Three years Later.
In the belly of a forgotten god, time had no meaning. For the city of Limbo, festering on the surface, three years was an eternity of decay. The perpetual twilight had deepened, the bruise-purple sky now streaked with sickly, phosphorescent green. The heat was a baker's oven, blasting from the cracked streets and leaching the last drops of moisture from the air, from the soil, from the soul.
Bodies were not an uncommon sight in Limbo, but now they were a topography. They lay where they fell in the dust-choked streets, curled in doorways, slumped against walls that wept a black, tarry substance. A low, constant chorus of groans underpinned the city's soundscape—not of pain from wounds, but the deep, cellular agony of thirst. A man with cracked lips and sunken eyes clawed at the hot ground, his fingers bleeding, as if he could dig down to water. Another simply rocked back and forth, whispering the names of people long dead or long gone.
It was into this fresco of despair that a new sound introduced itself.
First, it was a distant, rhythmic *clop… clop… clop*. It was a sound so alien, so out of place, that it cut through the moans and the distant, ever-present screams. It was the sound of iron-shod hooves on hard-baked earth, measured, deliberate, and heavy.
All eyes that still possessed the strength to focus turned towards the sound, drawn by a primal curiosity that momentarily overrode their suffering.
From the haze of heat and dust at the end of the main thoroughfare, a shape emerged. A horse. But not the scrawny, mutated things that sometimes scavenged the outskirts. This was a monster of muscle and midnight, a Shire horse whose coat was the colour of a starless sky. It was built for war, its neck thick and arched, its hooves the size of dinner plates, each step kicking up a small plume of dust. It was aggressive, its eyes rolling to show the whites, snorting plumes of vapour in the hot air.
But the horse was merely the pedestal.
The rider was a sculpture of shadow and wrath. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his frame filling out a long, black leather duster that flowed down the horse's flanks. Beneath it, a blood-red shirt was open at the collar, a stark, violent slash of colour against the monochrome dread. His hair was long and black as pitch, flowing from beneath a wide-brimmed black hat. On his face, a pair of spectacles with lenses the colour of fresh blood hid his eyes.
The weaponry he carried was as unique as he was. Stowed in a saddle scabbard was a lever-action rifle, its stock and barrel carved from the same obsidian material, etched with the same faint, golden skull motifs. On his hip, riding in a low-slung, tied-down holster, was a revolver unlike any seen in Limbo. It was a Chiappa Rhino, its design brutally functional and futuristic. The barrel was aligned with the bottom chamber, not the top, giving it a low, menacing profile. The entire frame was blackened steel, but along the barrel and cylinder, intricate golden engravings of skulls and thorned vines coiled, catching the hellish light. It was a tool of execution, beautifully macabre.
*Clop… clop… clop.*
The horse advanced, its slow, plodding gait a funeral march. The silence that fell was not one of peace, but of suffocating tension. The groans of the dying ceased, as if the very air had been stolen from their lungs. This was not one of the Barons' enforcers. This was something else. Something new.
The rider's head turned slowly, the red lenses of his glasses sweeping over the scene of devastation—the corpses, the dying, the utter hopelessness. His expression was unreadable, a mask of cold stone.
His path took him past a stall, slightly more robust than the others, where a man named Silas was conducting business. Silas was a vulture who had grown fat on carrion. He wore a stained waistcoat over a threadbare shirt, his face slick with sweat and a practiced, greasy smile.
"Water! Fresh, clean water!" Silas bellowed, his voice a jarring trumpet in the silence. "A single coin ends your thirst! A single coin grants you another day! Don't let the dust claim you!" His eyes fell on the rider, a potential customer of unimaginable means. "You, sir! A man of discernment! You look parched. A cup of Silas's finest? It will restore your soul!"
The black Shire horse halted of its own accord before the stall. The rider looked down at Silas, the red lenses seeming to absorb the man's very essence. After a long, tense moment, the rider dismounted. He was even taller on the ground, his presence dominating the space. He moved to the stall with a predator's grace.
"A demonstration, for a valued customer," Silas simpered, pouring water from a ceramic jug into a tin cup. The water looked clear.
The rider reached out with his left hand and took the cup. As he did, a collective, sharp intake of breath came from the few onlookers who were close enough to see. His right hand, which had been resting on the stall, was gloved in black. But it wasn't leather. It was his skin, or what passed for it—a deep, void-like blackness, like polished obsidian, that started at his fingertips and traveled up under the sleeve of his coat and red shirt. It was the hand of a statue, or a demon.
