This time when he climbed, he was braced for whatever came next. When he reached the landing he found another door—but, this one was locked. He didn’t hesitate, he was done with this place. With a raised leg, he kicked right through it. The wood exploded, splintering and shattering into the room beyond.
Before the debris had even settled, more skeletons emerged from the dust—shambling through the shattered remnants of the barricade. Some had jagged splinters of wood still embedded in their skulls and ribs, jutting out of them. Bits of their rotting armor clattered with each uneven step. But one thing stood out above the rest: there were more of them this time. A lot more.
Jace gritted his teeth, bracing himself as they swarmed. He fought like a man possessed, his new warhammer crashing down like divine judgment. One skeleton lunged—Jace sidestepped and slammed the hammer sideways, sending it flying into a half-collapsed bookshelf that crumbled under the force. Another tried to flank him, but he spun, driving the head of the hammer straight through its ribcage with a satisfying crunch.
When the final skeleton collapsed into a heap of bone and rusted steel, Jace took a shaky breath and pulled up his soul count. Back to 40.
He pulled the egg from his pack again, its surface cool and faintly pulsing. For a moment, he hesitated—part of him wanting to hoard the fragments, to feed his Soulreaver Core and push it closer to whatever evolution awaited. But another part, the louder part, cared more about seeing the egg hatch. About not being alone down here.
"Alright, little guy," he muttered.
With a steady breath, he channeled 20 more soul fragments into the egg. The veins along its shell flared with an eerie green brilliance, glowing like molten cracks in stone… then dimmed once more. Still no change.
He sighed, brushing a thumb across the surface. “Well… at least I’m keeping you well-fed.”
As the last of the soul energy faded into the egg, a cold shiver crawled up Jace’s spine. The air around him thickened—like pressure building in a storm just before the lightning strikes.
Then, from nowhere and everywhere at once, a voice slipped into his mind. Smooth, patient, and polite… but with something ancient coiled beneath each word.
“Dearest Paragon… might I suggest restraint?”
Jace froze, breath catching.
“Your power is finite. Best not to squander it on things that will not serve you when the deeper dark comes calling.”
The words weren’t cruel. Hell, they weren’t even unkind. But they echoed with an ominous finality—and the cold certainty of something that had watched countless others waste themselves in futility.
Jace’s mouth opened before he even realized it. “Wait—who the hell are you?” he asked aloud, but his voice was hoarse, half-choked by something deeper.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was expectant.
A part of him—a small, traitorous part—considered it. What if it was right? He was down here bleeding, breaking, feeding a damn egg that might not even hatch.
But then he shook his head. “No. Not yours. Not today.”
Nothing answered.
The presence was gone. No whisper. No chill. Not even a ripple in the stale, heavy air.
It was like the voice had never been there at all.
Except… it had. He could still feel the weight of the words lingering in his chest—like they’d sunk their claws into something deep, something vital.
Jace clenched his jaw, his gaze falling back to the egg in his hands. “Yeah, well… maybe I don’t like being told what to do,” he muttered.
But even he didn’t believe the defiance in his voice—not really. It sounded more like bravado whispered to the dark, just loud enough to keep his nerves from unraveling.
Stashing the egg carefully back into his pack, he rose and climbed the next set of stairs. “Great,” he muttered under his breath. “Now I’m hearing voices while tower-climbing and dungeon-delving. Next thing I know, I’ll be arguing with the floor tiles.”
Jace stepped cautiously into the next room, and for once, he didn’t feel like he had to brace himself for immediate agony. Compared to the twisted horror of the torture chamber below, this space was... tame.
Dull stone floors stretched out beneath a series of toppled bookshelves and shattered tables, their broken legs jutting like bones. Burnt parchment and crumbled glass littered the floor, remnants of what may have once been a study or preparation hall. The air smelled of old ash and mildew, the scent clinging to the back of his throat.
He checked every corner, overturned every piece of debris, but came up empty. No loot. No salvage. Just ruined furniture and time-worn rot. This wasn’t a treasure room—this had been a staging area, maybe a storage or transition chamber for whoever ran the floor below. Whatever had value had likely been looted or destroyed long before his arrival.
“Figures,” he muttered, brushing soot from his gloves.
His eyes found the next staircase tucked into the far wall, partially concealed behind the frame of a collapsed shelving unit. With a soft sigh, he pressed forward, boots echoing against stone as he began his ascent toward the next floor.
The cold stone was slick with condensation and streaked in an eerie sheen of dust and grime. As he neared the top, a faint green miasma bled through the cracks in the next floor, swirling and writhing like a stormcloud trapped indoors.
It was thick. Wrong. Like something alive and waiting.
At the top, another heavy door stood like a silent sentinel, warding off whatever horror waited beyond. Jace exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing.
“Can’t wait to meet the architect of this nightmare,” he said, gripping his mace tighter. “Hope they enjoy dental work delivered via blunt force.”
