The Flesh Golem thundered forward, each step making the cavern quake as if the earth itself recoiled from its presence. Vel's sockets flared, pale inferno casting cruel shadows along the jagged walls. The second reckoning had begun.
The monster lunged, and the cavern floor splintered under its colossal stride. Its arm, a bundle of fused torsos and tendons, swung down like a hammer meant to crush worlds. Vel leapt aside, his skeletal frame twisting with agility unnatural to mortals. The impact cratered stone where he had stood, shards flying like knives.
He retaliated instantly. His claws, sharp bone hardened by endless battles, slashed into the Golem's stitched thigh. Flesh tore, black ichor spurting, yet the giant barely staggered. The wound closed as necrotic sinews snapped taut, pulling the grotesque patchwork whole again.
Vel snarled without voice, sockets blazing brighter. He darted in, hacking again and again, each strike deliberate. But the Golem's body was a fortress of stolen parts, stitched and reinforced, too vast to bleed properly, too unnatural to care. Each cut was like carving stone with a splintered knife.
The Golem swung its massive arm backhanded. Vel ducked beneath, but the air displacement alone sent him sprawling. He rolled, shards of broken bone scattering from his ribs as fractures deepened. He rose instantly—no fatigue, no weakness, only damage accumulating. Yet the sight of his own cracks reminded him: he could break too.
The Golem bellowed with its many mouths, the sound deafening. The voices of dozens screamed through it: a chorus of agony, despair, and hatred, echoing from its patchwork chest. Vel's skull rattled with the vibrations, sockets flickering from the oppressive sound. It was not merely a roar—it was memory weaponized. It was the echo of his first death, the echo of human screams that had filled his ears as life slipped away.
The Flesh Golem lunged again, its grotesque hand sweeping like a tidal wave. Vel sprang backward, skeletal claws scraping sparks from stone. He skidded to a halt, raising his arm. Black-green mist burst outward, the sickly fog of Zombie Toxin Release. The noxious fumes engulfed the Golem's chest, seeping into seams, into the mouths that screamed without ceasing.
For a heartbeat, the monster faltered. Its many eyes rolled in confusion. Some of the mouths gagged and choked as the toxin corroded the inner flesh. Vel saw his chance—he surged forward, claws aimed for its exposed flank.
But the Golem was no mindless zombie. It remembered. It adapted. With unnatural speed for its bulk, it twisted, one massive leg slamming into Vel mid-charge. The skeletal warrior was hurled across the cavern, smashing through a pillar of stone. His ribcage cracked, splinters scattering. His skull slammed hard enough against the floor to fracture. He staggered, sockets flickering weakly, his form shaking.
The Golem lumbered closer, necrotic glow pulsing from within its chest. Its stitched fingers spread wide, each as thick as Vel's entire body, ready to crush him into shards.
For the first time since his rebirth, Vel felt the true weight of mortality again. If his skull shattered—if his core extinguished—there would be no second return.
He forced his sockets to flare bright, to cast aside the fear clawing through him. Memories surged—the last battle against such a thing, where his flesh had failed, where his blood had painted the ground. Rage burned through his hollow form, mingling with discipline buried deep in memory.
Imperial Swordsmanship.
The drills. The precision. The lessons of battlefield commanders who had taught him that strength without control was nothing but waste. He was not merely a beast. He was not merely a skeleton that clawed and swung wildly. He was Vel, the swordsman.
He rose, body rattling. His fractured ribs screamed in splinters. He raised his jagged weapon—the broken sword stump he had not abandoned. His sockets narrowed to icy focus. Each strike from here on would not be wild. Each strike would be perfect.
The Golem swung downward, but Vel moved like shadow. He ducked beneath, stepping inward to its massive arm, slicing once—precisely. His fractured blade found the seam of two stitched torsos, cutting tendons at just the right angle. The massive arm lurched, control faltering.
Vel pivoted, slashing again at the knee joint, striking directly at the stitch's weak point. Flesh parted, and for the first time, the giant staggered.
It roared, dozens of voices blending into a maddened chorus. The cavern trembled as it retaliated with a fist that shook the world. Vel darted aside, his movements narrow, efficient—each step trained from memory of human discipline. He was not faster than the beast. He was smarter. He would dismantle it piece by piece.
The toxin cloud swirled again as Vel exhaled necrotic fumes, his sockets blazing. He wove around the monster, carving slits in the seams of flesh, forcing its regeneration to overwork. Each precise cut left deeper structural damage, each tendril of toxin seeped further into its core.
But the Golem did not fall quietly. Its rage was endless.
It caught him once—its massive hand crashing against Vel's side, smashing him into the wall. Bone shattered along his ribs, his right arm nearly dislocating. His skull cracked deeper, lines spidering dangerously close to collapse. For a moment, his sockets dimmed, the fire of his soul flickering weakly.
The Golem leaned closer, its chest glowing brighter, necrotic energy building. Its many mouths opened wide, whispering in unison:
"…you cannot escape… you died once… you will die again…"
Vel's sockets blazed violently in defiance. "Not again."
With desperate strength, he tore himself free, bones snapping as he forced motion beyond their limits. He darted forward, abandoning defense. He leapt, climbing the beast's chest like a predator, claws digging into flesh. The Golem's many hands swiped at him, tearing chunks of its own body in the process, but Vel climbed higher, toward the pulsing glow in its chest—the necrotic core.
It roared, mouths shrieking in agony as he reached the center. Vel jammed his skeletal hand into the seam, claws sinking deep, ichor spraying. His sockets narrowed, his voice hollow yet sharp with will:
"This is for the man I was."
With brutal force, he ripped.
His claws tore through sinew, through stitched veins, through the binding magic itself. His arm plunged into the monster's chest and grasped the pulsing core—a sphere of writhing necrotic flesh, glowing with imprisoned souls.
The core screamed. The Golem convulsed, all its mouths howling at once, the cavern shaking with the sound. Vel roared silently in return, sockets blazing white-hot as he ripped the core free.
The Flesh Golem collapsed instantly, its massive form trembling, stitches unraveling, mouths falling silent. It fell backward, the impact shaking the earth, a mountain of corpses finally silenced.
Vel landed beside it, the glowing core clutched in his skeletal hand. It writhed, pulsing faintly, but its power was fading. He crushed it without hesitation. The core burst into dust and mist, dispersing into the cavern air.
Silence.
Vel stood amidst the ruin, his frame cracked, his bones fractured and splintered, yet still upright. His sockets burned with a grim, victorious fire. The monster that had once ended him was no more.
The System pulsed violently.
[Flesh Golem Defeated.]+72 Evolution Points. +36 Absorption Points.Assimilation Rate: +9% (Total: 48%).
The surge of power rattled through Vel's marrow, filling the cracks, whispering of new strength. But more than the numbers, more than the points, it was the closure.
The man Vel had been—broken, crushed, and slaughtered by the first Golem—finally found his vengeance through the skeleton Vel had become. It was not justice. It was not forgiveness. It was a brutal karmic reckoning written in bone and ichor.
Vel stood over the corpse, sockets dimming as the fire within him calmed. For the first time since his rebirth, he felt something akin to peace—dark, heavy, but real.
The Flesh Golem was dead.
The past had been answered.
Yet deep within, he knew this was only one design among many. The Lich still walked, still experimented, still created.
And Vel would find him.
He turned, his skeletal form rattling as he stepped deeper into the dark tunnels, leaving behind the ruin of stitched horrors. His sockets burned faintly with grim resolve.
He was not a man avenging his death anymore.
He was the death of everything the Lich had made.