(CW: Sexual Assault and Horror)

The tireless vanguard of Doctor-Commander Cold Iron marched through the dread-mudded lands of fallen Lastwall. The Myrmidon’s cyclopean eyes of frozen crimson steadfast amidst the ruin, decay, and effigy signages of fates of those who were found wanting of the Dread Land’s challenge. To lesser men, some would have chilled upon their hooves, others loosen bowels, the rest likely to flee in terror. But not Cold Iron. Not the Myrmidons, not Golgar and most especially not Arazni.

The journey was unerringly quiet for them for all things considered.

“We brave souls must be filled with Holy Song! Shall you come and sing with me?” the Crimson Crusader attempted to bolster the spirit of Cold Iron. “The Hymns allow us to meditate on our divine purpose. Our Crusade!”

“I am pretty sure I can ‘meditate’ much better if you just shut up for once.” Izo rolled his eyes, keeping his shotgun at the ready for the draw.

“Be wary Outlander, the Sorrowscythe’s blade has felled many of those as brave as you.” Arazni warned the fire-headed Cold Iron. “By this trial you and I are tested. The fate of thousands is at stake if the Sorrowscythe continues to indulge upon her hedonistic whims. We must all not be found wanting upon our Holy Crusade.”

“Oh… be-yeth warned… little angel thing inside my head! I am VERY a-anger-ree right now.” Izo teased, yet his seethed with anticipation just the same as the Crimson Crusader. “But if I find her… I am going to pluck every feather off her wings before she tries to buzz off. One-by-one.”

“When you… and that is a ‘When’ you and not an ‘If’ you find yourselves meeting eye to eye against her ebony wings. When she swings her Scythe high, dash forward duck left and quickly attack her eyes. If she is still the same foe I had faced, her Profane Wards should be at its weakest there.”

“Uh-Yeah… noted.” Izo grumbled.

“Master… we are here.” H.E.N.R.I. who was at the vanguard of the Mechanical March halted.

An acrid stench filled the Doctor-Commander’s lungs as his army set foot upon grassless clearing. Observing closely, he and Arazni had noticed discover that the ground radiated with a faint yet sinister magic, made by the hands of unnerring bones and rattle aberrations of all things against nature. A glyph burnt in unnatural ashes blotched the soil. The two swallowed their throats for courage as the same glyph began to repeat the further their eyes oversaw across the horizon. A chill air tested the faith and bravery to the edge of his limits.

The Approach to Vellumis had changed dramatically from the melancholic fields to a jagged gauntlet of barricades and other obstacles the Whispering Way Cult sook shelter upon. To both his unnerve and alarm, the barricades emitted a fetid odor. Looking closely, to his horror, the barricades carcasses at stacked at least five feet high or more some. Their sordid smell intensified the closer he approached them, becoming almost unbearable from scent alone. Yet bear witness he also saw the ‘building blocks’ for lack of a better word of bounded and weary souls as a reinforcement. Men, women, children and sizes too bloated to even recognize as human or beast made this monument of unfettered Tyrants sat upon his lackeyed sycophants who worship his horned visage as a God. If not there one true…

Some of the barricades even irked signs of life, their eyes fearfully gazing upon the faceless legions set to charge through their helpless selves staked unwillingly through bindings of rope and nails.

“The coward excuse of an ‘Angel’ is using Hostages! Some… ‘Madame’ she is!” Arazni disdainfully sneered. “But I expected no less from a daughter of the Pallid Princess.”

“Talk about making ‘existence more dignified and peaceful’.” Cold Iron’s fist curled knuckles until they let out a soft crack.

“This is the Black-Truth of the Tyrant’s so-called promulgation. A world without warmth, apathetic and selfish. Filled with only those of cruel hearts to stamp upon the strong. Sickening!” Arazni scoffed.

“Lysithea!” Izo yelled forth at the defenders of Vellumis. “Where are the Villagers of Crossfen you kidnapped?”

