Her response took the words and charged them until they were no longer words. It was a seismic wave of pure noise. A wall of defiant will that hit him with the force of a physical blow. The cable between them thrummed, vibrating with the strain.
David’s head snapped up, his gaze locking with hers. Her eyes, still blood-rimmed, were blazing.
He saw the priest, a shambling figure of shadows and stolen flesh, twitch but remain rooted to the spot.
“You wanna run that by me again?” David said aloud, his tone dangerously flat.
Mara took a step forward. The others paused, sensing the new storm. “No,” she said, the word crisp and clear in the cold air. “We need to talk. About what just happened. About the eyes. This.” She gestured vaguely between them, her hand cutting through the air as if severing an invisible tether. “This thrall shit stops. Now.”
David didn't immediately respond, instead, he quickly glanced at his Status.
[Name: David Carter
Level 10
Demonic Realm: Floor 1/???
Difficulty: Impossible
Time left until forced ejection: 4y 363d 9h 20m 32s.
Primary Class: Locked
Sub-class: Locked
Aspects: Oracle of the ?Unknown?
Strength: 9
Dexterity: 7
Constitution: 28
Mana: 30
Demonic Energy: 78
Skills: Battle Sense Lvl 3, Calm Mind Lvl 1, Energy Affinity Lvl 3, Demonic Energy Lvl 4, Demonic Energy Mastery Lvl 6, Portal Magic Lvl 1, Infernal Thrall Lvl 1, Touch of the ?Unknown? Lvl 0,
Free points: 0]
The Thrall skill looked the same. No sudden changes, or new feedback. Whatever she’d pulled off, it hadn’t changed the leash.
Her back straightened, all of her undead besides the priest stepping forward. “This ends now.”
David seized her by the throat before anyone realized he’d moved.
“Yeah,” David said quietly. “It does.”
Not crushing. Not yet. Enough pressure to make the bond between them scream. Enough to remind her whose will had won five minutes ago. Demonic energy infused him. The others sudden shouts of surprise were already background noise.
“You don’t get leverage,” he said. “You lost that when you tried to burn me alive.”
Mara didn’t struggle. That was the first problem. Her hands stayed at her sides. Her eyes stayed on his. Calm. Focused. The kind of calm that only shows up when someone has already decided how this ends.
“You imprisoned me,” she said. “Call it what it is.”
“I contained you.”
“You put a collar on a risk and called it safety.”
Mara’s lips curled into something like defiance, but it was just raw calculation. “You threaten my secrets,” she hissed.
David’s eyes flashed with recognition, widening imperceptibly. He should have expected this—the thrall tether between them had strengthened a hundredfold, forged by whatever it was in the abyss that had scarred them.
Mara’s undead advanced on David in a wide circle as the others yelled in sudden confusion. He had moved in a burst that took less than a second.
Of course she could do weird, unpredictable shit now. He probably could too. At her words of his secrets, a flash of Corbin’s image came through the psychic tether, unbidden, a glimpse of all the compromises he’d made. David didn’t flinch. He could kill her right now. The temptation was sharp, immediate, like the taste of steel. It would be so easy.
Her undead shifted again. He felt Mara’s intentions clearly as if they were his own. Her undead would strike instantly if he moved—each of them targeting his head, their momentum precise. And he didn’t care. Her neck would snap first. Their strings would snap before they could reach him.
“Stop.” His voice was low, lethal, almost a growl. His fingers pressed harder, cutting off air, and he could feel her resistance like sparks on his skin.
The undead halted unevenly for just a second. A single priest remained frozen, the other undead continuing their deadly encirclement. David pursed his eyes. He could see the same strange new energy of the abyss settled in Mara’s eyes, probably his too. It reinforced the thread between them, turning it from a near leash to something melded. Their altered tether had allowed her, and only her, to exploit his order—reinterpret it—he had told her to stop the undead, but not for how long. Her eyes were dense with energy, a black hole of the deepest, darkest energy second only to the ocean that now was in his eyes. So she could exploit the vagueness of his orders.
So what.
He could recalibrate, specify, and improve the skill. Add contingencies to orders; neutralize the imperfection.
“I see you now,” she gasped, voice rough, teeth bared. “I see the tether.”
“Yeah? Well I’ve been seeing it all day. Welcome to the club, there’s no pamphlet—shut the fuck up,” David spat, tightening his grip. She coughed, but the defiance didn’t break. He could feel her resistance like sparks on his skin.
“You think threatening me does anything?” he said, voice cold as steel. His fingers dug deeper into her throat.
Perhaps she had been about to die the very first time she’d drained an ally to survive. Perhaps Mara would have died on the first day if she had better morals. Perhaps she’d had no choice. It didn’t matter.
Mara was insane. Unhinged. A survivalist. An extreme one. Like him.
She was dangerous, lethal, exploitable only through containment. Like him.
He could feel her now. Their souls were tethered, and all he could feel was a reflection of himself. Her instincts were so similar to his that it was almost frightening. Even now, she was planning contingencies. Like him. She had played with lives like coins—spent, saved, discarded without sentiment. Like he would. She was deadly. Like he was. They both felt each other, and each saw a mirror.
