I’ll be honest, Riley’s surprise at the sudden puff of acrid red smoke and the way he hurriedly stopped adding more purple powder into the roiling mix he’s been preparing didn’t fill me with confidence. Even Steve raised his head when he heard the sudden sizzling and the muted insults uttered by his brother.

Maybe things are not going as well as they could.

My jaw drops and my mind grinds to a halt when Riley drops a couple of chocolate bars into the mix.

They sizzle and melt into the liquid that change from a dull brown to a deep shade of crimson. I blink to make sure that my eyes aren’t deceiving me, but he’s still adding more chocolate bars. The liquid now looks like it's boiling and changes colors again; this time its sky blue.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and hesitate to configure a Timed Rewind that’ll activate in half an hour. After all, we don’t know what we’ll find in those caverns so I should be prepared for the worst eventualities.

And it’s not because the ritual contains an alarming amount of cheap chocolate bars.

I promise.

“It’s done… I think.,” Riley says after stirring the abominable concoction that became green and slimy, it gained a faint glow that illuminates the room.

Now, is it true that I didn’t look at his ‘cooking’ after the chocolate bars to spare my sanity and the last bit of confidence I have in our success? Yes.

Is it also true that Riley is afraid of the liquid that looks like it wants to get out of its jar and attack us? The answer is, once again, yes.

But it’s our only chance to catch the mage, and Riley should know what he’s doing…

…The way he threw the jar on the ritual and jumped behind cover wasn’t reassuring at all.

“Good, at least it didn’t explode!” he exclaims in a confident voice.

Please send help.

“Now, before we start,” he turns towards me, “Can you tell us anything about what’s on the other side?”

He sighs when I shrug: I have no idea about what to expect since this is the first time I experience this moment, and hopefully the last.

Riley puts his hand on a circle engraved with complex runes and symbols and chants in a language that I can’t recognize at all. Steve calms down once the glyph glows with a red hue and slowly floats off the floor before rotating in the air.

At least it appears to be working properly.

The runes spin so fast that the entire formation looks like a donut of red energy. It keeps getting faster and faster before stabilizing and rotating upward until it becomes a ring we can walk through. Riley pulls out another vial and throws it into the ring. A powerful shockwave shakes the room and it almost sends me flying!

The vial shatters on the floor while the liquid swirls into the air before condensing into a small blue sphere. Tendrils of energy coils around the sphere, causing sparks on the surface of the liquid as the ring gets thinner. The sphere wobbles once the last drop of red energy is infused into it, and red sparks suddenly extend from the sphere. It then flattens into a thin film and fills the area where the first ring was.

"I can't believe it worked!" Riley shouts after wiping the sweat from his forehead. "And the chocolate worked!" he says as he takes deep breaths.

I imitate him and discover that the air carries a pleasant smell of chocolate…

Wait.

Was the chocolate only added because it would smell nice?!

I glare at the Werewolf who scratches the back of his head while flashing an idiotic smile. He even raises his thumbs once he notices that I'm looking at him. “Isn’t it great? I’m glad that it worked, or else we’d all be forced to endure the smell of rotten eggs.”

I change my opinion; adding the chocolate was a good idea.

“So, what are we waiting for?” Steve, who transformed into his wolf-form, asks with a hint of impatience in his voice.

His brother transforms and smiles before walking into the portal. I jump back when the magical construct crackles and sparks suddenly erupt from the portal as the frame of the Werewolf sink into the mysterious floating liquid. Steve smirks and jumps into the portal, causing even more sparks to scorch the wooden floor and the nearby furniture.

These guys are a bit too eager, but I can’t blame them. It’s time to end this!

I shoulder my rifle and rack the charging handle before jumping into the portal.

...??? PoV...

Those bodies aren’t the best. But I’m only forced to waste my time with those unworthy shells because of those three bastards! I can’t wait to add them to my collection!

I grumble as I shove another glass sphere into the hollowed body of a Merman, marking the end of my preparations. Stepping back allows me to take one last look at my work and spot any eventual defects, but it looks like my work is flawless, as usual.

A smile creeps on my face, straining my barely working facial muscles as I gather Death Energy into the palms of my hands. I slam my hands on the body once the energy goes out of control and pour it all into the decaying corpse. It twitches while shockwaves are caused by each orb cracking and emptying their contents into the carcass.

The dead Merman loses most of its coloration while it's engulfed by cold black flames that dry the corpse and make it lose all of its distinctive features, only leaving behind a desiccated shell.

But the real magic is happening inside the hollowed out corpse. The complex runic constructs stored in the mercury are melding with the corpse thanks to another wave of Death Energy.

I smirk when I remember how I discovered this magic that saved my life.

Everything started when I entered the service of the Wolfheart family. I was but a mere patrolman who dabbled in advanced magic in his spare time. It was just a hobby; I wasn’t expecting much since they assessed my talent as slightly below average and assigned me to a safe area where things seldom happened.