“Oh Darling…~” Lysithea’s lithe voice sang across the air. To the naiive, she would have brought salvation and hope. But Izo knew better… to not be enthralled around her blood-ladened fingers.

There beholden above his eyes just too far out of reach but still able to hear her enthralling voice as if just next to her. The Pallid Angel poised her ebon-feathered wings above Vellumis.

“They are quite snuggled up nicely over at the Keep. You know… the one you trashed after rejecting my kind offer?” she curled her lip with a wink.

“Kindness my ass!” the Doctor-Commander fired back. “Take your ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’s Teachings and shove it! Then again, knowing you… you might enjoy it. Anyways! I will find away how to punish you for your degeneracy!” Izo readies himself for battle.

“Perhaps… I was wrong about you.” The Pallid Angel smirked dismissively. “Thralls… dispose of this filth. I have more important matters to attend to.” She knew better not to waste her time even with her resurrected Rival being housed within such a weak-bodied vessel.

“Don’t let him reach our Mistress!” one of the Cultist delegated the command of the Defense raised his sword.

A hail of arrows and magical missiles arched above the Mechanical Host of the Doctor-Commander.

“Protect the Secretary!” Myrmidon coordinated their M.U.S.C.L.E Units. Those bodies equipped with shields quickly protected their Master from harm. But the Magical Missiles however managed to pierce through.

“Shit…” Izo could feel his heart give in to such an arcane assault.

He felt his lungs collapsing and his blood rupturing into wounds by the Deathly Energies the Cultists inflicted. Only the Angel vessel within him keeping him from tipping over the edge of death. Cold Iron scrambled his fingers onto his pocket to pick up a syringe of Epinephrine to curb his bodies plight. With tears as his only sopor against the pain, he binded faultily the damage done by the Cultists.

“More of their vile Negative Energy Channels.” Arazni uses her reserves of power to keep her body alive. “We must silence their Sorceries less they overwhelm us both.”

“Your orders Secretary Baird?” Myrmidon asked Cold Iron.

A thousand voices inside Izo’s head pleaded him with whispers ‘yield’ , ‘retreat’, to fight another day. Each orison’s twisting like rusted nails puncturing into him. The remaining wounds still bleeding around Doctor-Commander.

“This is all in your mind Izo. Fight it!” Arazni heartened his resolve.

He grabbed his Axe-Hammer and Shotgun and took one deep breathe. A storm of thoughts now calmed. He sees his reflection, himself upon the shine of the Myrmidon’s silver back, eyes streaming of tears to pull him down. He can either die today, forgotten and wasted or charge forth into the breach.

He will conquer this Whispering Way Cult upon to boot of his heel. These men, nay these monsters shall be swept away by the tide of his Mechanical Army. He thrusts the Syringe of Epinephrine into his chest. Raising his body back to strength, eyes dilating with unchained roars.

“Assault those positions! Rescue as many of those Hostages as you can!” Izo ordered. “Kill… Prioritize that Sorcerer who shoot the Bright Lasers out of him!”

“Necromancer. It is a Necromancer! No magic such as theirs can be past over from the Blood. But through vile Gospels.” Arazni glossed over the Outlander’s still formative grasp in Golarion.

“Acknowledge.” Myrmidon registered.

His Machine-Learning zeroing upon the lightly robed staff wielding Cultists who out puts strange unidentifiable but harmful rays of light from their distant positions. Identifying their adversary’s greatest threat and its greatest strength, Myrmidon presses upon the advance. Yet the Whispering Way’s hordes were devoted to their steadfast beliefs of their boned philosophy. The Cultists and their Summons amassed to challenge the invaders head on. Bodies, undead, alive and machine clashed amongst each other. Neither side gaining inch.

“They are halting us from reaching the Necromancers.” Arazni whispered into Izo’s ear. “If we don’t breakthrough, they can summon more of their minions to overwhelm us.”

