His blood was different now. Heavier. More potent. Alive in ways that should be impossible. Each heartbeat sent waves of power through his body, essence cycling with purpose and intelligence.
Every cell in his body had been transformed. His heart pumped liquid power through veins that had become conduits for forces beyond biology. His muscles moved with precision that transcended mere flesh.
And wrapped around every ability, woven into every technique, integrated into his very existence—
Madness had left its mark.
Don flexed his hand experimentally.
His fingers left faint silver afterimages in the air—trails of Madness following his movements like smoke. The afterimages writhed slightly, as if alive, before dissipating.
He picked up a rat bone from the floor and channeled the smallest possible amount of Madness into it.
The bone turned silver instantly.
Cracked.
Screamed—an impossible sound from dead matter, a wail of something that had never been alive suddenly experiencing the agony of corruption—
Then crumbled to dust that writhed, the particles moving like microscopic insects, trying to reform into something, anything, before finally going still.
Don didn't need the voice to tell him what he'd gained. He could feel it. Madness was no longer something he resisted.
It was something he wielded.
Don opened the wine cellar door and began walking through the castle ruins.
His enhanced senses detected them immediately.
Heartbeats. Thousands of them.
Weak. Terrified. Human.
And among them—Stage 2 signatures. Two hundred of them, all clustered together.
But deeper in the castle, beyond all of that—
Something massive.
Old. Powerful. Ancient.
A heartbeat like thunder. Essence signature like a mountain. Presence that warped reality just by existing.
Uzgoth.
Stage 3-5.
The Devourer King.
But between Don and the Sovereign—
An army.
An offering.
A test.
Don emerged into what had once been the grand courtyard of Valdris Castle.
Two centuries ago, this space had hosted festivals, tournaments, wedding celebrations. Royal knights had trained here. Children had played. The kingdom's heart had beating in this very stone.
Now it was a killing ground.
The courtyard was massive—easily three hundred meters across, surrounded by broken walls and collapsed towers. The ground was ancient cobblestone, cracked and uneven from decades of neglect.
And covering that ground—
One thousand humans.
Chained. Kneeling in organized rows. Broken.
Their clothes were rags. Their bodies showed signs of long captivity—scars, brands, missing fingers or ears. Some were skeletal from starvation. Others were bloated from disease. Many bore the marks of torture—burns, lash marks, broken bones healed wrong.
All of them were conscious.
All of them were staring at Don with varying expressions of hope, fear, and despair.
Standing among them—
Two hundred goblin elites.
Every single one Stage 2-6. Peak Stage 2.
They wore actual armor—not crude goblin craftsmanship, but stolen human equipment properly maintained. Their weapons were quality steel, well-cared-for, sharp. Their postures were disciplined, trained. These were soldiers, not monsters.
[ENEMY DETECTED: MASSIVE FORCE]
[ANALYZING…]
[HUMAN CAPTIVES: 1,047]
[GOBLIN ELITE GUARDS: 203]
[All Elites: STAGE 2-6 (PEAK)]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: EXTREME]
[COMBINED COMBAT POWER: Stage 3-2 equivalent]
One of the elites stepped forward from the formation.
Larger than the others—nearly six feet tall, wearing armor made from human bones intricately carved with death scenes. His face was scarred, one eye milky white from an old wound. A massive war axe rested on his shoulder, the blade notched from countless kills.
[ELITE COMMANDER - GRIMSCAR]
[STAGE 2-6 (PEAK)]
Grimscar's voice carried across the courtyard—speaking in perfect Common, his accent thick but understandable:
"Don Valdruun. The red-haired demon. The Executioner who killed six Generals."
He gestured broadly at the scene before them.
"The Sovereign predicted you would come. He knew you would come. So he prepared this… welcome."
Grimscar's one good eye gleamed with anticipation.
"One thousand humans. Fresh captives from the outer kingdoms. Two hundred of us—the elite, the survivors, the best warriors Uzgoth has bred in two centuries."
He planted his axe in the ground with a CRACK that split the cobblestone.
"You want the throne room? You want to face the Sovereign? Then you go through ALL of them. Every. Single. One."
The goblin's scarred face twisted into a grin that showed filed teeth.
"So, human. What will you—"
Don drew Valdris's Oath.
The blade sang as it left its scabbard—a clear, pure note that rang across the courtyard like a bell tolling for the dead.
Holy Flame ignited along the sword's edge.
But it was different now.
The white fire that should have burned pure and clean was shot through with silver threads. Madness had activated automatically, infusing the holy flames with corruption.
The flames writhed along the blade like living things—white fire twisted with silver lightning, beautiful and wrong, sacred and profane mixed into something that made reality itself flinch away from its existence.
Don's eight Executioner's Edge blades manifested behind him.
Four on each side, spreading like wings of death.
Each one pulsed with the same silver-white fire—holy blades corrupted, sacred steel made profane, execution given form.
He took one step forward.
The courtyard fell silent.
One thousand humans stopped breathing.