But everything changed when my partner and I were ordered to investigate rumors of necromantic activities in our sector. Nothing ever happened in our area, so we checked the zone mentioned in the rumors without paying too much attention.

When we first smashed down the door of that run-down house all those years ago, I remember thinking it was going to be a cut and dry, easy mission.

We couldn’t have been more wrong.

I had my first glimpse of the amazing power of Death Energy that day.

My partner was melted into a puddle of black goo by a dark beam coming from the back of the house, and the fight against that nameless necromancer is still etched into my memory.

I remember how desperate and terrified I was as I jumped around, barely avoiding the flurry of beams that turned the house into Swiss cheese.

But this fight taught me another important lesson: Power comes at a price.

The necromancer suddenly stopped his relentless assault. So I poked my head out of my cover to discover that he was lying on the floor, half of his body had melted and the rest was rapidly decomposing.

I avenged my partner by watching this man die a horrible death that lasted for half an hour. Each of his desperate wails was like music to my ears as chunks of flesh fell off his rotting face.

I investigated the rest of the house for potential enemies and arrived in a bedroom that had been converted into a laboratory. The stench of death there was strong, but my curiosity got the better of me, so I investigated the room. There were a lot of papers around, and a single glance was enough to captivate me. The secrets of Death Magic were hidden in those hastily scribbled notes!

The necromancer was apparently researching a way to control Death Energy with no drawbacks, and his notes showed that he was about to succeed. But we arrived just in time.

Something clicked in my head at this moment; I saw how powerful the magic was and how it killed my partner in a few seconds.

This magic could make me so powerful…

So I took all the notes before trashing the laboratory and contacting the Family. They believed my story about a necromancer's experiment gone wrong, resulting in an explosion that had killed my partner.

My life took a turn for the better when I finished the necromancer’s research. It took some time, but I finally manipulated Death Energy. My position skyrocketed while my control of Death Energy improved, and my overwhelming results got me transferred to more active areas where I proved my worth.

But maybe I was too good. My overwhelming victories got me noticed by the higher-ups, and it finally reached the ears of the Wolfheart Matriarch.

I still don't know how she did it, but she found out about my magic and asked to have an audience with me in her office. This made the men under my command cheer for me and caused others to envy me since I was considered the rising star of the family. And everyone, including me, though she was about to give me a promotion.

Someone tackled me as soon as I entered her office and she confronted me about it. She was enraged as she cited my Death Beams and waved around the notes from my research about creating an army of invincible undead to fight for us.

I tried to defend myself, explaining how this army could save the lives of our men. But she wouldn’t listen and ordered the men waiting in the shadows to execute me.

My story should’ve ended there, with an overly ambitious pup being stripped of his titles and pride as he lays lifeless on the floor. Killed by the fears of an old woman who’s haunted by the ghosts of her past…

But I woke up surrounded by corpses.

My desperate attempt at turning into an undead while I was bleeding out succeeded!

I ended up being dumped into one of the mass graves that the family used to dispose of the corpses of their enemies.

And that’s when I swore revenge against the woman who took everything I had.

I had to hide while getting used to my new body: I was slower than before and my senses were duller. I also lost my race’s ability to assume a powerful wolf-like form.

But turning into an Undead gave me an unprecedented mastery over Death Energy and Dark magic. It allowed me to progress in my research as I prepared my counterattack against the Wolfheart, who still enjoyed the fruits of my labor despite killing me.

This potion they are using to make corpses disappear is a pathetic perversion of my hard work, and I’ll make them regret their mockery!

A groan takes me out of my thoughts, making me refocus on the fresh zombie standing in front of me. I order it to move around and I am pleased to see that his transformation has succeeded as much as it did. I order the zombie to grab a sword and join the others waiting in another cavern while I close my eyes, checking the size of my army with a spell.

It’s still not enough!

My last two sorties, that were supposed to destabilize the Wolfheart’s political position and allow me to gather another batch of corpses, were complete failures. I did not understand how the two Werewolves and the human tracked me down. It’s worrying since my teleportation spell, an upgraded version of Shadow Walk, should be undetectable.

But the human is probably the key to all of this.

At least I think he’s human… I couldn’t sense any Death Energy from him, so he isn’t an Undead. But I couldn’t sense any lifeforce or mana from him either.

The images of how he resisted my attacks replayed in my head. It’s truly puzzling: I never heard of anything that could survive a direct hit of concentrated Death Energy. And the way he healed from my sword cuts is unlike anything I’ve seen before.

I can’t wait to experiment on him once I get my hands on his body!

But I wipe my smirk off my face since I don’t have time to think about new theories while I still have so much work to do. I activate a spell and another emptied corpse floats on the stone table in front of me, I grab a glass orb and-

I suddenly drop the orb that cracks on the stone floor and looks up, not paying attention to the wasted liquid metal infused with mana pooling at my feet.

And here it is again!

A faint trace of erratic mana is traveling through my lair and setting off all my wards at once. I immediately gather Death Energy in my palms while my eyes follow the mana. Its movement is curious since it’s sweeping the area with no pattern and sometimes even goes back to a zone it previously explored just a moment ago.