“Lemme at’em! Lemme at’em!” Golgar skipped his tiny feet as he raised the fangs of his leaf-bladed daggers.

“Golgar?” Izo looked down to his pint-sized ally.

“Toss me at those frakkas! Golgar can gutts’em like fishies!” Golgar explained.

“Toss you?” the Doctor-Commander introspected. His Vulcan Exosuit is indeed strong enough to allow him to perform way beyond the physical prowess of ordinary man. Although the arms of his meant to withstand the heated pressures of extreme environments, it should be more than capable of throwing ball-sized projectile or say… companion at a great distance.

He gently grabbed hold of Golgar, careful to not have his palms accidentally crush the Leshen Barbarian into vegetable and mushroom pulp. He retracted his hands and felt the cold winds bless his arm. He threw Golgar, his fangs raised like a viper’s lightning bite across the battlefield’s contest of strength. Flanking the Necromancer Lieutenant, the Leshy snuck his blade upon the wicked wizard’s back killing him at that very instant.

The Necromancer who had acted both as the progenitor and ass the battery to channel his evil energies to the Undead Minions on the field causes a chain reaction amongst his summons. The skeletal and zombie peons of his crumbled and collapsed to dust to the dismay of the Whispering Way Cultists. With equilibrium broken in favor of the Doctor-Commander’s Army. The Myrmidons broke through the contest and set the enemy to a rout.

“Gods please help us!” an imprisoned slave pleaded as Izo used Hammer-Gap to break the chains that binded her and her fellow chattel.

As selfishly he continues to liberate those enslaved out of a sense indenturing these folks for his own ends, he will need more than an army, he needed a base to establish dominion over and who better than emancipated slaves? Izo noticed that not all of them were famished humans. Some had eyes as colored as a painters pallete, others had animalistic features, and others sported tall with green skin. He paid no heed to these destitutes, but he will have to retain mastery of these folks. It was much better they fall into the yoke of his dominion than Lysithea’s self-gratifying parody of tyranny. Their queerness aside.

“Clear all the Buildings! Kill every one of these cultists… free the slaves!” Izo ordered Myrmidon.

All on his head at that moment was focused one-way and he is about to follow that road out. Excitation ran through his veins burning all anger, fear and focus out. Today, these Whispering Way Cultists shall feel the full wrath of the Last Pioneer phoenix-resurgent! Cocking his shotgun, he cracked the bones of the Skeleton and Zombie forces he blasts away. It was easy to be both desensitized yet sweat greater of the difficulty of bringing these formerly men down thanks to their more venerable endurance. Yet the sweet splintering sound they make as they fall adrenalized Izo.

“Rest in Peace asshole!” Izo blasts his shotgun at the Cultists, its Armor piercing Darts cutting through bone and flesh like butter on a hot knife.

Like a man in euphoric rapture, the more he tasted victory the more her could not get enough. The rush of battle was intoxicating, pursuing the foes until they all get trampled upon the metal march of him and his Myrmidon’s hooves. Breaking down all their defenses, the Myrmidons used a mixture of Smoke Grenades and Flashbangs to pacify the Cultists before subduing them through a hail of bullets. The enslaved people’s they had kept were corralled to safety.

The more he unraveled beneath the tranquil village, the more Izo reviled in disgust. The alabaster decorations they sported across their homes were Bones. Red stains of Blood painted the air beneath scent of pleasant fumed flowers and the ‘leather’ used upon closer inspection was genuine human hide.

Lysithea’s atrocities continues to outpace with no fear of consequences nor sanity.

“I will rip everyone one of you! And see the lights go out slowly from your eyes!” he roared angrily.

Heart overclocking as he pushed himself harder than he never knew he could physically do. Izo sets his eyes at the Prize, or say the very shadow that conniving Lysithea cowers inside: the Vellumis Keep.

