The heat does not stop.
It deepens, like the volcano is breathing with us, dragging us further into its lungs. The tunnels twist downward, smooth and unnatural, almost as though they've been carved not by magma but by something intelligent.
I keep my hand on the blade. It hums, faint but steady, vibrating against my skin like a second heartbeat. My own heart is still too fast, too uneven.
Zane.
No.
I repeat my name in my head like a mantra. I am V. I am V. I am V.
Nazz hisses in the back of my skull, mocking.
"Say it louder. Maybe if you scream it enough, it'll be true."
"I am V," I say again, this time out loud. My voice sounds hollow in the cavern, swallowed by the sound of distant molten rivers.
"You are Zane," Nazz growls, low, satisfied. "And I am proof."
I want to fight him. I want to drown him out, but the further we walk, the less control I feel I have over my own steps. It's as if the volcano itself is pulling us, guiding us.
And then we break through.
The tunnel ends and opens into a vast hollow world beneath the crust.
The air here is different. Not fire-hot but thrumming with energy, glowing faintly with bioluminescent patterns in the walls and ground. Massive pillars rise up like trees, etched with alien sigils that burn faintly blue. The molten rivers have cooled into shining streams of metal, feeding glowing machinery embedded in the ground.
It's alien. And yet, familiar.
I don't have time to question why.
The civilization down here is alive. It's a city of sorts, if a city could be both tribal and futuristic at once. Primitive huts and tents are interwoven with sleek, seamless metal structures. Weapons. living weapons move among the inhabitants, not carried but walking, standing, talking.
And there, in the center of it all
Sage.
My breath catches. She's exactly as I remember her, but her face is streaked with ash and blood. Her hair hangs in her face as she fights in a ring of glowing stone, surrounded by onlookers.
She's not winning.
A taller female weapon stands opposite her, wielding a massive halberd made of the same glimmering material as Killiden. She moves with brutal precision, each strike calculated. Sage tries to block, tries to keep up, but she's too slow.
I grip the blade tighter as Sage is struck across the ribs, sent skidding across the ground. She coughs blood, struggles to stand.
"Stay down," Nazz says, almost amused. "She's weak. We shouldn't care what happens to her."
But my chest burns, not from the heat, but from something else.
Before I can decide whether to step in, Sage is dragged to her feet by two others and pulled toward a tall, spiked structure that glows a cruel red.
A torture post.
I move forward instinctively, but Glae's massive shadow falls over me, blocking my path.
"Do not be hasty," she says coldly. "You do not even know what she is being punished for."
"She's just a girl," I snap.
"She is a weapon," Glae corrects sharply, her voice like cracking ice. "And this is their way."
Nazz laughs, dark and satisfied, coiling inside me.
"She's nothing but a tool. You said it yourself, she ran. She fled from you. Now she gets what she deserves."
"Shut up," I snarl under my breath, but I'm not sure which of them I'm speaking to anymore, him or Glae.
I watch as Sage is tied to the post. Her head droops. She doesn't scream, doesn't plead. Just stands there, trembling, her hands bleeding where the ropes bite into her wrists.
And I hate this world for it.
I hate Nazz.
I hate Glae.
I hate Zane, whoever he-I, am.. for existing.
Because every step I take toward her feels like I'm stepping closer to accepting him.
They tie her tighter.
I can hear the ropes creak over the sound of the molten rivers below us. Sage doesn't fight. She just trembles, her knees nearly buckling, but she stays upright.
The taller weapon who beat her in the ring steps forward again, this time carrying a blade that glows the same dull red as the torture post. It hums, not a weapon meant for killing, but for breaking.
My fingers tighten on the hilt of the Blade of Malfunction until my knuckles ache.
"Do not interfere," Glae's voice booms from behind me. "If she survives, she will be stronger. If she dies, she was never worthy of the forge that made her."
"Stronger?" I spit the word out like ash.
"She is Killiden, not a child. Do not mistake her form for innocence."
Nazz laughs, low and cruel in the back of my head.
"She's nothing but a piece of steel waiting to be bent, or shattered. Don't waste your pity on her."
I can't take my eyes off Sage. The red blade cuts across her arm first, shallow but deliberate, burning instead of bleeding. She flinches but doesn't cry out. The crowd of weapons around the ring begins to chant in some alien tongue, their voices rising with every strike.
Each blow is precise. Ritualistic.
By the third, her breathing is ragged.
By the fifth, her legs give out and they hold her upright just to keep her enduring it.
My chest feels like it's caving in. The heat of the volcano isn't oppressive anymore, this is.
Nazz purrs inside me, enjoying this too much.
"You're shaking, mutt. You want to save her, don't you?"
"Shut up."
"You think she'd thank you? You think she wouldn't just run again the second she sees you?"
"I said shut up!"
"Then do it," Nazz hisses, suddenly sharp, suddenly vicious. "Do it, Zane. Stop pretending you're above this world. Tear them apart. Free her. Admit what you are."
Zane.
The name hits like molten rock. I grip my head, as if I could squeeze the word out of my skull.
I am V.
