The path out of The Maw was less a staircase and more a scar carved into the earth—a jagged, spiraling ramp of wet stone and compressed refuse that clung to the sheer walls of the abyss.
Kazimir walked three paces behind Zarya, his eyes fixed on the silver cascade of her hair glowing softly in the darkness.
Every step was a revelation.
His legs, which used to barely support him through a single flight of stairs, now felt like hydraulic pistons—powerful, responsive, tireless. His lungs, previously wheezing with the mere effort of existence, drank in the foul air of The Maw like it was mountain spring water.
But the silence was oppressive. It pressed against his eardrums, broken only by the rhythmic clank-clank of Zarya's sabatons and the distant, wet dripping of something unpleasant further down in the dark.
Kazimir's mind was racing.
"Why?" The word escaped before he could stop it.
Zarya didn't stop walking. She stepped over a ribcage the size of a carriage without breaking stride.
"Be specific, mongrel," she said, her tone bored. "I am not a mind reader. Though I could be, if I wasted the mana."
"Why me?" Kazimir clarified, watching his hands clench and unclench as he walked. "You said you've lived this life a hundred times. You've seen heroes. You've seen Purebloods with power that would make me look like an insect. Why pick a dying cripple from a pile of bones?"
Zarya stopped walking.
The silence that followed was heavy enough to have weight.
She turned slowly, the red light of her eyes cutting through the shadows. She looked down at him from her elevated position on the ramp, looming like a statue carved from judgment itself.
"Do you know why I die, Kazimir?"
The use of his actual name—not "mongrel," not "boy"—made him pause.
"Because... the heroes kill you?"
Zarya laughed. It was a short, harsh sound.
"Heroes?" She shook her head. "Those insects? They couldn't kill me if I stood still and let them try for a century. No, I don't die because I'm weak."
She tapped the blackened steel of her breastplate, right over her heart.
"I die because I burn out."
Kazimir frowned. "I don't understand."
"My magic is absolute," Zarya said, her voice taking on a lecturer's cadence. "It is the power of Endings. Termination. Entropy made manifest. When I cast a spell to shatter a mountain or boil an ocean, I don't draw mana from the environment like your pathetic Court Mages. I draw it from myself."
She clenched her fist, and the air around it distorted.
"Every spell I cast tears a piece of my soul away. And my soul is... vast. But not infinite. In seventy-four of my previous lives, I didn't die to an enemy's blade. I died because my own power ate me from the inside."
She took a step toward him. The heat radiating from her armor made the damp air shimmer.
"I do not need a hero, Kazimir. Heroes are fragile. They dodge. They parry. They value their lives and run when things get difficult."
She reached out and tapped his chest with a gauntleted finger. The tap was hard enough to bruise.
"I need a sponge. I need a wall. I need someone who can stand in front of me and absorb the entropy I leak, someone who can take damage and enjoy it."
"A meat shield," Kazimir said flatly.
"A regenerating meat shield," Zarya corrected, turning back to continue the climb. "The Purebloods are too orderly. Their mana is rigid, structured, fragile. If I tried to bond with one of them, they would shatter the first time I used them as a conduit."
She gestured vaguely at Kazimir without looking back.
"But you... you're a mess. Your blood is chaos. Three frequencies that shouldn't coexist, forced into harmony by sheer spite. Chaos adapts. Chaos endures. Chaos doesn't break—it just reshapes into something new."
She paused.
"Do not mistake this for affection, mongrel. You are the heat sink for my engine. If you break, I will simply find another corpse and start over."
Kazimir stared at her back.
A heat sink.
He should have been offended. He should have felt dehumanized, reduced to a tool.
But as he flexed his hand, feeling the strength in his fingers—strength he'd never had, power he'd never dreamed of—he realized something.
He didn't care.
Being a tool for a goddess was infinitely better than being a punching bag for a prince.
"Understood," Kazimir muttered.
They climbed in silence for another ten minutes. The air grew warmer, more humid. The smell shifted from sulfur and rot to oil and rust—the scent of old machinery.