Two hundred goblins felt something primal stir in their guts—the instinctive recognition of a predator so far above them that resistance was meaningless.
Don's voice cut through the silence like his blade would cut through flesh:
Cold. Empty. Absolute.
"The Abyss has one law."
His amber-gold and crimson-gold eyes swept across the thousand kneeling humans.
Both eyes glowing with inner light shot through with silver corruption.
"No allies. No mercy. Only survival."
His gaze settled on the humans—on their desperate faces, their pleading eyes, their pathetic hope that maybe, just maybe this warrior had come to save them.
Don's expression didn't change.
"You are hostages. Tools. Leverage designed to slow me down, to make me hesitate, to force me to choose between you and my objective."
He raised Valdris's Oath, the corrupted holy flames casting dancing shadows across the courtyard.
"I choose my objective."
The humans' expressions shattered—hope dying in real-time, replaced by horror and betrayal.
One woman—middle-aged, missing her left hand, branded with goblin marks across her face—screamed:
"YOU MONSTER! WE'RE HUMAN! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SAVE US!"
Don's amber eye tracked to her with mechanical precision.
"I'm not a hero. I'm an executioner. And you're in my way."
He looked back at Grimscar, whose grin had frozen on his face, uncertainty flickering in his one good eye.
"Tell your Sovereign I'm coming. Tell him I'll walk through his army, his elites, his captives—everything he puts between us. Tell him—"
Don's eight blades spread wider, each one igniting with that impossible fusion of holy fire and corruption.
"—that vengeance doesn't negotiate."
[ACTIVATING: CRIMSON DOMAIN]
[COST: 1,000 MANA]
[DURATION: 2 MINUTES BASE]
[MANA: 29,432/30,500]
Reality screamed.
The sky above the courtyard turned blood-red—not metaphorically, but literally, as if the heavens themselves were bleeding. The ancient cobblestones beneath Don's feet darkened, becoming slick with crimson that seeped up from the stone itself like the earth was sweating blood.
The air pressure dropped. Temperature plummeted. The smell of copper and iron became overwhelming, thick enough to taste.
And every wound on every living thing in the courtyard—human and goblin alike—suddenly refused to close. Old scars split open, skin tearing along ancient damage. Barely-healed injuries tore fresh, wounds opening like flowers blooming. Blood began flowing freely from bodies that had been stable seconds ago.
The blood flowing from the thousand humans didn't fall to the ground.
It stopped mid-air.
Floated.
Then moved toward Don like iron filings to a magnet.
"What—" Grimscar's voice cracked. "What is this—"
Don gestured with his free hand.
The blood obeyed.
Twenty liters condensed instantly into a massive greatsword—six feet of solidified crimson, the blade made entirely from human suffering given form. It hovered beside Don, perfectly balanced, edge sharp enough to split atoms.
Another gesture. Thirty liters became a wall of blood spears—hundreds of them, all pointed at the goblin formation, tips gleaming wet.
A third gesture. Fifty liters became animated guardians—humanoid shapes of flowing crimson, seven feet tall, faceless except for gaping mouths.
The humans were screaming now.
Not from pain—though the blood loss was significant—but from the sheer wrongness of watching their life force weaponized against their captors. Some were praying. Others were weeping. A few had simply broken, their minds unable to process what they were witnessing.
One of the goblin elites—younger than Grimscar, wearing lighter armor, wielding twin daggers—stepped forward.
"Commander! This is—this is forbidden magic! No human should be able to—"
Don's amber eye tracked to him.
The goblin's blood stopped moving.
Completely.
His heart tried to beat—failed. His lungs tried to pull air—couldn't expand. His muscles tried to move—frozen solid from the inside.
He toppled forward like a statue, hitting the cobblestones with a meaty THUD. Still alive. Still conscious. Eyes wide with terror, mouth open in a scream that couldn't emerge.
Don walked forward.
His domain moved with him, the thirty-meter radius of blood-red hell following his steps. Everywhere he moved, the sky bled. The ground wept crimson. Reality itself seemed wounded by his presence.
The blood guardians moved in formation around him—four crimson golems that left wet footprints on stone that should be dry.
The two hundred spears hovered above, following like a swarm of deadly rain waiting to fall.
The massive greatsword floated at his right side, its edge impossibly sharp despite being liquid given temporary form.
And Valdris's Oath burned in his left hand, corrupted holy flames casting everything in silver-white light that hurt to look at directly.
Eight Executioner's Edge blades orbited him in a slowly rotating pattern, each one a promise of death.
Don took another step.
The frozen goblin's thirty seconds expired. He gasped, drew breath to scream—
A blood spear took him through the throat before sound could emerge. The spear punched clean through his neck, severing spine and windpipe, and the goblin's head lolled backward at an impossible angle. Blood sprayed in a wide arc, painting three nearby elites crimson.
[+40 XP]
The courtyard erupted.
