*Day 28 - The Confrontation*
Vorgoth stood before Ora, his form shifting like smoke made of screams.
"You think you understand power?" His voice layered with echoes of the dead. "Watch."
He reached into his chest, fingers passing through flesh like water. When he withdrew his hand, spectral threads followed, each one a soul worn like a ring on his fingers.
"The elven bladedancer." He pressed the first thread to his shoulder. The soul SCREAMED as it merged, and suddenly Vorgoth's movements became fluid, graceful, wrong on his massive frame. "Three hundred years of technique, mine in an instant."
"The dwarven berserker." Another thread, this time to his heart. His muscles bulged, veins blackening with stolen rage. "Their fury without their conscience."
"The dragon youngling." This thread fought hardest, burning white-hot. Vorgoth forced it into his throat. When he spoke again, smoke and sparks accompanied each word. "Fire without fear."
Three souls grafted. Three warriors' lifetimes stolen. The spectral overlays writhed on his body - an elf's grace, a dwarf's rage, a dragon's flame, all wrong, all wrong, all WRONG on the Ghul'rok's form.
"But here's the secret," Vorgoth said, his tri-layered voice making reality flinch. "The souls remember their deaths. And now..."
He moved.
Elven grace carrying dwarven strength powered by dragon fire. His blade - no, the elf's remembered blade-form - carved through air that burned from the dragon's breath while the dwarf's rage made every strike a killing blow.
Ora barely survived the first exchange.
"Feel it?" Vorgoth asked, souls screaming through his laugh. "Three warriors died to give me this moment. Their everything became my anything."
But Ora saw what he didn't - or wouldn't. The souls weren't cooperating. The elf tried to dodge while the dwarf tried to charge. The dragon wanted to fly but the body couldn't. They fought each other as much as they fought her.
"The problem with stealing souls," Ora said, corruption flaring, "is they remember who killed them."
She spoke a name. Not Vorgoth's name. The elf's name.
"Silviana Moonwhisper."
The grafted elf-soul SHRIEKED. Turned inward. Started clawing at Vorgoth from inside.
"Grimjaw Ironfoot."
The dwarf soul joined the rebellion.
"Pyraxis the Young."
The dragon soul erupted in internal fire.
Vorgoth's composite form convulsed. Three souls fighting to escape. Three deaths being relived. Three warriors seeking vengeance on their killer from within.
He ripped the grafts free, spectral threads snapping like broken violin strings. The souls dispersed, fleeing back to whatever hell held them.
"Clever," he admitted, reverting to his base form. "But I have millions more."
"And they all remember dying," Ora replied. "That's your weakness. You're not wielding power - you're wearing your victims. And victims always remember."
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*End Chapter 19.10*
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