The walls changed too. Natural rock gave way to ancient brickwork, crumbling mortar, and rusted pipes that leaked something viscous and black.
They were approaching the deepest foundations of Vermillion Gate.
This was where The Maw earned its name. It wasn't just a pit. It was the Empire's landfill, where they disposed of mistakes that couldn't be allowed to exist.
Growl.
The sound came from the shadows ahead.
It was wet, mechanical, wrong—like a chainsaw trying to cut through raw meat while a steam engine coughed and died.
Zarya stopped immediately.
She didn't draw a weapon. She didn't raise a shield. She simply stepped to the side, pressing her back against the damp brick wall, and crossed her armored arms.
"We have company," she said, sounding utterly bored.
"What is it?" Kazimir peered into the gloom, his new eyes adjusting faster than they should have.
"A prototype," Zarya said with a dismissive wave. "Eisenherz engineering fused with Zimny Perlas biology. Probably a failed attempt to create a siege beast. When they couldn't control it, they tossed it down here."
She gestured with her chin toward the darkness.
"Kill it."
Kazimir froze.
"Me?" His voice cracked. "I—I don't have a weapon. I've never fought anything in my life."
"Then you will likely die," Zarya said with the emotional investment of someone commenting on the weather. "And this time, I will leave your corpse here."
From the shadows, the nightmare emerged.
It had been a wolf once. Maybe. A dire wolf from the northern tundra, back when it still had fur and dignity.
Now it was an abomination.
Its lower jaw had been replaced entirely by a rusted bear trap, spring-loaded and clicking with each breath. Its front left leg was gone, replaced by a hydraulic piston that hissed and spat steam with every movement. Patches of fur had rotted away, revealing steel plates bolted directly into muscle and bone. Its eyes were missing—scooped out and replaced by alchemical sensors that glowed sickly green.
It was the size of a draft horse.
The Scrap-Wolf's sensors locked onto Kazimir. It tilted its head, processing. Then it smelled him—the fresh blood, the new life.
Prey.
"Zarya," Kazimir said, taking an involuntary step backward. His heart hammered. "I don't—I don't know how to fight!"
"Figure it out," Zarya replied, examining her fingernails. "The System gave you a class. Use it."
The Scrap-Wolf didn't wait for Kazimir to prepare.
With a shriek of grinding gears and a burst of steam, it lunged.
Kazimir's noble training kicked in—twenty-three years of avoiding conflict, of ducking responsibility, of running from confrontation.
He scrambled backward, tripping over a loose stone.
It was clumsy. Pathetic.
But it saved his life.
The wolf's hydraulic claw slammed into the space where his head had been, gouging a crater into the brick wall. Sparks flew.
Kazimir hit the ground hard, rolled, tried to get his feet under him—
The wolf was already on him.
Three hundred pounds of metal and rotting meat slammed into his chest, pinning him to the ground.
The hydraulic claw rose, steam hissing.
Then it descended.
RRRRRIP.
Kazimir screamed.
The metal talons tore through his shoulder, shredding skin and muscle like wet paper. They scraped against his newly hardened bone—Steel Resonance reinforcement—and that bone held, but the flesh above it came apart.
Blood sprayed across the stone floor.
The pain was blinding. White-hot. Absolute.
I'm dead. I'm dead again. It hurts. It HURTS—
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[DAMAGE DETECTED: SEVERE LACERATION]
[HEALTH: 85% → 70%]
[15% LOSS DETECTED]
[TRAIT ACTIVATED: PAIN CONVERSION]
The blue text flashed in Kazimir's vision.
Then the feeling changed.
The agony didn't vanish—it was still there, still screaming through every nerve—but something else flooded in behind it.
A rush. Cold. Electric. Intoxicating.
It surged from the wound in his shoulder, racing down his arm, into his chest, flooding his brain.
It felt like injecting pure adrenaline directly into his heart.
[CONVERTING PAIN TO MANA...]
[ANALYZING DAMAGE SEVERITY...]
