◈ Chapter 82:

Rain stared at the hypnotising Fel Fire for a moment longer, then he turned to leave, he needed to set his next tra-

The Hellhound was there, somehow uninjured after he had brutally kicked it. It was already in the air, leaping for his neck, already on him. Its serrated teeth clamped down and he found himself fully in its grip, its jaws around his throat. Then the Hellhound blinked and he found himself nearer the fire, then it blinked again and he tried to scream as the heat scorched his flesh, he grabbed at the hound, frantic, it blinked once more and the fire was everywhere.

But the Ranker wasn't content to leave him alone. He heard a bellowed roar and the burning wall exploded, the Ranker smashing through with his shoulder, his massive blade already spinning around him. The slab of savage iron took Rain in the side and he felt internal organs burst as it ripped him off his feet and sent him through the exterior wall in a conflagration of flame.

He tumbled through the air, burning, flailing, then slammed down on the wide town square, bouncing across the stone, like a ragdoll, until he smashed into the solid stone base of the belltower set at the top of the square with a grisly crunch.

He howled and slapped desperately at the green fire eating away at him, burning his paws, making his injuries worse. It felt like it took an eternity of horrifying agony, his flesh turning to ash under the flame, but at last the last of it died out and he slumped on the ground, drawing in ragged painful breaths.

The sound of heavy boots neared and he closed his eyes. He couldn't fight this. This man had soaked himself in the world of demons, he wasn't Just a leveler anymore, he was something else.

The sound of cobblestone shattering caused his ear to twitch and he cracked an eye to find the Ranker had stabbed his sword in the ground. He stared down at him and Rain knew that he was just another monster for this man.

The Ranker cracked the thick fingers on his one hand then the other. The Hellhound sat and waited patiently by his side, waiting to see its master's intent.

Rain’s paws came up, pathetically weak, wobbling, a vague attempt to keep the beast away. The Ranker knocked them aside with a laugh then struck him around the face. Blood sprayed from his muzzle, splashing across the cobble. He raised his paws once more, digits spread. The Ranker seemed slightly less pleased with his resistance this time and grabbed at his paws, fingers interlocking, crushing strength holding his digits, the Ranker pushed down, forcing Rain’s arms down with his overwhelming strength, holding him down.

“Who are you? Tell me.”

“I’m nobody.”

“No, you are not, you know me. How.”

“I knew you in another life.”

“Meaning you changed, tell me what you did.”

“I died. I died and then I came back Ranker. I was given a second chance and I used it.”

“A wasted chance.”

“Was it?”

Rain’s paws which were pretending weakness suddenly surged to life and he clamped down on the Ranker’s hands, crushing his hands back, locking him in place, locking him in place close, very, very, close.

The Ranker glanced between his trapped hands, brow furrowing. He tried to pull himself free but to no avail, Rain had a death grip. As he was hauled forward by the Ranker Rain threw his head back, drawing in a deep deep breath, calling up a rolling rip snarl roar from his very soul. He drew in rooms worth of air, his maw stretching wide, and then he swung his head forward letting it loose directly into the Ranker’s face. A shockwave blew out from his maw, rippling and shimmering the air, a sound like distant thunder in extreme close proximity, deep bone shaking bass that generated violent growing vibration. Strings of blood and spit strung between his open jaws stretched and broke as the sound hit, flecking off into the air as the sound built and built and built, booming ever louder.

Dust ripped from the cobble in every direction as the sound billowed outward, then the cobble began to shift too. The ground was shaking, trembling, the cobble rippling, above them the bell tower visibly shifted back and forth, the great bronze bell inside clanging solemnly with each long sway. Buildings around the square were starting to fall, their roofs breaking apart, tiles sheeting down to crash to the ground stories below.

The Ranker was desperately trying to get away, trying rip his hands free, viciously kicking at Rain even as blood poured from his ears and mouth and nose, veins of red shooting across his white sclera and then bursting, making his iris a spot of colour in a field of blood red. He was screaming now, roaring his fury at what Rain was doing to him, his body shredding apart under the onslaught of sound, his internal organs rupturing and popping, arteries bursting.

At last, the terrible ripsnarl roar came to an end. Rain's ears were filled with a very loud ringing and he could hear nothing else. It took him a few moments of rapid blinking to clear his mind and his blurred vision. The Ranker was still in front of him, held up in his paws.

He looked fucking awful.

A wide band of blood ran down from his blood filled eye, meeting up with the rivers of red pouring from his nose and mouth and ears, sheeting down his neck and across his beard then down his torso painting him in streaks of gore. His long black hair hung limp with wet over his face.

Was... he dead...?

Rain angled him in his paws and the Ranker’s hair shifted aside. A terrible green eye amongst a wash of red stared up at him.

Rain was too addled by his own roar to quite grasp what had happened. The Ranker bared his teeth, teeth dyed all glossy blood red, then he screamed his fury up at Rain. Of course Rain didn't hear it at all, only the ringing in his ears, spittle and blood flying from the Rankers silent mouth as he ripped his hands free from Rain’s limp paws.

A heavy hand snapped forward and grabbed him by the throat and then Rain could only watch as a fist came slamming into his head.