He lifted the cup, and for a moment, the only sound was the faint clink of the tin against the unnatural material of his fingers. He took a slow sip, then another. He placed the empty cup back on the counter with a definitive *clink* that echoed like a bell in the silence.
"So? The best in Limbo, yes?" Silas pressed, his smile straining. "Who do I have the pleasure of addressing, sir? What name do you go by?"
The rider was silent for so long that Silas began to fidget, the silence a physical weight. When he finally spoke, his voice was a low, resonant baritone, weathered by winds that had never blown through Limbo. It was a voice that held no warmth, only a flat, chilling finality.
"Max."
The name meant nothing to Silas. But it hung in the air, simple and sharp.
Just then, a commotion. A woman, her clothes hanging in rags, her face gaunt, stumbled towards the stall, clutching a listless child to her breast. The child's eyes were half-closed, its breathing shallow.
"Please!" she begged, her voice a dry rasp. "Please, just a drop for my baby! He's dying! I have no coin, but I… I can work, I can clean for you…"
Silas's face transformed from unctuous salesman to snarling predator. "No coin, no water! The rules are the rules! Now get your stink away from my business!" He shoved her hard, sending her sprawling into the dust. He spat a wad of phlegm that landed near her head. "Filth."
Max's head turned, the red lenses fixing on Silas. He made no sudden movement, but the air crackled. He slowly pushed the empty cup across the counter towards the mother and child. The sound it made was like a stone dropping into a still pond.
Then, he stood. The motion was abrupt, a mountain deciding to move. He walked over to the woman and, with a surprising gentleness, helped her to her feet. His black hand, a thing of nightmare, was careful, almost tender, as he brushed the dust from her arm. He guided her to the cup.
He then turned back to Silas. The red lenses seemed to glow from within.
"Where did you get the water, Silas?" Max's voice was calm, conversational, which made it all the more terrifying.
"What? I… I have my sources. A clean aquifer. Deep underground."
"No." Max's head tilted a fraction. "You get it from the old filtration plant in the Rust-Ward. The one that was overrun by Scab-Hounds two years ago. The main pipe was fractured, seeping waste from the Glimmer-Dumps directly into the reservoir."
He took a step closer, his voice dropping, becoming a lecture, a clinical dissection. "The water you sell is tinted. Ever so slightly. A faint, yellowish hue. You try to hide it with charcoal filtration, but it's there. You see, the chemicals from the dumps, when they interact with the particular minerals in our soil, create a compound I call 'Ash-Fever.' The symptoms are lethargy, organ failure, the slow shutting down of the body. It doesn't kill quickly. It mimics death by thirst. A perfect, cruel irony."
Max pointed a black finger at the groaning, dying people in the street. "You're not selling them life, Silas. You're selling them a prettily packaged poison. You're not a businessman. You're a mortician who takes payment in advance."
Silas's face went through a series of transformations: shock, fear, and finally, a blustering, cornered rage. "So what?!" he screamed, spittle flying from his lips. "They know! They all know it's bad! But what choice do they have? It's this or the dust! I'm giving them a chance! ,Giving me a chance, A fighting chance to gather enough coins to get on the damn boat and leave this shithole! You think you're the first to figure it out? You think you're some kind of savior? You're just another fool who doesn't understand how this city works!"
His rant was cut off as Max's obsidian hand rose, not pointing at Silas, but past him, to a large, sealed barrel tucked away in the darkest corner of the stall.
"What is in that barrel, Silas?"
Silas paled. "N-nothing. Supplies. My personal stores."
"It's a different make from the others. The wood is darker, sealed with wax." Max took another step. "You hide the clean water for yourself. The water you haul, at great personal risk, You drink that. You sell them the poison."
This was the final, undeniable truth. The last thread of Silas's composure snapped. "Enough! Get out! Get out before I set my dogs on you!" He jerked his head towards the interior of his stall.
Two large, brutish men emerged from the shadows. They were typical Limbo enforcers—scarred, muscled, and stupid.
The first one cracked his knuckles. "You heard the man. Time to leave."
Max didn't move. He didn't even look at them. His gaze remained fixed on Silas.
The second one, emboldened, reached out to grab Max's shoulder. "I said, get mov—"
The word died in his throat.
