No lone beast stood there, but an amalgam---every unpurged corpse given shape.
Beasts, livestock, even humans. Every carcass left behind was dragged into that festering corruption, stitched together by something older and fouler than rot. Keiser had seen this before, back in war, back in Sheol.
Such abominations were born wherever there was carnage left to fester, the stench of blood and mana mingling until the land itself birthed a horror.
No wonder one had appeared here. The princess had scorched scores of beasts to ash, but the others. the ones felled by the outsiders---by men now likely part of that surging mass---still lay scattered, unpurged. And the livestock slaughtered by the rampaging packs only swelled the count.
Now all of them were here, twisted into a single towering mass.
Keiser's face hardened, lips pulling into a grimace. He could still hear the sound of McKenzy's hooves... the distinct clacking of that loyal mount... echoing from within the shifting flesh. The monster was a tangle of limbs, a knot of bone and sinew where no shape held. Hundreds of eyes glared back at him, each pair belonging to something different.
Beasts with slit pupils, animals with round glassy stares, and even the pale eyes of humans.
And then the teeth.
Rows upon rows, layered into maws that opened and closed at every angle, each gnash producing a sound that did not belong to one throat, but to dozens. A growl, a hiss, a scream, a neigh, a bark... every noise of the beings it had consumed spilled from that grotesque choir. The cacophony rattled through the air like the shrieking of a thousand deaths at once.
The stench hit next.
Rot, iron, and bile rolled off the abomination, coating Keiser's tongue with bitterness.
It hadn't wandered here by chance. The beasts that had fed earlier had already slunk away to eat in peace. This thing came because it had smelled something stronger... the sigil carved into the earth at Keiser's feet.
'Offering'
The rune still pulsed faintly, calling, summoning.
And Keiser realized, too late, that he had made it worse. By ripping apart the mage's 'evanescence' sigil, he had undone the concealment. Now the abomination could see... smell... know there's a living prey.
Hundreds of eyes focused. Hundreds of teeth ground together.
The corruption inched forward, each step a wet tearing sound as bodies shifted against bodies.
Keiser's fingers curled tight around the ruined robe. His breath slowed, but his pulse hammered in his ears.
Keiser finally understood.
The beasts that had chased him, crashing headlong into the ward, hadn't been chasing him at all. At first he thought it made sense... he had erased his presence, after all, and those closest to him simply couldn't stop in time, slamming into the barrier before it repelled them. That much he expected.
But the rest? The ones farther back, the ones that should've had space and time to veer away? They hadn't faltered. They hadn't scattered. They had been fleeing.
And not from him.
Keiser's chest tightened as the truth clicked into place. Those creatures were running from the same hulking mass now blotting out the horizon, the same corruption he knew all too well from Sheol.
They weren't predators anymore... they were the prey.
The abomination was hunting them, just as it hunted everything, living or dead, beast or man.
Anything it touched, it consumed. Flesh, fur, bone... it didn't matter.
The thing didn't kill to feed. It absorbed. It added. Every claw, every feather, every tooth of every corpse it swallowed had been layered into that shifting, writhing form.
Keiser's jaw clenched. His breath steamed in the cold air as he stared into the tide of eyes staring back. Hundreds. Every one a witness stolen from something that no longer existed.
They'd had nowhere left to run. And now Keiser was the one standing between that corruption and everything huddled behind the gate.
The villagers. The outsiders. The mercenary. The princess. The vassal.
The monster moved. Every step was a tearing squelch, as if the ground itself was unwilling to hold it. Keiser could already feel the pressure of its hunger rolling across the ward, pressing against his chest.
It would not stop.
It would not be sated.
It would consume everything.
Keiser let go of the mage.
The old man collapsed instantly, crumpling against the dirt like a puppet with its strings cut, whimpering through clenched teeth. He clutched at his chest, where the disruption had torn through the sigil, and blood seeped hot and steady through his fingers.
The once-pristine part of the robe was blackened and torn, charred holes revealing glimpses of blistered flesh beneath. His breath came in ragged gasps, shallow and panicked.
Keiser stepped back slowly, his boots crunching against stone and ash, his gaze never leaving the shadow looming behind the mage.
The mass stirred.
It was not one movement but many... a chorus of broken bodies forced to act as one. The air filled with the grotesque sound of motion.