The closer they reach the Keep, the more desperate the remaining Whispering Way Cultists became… upon realizing that they are genuinely losing ground despite their homefield advantage and superior numbers. Second to that, to their astoundment, outside of the likes of Izo and Golgar, none of their Death Magic work on the Myrmidon’s. Being not alive at the first place despite their deceptively uncanny human-like appendage who power through them like stone against rain.

“What!? You don’t like your own ‘Tranquil’ world when its me calling the shots? Huh Assholes!?” Adrenaline-addled, he let loose what was inhibited beneath his meek interior.

But they did suffer casualties however. The erection of much larger Necromantic Creations such as a Bone Golem was able to knock several of the Myrmidon’s out of commission by its sheer size. Switching tactics and following inspiration from their master. Myrmidon focused their attacks on the Golem’s limbs, slowly wearing away the beast through finesse of anatomy rather than the brute force of fire power.

“I must say, despite your heart be weighed with transgressions. I might have been wrong of you upon our first encounter. You are not completely hopeless.” Arazni whispered.

“M’kaynow you are talking like that Black-winged Lysithea now Crimson Crusader. And what did you mean by you ‘weighing’ my heart?” Izo altercated.

“I am a part of you… just as you are a part of me.” She responded. “You are capable of great feats of Greed… yet Compassion… just like your forefathers.”

“First off Arazni, talk about this… ‘weighing my heart’ thing back at Fort Bragg. That’s just… not something you just due to people.” He reprimanded her.

“My eyes have seen many great battles, great atrocities, great failings, and great deeds. Perhaps one day I shall speak of thee chronicles to you Outworlder when we have the time. You could learn something about me or others I have witnessed in my millenia’s old wisdom.” The Angel lectured with her pious accented voice.

“Less Churchly speaking and more killing please!” the Doctor-Commander shifted the conversation away. “But fine!”

Izo’s invasion force soon surrounded the Keep whose gate was Sealed to block entry. The surviving Cultists had begun to barricade themselves inside.

“Damnit, we cannot afford to play a Siege.” Izo shook his head. “We have to breakthrough now.”

Looking up to the balconies above them, the cultists were still in the middle of barricading every possible entry point of entry that they can use to prepare for a drawn-out siege. Izo intuitively deduced that if one can act quickly by exploiting the gap in their defenses above they should gain access to the Keep. He spots an overlooked window that none of the cultists have yet to attend to its defense just now…

“Third window to our right.” He pointed.

“Master, will this help?” H.E.N.R.I. prudently held out a fold piece of rope binded onto a series of pipe-shaped handle bars. It was a Rope Ladder.

“Interrogative: how will we get it to the Windows?” Myrmidon asked.

“Suppressing Fire Myrmidon!” Izo ordered as he pointed to one of the rooftops above the main gate. He turned around and then knelt to Golgar. “Can you secure this Rope Ladder up there? We will toss you in and we will open the gate together.”

“Yup-Yup! Golgar killn’slay many!” Golgar eagerly accepted.

“But your armor will be too heavy to climb.” H.E.N.R.I. protested to his master.

“I know, and neither of any of you can climb it too. Besides I cannot just leave Golgar alone in there. He will need me.” Izo insisted as he reloaded as many ammunition shells into the tube of his Shotgun. Upon finishing reloading his weapon he released the latches on his Vulcan Armor before stepping off in his true body. “I will be fine. Just get ready to storm through when the Gate opens. Now H.E.N.R.I. toss Golgar to that roof.” He ordered.

The Leshy Barbarian held on to the Rope Ladder tightly with his paws as the Mechanical Man Servant took aim and once more, he flew across the air and precisely landed at the Window Balcony. He quickly fixed the Rope Ladder’s hooks on to the window before he jostles with two Cultists at once who rushed to stop him.

Golgar’s small stature proved cardinally as he weaved through the larger adversaries like a snapping fish, his knives sinking true to their tendons before delivering the finishing blow with his blade sliding across their chests. Climbing up the ladder hot on the Leshy’s trail, the Doctor Commander held his Shotgun at hand with his hybridized Axe-Hammer at his back. They quickly descend to the Keep’s gate house that and taking the element of their blitzing surprise, the two quickly dispatched the Cultists who were just about to reinforce the Gate’s disbarring obstructions by shoving furniture right before it.