Smack!

His head snapped to the side as the fist struck home, his lips splitting in two as bone struck flesh. The Ranker screamed his fury again, just breaking through the ringing now.

Smack!

Rain’s nose was crushed, becoming a pulp as the Ranker smashed him apart.

Smack! SMACK! SMACK!

And then

Crunch!

His face fractured, nose bone splitting, each progressively brutal punch pulverising more and more, teeth were coming loose now, and then teeth were flying free as the mad with rage Ranker punched and punched and punched, flesh was just gone, torn away, exposing one side of his face to white bone, then the bone broke, his lower jaw splitting in two, his eye socket crushed.

The Ranker paused to breathe having overexerted himself.

Rain blinked slowly up at him. He felt like he was going into shock. As they had fought the sky had become overcast, and then rain had started to fall, a light drizzle, drops pitter pattering on the stones, across his fur. He wasn't sure why he noticed that, perhaps because he was so out of it, then he saw the Ranker’s lips move, speaking, and at last the sound pierced the ringing in his ears.

“-I wasn't going to bother, but after that I’m going to hunt down those two girls you tossed and use them in place of the harem you kille-

Rains head snapped forward without thought and his forehead struck the Rankers with an explosive crack that echoed throughout the square.

The Ranker stumbled backwards, a hand going to his head.

Rain gruellingly climbed to his feet, swaying as he went, blood dribbling in stringy lines from his ruined face as frequently as the rain around him. He stumbled forward, struggling to keep his balance. He raised a paw, curling his digits, and then he swung for the Ranker. His knuckles struck him in the head splattering blood in a line across the rain strewn cobble. The Ranker swayed and stepped back.

He grit his teeth.

“I want to know who you are so this has meaning monster.”

He stepped forward and slugged Rain in the gut.

Rain grunted and brought his elbow down on the Rankers head forcing him back.

“You killed her, and then you kept me in squalor. That's all the meaning you need.” Rain gritted out, the words ragged coming from his broken mouth.

He stepped in and belted the Ranker across the face.

“Kept you in squalor? What is this nonsense.” The Ranker spat blood to the side. “You are deranged, delusional.”

Rain smiled. It looked horrific with part of his skull exposed.

“I can make this easy for you. Who do you think took your eye?”

The Ranker froze up, a mix of emotions quickly washing across his face, his eye shifting in quick thought, shuffling through memory, coming to a conclusion.

“You’re...his boy?”

Rain lunged at him as his guard was down. Grabbing him by the throat he swung him around and slammed him against the base of the belltower.

“yEs hIs bOy.” he snarled, the remains of his lip drawing back in a gruesome visage.

The rain continued to fall.

The Ranker stared at him for a long moment. Then his lip twitched, then a laugh burbled free from his bloody mouth.

“Oh no, oh no I can't believe, that is why, and-”

The Ranker shook with mirth.

Rain shook him, brutally slamming his head against the wall behind until it cracked and blood was running down the stone.

“You laugh after what you did to me?”

The Ranker looked him in the eye.

“You don't know do you? You never knew.”

Rain paused at that, the way the Ranker was looking him over was bothering him… this wasn't a taunt.

The Ranker turned his head to the side, his eye moving from Rain to something else. Not sure what he was doing Rain followed the direction the Ranker was looking.

He was looking at the Hellhound, the dog just standing there, watching them.

“A Hellhound is different from other demons,” he began. “Because you don't summon a Hellhound, that would be easy, if that were the case they wouldn't be so rare. No, instead you make a Hellhound.”

“What are you blathering about, I don't care about this shit.”

“You start with a core, difficult to craft but feasible. That's not the hard part.”

“Shut up.”

“You take a scalpel and you cut away a little slice of soul and then you graft it onto the core. Then over a few days you let the core slowly convert the little slice into its own matter, like feeding and watering a little plant. You do this over and over and over and over, one little bit at a time growing the Hellhound out of the core.” He bowed his head looking up at Rain through his limp bloodied hair. “The caveat that makes this process so difficult is that the little slices all need to come from the exact same source, the exact same soul, and it is vanishingly rare that a soul has the will power to survive being slowly shaved away over and over and over for years and years and years. You see the mind starts to dissolve, personality disintegrate, reasons to exist fade, madness grows. A will like pure adamantium is the bare minimum.

“N-no s-stop-” said Rain his voice cracking with grief, unbridled horror in his eyes

“That was the deal Rain. As long as he willed his soul to survive what I did to it I would let you live. He did it for you. He lasted so long and for so many many years I honestly forgot you existed, he was more than successful in achieving his goal, had you left my town I likely wouldn't have thought of you ever again, but then one day, when I was walking through my streets I saw a beggar, a pathetic starved wretch. I remembered, and of course I had no reason to need you dead, but then you were such a weak disgusting thing. I handed off dealing with you to a servant and then once more forgot you existed. And now... you are here.”

Rain was barely aware of what Bane was saying anymore, stumbling back, his mind felt like it was on fire, flashing lights dancing across his vision. He cried out and brought his claws to his face, cutting into flesh as painful memories burned to the surface.