Grimscar roared orders in the goblin tongue. The two hundred elites moved as one—fifty spreading to flank, fifty charging directly, fifty forming defensive positions around the human captives, fifty preparing ranged attacks.
Disciplined. Coordinated. Professional.
It wouldn't save them.
Don raised his hand toward the first row of humans—twenty captives, all kneeling helplessly within his domain's radius.
Twenty hearts stopped simultaneously.
No pain. No warning. No chance to scream.
They collapsed forward, dead before they understood what had happened.
Their blood—roughly five liters each, one hundred liters total—pooled beneath them for exactly half a second before Don's control seized it.
The blood rose from the corpses like smoke, flowing through the air toward Don's position. But instead of reaching him, it spread outward, forming new weapons mid-flight.
Twenty blood swords materialized. Each one gleaming wet and razor-sharp, condensed to near-solid density.
The swords moved.
Independently. Autonomously. Guided by Don's will but requiring no active concentration.
They fell upon the charging goblins like a crimson storm.
The first elite raised his shield—the blood sword carved through the steel like paper, continued through his arm, bisecting the limb at the elbow. The severed forearm spun through the air, still gripping the shield handle. The sword didn't stop. It punched through his chest plate, punctured his lung, exited through his back in a spray of gore.
[+40 XP]
The goblin staggered, disbelief written across his face. He looked down at the gaping hole in his chest—big enough to fit a fist through—and tried to speak. Only blood came out, pouring from his mouth like a waterfall.
He fell.
But Don had something else woven into the strike.
Silver threads visible in the dying goblin's veins, spreading from the wound like frost across glass. His essence structure being corrupted in real-time.
The goblin beside him—untouched, uninjured—suddenly clutched his head. Fell to his knees. Started screaming.
Not from pain.
From something wrong seeping into his mind just from being near the infected.
His pupils dilated. His breathing accelerated. His hands started trembling.
Then his eyes went completely white.
He screamed—not words, just raw sound—and launched himself at the nearest goblin. No weapon. Just hands and teeth.
He tackled his comrade and started biting. Tearing chunks from the other goblin's face with his teeth like a rabid animal. The victim shrieked and tried to fight back, but the infected goblin had gone completely feral, feeling no pain, acknowledging no defense.
He ripped the other goblin's throat out with his teeth.
[+40 XP]
Then turned to find new prey.
Three other goblins within ten meters suddenly clutched their heads. Fell to his knees. Started screaming.
The infection was spreading.
Not through wounds anymore. Through proximity. Through breathing the same air as the infected. Through witnessing the corruption with their own eyes.
Don's twenty blood swords continued their work. Each strike either killed immediately or infected with Madness.
One sword took a goblin's leg off at the knee. The elite collapsed, clutching the stump, and watched in horror as silver spread through his blood vessels. Within seconds he was clawing at his own face, nails tearing deep gouges, trying to rip the wrongness out through his skin.
[+40 XP]
Another sword punched through a goblin's stomach, the blade emerging from his back in a spray of intestines. The goblin looked down at the hole in his gut—organs spilling out onto the cobblestones—and started laughing. Not from humor. From Madness. He grabbed his own intestines and started pulling, yanking more of his insides out, laughing hysterically as he disemboweled himself.
[+40 XP]
A third sword decapitated a goblin cleanly. The head hit the ground and rolled. But the body didn't fall immediately—it staggered forward three more steps, arms flailing, before finally collapsing. And from the neck stump, blood sprayed in rhythmic pulses, each jet reaching six feet into the air before gravity pulled it down.
[+40 XP]
Within thirty seconds, forty goblins were down—twenty dead outright, twenty going insane.
[+800 XP]
And the infected were killing each other.
One grabbed another's throat and squeezed, thumbs digging into windpipe, crushing cartilage. The victim's eyes bulged, tongue protruding, face turning purple. He clawed at the hands choking him, drawing blood, but the infected goblin felt nothing. Just kept squeezing until vertebrae cracked and the body went limp.
[+40 XP]
Another picked up a fallen war hammer—too heavy for his frame, requiring both hands—and started swinging. Not at enemies. At anything that moved. He pulped another goblin's skull with an overhead strike that split the head like a melon. Brain matter splattered across three nearby elites.
[+40 XP]
The hammer-wielder kept swinging, crushing another goblin's ribs, shattering a third's spine.
[+80 XP]
A third simply ran face-first into a stone pillar. Full speed. The impact sounded like a watermelon dropped from a rooftop. His skull caved inward, nose driven back into brain. But he didn't die immediately—just staggered backward, face a ruined crater, and ran at the pillar again. And again. And again. Until there was nothing left of his head but pulp.
[+40 XP]
Grimscar was screaming orders, trying to maintain formation, but his troops were breaking. The disciplined elites who'd survived two centuries were reduced to panicking animals watching their comrades transform into monsters.
Don walked forward through the chaos.
His domain moved with him. More humans within the thirty-meter radius. More blood flowing freely from wounds that refused to close.
He raised his hand toward thirty humans in the second row.