[15% HEALTH LOSS = MODERATE DAMAGE]
[TEMPORARY BUFF APPLIED]
├─ STRENGTH +5 (Duration: 45 seconds)
└─ PAIN TOLERANCE: LOW (Duration: 60 seconds)
The Scrap-Wolf roared, its mechanical jaw opening wide to crush Kazimir's skull between rusted metal teeth.
Kazimir looked up at the beast.
The fear was... fading. Evaporating. Burned away by the chemical rush flooding his system.
It hurts, he thought. But I feel... AWAKE.
He didn't try to push the wolf off. That's what a normal person would do—try to escape, to minimize damage.
But Kazimir Ahn-Ra was no longer normal.
As the rusted jaws descended toward his face, Kazimir did something completely insane.
He shoved his left arm—the injured one, the one currently streaming blood—straight into the wolf's mouth.
CRUNCH.
The bear-trap jaw clamped down on his forearm with the force of a hydraulic press.
The pain was excruciating.
Bone cracked. Flesh tore. Kazimir felt the radius snap like a twig.
[DAMAGE DETECTED: CRITICAL]
[HEALTH: 70% → 50%]
[20% LOSS DETECTED]
[PAIN CONVERSION ACCELERATING...]
[STRENGTH +8]
[AGILITY +3]
Kazimir's eyes snapped fully open.
The amber irises were glowing now, lit from within by something that wasn't quite human anymore.
He gritted his teeth—blood leaking from his gums—and he smiled.
It was a rictus of bloody joy.
"Is that all you've got?" Kazimir snarled.
With his right hand—now surging with supernatural strength granted by his own suffering—he grabbed the Scrap-Wolf by its mechanical throat.
He squeezed.
Metal groaned. The hydraulic tubes in the wolf's neck began to buckle under pressure they weren't designed to withstand.
The beast thrashed, trying to pull away, but Kazimir's left arm was jammed deep in its gullet, anchoring it in place like a grappling hook.
"You bite me?" Kazimir roared, his voice sounding less like a noble and more like something feral. "I'll break you!"
He drove his knees into the wolf's exposed underbelly—the soft parts where armor plating hadn't been installed.
Once.
Thud.
Twice.
CRACK.
Three times.
CRUNCH.
The wolf whimpered. A sound of grinding gears and escaping steam.
Kazimir didn't stop.
He tightened his grip on the throat. He could feel the power building with every throb of agony from his mangled arm. It was a feedback loop. A terrible, beautiful cycle.
More. I need MORE.
With a guttural scream, Kazimir ripped his left arm free from the jaw, sacrificing a chunk of flesh to do it.
[DAMAGE DETECTED: EXTREME]
[HEALTH: 50% → 38%]
[PAIN CONVERSION: MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY]
[STRENGTH +10]
[AGILITY +5]
[ENDURANCE +3]
[WARNING: BUFF DURATION TEMPORARY]
[WARNING: ADDICTION RISK INCREASING]
Kazimir brought both fists down on the wolf's head.
SMASH.
The alchemical sensors shattered, glass and green fluid spraying everywhere.
SMASH.
The steel plate covering the skull dented.
SMASH.
The plate caved.
SMASH.
Brain matter—organic and mechanical—exploded across Kazimir's face.
The wolf went limp.
Dead.
Kazimir didn't stop punching.
He hit the corpse again. And again. And again. He punched until his knuckles split. Until the wolf's head was a flattened disc of scrap metal and meat. Until his arms burned with lactic acid and the system notifications stopped flashing.
Only when his lungs were screaming for air did he finally stop.
He slumped back, panting, covered in a mixture of his own bright red blood and the wolf's black ichor.
His left arm was a ruin. The bone was visible through the torn flesh, white and gleaming. It should have been disabling. Crippling.
But as Kazimir watched—still gasping for breath—steam began to rise from the wound.
The black-and-gold blood of the Empress, now flowing through his veins, swirled in the injury. Tendrils of muscle reached out like worms, knitting together. The shattered radius bone snapped straight with a wet pop, fusing back together.