The egress was still wedged shut by a large block of lumber held across the gate. With all having his large Axe at his back, the Doctor-Commander held his weapon by his two hands.

“Remember… Paul Bunyan… Paul… Bunyan…” he inhaled his spirit.

He fired down his axe. However, without the added weight his Mechanical Suit would have given him earlier, his effetely built arms could only scratch off a mere chunk off the lumber bar.

“Heavens above, even that savage tyke you call ‘Golgar’ can hit harder than that!” Arazni sneered at him. The battle-hardened angel knew that much to her own chagrin and her own pride that she would even dare to admit, even a child could swing an axe way better than what Izo’s unathletic body could muster. “Put your foot into it. Like a Woodsman!” Taking tenuous control of his limbs, Arazni puppeted Izo’s arms to grab his Axe-Hammer by its helves firmly: one below the head and the other just above the butt. His feet rotted themselves deeply into the stone floor below.

In one fluid motion, the improved technique from the Crimson Crusader allowed Izo to punch the axe much deeper into the lumber bar than what he could. Yet despite the improvement, Arazni still knows they could do much better than the inches penetrated.

“Well duh! Paul Bunyan is a Woodsman!” girded back at the Angel inside his body.

“Loosen your wrists. Let the it come down on its own Commander.” Arazni drilled him.

Curling and cracking the hands on his hands, Izo readies himself again. Raising his axe as instructed, he fell down Hammer-Gap down to the lumber bar cutting it deeply.

But just as soon as his axe left the flesh off the wooden lock, his feet were suddenly grabbed by a malachite tentacle tripping him to the ground before dragging him away from the gate and his companion Golgar.

“Shit!” Izo grabbed hold of Hammer-Gap for dear life.

“Stay calm… stay calm… I can get you out of this.” Arazni cautioned him as the Doctor-Commander flailed helplessly to cut himself free.

The tentacle lugged him back to a familiar room. A great pearlescent hall filled with tables. The dining hall that revelated Lysithea’s hidden barbarity. Instead of the tempting cornucopic scents of smoked meats, fresh produce, and baked bread, he was greeted by a ghastly fecundite before his horrified eyes. A great tree ruled over the room, not of decrepit wood likened to decayed forests outside but of putrefied flesh… not of humans… but of plants…

Malevolent, vicious, and cruel to the eyes, the tree breathed or more of salivated. It’s uncanny eyes setting their sights upon Izo’s soft and delectable-tasting innards locked within. Its fleshy branches were varied as they were assorted to what kind of means to tear apart its next meal be from fork-like ‘twings’, weighty knuckles for crushing and scythe blade-shaped fingers to slice. The body was an absolute assault to the senses of a dizzying pallete of visually cacophonic hues made of stitched Leshy Flesh. Hands and limbs still writhing about miserably to the compound of Izo’s disgust.

An erratic satire of what a simple tree should be.

“Careful Outlander, I know what this aberration is. A… very… malignant Scythe Tree.” Arazni advised.

“Lysithea!” Izo snarled at the Pallid Angel.

“Oh~ Darling may I require y-yee your assessment of this little… undertaking I have crafted with my two hands? The next council meeting does require I show --- Something to my peers.” Lysithea buoyantly pouted, more elated than awed by how the Doctor-Commander’s forces managed to crack her inner most sanctums with lightning speed.

“Yeah… your Porcelain looking ‘perfect’ face of yours… smeared crap dipped beneath its teeth! You seem to like to put your soul into everything you do.” Izo averted his eyes away from the tainted allure of the Pallid Angel.

“Again! We are so much alike you and I.” Lysithea clasped her hands and smiled.

