The cave narrowed as they pressed deeper, stone walls slick with blood and filth. Vel led the way, blade steady but heart unsteady, each step sinking into the clotted film that carpeted the ground. The whispers had dulled, but the silence was worse. It pressed against their skulls like weight, heavy enough to make each breath taste of iron.
Bren's absence was a fresh wound, carved not into flesh but into their souls. His blood was still hot on Vel's armor, black streaks etched by something no fire could burn away. Yet there was no time to mourn. The cave allowed no grieving. It only demanded they march further into its gut.
Maera walked close behind, staff raised, her light flickering as if afraid to exist in this place. Her lips moved in constant mutters, incantations, or perhaps prayers. Vel did not ask which. He didn't want to know.
The tunnel widened. What awaited them was not another chamber of bones, but something worse.
It stood in the center of the cavern: a towering mass of stitched flesh, bound together by rusted hooks and chains hammered into the walls.
The Elder Flesh Golem.
Vel had heard the name whispered by mercenaries drunk on rumor, dismissed as an invention to frighten novices. No sane necromancer would attempt to create such a thing. Yet here it stood—an abomination too real to be anything but madness.
Its body was a patchwork of corpses—men, women, children, beasts—all carved and sewn into a single monstrous frame. Limbs jutted at impossible angles, a dozen arms dangling lifeless until sudden spasms jerked them to life. Faces stretched across its torso, mouths sewn shut with black wire, eyes bulging wide, still wet, still aware.
Its chest heaved with a sound like tearing leather. From its stitched ribs dangled a heart larger than a man's head, exposed and pulsing, arteries twisting outward to connect to the walls like roots.
It was alive.And it was hungry.
Maera choked on a sob. "By the gods…"
The golem stirred. Chains rattled as it pulled itself forward, tearing stone free with each movement. Hooks ripped through its flesh, spilling gore in thick ropes, but it did not slow. Its many arms reached out, trembling with anticipation, as if the souls before it were nothing but meat waiting to be reclaimed.
Vel gritted his teeth. His sword felt small, useless, against something that should not exist. But his body moved regardless, driven by instinct older than fear.
"Stay behind me," he barked.
The golem's first strike was clumsy, but devastating. An arm thick as an oak tree crashed down, stone shattering beneath its weight. Vel rolled aside, shards slicing through his leg, and countered with a slash. His blade carved deep into one of the limbs. Black ichor gushed, spraying hot across his face.
The arm twitched, then kept moving.
Maera raised her staff, light blazing into fire. A torrent of flame engulfed the creature, heat scorching Vel's skin even from where he stood. For a moment, the cavern burned with false daylight. The golem writhed, voices screaming from the sewn faces across its flesh, hundreds of mouths shrieking as the fire devoured them.
But when the flames died, the creature still stood.
Its wounds smoked, but already the flesh was knitting back together, cords of sinew pulling like puppet strings. The sewn mouths laughed—a hideous, collective cackle that echoed against the stone.
"It heals," Maera gasped. "Oh gods, it heals."
Vel struck again, this time at its exposed heart. His blade pierced deep, sinking into pulsing muscle. For a heartbeat, hope surged.
Then the heart split open.
Dozens of tiny, skeletal arms burst from the wound, grasping the blade, clinging to Vel's hand, digging claws into his bones. They pulled, dragging him closer, closer toward the gaping wound that dripped with black ichor.
He wrenched free with a roar, slicing through the skeletal fingers, but not without cost. His arm burned where their claws had touched, skin rotting black in jagged streaks.
The golem bellowed, a sound like the death cry of a thousand corpses. Its chains snapped. It was free.
It lunged.
Vel was thrown aside, his armor crumpling under the force of its bulk. He slammed into the cavern wall, ribs snapping, blood spraying from his mouth. The world spun, ringing with the sound of his bones breaking.
Maera's voice rang out, sharp and desperate. Lightning cracked, bolts lancing from her staff to tear into the abomination's body. Flesh exploded in bursts of charred meat, smoke filling the chamber. The golem staggered, howled, then swept one massive arm through the air.
It caught her full in the chest.
She flew like a ragdoll, spine crunching against the stone. Blood spilled from her mouth in a thick, wet cough. Her staff clattered uselessly across the floor.
Vel forced himself to stand. His ribs screamed, but his legs obeyed. He could not stop. Not now.
He charged, weaving between the creature's arms, blade flashing. He hacked, hewed, severed. Limbs fell, twitching, writhing like worms on the ground. Black blood poured, soaking the cavern in a river of rot.
And still it stood.
The faces sewn into its flesh screamed in unison, their agony filling the cavern with a choir of despair. Vel stumbled, clutching his head, the sound burrowing into his skull like maggots. Visions swam before his eyes—his comrades, flayed and sewn into the monster's body, their voices calling for him, begging for death.
"Kill us, Vel," they wailed. "Please… kill us…"
He roared and struck again, blade finding the heart once more. This time, he drove it deeper, burying the steel to the hilt. Black ichor exploded outward, drenching him, burning his skin, but he did not relent. He twisted the blade, hacking, tearing, rending the heart into shreds.
The golem convulsed. Its limbs thrashed wildly, striking stone, crushing corpses beneath its weight. The sewn faces howled, eyes bursting, mouths ripping open as smoke poured from them.
And then—silence.
The creature sagged, collapsing in on itself. Flesh sloughed away like wax, bones cracking under the weight of its own rotting mass. It fell into a heap, twitching once, then still.
Vel stood above it, drenched in ichor, chest heaving. His sword trembled in his grip, its steel corroded by the abomination's blood.
Behind him, Maera groaned. She was alive, though barely, her body broken, blood dripping freely. Her eyes met his, wide and hollow.
"We're not meant to fight this," she whispered. "This isn't for us. This is—"
Her words cut off.
The corpse twitched.
Vel spun.
The heap of flesh was not dead. It was splitting.
From the ruin of the golem's body rose something worse—a writhing mass of limbs, all teeth and claws, no longer bound by the shape of men or beasts. It screeched, a sound so shrill Vel felt his eardrums tear.
He raised his sword, knowing it would not be enough.
The Lich was not done playing with them.