Max's right hand, the black one, moved in a blur. It wasn't a punch; it was a piston strike. He drove his fist forward, and it connected with the man's face. There was no crunch of bone. There was a wet, explosive *POP*. The man's head ceased to exist. It vanished in a cloud of red mist and fragmented skull. The headless body stood for a moment, then crumpled to the ground.
The silence was absolute, broken only by the drip of matter hitting the stall's counter.
The second man stared, his brain refusing to process what he had seen. With a strangled cry, he went for the knife at his belt.
He never cleared the sheath.
Max's draw was a thing of impossible physics. The Chiappa Rhino was in his left hand, leveled, and fired before the eye could register the movement. The report was a deafening, concussive *CRACK* that shattered the silence of the street. The bullet took the second man square in the face, with the same catastrophic, exploding effect as the punch.
Without a moment's pause, Max swiveled, the revolver barking a second time. The bullet tore through the flimsy wood of the stall. From inside, there was a scream of agony as Silas, who had been reaching for a sawed-off shotgun leaning against the wall, was thrown back, his right leg disintegrating below the knee into a ruin of flesh and splintered bone.
Max stood amidst the carnage, smoke curling from the Rhino's barrel. He executed a fluid, practiced motion, spinning the revolver on his finger before sliding it perfectly back into its holster. It was a move from a thousand Westerns, performed here in the heart of hell.
He walked slowly around the stall, stepping over the headless corpse, and entered. Silas was writhing on the floor, clutching the bloody stump of his leg, his screams high-pitched and pathetic.
"Please! No! Don't kill me!"
Max ignored him. He walked to the sealed barrel, placed his black hand on the lid, and crushed the lock. He peered inside. The water within was crystal clear.
"You hid the cure," Max said, his voice still that terrifying calm. "You hoarded life while selling death. You told yourself it was the city, that anyone would do the same."
"It's true!" Silas wailed, tears and snot mingling on his face. He fumbled at his belt, pulling a heavy pouch. He thrust it up at Max. "Here! Take it! All my coins! It's everything! More than you'll ever see! Just let me live!"
Max looked at the pouch, then at Silas's desperate, pleading face. He slowly reached down, but instead of taking the pouch, he kicked it from Silas's grasp. It flew through the air, the drawstring coming loose, and a shower of gold coins—the sacred currency of escape—rained down, glittering, onto the filthy street.
"No," Max said, the word final. "Nothing can save you now. Not even these coins can buy you mercy at my hands."
He loomed over Silas, a colossus of judgment. "This is my judgement."
He raised his boot, a heavy, dust-covered thing, and brought it down. Not with a frenzied rage, but with a slow, inexorable, crushing force. There was a sickening, wet crunch that silenced Silas's pleas forever. Max held his foot there for a moment, then lifted it, his boot sole stained red.
He walked out of the stall, past the stunned, terrified, and now hopeful faces of the crowd. He mounted his black Shire horse in one smooth, powerful motion. As soon as he was in the saddle, the spell broke. The survivors, driven by a primal need, surged forward, not towards Max, but towards the stall, scrambling for the spilled coins and clawing at the barrel of clean water.
Max turned his horse, the red lenses of his glasses taking in the scene one last time. As he did, a memory, sharp and clear, pierced the cold armor of his being.
*He was waking up, not in the river, but on the cold stone floor of the titan's prison. He gasped, drawing breath into new lungs. He looked down at his hands. They were the hands of a man—strong, corded with muscle, the right one now a seamless, living obsidian from the fingertips all the way up past the wrist. He touched his face, feeling the sharp line of a jaw he didn't recognize, the handsome, hardened features. He was himself, but more. Reforged.*
*He looked up at the chained god, the source of the angelic voice. The runes on the chains pulsed with a slow, weary light.*
*"The vessel is prepared," the voice echoed in the cavern, not just in his ears, but in his soul. "The power is bound to your will. Your purpose is your own, yet it serves my own."*
*Max, whole and new, felt a cold fire ignite in his chest. A purpose. A singular, burning star in the darkness of his past.*
The entity's final words were not a question, but a declaration, a whisper that set the very foundations of reality shaking.*
"Shall we begin?"
Back in the present, Max's lips tightened into a thin, hard line beneath the red lenses. He nudged the flanks of the great black horse.
*Clop… clop… clop.*
The sound began again, fading into the haze.