The patter of feet too light to belong to its bulk, the thunder of hooves stamping over unseen earth, the dragging scrape of limbs that could no longer lift themselves. Every piece of it moved with a different rhythm, a different cadence, yet all bent toward one single direction.
Toward them.
The mage froze. His whimpering fell into silence, his eyes rolling wide as though still refusing to turn and truly see what cast the colossal shadow over him. But the abomination had already noticed.
It shifted.
The cacophony grew louder, closer, a storm of steps, clacks, and dragging nails. The air thickened with rot. A low resonance, like the bellow of a thousand different throats echoing at once, vibrated through.
'Gula.'
The name was almost reverent, almost a curse. The embodiment of hunger, gluttony given form. The corruption that he had seen rise again and again in Sheol when death piled higher than the flames could cleanse.
Here it was, on the threshold of Hinnom.
And he knew… the mage's wound, his trembling frame, the blood pouring freely from him---that was bait enough to drag Gula's countless eyes closer. Far more potent than the sigil the fool had carved into the ground, summoning what he never even grasped the scale of.
A being born of death, a gluttonous amalgamation of every creature it consumed. It was why the knights deployed for the subjugation of Sheol had always burned their dead until nothing but ash remained. To leave a corpse unburnt was to leave a door open for this.
It did not merely feed. It kept.
Every beast, every man, every animal that fell into its maw remained imprisoned within its body... limbs twitching long after their hearts should have stilled, voices croaking nonsense screams as if begging to be released. All of them bound into one monstrous will. A will of hunger.
Its true weakness... the core... was hidden within.
Always hidden.
Always moving.
Keiser remembered the campaigns. He remembered how Gula's kin had forced entire battalions to hack for days, carving away thousands of twitching limbs and broken faces, only to have the core slip deeper, retreating through the mass.
Unlike Arbores, whose ironlike roots guarded a single fixed core, this abomination was alive with motion. To slay it, you had to cut through the nightmare itself while its shifting heart danced out of reach.
And here it was, towering over the shattered gate of Hinnom.
Keiser grimaced, sweat slick on his temple. His body was a battlefield of pain... the runes scorching his flesh, Muzio's frame straining past its limit.
The only reason he still stood was the sigils burning into him, a crude latticework of stolen strength. And that strength was already fraying, spent on reinforcing the ward that pulsed faintly behind him.
He had no chance.
Not like this. Not with this body.
His hand tightened on his chest, blood dripping freely from his knuckles, eyes burning scarlet as he stared at the abomination.
The monster's many eyes blinked in uneven rhythms, all focusing on the old mage. Teeth chattered, clicked, and gnashed in a chorus of hunger that rattled the air.
Keiser knew the truth, sharp and merciless.
If Gula pressed its full bulk forward, neither his plans, nor Muzio's mana, nor the reinforced ward behind him could save them.
And the old mage knew.
He would not survive this.
The hulking mass loomed just a step away, its chorus of moans and screeches spilling into the old mage's ears, drowning his lungs in terror. Death was at his throat, but he refused to die without leaving a scar.
His shaking hand slid into his robe, pulling free a parchment already etched with runes. With a hiss of breath, he flung it toward Keiser.
Keiser's eyes narrowed.
He recognized the flare instantly.
The parchment ignited midair, swallowing itself in golden fire as the old man's mana burned through it. Keiser cursed under his breath, throwing an arm up over his face.
The sudden light seared across his vision, forcing him a step back as the air around them cracked with heat.
Behind him, the abomination screamed.
The sound was like a thousand throats tearing open at once... human shrieks interwoven with the screeches of birds, the roars of beasts, the braying of livestock, the chattering of teeth. A cacophony that battered the ears like a warhorn blown too close to the skull.
Keiser staggered under the weight of the noise, his senses reeling.
He didn't notice the mage move until it was too late.
The old man lunged, robes dragging across the dirt, one charred hand clawing up Keiser's tunic. His other hand slapped another parchment squarely against Keiser's chest.
Keiser gasped as the parchment burned on contact, the sigils crawling like fire across his ribs. His hands shot to tear it off... but the magic was already sinking into his already seared skin.
And in that moment, he met the mage's eyes.
The man's face was twisted in triumph, lips peeled back into a cracked grin, blood streaking his teeth. Madness glittered there, sharp and bright, as he whispered through the mayhem...
"Etch this moment deep, whelp. Our reckoning's in hell."