She didn’t want to kill him because he was integral to her survival. Especially after his display with the priest. She could feel his thoughts. With the right energy? Just he and his elite hobgoblin could rival her undead. David was reluctant to kill her because she was integral to his fighting force. Her undead boosted his numbers; doubling his odds against this world. But the moment that changed for either of them?
This could only end one way.
“You understand,” he said, still holding her throat, energy hammering her mind, “this ends the way I allow it. Not the way you imagine.”
Mara laughed. Not loud. Not bitter. Just factual.
“You don’t get to say that to me.”
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She wiped the blood from under her nose with her thumb and smeared it across her cheek like a mark.
“The last man who tried to control me like this,” she said, “thought ownership meant obedience too.”
David didn’t interrupt. He knew better.
“His name was Vincent Miller,” she continued. “And I killed him.”
Silence hit like a dropped weapon.
Someone behind them said, “Wait.”
Another voice, sharper: “Miller?”
Theo’s head snapped up. He stared at her properly for the first time. Really looked. The bone structure. The eyes. The way she always kept her hood up.
“…shit,” he said. “I knew you looked familiar.”
Mara didn’t look away from David.
“Tamara Miller,” someone whispered. “The billionaire’s daughter? She looks so different.”
“She inherited the shares,” another said. “Billions.”
“Acquitted,” Theo said slowly. “Self-defense. I read about that.”
Mara’s gaze never wavered.
“He beat my mother,” she said. “He broke us for years. And the night I killed him, he was going to finish it.”
David felt the undead shift again—not at her command. At her history. The dead leaning toward her like gravity had changed. Mara had a history that fueled her survivalism. Like him. But Mara had never lost anything near what he had.
“People died. People are gone,” She said.
She stated their equality and promised a fatal showdown, using their shared damnation to force him to see that his control was an illusion and their conflict could end only in death, and that which of them would die was a coin toss.
Killing her ends the threat, clean and final, but it also destroys a resource, and a necromancer is a resource that cuts through problems normal people can’t, which makes burning her a last resort. Using her up makes more sense: point her at a threat, let her expend herself against it, a bullet you only get to fire once. All the plans about owning her, striking deals, or locking her down hinge on leverage I don’t have yet—the thrall skill is a loose grip, a short leash, not a cage, not a lock I can seal. Until that changes, the options thin out: run her into the ground first, or walk away and let something else finish it. In the meantime, use her but keep a knife ready, keep her isolated from the others, and push her into playing along. Live next to a lit fuse, work together until a timer runs out, settle into a cold war, and make her needed. Or let it all burn down and see what’s left standing.
Under normal circumstances, he would have assumed any deal they struck was just her biding her time, looking for a chance to betray him, and that the numbers only added up in their inevitable and bloody fight to the death.
But now, he felt the weight of her emotions—there was a hint of aggression, sure, and it still pointed at ‘violent showdown,’ But it was tempered by the same hesitation, the same reluctance he felt about wasting a valuable resource. She really wanted to keep using him.
It was almost laughable.
So David laughed. He ignored the concern and questions from the others. Evans already had a hand on his shoulder.
But she was still a risk. An unpredictable element with a trigger pointed his way. He wouldn't kill her now, not while everyone was watching with front row seats. Later, without an audience, he thought.
David released her throat, letting her stumble back, bruises stark, lungs heaving. Evans sighed and walked back, still watching them with questions in his gaze. The chaotic energy receded into controlled circuits. She stood, back straight, and met his gaze, then turned. One undead remained frozen; the others halted fully. David’s eyes swept her, the undead, the forest. Then he noticed something strange.
A strange visual overlay hit him all at once. Everything had a glow. The grass, the trees, Harris shifting his weight, the warg zombie breathing—all of them had a faint, shimmering outline. It was like looking at the world through a shitty filter. Their clothes and gear were dull, but the living parts were lit up with a soft energy. Is that… life force? Are we all just fucking glowsticks now?
He noticed some of the glows were stronger—more vibrant, more saturated, with more lines and color, like someone turned up the brightness and contrast. The big redwood right next to them was one of the bright ones, but its light was slowly fading, as if its life force was being drained away. He saw the pattern: the closer anything was to the stone temple, the less vibrant it became. The temple itself was the glaring exception. Surrounded by all that draining gray, the decrepit building was vibrant as fuck, like a colored item in a grayscale world. The dead circle around it is the result. The temple is eating everything to make itself stronger.
Mara, sensing his attention, turned to stare at the temple too. As his focus locked onto the structure, the very air above its roof began to churn. The ambient, draining energy swirled, pulling tight like a lens focusing, and condensed into a dense, pulsing ball of light. It hadn't been there a second ago.
"Shit," David said, his voice curt. "Something's happening we need to move."
"Look. Above the temple."
Heads turned. Harris squinted. "There's nothing there.”
Corbin nodded, agreeing. “It's empty sky."
"It’s empty," Mara said, her tone clipped. "But there’s a heat haze. Something. I can't make it out."
