The reverberating, melodious voice of a woman drifted through the dungeon, catching hold of Rathmur's fading consciousness. It was not a sound born of mortal lungs, but something greater—smooth as silk, yet carrying a weight that made his battered soul tremble.
"Boy… do you seek strength?" The question rang out like a god's decree, its echo rippling through the blood-soaked chamber. The torches flickered as if bowing to the voice, and even the growls of the beasts faltered, their eyes shifting uncertainly in the glow.
Then, softer but no less commanding, the voice returned. "Do you wish to lessen your pain?" The words seeped into his very bones, wrapping around his torment like chains of light and shadow. In the haze of agony, with death pressing at his throat, Rathmur could only gasp—unsure if this was salvation, temptation, or the madness of a dying mind.
He did not know what was happening, nor who this voice belonged to. Was it a spirit? A god? A trick of his dying mind? None of it mattered. The only thing he knew with certainty was that he wanted to answer—he wanted to say yes.
But his jaw was broken, his mouth unable to form words. The pain had shattered him too completely. All he could do was choke on blood, each ragged breath scraping his throat as the unseen presence lingered over him like the weight of the heavens.
Even so, his will did not falter. His body was ruined, torn open and bleeding, but deep in his chest, the desperate answer burned like fire. His eyes flickered weakly, opening and closing, as if to nod—his silent attempt to agree with the godly voice and accept its offer.
In that flicker lay his choice. His cry for strength. His plea to be released from torment. Whether salvation or damnation, Rathmur no longer cared. He had given himself to the voice, and in that moment, his fate was sealed.
As if waiting for his silent answer, the voice spoke again in a godly, reverberating tone—enchanting, commanding, impossible to resist. "Very well."
With a sudden woosh, the air itself split apart. Blades of black wind, sharp as death, materialized from nowhere. They cut through the beasts in an instant, shredding their bodies into nothingness as if they had never existed. The dungeon fell silent but for the echo of their fading howls.
Amid the carnage, Rathmur lay motionless in the gory remains. His body was a ruin of torn flesh and shattered bone, so drenched in crimson it was hard to tell where he ended and the blood-soaked ground began. By all rights, he should already be dead.
And yet—miraculously—he still drew breath. Faint, shallow, weaker with each passing moment. Only the dim sound of his fading heartbeat reverberated in the silence, fragile as a candle flame in the storm.
As if something ominous were about to unfold, the eerie silence broke. Out of the air itself, a massive black heart—an actual organ, pulsing and wet—materialized with a dreadful rhythm.
Thump… thump…
Its beat was deeper, louder, heavier than Rathmur's own faltering heart. The sound reverberated through the dungeon walls, shaking the air with every pulse, as if announcing a power that did not belong to this world.
Slowly, the heart drifted forward, each throb echoing closer and closer until it hovered above his blood-soaked chest. Rathmur could not move, could not even raise a trembling hand. All he could do was stare, powerless.
The enchanting voice returned, its tone both gentle and commanding: "Absorb it." At that command, the black heart dissolved into smoke and sank into him, vanishing into his chest.
Rathmur's eyes widened, but he could do nothing. His body was broken beyond control, his mind consumed by exhaustion. He did not even have the strength to think—only to feel the alien thrum of the black heart joining his own.
The black heart sank into Rathmur's chest, fusing with his dying organ. For a single instant there was silence—then THUMP! A new rhythm burst forth, louder, heavier, more primal. His broken heart and the black heart had become one, hammering as if to defy death itself.
The dungeon trembled as a strange phenomenon erupted. Black fog poured from his wounds, curling around him in thick coils. It spread across the floor before gathering back, enclosing him in a cocoon of darkness that pulsed in rhythm with the monstrous thumping in his chest.
His mind slipped into a trance. He could no longer think—only feel. Moments ago his body had been numb, foreign to him, but now he felt everything. Every limb, every torn muscle, every vein screamed back to life beneath the suffocating embrace of the fog.
Then the true torment began. His battered flesh convulsed, muscles tearing open only to re-knit, bones snapping apart before grinding back together, veins splitting and rejoining in a frenzy of rebirth. His body was being destroyed and remade in the same breath.
"HRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH!"
"HRRRAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH!"
"HRRRAAAAGHHHHHHHHH!"
"HRRAAGHHHHHHHH!"
Each scream tore from his throat like shards of glass, echoing through the dungeon with inhuman intensity. His cries blended with the thunder of the black heart, a symphony of agony and rebirth that made the very walls shudder.
The agony of rebuilding stretched on without end, each heartbeat dragging eternity behind it. His flesh tore and reformed, his bones shattered and healed, over and over in a cycle of torment. Time itself seemed to dissolve within the cocoon, each second stretching longer than the last.
At first, an unknown force kept him awake, dragging him back every time his mind threatened to break. It was as if staying conscious was vital—if he yielded to darkness, if he surrendered, the fusion and rebuilding would collapse. And so he endured, his soul chained to the pain.
But the suffering grew beyond measure, and even chains of will cannot hold forever. At last, Rathmur's consciousness slipped, his eyes falling shut as the void claimed him. Yet the process did not end. The rebuilding continued without him, as though his presence was no longer needed—his body remade by something greater than himself.
The dungeon outside remained silent, thick with blood and shadow. And in that silence, something watched. Unseen, unfathomable, patient, it bore witness to the boy's torment and transformation—an entity whose gaze lingered like a weight, marking the birth of something new.
The pressure in the air thickened, heavy as lead. It was not silence but suffocation, a weight that pressed down from every direction. The walls groaned, as if straining to withstand the force gathered here. And through it all, the black fog pulsed with the rhythm of the fused heart, thump… thump… thump… each beat louder, more commanding, than the last.
Something was watching. Its presence was vast, impossible to name, impossible to locate—yet undeniable. It was as though an eye without form had opened in the darkness, its gaze fixed on Rathmur alone. Every corner of the dungeon seemed to hold its shadow, every flicker of torchlight bent toward its will. It did not move. It did not speak. It only waited, patient as eternity.
How much time passed, none could say. Hours, days, years—all dissolved into the endless fog. And then, at last, the stillness broke.
A faint crack split the cocoon.
Crk—
Another followed, jagged lines spiderwebbing through the swirling black mist. The fog shuddered violently, rippling outward with each thunderous heartbeat, until the dungeon itself seemed to quake.
From within, something stirred.
"This is a bonus chapter for my dear new readers ❤️ Thank you for giving Mortals Rise a chance! I'll be posting daily updates, so don't forget to add this novel to your Library and stay with Rathmur on his journey."