The slits of her eyes close further before I say, “What have they done to you?”

She slams her hands together, compressing her the arteries in her hand. As a loud squelch swells in the room, a light splat of liquid hits my face for a moment before she gurgles, “They gave me the power to get back Joan.”

The liquid burns as my skin corrodes and regenerates before I rip myself from the wall. In a fit of outrage, I roar, “They’ve left you a monstrosity. They nearly killed Joan in an attempt to do the same.”

A cyst on the side of her bulbous head pops, spraying the slop inside onto several scientists. The goop melts their flesh as they howl to their god for mercy. They find none.

Mimicking Gaia’s indifference, Petra shakes the thing above her shoulders before she gurgles,

“They were cleansing her of your filth, corruptor. You’ve left every person you’ve touched infected with your taint, so the palisade has come to eradicate your filth...Eradicate your filth. I will.”

Her head twitches as my stomach sinks. She glances around without focusing on any object for more than a few seconds like an insect. Her insides shift and move. The sight disgusts me.

What they’ve done to her...It’s far worse than just kill her.

With the same thoughts, Deluge says in my mind, “She’s losing her sanity. Humans weren’t designed for carrying the will and souls of so many. She’ll become a mindless husk soon.”

I reach out a hand as I say, “Do you not see what they’ve done to you? How can you believe desecrating yourself will offer anything? How can you hope for any good to come of such depravity?”

Petra’s eyes glance downward as her shoulders droop for a moment, but just as I believe my words sunk in, her guts push against her side until a split forms. A human arm, flailing in desperation, jerks outwards for release from it’s prison. As I lose my breath, my hands shake in fear before several intestines pull the limb back in as it writhes and shakes.

Oblivious to the conflict in her body, Petra says with ever increasing liquids splatting from her mouth, “I no longer...carry your taint. I am pure...I will never carry taint...never carry taint...again...Joan was...my joy. She was my light...You stole her from me...You ruined everything...everything.”

A metallic cold leaks into my voice as I say, “No, Petra. You’ve given up all that you had for nothing...You’re right in one regard. Joan was your light, but when you abandoned her, you became a hollow abhorration. All you can do now is shamble and hurt.”

I swallow my disgust before I breath out my final breath of mercy. I say,

“The horror you’ve become, I will banish it to oblivion. As a final memento of your life, I offer salvation to you and the souls you carry.”

She stomps the ground, splintering the stone underneath her before she gurgles, “Give back Joan...I need her...Gaia shall purify her...She shall purify everything...She will purify me. She will purify me.”

I gaze towards her as I say, “Your hope is a curse. Your religion relinquished its virtue the day you carved out Joan’s innocence. Your betrayal was the death of piety. You’ve fallen, and now you wish to drag others to hell also.”

I won’t give her the chance. She will live as a memory in Joan’s mind rather than a shambling horror. Joan will never meet Petra as she is now. I will kill her first.

Petra’s new form radiates power however, so I unshackle Deluge’s bindings. My hands become like blocks of stone as my bones and muscle thicken. My teeth expand before poles of bone grow through my arms, strengthening the joints. Another arm grows from my left side before I hear whispers in my ears,

“He’s...the darkened one.”

Several priests fold onto their knees before the tendons in my body fold and cross one another creating tense, compact knots that multiply my strength with leverage. My skin thickens and changes the shade from a tanner complexion to a dark, ashen gray. My voice grows deeper until I speak in a beastial growl. A tail even grows out my back allowing me to stand despite the absurd length of my arms.

As the transformation finishes, I bellow words engraved in the steel of my mind and in the stone of my soul,

“Those who have fallen from the grace of your god will find genesis, just as you shall find purgatory.”

Petra’s body emits a loud rumbling that grows until the earth shakes. After a moment, the gems across her skin glow once more before she dives into me, but I lay waiting. I brace my feet before I push forward with all my might as she reaches me, yet she overwhelms my strength with ease.

My densified bones crack as an enormous boom slices through the air while I collide with the wall behind me. Dust encompasses all that surrounds me while I choke on my blood, but my fingers stab into the molten flesh of Petra’s body like nails. After I overcome the agony of my flesh melting, I lift her off the ground before I force her downwards with every ounce of power this new form contains.

The dust around us Jerks outwards before a labyrinth of cracks radiates outwards creating a crater where I stand. In the wake of my attack, stone breaks and marble crumbles. Dust fills the room once more, and ss the air clears, the light of her gems glows before the corrosive blood splattered across the ground begins slithering back towards Petra.

She places one of her bumpy, grotesque hands onto my face, and for a moment, her grip feels gentle. Those fingers then grip until they pierce through my cheek and onto my face. Her other hand swings in the side of my vision before all goes dark. I no longer understand where I am, yet I still feel the moist slime of her skin and the dry air around me as my body scrambles and convulses in spasms of chaos.

After bathing in this disarray for a few more seconds, my sight returns, and I find myself with two broken arms and patches of missing skin on my chest. In front of me, Petra stands with a thick, squirming scab that keeps one of her arms attached. She heaves for breath just like I do, so I ask Deluge,

“What just happened?”

Deluge replies with labored words, “Your skull was crushed. I had to regenerate all the senses in your body while scrambling against her.”

Before I can formulate a response, Petra dashes towards me as her feet rip the rock underneath her. She halts her charge by stomping the ground in front of her before she torques a right hook towards my neck, but I duck forwards just under her fist.