“I am NOTHING like you!” he retorted. “You’re just a spoiled little bitch who treats her subordinates of what few resources she has like mere toys to indulge duh---T—these sick orgies you like to fuck around with!”

“Language! Language!” Lysithea belittling cooed Izo. “How would Mama Sopas now she’s seeing you act so doltish infront of her Darling?~” she caressed one of the enlargened eyes of the tree.

The Doctor-Commander’s heart chilled as the wicked dame cupped her lithe palms on the Scythe Tree’s eyes. A familiar warm hue followed by a single drop of tears fell upon the Pallid Angel’s cusps before she sickeningly licked its saline water for her salacious discernment for hydration. A benign eye Izo remembered caressing his cheek when he was at his lowest point…

“Y-You!” Izo eyes drew blood. Raising his axe haphazardly charges.

“I knew you couldn’t get enough of me!” Lysithea waved her hand to command the Sycthe Tree.

Let loose to hunt, the many appendages of the mutant aberration of Leshy bodies thrust pass their master assaulting Izo with their numbers.

Swinging as he much as he could, Izo slashed the assaulting tentacles with his Axe. But every time he severed a tentacle, the Scythe Tree roared, not of anger but of anguish. Deep inside, Izo could still hear Mama Sopas and the Leshy’s that Lysithea Sorrow Scythe

“No… no… no…” Izo froze. The voice of crying Leshies that he is slowly killing with each strike of his blade sapped the vigor from his spirit. To behold his own eyes, the Leshy’s he had betrayed by his own actions, he could not move a muscle from his body. Leaving it flat-footed for one of the Scythe Tree’s tentacles to grapple his legs and trip him.

“Good Pet… now… for some… REAL Fun.” Lysithea smacked her lips. A gluttonous roll of her tongue flashed her true parsimonious nature.

She struts on her black-winged with a stateliness of a Queen making her headway towards the now humbled Doctor Commander. Her Scythe shifting its eldritch bone joints into a spear. Her body tingling with degradatious joy, like a Hunter ensnaring its prey.

Lysithea straddles the Doctor-Commander and gently caressed his cheeks, a tear, a delicacy to her sickening sect. Her long-nailed finger, scooped the saline emission from him and placed it on her snakish tongue to whet her appetite. She smiled and laugh as Lysithea relished in Izo’s squirming.

“I love playing with my food. Especially food that hides… something… so precious inside.” The Pallid Angel held brushed her hand on Izo’s beating chest. Feeling its unnatural warmth upon her palms. Her witchened nails curled across atop of him causing the threads to his shirt to loosen. “I will make this last sight to show you… the greatest you have ever experienced.” She cooed to his ears before he steals one poisonous kiss upon their met lips.

“Every secret of Pain and Pleasure I have kept… I have such sights to show you. So please darling, accept E—Eh—EVERYTHING as my parting gift!~” the Pallid Angel wings unfurled as she raised her

“A-Arazni!” Izo gasped for help.

“Begone!” the Crimson Crusader discharged a snapping outburst of divine power welled inside her. The entrapped Arazni conjured searing-hot white blades of divinely magical power that sliced and burnt the grasping tendrils of the Scythe Tree and sent the Pallid Angel off her domineering bluster.

“You still never seem to fall against my charms have you Crimson Crusader?” Lysithea sneered as she stretched her neck from the blow.

“You have the charisma of an inbred-troll.” Arazni spoke through the Doctor-Commander’s tongue.

“There’s your bit of high-falutin banter you Angels are known for…” the Urgathoan Hierarch grasped her Sorrowscythe. “It bores me to death… and I was having so much ‘fun’ with your little… plaything you are sitting on though. Is not Possession something more of what the Abyss and the Nine Hells would do? I thought you Heavenly Folks restrain themselves over such a ‘sinful’ act?” she rolled her eyes.

“Like I had a choice! Where is the rest of my body?” Arazni raised her voice.