I am V.
I am
The sound of Sage choking cuts through my thoughts. Her voice is hoarse, but she's muttering something under her breath. Words I can't quite catch, maybe not even words at all.
The red blade is lifted for the final strike.
And something in me breaks.
The blade in my hand ignites fully, obsidian light flooding the chamber and silencing the chanting crowd.
Nazz is laughing, ecstatic, his voice echoing through every corner of my skull.
"Yes. Finally.
I step forward, the heat rising with me, my body thrumming with a strength that doesn't feel entirely mine.
Glae moves to block me again, but I push past her without hesitation.
This time, no one stops me.
The moment the red blade came down toward Sage's chest, I moved.
No thinking. No hesitation. Just movement.
I was on the weapon before anyone even realized I had crossed the ring. The Blade of Malfunction hummed as I swung it through the air, its obsidian glow leaving streaks in my vision.
The first cut was clean, its arm fell to the floor with a hiss as it cauterized instantly. The second strike took both its legs in a single smooth motion. By the time it started to scream, the third strike came down in a perfect diagonal arc, splitting its torso into two twitching halves.
I grabbed Sage by the collar and tossed her toward Glae without a word.
Then something in me cracked.
My body darkened, the glow of my skin shifting into the deep, hungry black of obsidian. My veins thrummed violet. I could feel Nazz, not behind me, not beside me, but around me. In me.
But this time, it was me in control.
I stared down at my arms, flexing my clawed fingers, and I couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't my laugh. It was raspy, deep, guttural. It was his.
"Finally," I muttered, my voice a rasped echo of Nazz's. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?"
The blade answered with a pulse. I raised it high, letting its glow stretch over the circle of weapons surrounding me. Then I willed it no, commanded it, to drain them.
Their kinetic energy ripped into me like lightning. I could feel their strength, their movement, their momentum, all of it pulled from their bodies and flooding into mine.
And then I moved.
I was faster than thought, faster than sight. Even Glae's storm-lit eyes couldn't keep up. I was a streak of obsidian cutting through flesh, through steel, through life itself.
Heads fell.
Bodies collapsed.
The chamber filled with the stench of molten blood.
One weapon remained
I didn't turn in time. Its strike came from behind, sharp enough to knock the blade from my grip and send it skittering across the ground.
The blow barely phased me.
I grabbed the weapon by the skull, feeling its armor crunch under my grip, then slammed a knee into its face so hard I felt its jaw dislocate. Before it even had time to scream, I blurred behind it, wrapped my arm around its throat, and with one violent twist, snapped its neck like brittle wood.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Only one sound broke it: the wet, dragging scrape of the first weapon I'd cut down.
It was still moving.
Still alive.
Desperately trying to crawl toward its severed legs, dragging its torso through its own blood.
Pathetic.
I walked over, crouched down, and pressed the tip of the blade to its head.
Its eyes locked with mine.
There was no fear left there, only a kind of pleading desperation.
I drove the blade through its skull and into the ground, pinning it in place until it stopped twitching.
Pulling the weapon free, I wiped the blood from its edge against the corpse's chest.
Sage was staring at me, wide-eyed, her body trembling, not just from her wounds, but from me.
Even Glae was silent.
The air was heavy, thick with heat and the smell of death.
I stood there, obsidian skin steaming, blade still glowing, chest rising and falling with slow, even breaths.
I didn't feel anger.
I didn't feel regret
I felt whole.
I stood among the carnage, staring down at my hands.
They didn't look like mine. They were jagged obsidian, slick with blood and glowing faintly like volcanic glass catching firelight. My reflection stared back at me from the black shine of my claws.
My voice… wasn't mine either.
"This…" The word came out ragged, like it had been dragged through broken glass. I swallowed, let the sound of the room's silence press against me. "This is power."
I could feel the energy still running through me, pulsing, begging to be released. It was too much. I was too much.
I opened my arms, lifted my head toward the cavern's impossible sky, and let it out.
The ground shuddered as a shockwave erupted from my body, a soundless concussion of force that blasted upward like a spear. When it hit the ceiling, it split into dozens, hundreds, of beams of pure kinetic energy.
They rained down across the battlefield, finding every corpse, every severed limb, every twitching body.
And one by one, I drained them dry.
The bodies shriveled, collapsing into husks, their stolen strength funneling back into me until I could barely stand under the weight of it.
I turned toward Glae, the blade still clutched in my hand, my chest heaving.
Her eyes were wide, the pale-blue glow of her divine form reflecting the crimson hue now radiating from me.
I took one step toward her, then another, then blurred forward, faster than thought.
And then my body gave out.
The world tilted, my legs locking up beneath me, the obsidian glow beginning to peel away from my skin like ash.
Glae moved before I hit the ground, her cold arms catching me with the ease of a goddess.
My head lolled to the side, my breath ragged, steam rising from my shoulders. The blade slid from my hand and clattered to the stone floor.
Everything was too bright. Too quiet.
I could feel Nazz in the back of my head, laughing softly, pleased.
But I couldn't answer him.
Not anymore.
Everything went black.