But David saw it clearly. The draining energy swirled, pulling tight like a lens focusing, and condensed into a dense, pulsing ball of light. "It's coalescing. We need to move. Now."
The group jerked into motion. Rhea turned, her hand going to a javelin. Corbin and Evans shifted into defensive stances, their weapons coming up. Henderson and Theo backed up, scanning the trees. The warg zombie let out a low growl.
In that moment of collective reaction, David's battle-sense showed him what came next. He was going to be encased in ice, trapped in the temple's life-drain field. Him, Mara, and Jamie. He was too far from the edge; nothing he could do in the next second would get him out.
His living hobgoblin thrall was just outside the coming boundary.
The command was instant. The moment he issued it, the dense ball of energy and light snapped open into a vast, bloodshot eye, swelling grotesquely above the decrepit temple. It spun on its axis, veins writhing and irises flaming, and locked its unblinking gaze directly onto David.
The big redwood beside them went completely dead. In a split second, a circular field of cold, dead earth surged outward like a visible, creeping zone of lifelessness. The soil beneath their feet froze, and the grass lost its color and shriveled instantly, turning gray as the wave of death raced across the land.
The hobgoblin lunged, grabbing the Pensioner by his jacket. It used the old man as leverage to hurl itself into the expanding field, inadvertently throwing the Pensioner backward, out of the circle.
They’d each only taken a single step. That’s how close the line was.
The field caught David, Mara, and Jamie before anyone knew what was happening. A dome of thick ice encased the temple and the sphere of dead air around it. The world went white and silent.
Inside the ice dome were David, Mara, and Jamie. Several feet away from them, also inside, was the hobgoblin thrall. The Pensioner was outside, having been tossed clear. The rest of their group—everyone singularly useful—were all on the outside, cut off by the thick wall of instant ice.
Outside, blurred shapes surged against the other side of the ice. Muted, dull impacts vibrated through the dome, like fists beating on a thick coffin lid. He couldn't make out any details, just the frantic movement of shadows.
David raised his hand and a lance of black and violet flame erupted from his palm. It struck the inner wall of ice beside him. It sizzled, and a shallow, dinner-plate-sized patch melted into slush. Before the water could even drip, the ice regrew, smoothing over thicker than before.
The thudding from outside continued, rhythmic and useless.
David turned to Jamie. "Can you do anything about this?"
Jamie stared at his own hands, then back at the wall. "I... I can only make ice. I don't know how to unmake it."
“Then your priority just changed. Unmake it. That's the next lesson." David said, his tone flat. He focused inward, through the thrall link he shared with Corbin on the outside. He pushed a psychic impression toward the marshal, simple and clear:
David, Mara, his hobgoblin thrall, and Jamie started hacking at the wall with their weapons. David’s spear point slid off the surface. It felt like trying to dig through steel with a toothpick.
David turned away from the wall and looked toward the temple. The giant bloodshot eye still hovered above it, visible only to him, its stare directly at him unblinking.
"Hey," David said. He pointed. "Quick poll. Is there a massive unblinking eye up there, or has God installed a security camera?”
Jamie glanced up, then back at David. "What eyeball?"
Mara's eyes were fixed on the same spot. She hesitated, still indignant, a look of deep concern crossed her face, her sharp features hardening. She stared for a long moment, then shook her head once. "No. It's just a heat haze. A blur in the air."
The eye flashed, a sudden pulse of sickly yellow light deep within its pupil. As the light faded, the eye itself seemed to shrink, just a fraction. It was a subtle movement, like something drawing a deep breath.
From the temple's dark, open entrance, a leg stepped out.
It was thick as a tree trunk, covered in plates of slimy, black hide that looked capable of stopping a cannon shell. A second leg followed, and the thing ducked its head beneath the stone archway to emerge fully into the dim light of the ice dome. It stood on two legs, its arms ending in hands that were practically wrecking balls with fingers. It stood there, easily ten feet tall, and turned its head slowly until its maw settled on them.
The creature filled the space. It was built on a scale that made the ice dome feel like a closet. Thick, corded muscle bulged under plates of black scale that shone with a wet, serpent-like gleam. Its head was a single, gaping maw, a smooth-rimmed hole into nothing. Two blunt, backward-curving horns framed the void where a face should have been.
Its torso was a barrel of power that swelled into a grotesque, hanging gut. The gut itself was a second, wider mouth, a puckered chasm ready to swallow a man whole. Its arms ended in claws built for pinning, not slicing. A thick, forked tail scraped across the ice behind it. Religious armor—a chestplate, tunic, pauldrons—covered parts of it, leaving both mouths fully exposed. In one clawed fist it held the thick chains of a massive, iron-bound censer. The metal sphere was chipped and stained, trailing a faint, cold mist. It wasn't a weapon for skill. It was a weight meant to break anything it hit.
Guard dog, David thought. Big, ugly, and here to make sure the food doesn't leave the bowl.
[Temple Demon, Lvl 19]
David felt a cold, sharp clarity settle over his thoughts. The next few seconds would be simple and terrible. "Weapons ready," he said, his voice lower now. “Aim for the parts that aren't mouths. Don't let it get to second base."
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