I won’t waste this opportunity however, so I torque through my hips while lifting my right hand upwards. Power builds in the limb until my fist smashes into her misshapen head. Her face holds together well, so my strengthened bones crack while my joints and ligaments scream for mercy. I ignore them just as I ignore the pain.

The blow reverses her momentum until she follows the path of my punch. My attack travels in an arch through the air until I trample her to the ground once more. As she lands, her neck breaks, snapping her head back before the skin of her neck ruptures.

The wound reveals the open chasm of her neck before the gaping hole latches onto my arm as her blood writhes like worms. The living liquid digs into my arm before a sickening slush emanates from my arm. She’s sucking my flesh down her throat.

Her limbs latch onto me as she digs her hands into my skin before Deluge thunders,

“So you wish to devour us? Hah, we are difficult to chew.”

I extend my jaw and elongate my neck before I clamp my jaws into her neck. The pressure prevents her from draining my insides before her belly jerks for a few moments. As we stand there pushing against one another, her stomach continues distorting further and further until a horde of beetles crawl from her insides.

These insects crawl and latch onto me as I surge with panic and fear. A burst of strength fills me as I rip Petra’s nek from my skin, launching her sideways. She falls to the ground as the beetles continue crawling into my legs, but to my shock, Deluge explains,

“I made them eat through her before they returned to us. I doubt she’ll try consuming us any longer.”

I breath for a few seconds, shaking the dread from me before I gather all of my fear and stomp it into the ground. The wounds across Petra’s body begin healing as the gems on her sides glow before Deluge roars, “We must stop her now. She’s chaining the souls and using them for regeneration. I can’t, I can’t allow them to be used to regenerate something so deformed.”

He gags in my mind before I grow a sword from my shoulder. The gray, heavy blade owns a hooked edge, so I slice the blade into her shoulder, driving the sabor two feet into her torso. I lean backwards while dodging a clumsy hook of hers while I pull the sword, and the hook at its end pulls her with me.

I step backwards before I step off my back foot and curve a hook into the side of her hanging skull. The sensory organ falls to the ground before the blood oozing from her neck globs upwards in a series of waving tentacles. Like a sea of worms, her blood covers her wounds in these tentacles.

That blood of her’s will keep her alive regardless of any physical wounds, so I build claws onto my fingertips until five barbed talons cover my hand. I dash forwards while stabbing these blades into the veins on her shoulder. She slams a knee into stomach that snaps my ribs, but I ignore the pain before I rip my fingers down while slicing her apart.

Her headless figure loses any kind of form with her fighting before she slams her hand into my upper back. The instinctual mauling shatters my spine causing my upper body to limp. Even without a mind, this monster’s strength only increases over time. I need to finish this quickly.

Yet the sharp, snapping torment paralyzes me, but remember my purpose. I subjugate the agony. I conquer the pain.

From the bent position, I whip myself upwards, cracking my spine further before I turn my torso yet again. My hips turn, pinching my nerves against pieces of my spine, but I overcome the illness. With a sweeping uppercut, another set of 4 deep trenches appear on Petra’s body before she slams blow into my right shoulder.

I keep my footing, but my shoulder dislocates before Deluge heals the wound. Without pause, I step to my side and hurl my arm and slam a clawed hand into her flesh once more before she jerks her arm into my stomach. Blood explodes from my mouth as my organs rupture, but I grit my teeth as I generate yet another blow that streaks claw marks down her side.

She crushes my jaw and breaks my legs and snaps my knees and tears my skin and smashes my teeth and mangles my hands, yet I never stop. I continue. And continue. And continue. Pain becomes all I know for minutes, and these minutes become hours.

The eternal struggle continues in an endless cycle of my body breaking and regenerating under enough abuse to end armies, yet Deluge sustains me. He regenerates every wound. He heals every injury.

As time passes, Petra’s body becomes a moving mound of mush as her headless corpse continues without any guidance. Her skin lays in folds over her while her blood gushes and crawls back into her, yet I never cease my onslaught.

My will cracks, then shatters, then grinds to dust, yet I fight on. I surpass all limits. My will envelops all reason as I battle beyond what I believed possible. In this battle, I face my crucible. I carry my burden. I burn my bane.

As the skin of my femur punctures through my skin, I slash a blow into her side before the golem of flesh collapses. The gems at its side dim and dull until they lay without color. The ocean of red maggots that cover her wounds topple and splat onto the ground. The mound of meat pulps and deflates as whatever kept it alive dies.

I rip the gems from the corpse before I pulverize shards of its bone into the cracked marble underneath me. After pounding every piece of the monster’s body to pulp, I fall to my knees in exhaustion.

I gaze around, and several priests watch through the a hole in the wall with open eyes and minds drenched in awe. Blood drenches every piece of my skin and the floor in a carnival of crimson. Flaps of skin and bits of meat litter all around me. Petra’s body sizzles as she melts into the stone. I lived through a sanguine festival.

A piercing silence grows in the room until a door creaks open on the side opposite of the priests. I glance over as oppression scrapes against my fading mind. A plague doctor walks through the door with his scythe sending the smell of burning flesh into my nostrils. As he approaches, a sharp ringing grows in my ears until it deafens all else.

My hands shake as he stops his steps beside me. Through the tinted glass of his mask, he gazes down at me, and a peculiar emotion grates my skin - pity.

This torturer, this heathen feels pity for me. I must be in a sorry state. Deluge and I gaze upwards at the man who raises his scythe at my side, and for the first time in my life, I realize that I have no control over my death. As he stares in silence, I grin through bloodied teeth while saying,

“I swallowed the darkness. It did not swallow me.”