Jace took a deep breath, gripping the shaft of his warhammer. Everything about this moment screamed that the boss fight was just around the corner. The creepy vibe, the ominous miasma, the only thing missing was the epic battle music.
He took a deep breath centering himself and shoved the door open, stepping forward, weapon raised. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
The door creaked open with a groan, the heavy wood scraping against the stone as it revealed the room beyond. A dark, heavy gloom clung to the air like fog, thick and suffocating—but not untouched by color.
Glass bottles lined the far walls, crammed onto crooked shelves and half-buried in collapsed tables. They glowed softly—green, blue, violet, and sickly yellow—casting eerie reflections across the stone floor. It was a sudden splash of vivid color in a place that had been nothing but bone-white decay and shadowed gray. The brightness didn’t comfort him. It made his eyes ache. Like a corpse vomiting rainbows.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
He stepped cautiously inside, scanning the chamber. A lingering, acrid scent hung in the air—pungent herbs, spoiled reagents, maybe even something metallic like dried blood. The walls were cracked and stained, but it wasn’t a battlefield like the floors below. No scattered weapons. No shattered armor. Just strange instruments, melted candles, and broken vials.
But at the center of the room…
His eyes locked onto it—a hulking, formless mass, slumped and silent. Disgusting. That was the only word his brain offered. It didn’t belong. Not in this room. Not anywhere.
Jace squinted, trying to piece together what it even was. Flesh? Bone? Fabric? It almost looked like a cocoon made of stitched corpses, pulsing faintly beneath the torchlight.
“Yup,” he muttered, raising an eyebrow. “Definitely the boss fight.”
The moment the words left his lips, the mass twitched.
He froze.
“…Of course it did.”
The mass began to shift. Slowly at first—a ripple beneath the flesh, like something waking up beneath a filthy bedsheet. Then, with a sickening squelch, it rose.
Twelve limbs unfurled from its sides—too long, too slick, bending in ways that defied logic. Legs followed, jagged and uneven, sprouting like twisted branches from the bulging mass of its torso. Joints popped and cracked as it heaved itself upright, towering in the center of the room.
It had no clothing, no attempt at modesty or armor. It didn’t need any.
Its body was a grotesque canvas of rot. Patches of mismatched skin stretched taut over bulging meat. Some spots sagged like melted wax, while others were puckered and swollen with a greenish hue. The whole thing throbbed slightly, as if breathing—or digesting.
And it didn’t stop at limbs.
Eyes blinked from places no eyes should be—set into elbows, nestled in the curves of fingers, sprouting across the thing’s belly like tumors. Where there weren’t eyes, there were mouths. Gaping, toothless, jagged. Some whimpered. Others moaned. One near its collarbone whispered incoherently, repeating some forgotten prayer or maybe just the echoes of its victims’ dying gasps.
It was a creature made entirely of corpses—stitched and fused with vile intent. But not a single bone could be seen. The flesh had swallowed them whole, sealed them beneath layers of sick decay.
Jace’s stomach turned. His grip tightened on his weapon.
“That’s not a boss,” he muttered, voice hollow. “That’s a fucking walking violation of nature’s warranty.”
The creature's central body twitched, and one of the many mouths smiled. All of its many eyes focused on him.
He quickly cast Analyze.
Corrupted Soulbound Horror
Twisted Creation of Alchemical and Necromantic Sin.
Level: Unknown
Weaknesses: Unknown
Strengths: Unknown
Warning…
Severe Signs of Corruption Detected…
Jace stared at the abomination before him, his stomach churning at the sheer wrongness of it. The way it twitched—no, breathed—was all kinds of unnatural. Veins pulsed where they shouldn’t, mouths gaped from knuckles, and twitching eyes blinked along its torso like some deranged parody of life.
“What is with all this corruption bullshit?” he muttered, half to himself, half to the dungeon.
The Corrupted Soulbound Horror loomed in the gloom, and a chill crept down Jace’s spine, anchoring in his bones like ice.
Before he could react, the Horror reached into its own mass, wrenched out a thick shard of bone, and hurled it at him with terrifying speed. Jace barely dodged, rolling to the side as the bone spear shattered the stone floor where he’d been standing a second before. Dust and debris flew up in a choking cloud.
Jace clenched his warhammer and charged, hoping to close the distance before the creature could hurl another ranged attack. But before he could get close, the Horror reared back and let out a soul-piercing, mournful wail.
Debuff Inflicted: [Wailing Requiem]
Effect: Disoriented – Movement and coordination impaired for 5 seconds.
A haunting cry rattles your mind, severing focus and balance.
A sound of a thousand screaming voices tore into his skull. His vision swam, and his body wavered as if he were suddenly weightless. He barely had time to process the disorientation before another bone spear slammed into him, sending him flying. His back hit something hard—a wooden table—before he crashed to the ground, knocking over vials and alembics that shattered on impact. A strong chemical stench filled the air.