The red packet of energy settles in the middle of my ritual room, it’s just above me so I prepare my spells. It sits here, circling around the room until it cracks and expands into a flat disk.

I don’t have time to react as three figures drop down directly above my head.

...John's PoV...

“AHHHH!”

I scream when I feel the ground vanish from beneath my feet once I emerge from the other side of the portal. The two Werewolves appear to be as puzzled as me and adjust their posture for a rough landing while I brace for impact.

Please, let my shield be strong enough to withstand my fall!

The small orbs of light floating near the ceiling barely allows me to make out where we are. But from what I can tell the portal teleported us near the ceiling of a large cavern.

The brothers land with grace while I bounce off the squishy floor who throws profanities at me while my shield creaks.

Wait.

Stone isn’t supposed to be squishy, or be able to insult me.

A ray of black energy slams into my chest and makes me skid on the hard ground. I’m somewhat relieved since my shield is able to sustain the abuse even if it already looks like it’s at its limits.

My head slams onto a hard polished surface and something cold flops on me. I squint to see what it is while cursing my lack of a flashlight, but immediately regret my decision once my vision adapts to the darkness.

The cold thing is a hollowed-out corpse!

I scream and throw the body away before standing up and rushing towards my friends who are already battling the mage. I can barely distinguish who is who since the figures in the dark move so fast, but I finally find my target when a beam of energy emerges from a corner of the cavern. Shooting the mage produces a muzzle flash that allows me to get a better look at my surroundings.

The stone table I bumped into earlier is standing on an elevated platform in the middle of the cavern while a good part of the area is looking like a laboratory. I see glassware filled with various liquids, shelves filled to the brim with jars of multicolored ingredients, and body parts are floating in jars of opaque liquid.

I reign in my disgust and continue to empty magazine after magazine into the mage. But he’s too preoccupied by the relentless assault of the Werewolves to pay attention to my puny self.

“NOT YOU BASTARDS AGAIN!” he screams in his unnatural and grating voice that makes my skull vibrate. “HOW DID YOU FIND ME?!”

Nobody answers his question as the fierce battle doubles in intensity. Each participant disappears into the shadows to emerge behind another one at a frequency that makes it impossible for me to keep track of the mage. I try to not be a burden to my friends by staying away from the conflict as much as possible and occasionally shoot our enemy on the rare occasions he remains still for more than a second.

Spells are flying left and right while shockwaves are shaking the entire cave system. I jump to the side just in time to avoid a shelf that crumbles, causing hundreds of small jars to spill their contents on the floor. The air is filled with an acrid smell that burns my throat and makes my eyes water.

But the chemical reaction has another use besides filling the room with what I assume is some form of poison gas. It glows like a miniature sun had melted into a puddle and illuminates the entire cavern. The sudden apparition of the light source changes the flow of the battle and puts an end to the endless teleportation.

It looks like my friends have the upper hand since the mage looks way more damaged than them!

“That fighting style… I’ll recognize it anywhere!” he screeches as black mist enters his body, “WOLFHEART SCUM! DIE!”

The mage turns into a blur and slams his scrawny leg into Riley's stomach, he crashes into a wall. In the meantime, I jump behind the overturned stone table and take potshots at the robed figure.

“How dare you! You bastard! Just who are you?!” Steve stops the mage mid charge and slams him into the ground, causing a crater to appear.

“My name is Edmund Blackheart! Ex-leader of the 13th Wolfheart Platoon and creator of the Dissolver!” the mage screams back as he slams his fist into Steve’s stomach, who spits blood but remains firmly planted in the ground and slams his fist into Edmund’s mouth.

“What?! The Dissolver is based on an ancient text! And we never had a 13th Platoon!” Riley enters the fray once again and crouches to avoid a Death Beam. He then slams his hands on the ground and causes spikes of earth to emerge beneath the mage.

“Bah! Underlings like you wouldn’t believe how many skeletons that Wolfheart bitch has in her closet!” Edmunds says while black sludge spills from his mouth.

“Don’t talk about our mother like that, you fucker!” Steve jumps and rockets down. The sound of his fist colliding with the mage’s raised forearms is enough to knock me down despite being hidden behind cover.

Enormous killing intent fills the room and makes me sweat buckets. I can barely raise my head to see the mage stomping his foot into the ground.

“You two are the children of that whore?! I’ll enjoy killing you!” he says as black mist coils around him and solidifies into an impenetrable armor that absorbs the ambient light.

“I’ll make you all suffer! It's too bad since I wanted to keep him, but let’s start with your friend over here!”

I feel a presence behind me and something tears through my chest before I can turn around.

Blood flows from my mouth when I see a bloody arm poking through my destroyed torso, and time grinds to a halt as something crack in my head.

It’s not the first time that something like that happened.

I remember everything now, the pain, the horror…

It’S TimE fOr RetribUtion.