi repeated, his voice still low but carrying an undeniable weight, "that's enough."
Before Kael could react, before his fear could fully blossom into flight, Ravi's hand shot out. It wasn't a particularly fast movement by martial standards, but it was unavoidable, precise. His fingers, surprisingly strong, clamped around Kael's outstretched wrist – the one gripping Granny Melle's.
Kael felt a strength that was utterly incongruous with the man's appearance. It was like being gripped by iron bands. He tried to pull away, but Ravi's hold was absolute.
"Let go of her," Ravi stated. It wasn't a request.
A spark of Kael's street-thug pride, mixed with terror, made him defiant. "Like hell I will! You think you can—"
He never finished the sentence.
Ravi applied a fraction more pressure.
A sickening crunch echoed in the sudden silence of the small crowd that had begun to gather at a safe distance. It was the sound of bones in Kael's wrist shattering.
Kael screamed, a high-pitched sound of pure agony, his eyes wide with shock and pain. He instinctively let go of Granny Melle, his arm going limp.
Ravi didn't release him.
Instead, with the same chilling calm, he twisted. Kael's arm bent at an unnatural angle. Another, louder CRACK followed, accompanied by a fresh wave of agonized shrieking from the youth. His arm was clearly broken, grotesquely so.
Ravi then shoved him. Kael, unbalanced by the pain and the limp arm, stumbled back and fell hard onto his backside in the mud, cradling his ruined limb, his face a mask of disbelief and torment. Tears and snot streamed down his face as he howled.
Ravi looked down at the writhing youth, his expression unchanged. There was no satisfaction, no anger, just the impassive finality of a judgment delivered. This display was minimal, a mere fraction of a fraction of what he was capable of, yet in this context, against this opponent, it was devastating. He could feel the slight thrum of divine energy that had reinforced his physical action, a subtle surge that had surprised even him with its efficacy through this damaged vessel.
The silence around them was absolute, save for Kael's pathetic wails. Granny Melle stared, her jaw agape, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief. The onlookers, who had initially averted their gazes, were now transfixed, their faces reflecting a spectrum of emotions: shock, fear, and for a few, a tiny, dangerous flicker of something akin to awe, or perhaps hope. They had seen brutality before – The Pit was built on it – but this was different. This was cold, precise, and utterly overwhelming, delivered by someone who looked like he should be a victim, not a dispenser of such ruthless justice.
Ravi turned his gaze from the broken thug to the small crowd. His eyes, those ancient, chilling orbs, swept over them. Most flinched and looked away, unable to meet that gaze.
He then looked at Granny Melle, who clutched her pouch, trembling.
He said nothing more. He simply turned and limped away from the scene, leaving behind a broken thug, a stunned old woman, and a collection of slum dwellers whose perception of the possible had just been violently altered.
The whispers started almost immediately, hushed and fearful.
"Did you see his eyes?"
"Broke Kael's arm like a twig..."
"Who is he?"
"He… he didn't even look angry." That, perhaps, was the most terrifying part.
As Ravi moved away, seeking the shadows, the gnawing hunger returned. He needed to address it. But he also knew he had just painted a target on his back. Fenrir, the "boss" Kael had mentioned, would hear of this.
Yet, a deeper part of him, the ancient Creator, was unconcerned. Let them come. They were all just names on a list, waiting for judgment.
Unseen by Ravi, from the dark opening of a narrow alleyway across the small, squalid marketplace, a pair of sharp, intelligent eyes had watched the entire exchange. They didn't belong to a thug or a broken-spirited victim. These eyes were narrowed in careful assessment, a flicker of something unreadable – surprise, calculation, perhaps even a hint of grim interest – within their depths. The watcher remained hidden, a shadow within shadows, their gaze following Ravi's retreating, limping form until he disappeared around a corner. The slum had many eyes, and some were far more perceptive than others. This new, dangerous variable in The Pit's brutal equation had not gone unnoticed.