Pain flared through his ribs, but he pushed himself up, blinking through the haze. He glanced around, hisnhead foggy. The shattered glass, broken equipment, and overturned shelves told him this had once been a place of study. Now, it was just another ruin.
The Horror advanced, its many limbs skittering and twitching like something out of a horror movie. Jace gritted his teeth and raised his hand, channeling dark energy. “Death Bolt!”
The black-green projectile tore through the air and struck one of the Horror’s many screaming faces with a sickening splatter. The skull jerked back—but the rest of its grotesque mass didn’t even flinch, as if pain was a concept it had long forgotten.
Jace had just enough time to register his attack's lack of impact before one of the creature’s massive, decayed hands came down. He dodged at the last second, rolling to the side as the table behind him exploded into splinters and shards of broken glass. A strange sizzling noise filled the air, and Jace glanced back. The Horror’s hand, the one that had smashed through the vials, had begun to visibly deteriorate from whatever concoctions it had gotten all over its putrid flesh.
A slow grin spread across Jace’s face. “Looks like you need a tonic.”
He grabbed the nearest unbroken vial and, with a flick of his wrist, hurled it at the Horror. The glass shattered against another skull embedded in its body. The face inside screamed as the liquid seeped in, burning through the rotten flesh and bone.
Jace stumbled as another wave of disorientation hit him.
“Damn it.” The thing’s howls were messing with his balance.
The Horror, now furious, lashed out with two of its jagged limbs. Jace dodged the first, but the second limb smashed into his side, sending him tumbling into another table. The impact knocked over another set of vials.
His fingers curled around the cool glass of another bottle. If one had worked…
He didn’t hesitate. He grabbed everything he could reach and started throwing vials like a madman. The first one caused a section of the Horror’s ribcage to blacken and crack. The second sent tendrils of corrosive energy rippling through its limbs. The third burst into flames upon impact, setting part of the monster ablaze.
The Horror staggered back, its body writhing in agony as it twitched and every mouth screamed in pain.
Jace grinned, taking the opportunity to pour more mana into his next spell. He focused, channeling twice the normal amount into his next attack. His head pounded from the mana use m, but he had to do something. “Death Bolt - Overcharged!”
The bolt of energy launched from his hand, slamming into the Horror’s chest with explosive force. The black crystal at its core shuddered, cracks forming along its surface. The monster stumbled, its many limbs flailing wildly as it tried to regain balance.
Jace didn’t let up, even though the mana debuff felt like it was ripping his brain apart, synapse by synapse. He sprinted forward, his bone warhammer swinging in a brutal arc. The first strike cracked through layers of rotting flesh. The second shattered a fused limb. The third caved in the screaming skull of a tormented soul.
The Horror roared in pain, its screech a mixture of a hundred dying voices. Jace didn’t care. He let loose, his mace a whirlwind of destruction. With each crushing blow, the abomination’s massive form collapsed further. Bones cracked, flesh tore, and the glowing veins of necrotic energy flickered.
The creature tried one last, desperate attack—its remaining arm lunging at him with razor-sharp fingers. Jace ducked, spun, and brought his warhammer down directly onto the pulsing black crystal at its core.
The Horror shifted just slightly, and Jace's downward arc missed the core by mere inches. It let out a wet, guttural cackle as a slick limb whipped up and coiled around his throat, yanking him into the air with brutal force.
The pressure tightened with each passing second. Another limb wrapped around his arms. Then his legs. Then more. Dozens. Tangled cords of grotesque muscle and flesh constricting tighter and tighter until he couldn’t even twitch. He was being mummified in writhing tendrils of rotted sinew.
And then, the pulling began.
Each limb yanked in a different direction, slow and deliberate. Pain erupted through every nerve in his body. His joints screamed. Muscles tore. Bones popped. It felt like his entire being was unraveling, stretched to the edge of existence.
Then he heard it—a voice, not the melodic one from before, but the same source, now low and looming.
"Offer your souls, vessel. Or you will be torn apart."
Jace tried to resist, tried to scream his defiance, but he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. The pain intensified until even his vision began to go dark.
"You will die here," the voice growled. "Choose! Now!"
His body refused to obey. His mind flailed, drowning in agony. Tears streamed down his face as his consciousness began to flicker.
"F-Fine!" he gasped mentally. "Take them!"
In that instant, his Soulreaver Core surged. The familiar warmth bloomed in his chest—then spasmed violently.
Error!
Core Overload Detected!
Warning: Soulreaver Core Containment Stability Breached...
Will Jace's desperate choice save him—or has he unleashed something far darker than the horror before him? With his Soulreaver Core destabilizing and the corruption tightening its grip, can he survive the overwhelming odds?
Cue dramatic wind, three camera zooms, and a single skeleton clapping slowly in the distance.
What do you think is going to happen to Jace?!?!
