Galen Replied with a dry voice, “You killed the others.”

I nodded before he continued, “Now you’ve come to kill me.”

I nodded again before he said, “I don’t understand you, Darkened One. I thought you said you didn’t want Nelastra to burn.”

I shrugged as I said, “I don’t believe it has.”

“That filth rules the palace along with all the other retched garbage who’ve come to power.”

I raised an eyebrow, “I’m curious. What makes you believe they’re any less than you?”

He glared, the arch of his eyebrows casting his eyes in a shadow. He said, “I don’t. I just know it’s all filthy, disgusting garbage.”

“I don’t remember you being so cynical.”

He frowned as he said, “You’ve never known what it’s like to lose both your daughters to an inhuman abomination, yet be powerless before it. Now I’m at the mercy of that monster.”

I shook my head as I said, “You’re not at my mercy.”

An arid laugh escaped him before he said smiling, “I figured you’d do the same to me as my daughters.”

I frowned, “Joan still smiles.”

His gaze turned to stone as I continued, “She laughs. Her eyes dance every once in awhile. She’s been distant since I killed the king.”

“Perhaps she discovered what you really are?”

My eyes opened wide as I said, “I am nothing compared with what these Wormwoods have done to you though, am I? They’ve violated your flesh and invaded your mind and torn your sanity asunder.”

A vein bulged on Galen’s forehead as he said, “They’ve done their fair share of madness.” He winced before continuing, “They said they’d turn me into a saint. I never imagined they’d end up doing to the others.”

I glanced around at the piles of grayed mush around me. They captured a dozen saints and tried siphoning their holiness into him. They refined the process used on Petra till they could create a sentient, normal human. Even though the thought appalled me, I couldn’t deny the gravity of the feat.

If they’d mass produced the process, I’d be facing an army of regenerating, bloody, and driven warriors. Just imagining the task sent a shiver down my spine. Fortunately, I’d eliminated the threat before they finished the procedure. Here was yet another instance where mercy would complicate matters.

I cracked my neck before saying, “It ends here. I’m done with leaving loose ends.”

Galen’s left shoulder twitched before he said, “Even if you kill me, I’ll haunt you with my hate.”

I cracked my fingers as I said, “After death, there is nothing. The only place you can haunt me is here, in this life, not the one after. That’s why your church had to be destroyed. The palisade focused so much on what happens after death that they lost focus of what they did while they were alive.”

I grimaced as I continued, “They ripped apart what little they had left of their humanity. They decimated entire cultures, silenced those who disagreed, and ripped families apart. You and Petra both sided with them, blind to what they’ve done to you and the ones you loved.”

He hissed back, “Are you telling me that what you’ve done is any better? How many did you slaughter? How much did you sacrifice to kill Gaia? You're just a self righteous, malformed ghost of what you were. You linger and infect this world with your taint.”

I roared, “I alone fight against the corruption that surrounds you. I alone saw that rosy little cell you all surrounded yourself in. I exposed the wretchedness your church afflicted. I tore that cage apart with my own hands, and I sacrificed my humanity to do so.”

Pain leaked into my voice as I said, “You have never heard the wailing of a mother whose child was stolen from them by the palisade. You never opened your eyes and saw their slow descent into the abyss of insanity. You all rode on the back of a beast, high and mighty.”

I leaned close as I raged, “Who fed that beast? The tribes boiled alive in the bowels of that monster, food for its march, food for its life. I killed that beast, and now you all have to stand on your own feet instead of the backs of theirs. Now I hear you whine about walking, as if you were spoiled children.”

My face contorted with malice as I seethed, “Face your reality. Face the hell you created. Live in the misery you forced you forced down their throats.”

Galen winced as I stood tall. I stepped my left foot forward and torqued, letting my right arm drag behind me. Like a falling anvil, my fist grew heavy and hard. I gritted my teeth as my hand impaled his chest. I let out an angered roar as I jerked the hand backwards, out the side of his chest.

His arms stayed tight on the cords, letting his pull outwards. His chest gushed and squished while the cords pulled him apart, keeping him taught. Like two horses pulling a man’s arms off, his limbs ripped apart and gouged off. I turned around, making my towards the tubes before a disgusting slurp slid across the floor behind me. I turned my head and glanced behind me. The cords snapped. A force like gravity pulled Galen’s body back together. He rose from his death, reborn and hanging like a puppet on strings.

Where his flesh connected, a green glow aurated. The lines crawling across his skin reggressed until he stood, alive and well and awakened. His eyes opened, met mine, and shock riddled his scarred face. He glanced down and shivered before saying, “I’m alive? I don’t...”

I raised an eyebrow as I said, “I wonder what they've done to you?”

He clenched his fists, smiled, and said, “I feel wonderful.” He looked up and said, “I’m going to cleanse you.”

My form reformed into my normal, human body as I crushed my fists together. Like steel slabs slamming, the sharp, piercing clap shattered the glass tubes around me. I grinned as radiation ebbed around me. From five soults to ten to twenty, the energy grew in power. I said,

“I am more than a myth. I am rampage. I am ruin.”