[COMBAT ENDED]
[VICTORY ACHIEVED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 150 EXP]
[PROGRESS TO NEXT LEVEL: 150/200]
[ANALYZING COMBAT PERFORMANCE...]
[TRAIT: PAIN CONVERSION utilized effectively]
[REGENERATION: Active (Source: Empress's Blood)]
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 2]
[ATTRIBUTE INCREASES APPLIED]
Kazimir laughed.
It was a breathless, jagged sound—the laugh of a man who'd just discovered something terrible about himself.
Slow, deliberate clapping echoed from the shadows.
Zarya stepped forward, looking at the mangled corpse of the prototype. Then at Kazimir, still kneeling in a pool of blood and oil.
"Messy," she said, her lip curling slightly. "No technique. No form. You fight like a drunk bear trying to open a beehive."
She kicked the wolf's corpse.
"But," she added, meeting his eyes, "you didn't die. And you didn't run."
Kazimir sat up, wiping the oil from his face. His arm was already usable again, though ugly pink scars marked where the teeth had been.
"I couldn't run," he panted. "You were blocking the exit."
Zarya smirked.
"Correct."
She pointed to the wolf's remains.
"Loot it. Scavenge anything useful. We need weapons, and I cannot summon my blade yet without collapsing half the tunnel."
Kazimir dragged himself to his feet. He felt heavier now. Denser. The level-up had increased his base attributes, but the rush of Pain Conversion was fading, leaving him with a dull, throbbing ache.
It felt... comfortable. Familiar.
Like home.
He approached the wreckage of the wolf. Grabbed the hydraulic piston rod from its front leg—the one he'd shattered during the fight.
He braced his foot against the corpse and pulled.
With a shriek of tearing metal, the rod came free. It was heavy—a solid iron bar about a meter long, capped with a jagged broken gear at the top.
Crude. Ugly. Heavy.
Perfect.
Kazimir swung it through the air experimentally.
Whoosh.
"It suits you," Zarya noted dryly. "Blunt and graceless."
"It breaks things," Kazimir replied, hefting the weapon. "That's all I need."
"Come," Zarya commanded, already turning back to the path. "We're close now."
They continued the climb. The stairs became more defined—actual brick steps instead of rough stone. The air changed again, the sulfur fading, replaced by the smell of waste and... food.
Roasted duck. Spiced wine. Sweet pastries.
And music.
The faint, muffled strains of a string quartet filtered down through the ceiling.
Kazimir stopped dead.
He looked up at the heavy iron grate blocking the top of the tunnel.
"That's..."
"The Winter Solstice Ball," Zarya confirmed. "We are directly beneath the castle kitchens."
Kazimir's grip on the iron rod tightened until his knuckles turned white.
The music was like a physical blow. It was the soundtrack to his humiliation. The background noise to his destruction.
They were still dancing.
It had been—what? An hour? Maybe two?
Down here, he'd died, been tortured, reconstructed, and mauled by a cyborg wolf.
Up there, they probably hadn't even finished the second course.
"They think I'm dead," Kazimir whispered, staring up at the grate. "They think I'm rotting in the dark."
Zarya stepped up beside him. She looked at the grate with eyes that glowed brighter now, feeding on his anger.
"The Purebloods love their parties," she said, her voice dripping with venom. "They love their order. Their hierarchy. Their pretty lies. They love pretending the world isn't built on corpses."
She looked at Kazimir.
"Shall we remind them?"
Kazimir closed his eyes. He accessed the System.
[STATUS CHECK]
├─ HEALTH: 94% (Regeneration complete)
├─ MANA: STABLE
├─ BUFFS: None active
├─ DEBUFFS: None
└─ RAGE: OVERFLOWING
He opened his eyes. The amber glow was steady. Cold.
"Yes," Kazimir said.
He raised the iron rod and jammed it into the gap of the sewer grate, using it as a lever.
"Let's crash the party."