The horned executioners dropped, silent as falling ash, their obsidian blades glinting in the faint, bruised light. Olev didn't even flinch. He simply snapped his fingers. From the deeper shadows clinging to the precipice, a dozen hulking forms materialized. Not the shrapnel-spewing cadaver-bombs of his first wave, but gaunt, agile figures clad in tattered leathers, wielding jagged bone-scythes. Necro-Strikers, swift and brutal. They surged upward, meeting the descending demons mid-air. The clatter of dark iron on ossified bone rang out, a discordant clatter of metal and bone. Black ichor sprayed. Bodies, both demon and reanimated, tumbled into the chasm below, their screams swallowed by the swirling winds.
Yeva, her heavy pulse-rifle still hot in her grip, stared. Her squad, a mix of grim-faced veterans and wide-eyed recruits, were frozen. They'd been bracing for a fight for their lives, but Olev had turned it into a slaughter, a casual disposal of an inconvenience. The Necro-Strikers moved with unnerving efficiency, severing limbs, impaling torsos, pushing the demons back onto the flesh-bridge itself. One by one, the executioners were either dispatched or forced to retreat into the pulsating tendril.
“Right,” Olev said, dusting his hands, as if he’d just finished an irritating chore. “Anyone got a spare length of rope? These gates won’t open themselves, and I’m fresh out of flying cadavers.”
They scaled the last stretch of the wall, past the lingering stench of ozone and ichor, to the gaping maw of Ostrog-7’s primary gate. Inside, the city was a tiered cylinder of adamantine and ferrocrete, built into a titanic crater. Lights twinkled in the upper districts, oblivious to the fresh horrors at its base. A patrol of city sentries, clad in pristine chrome-plated armor, stood at attention, their energy-carbines leveled. Leading them was a gate officer whose paunch strained the seams of his uniform, his face twisted into an open sneer.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Yeva Sokolov’s famed ‘Vanguard of the Hopeless’,” the officer barked, his gaze sweeping over Olev’s blood-spattered, ragtag group, lingering on the mangled remains of the Hell-Hound leader slung over one of Yeva’s squadmates. “And look, you even brought a hobo. Core haul, Sokolov. Let’s see it. This expedition was a disaster. I expect scraps.”
Yeva stepped forward, lowering her rifle barrel an inch. “Officer, we faced an unprecedented incursion. We held the line, but our losses were heavy. However, the overall core yield is higher than expected, thanks to Rask.” She gestured to Olev, who was idly picking grit from his fingernails.
The officer squinted, finally focusing on Olev. “Rask? You’re that scrap-hauler. The one who keeps filing ‘lost equipment’ reports but never delivers his quota. You actually *survived* a Tier-4 expedition? Impossible.” He looked at Olev’s intact, if grimy, form, then back at Yeva’s depleted squad. “Sokolov, your incompetence is a blight. I’m confiscating all cores from your expedition. For ‘reallocation to more deserving units’.”
“Every single core?” Yeva’s voice was dangerously low. “Even those harvested by Olev?”
“Especially those harvested by the ‘hobo’,” the officer spat, stepping closer, a smug smirk spreading across his face. “Consider it a fine for reckless endangerment. Now, hand over the core-binders, or I’ll have my men conduct a… thorough search.” He made a lewd gesture towards Yeva’s squad members, his sentries snickering.
Olev stopped picking his nails. He tilted his head, a faint, almost imperceptible tremor running through the ground. “You want the cores?” he asked, his voice flat, devoid of inflection. “Alright.”
He raised a hand. The officer scoffed, mouth open to deliver another taunt, when the shadows beneath Olev’s feet churned. A familiar, hulking form burst forth – the very Hell-Hound leader that had almost killed Yeva’s entire squad minutes earlier. Its eyes glowed with malevolent jade light, its fur matted with dried ichor, but now it moved with an unnatural, jerky grace. It didn't roar. It didn't snarl. It just *moved*. With a sickening *CRUNCH*, the beast clamped its massive jaws around the officer's right arm, tearing it clean from his shoulder. The man's sneer vanished into a choked, wet shriek as he collapsed, clutching the spurting stump.
The sentries, frozen in disbelief, raised their carbines. Before they could fire, Olev snapped his fingers again. The Hell-Hound dissolved into smoke, its task complete.
“That was for the ‘hobo’ comment,” Olev said calmly, stepping over the writhing officer. He nudged the bleeding man with his boot. “And for attempting to confiscate legitimate salvage. The Abyssal Chasm Interface is very particular about property rights, especially when earned through extreme prejudice.”
[ERROR: COWARDICE DETECTED. RANK: SUB-OFFICER. INSOLENCE TOWARDS HIGH-YIELD ENTITY. ATTEMPTED THEFT OF ANOMALOUS CORE-HAUL. ]
[PUNISHMENT PROTOCOL INITIATED: LOCALIZED GRAVITY INVERSION. ]
The air around the sentries shimmered. A low hum vibrated through the adamantine plating. The sentries, still aiming their weapons at Olev, suddenly found their boots lifting from the ground. Their snickers turned to terrified yelps. Their faces paled, uniforms flapping as they shot upward, screaming, their carbines clattering against the city wall before the weapons, too, began to float. Higher and higher they went, pinwheeling helplessly, until they were tiny specks against the bruised purple sky, destined to be carried away by the ash-filled winds, never to return.
Silence descended. The only sound was the wounded officer's ragged wheezing. Yeva stared at Olev, fingers white against her rifle grip. The revulsion she usually carried around him wavered against the sheer efficiency of the gore. Ostrog-7’s quota system ground people into grease, but Olev simply fed the grinder back to its operators.
[SYSTEM REWARD: EXTREME SADISM. RANK ELEVATION: SCRAP-HAULER OLEV RASK NOW ‘CHASM EMBRACE – TIER 3’. NEW SKILLS AVAILABLE. ]
“Well,” Olev mused, glancing at the empty sky where the sentries had been. “That’s one way to get a severance package.” He looked at the mangled man, still bleeding out. “And a promotion. Looks like I’m in charge of this gate now.”
A guttural rumble shook the entire city. Not from the distant flesh-bridges, but from the very heart of Ostrog-7. A shimmering, colossal projection of pure shadow and cosmic fire materialized in the central plaza, easily visible from the gate. It was Vashak the Desolator, his form vast as a mountain, his eyes burning with ancient fury. His voice, a resonant thrum that vibrated through bone, echoed across the shattered city.
“Necro-Thief,” Vashak’s voice boomed, chilling the very air. “You have stolen from the Abyssal Lords. Return the Titan corpse, or this world shall be consumed.”