But the Pallid Angel only let out a derisive laughter that gurgled with overflown chutzpah.

“Everywhere… yet nowhere at once! It is quite a story what your so-called ‘Knights’ had done to your body. But alas… that is a story I will not allow you to know.” Lysithea raised her Scythe for an overhead slash.

“Dodge it now!” Arazni signals Izo.

Remembering her advice from earlier, the Doctor-Commander dashes forward from Lystihea’s charge. He, with Arazni’s wind-strummed blessing on his feet, weaved left barely whiffing the Sorrowscythe evil blade. Wide open as fast as the eye can see, Izo swings the Axe head of Hammer-Gap onto Lysithea’s face. Striking as one, material and divine both the Doctor-Commander and the Crimson Crusader struck true against the face of evil before them.

“Aggh! You!” The Pallid Angel recoiled. Flesh boiled and blood shredded upon her head as the Axe sliced her right eye and tore piece of her cheeks.

Being a being blessed by the Goddess of Gluttony, her Profane Ward protected her from harm that would perish most mortals. She fell back, trying to heal her injuries to no avail. Her eyes shot wide as she turned angrily towards Arazni, for she had imbued divine power into that strike. It permanently scared her immaculate face of Lysithea. A humiliation of her own, just like the Crimson Crusader’s.

“Beauty is not forever Lysithea!” Arazni abashedly puffed Izo’s chest. “Especially if that was stolen from thousands.” She added.

“I-I-I… Just you wait, Harlot of Arcadia! I will definitely come back for my revenge!” Lysithea vowed.

The Scythe Tree used its remaining tentacles to shield Lysithea as a portal opened by the Pallid Angel was conjured. Izo and Arazni used their combined might to fight through the tentacles, injuring the Aberration of Flesh until it degraded into a pile of mush. But despite their ferocity, it bought Lysithea the space she desperately needed. She flung herself inside before the Doctor-Commander could stop her.

“No!” Izo gnashed his teeth as Lysithea escaped.

“That doesn’t matter now.” Arazni egged him. “We still have this Scythe Tree to kill. We need to put these poor Leshies out of their misery.”

“Buh-Buh---” a murmur clattered beneath the remains of the Scythe Tree. “Boy… Puh-Plea…”

It was Mama Sopas voice. A single eye had survived his attack amidst the corpulent writhing of the other slowly dying Leshies stitched around the remainder of flesh.

“I-I-I…” Izo slowly fell to his knee’s at Mama Sopas’ mutated remains. “I am sorry… I am so… sorry…” Izo shed a tear, trying to remain strong but slowly cracking after all he had gone through.

“I knew… you would… come…” the remnants of the Leshy Druid’s motherly consciousness reached out to him despite her aberrant nature. “Puh-Please…” a thin if weak tentacle emerged from the mass of flesh and gently held Izo’s Axe, guiding the blade atop of her tearful eye.

“I didn’t know… I didn’t know…” Izo apologized further, another tear falling down his cheeks.

“Behold, this… is what the Whispering Way envisions as ‘Tranquility’. Know it, witness it, breathe its fetid stench.” Arazni lectured Izo. “Let this be known Outlander, this is why we Crusade. To be the Wall that shields the world against this cancer and the false gospels of Urgathoa and of the Whispering Tyrant.”

“I for---give---ouu…” Mama Sopas made her peace as she closed her eyes.

With one forceful press of his Axe, the Doctor-Commander finished off the Aberration, purging the abomination from this world and freeing the souls of the Leshies who were unwilling materials to this detestation against nature.

Silence escaped Izo as the flesh withered away away, its movements flailed before finally it fell still and atrophied.

Izo fell back and threw himself up by the table as exhaustion and nausea weakened his now over-exerted heart. His constitution barely managing to keep him and Arazni together through this trial.

“Stay with me Outlander. I have you.” Arazni gently puppeted Izo to a corner where he was allowed a much-needed twinkling of respite.

He had won but he will never be the same ever again…