Molten droplets fell from the beast's shifting hand.

Each drop struck the stone floor with a violent hiss, bursting into smaller fragments of glowing lava that scattered outward in random arcs. One of them splashed against the infant's tiny hand.

The skin burned instantly.

The child woke with a sharp, piercing cry that tore through the chamber, thin and fragile against the low roar of heat and the deep hum of the formation.

The woman screamed.

Her body convulsed as she threw her head backward, clawing at the hand gripping her hair. She tore at her own scalp with both hands, ripping free clumps of hair in raw desperation.

Blood ran down her forehead and into her eyes.

She did not stop. Even as her vision dimmed and her knees weakened, she dragged herself forward inch by inch toward her child, leaving red streaks across the stone.

Her body collapsed hard against the floor.

Yet she still crawled.

Not by thought.

Not by clarity.

By instinct, memory, and a will that refused to die before her daughter did.

Her consciousness faded completely.

But motion remained.

Her hand reached out blindly, missing the child's body by inches as her fingers scraped uselessly across the ground.

Another molten drop fell. It struck her back. Flesh ignited instantly, fire blooming outward as her body arched once in silent agony.

She burned alive where she lay.

Her body twisted once and stopped moving.

The infant was taken.

The beast's palm closed around the child, heat enough to incinerate her in a breath.

Instead–

The magma along its fingers solidified unnaturally, forming a hardened shell just long enough to preserve the body intact.

The beast raised its hand and dropped the child into its mouth.

The infant started incinerating in the depth by heat.

A muffled hiss echoed from within the beast's torso as the body burned apart inside it, flesh and bone dissolving into molten glow.

The beast laughed.

Smoke poured from its nostrils, curling upward in thick, scented streams.

The smell was sweet.

Addictive.

Its massive shoulders trembled in visible pleasure.

For the offering, it extended its molten arm again.

A massive pile of lava droplets rained down at the man's feet, glowing brighter and denser than before–high-grade volcanic ore formed directly from its body.

The man fell to his knees at once.

He bowed repeatedly, grinning as he gathered the ore into his arms like treasure, cradling it as though it were holy.

When he stood, something else remained in his hands.

A gray, drifting mass.

Ash.

The remains of the woman.

He returned to the dungeon.

The butterfly settled silently on his shoulder as he turned away.

He stopped beside a pot of spoiled porridge bubbling faintly over a low flame.

The stench was already unbearable, thick with rot and sour heat.

He poured the ashes into it.

Then stirred slowly, mixing them thoroughly using the heated metal tip of his flame stick.

The porridge darkened.

Thickened.

He lifted the pot and carried it toward the first prison chamber.

Inside, bowls were already laid out on the floor in uneven rows.

He poured the porridge into them one by one.

"Eat," he ordered coldly.

No one moved.

The air inside the cell tightened.

He dragged the unconscious boy forward and forced him upright by the jaw.

"Drink."

He pressed the bowl hard against the boy's mouth.

The liquid spilled down his chin as he gagged and struggled.

Then swallowed.

The man turned toward the others.

"If you don't eat," he said calmly, "he dies."

They drank.

All of them.

No one vomited.

No one spat.

When it was done, the man seized the boy's chin again and lifted his head.

He leaned close, his breath hot against the boy's ear.

"What you just ate was your mother," he whispered.

His smile widened. "And they ate her too."

He released him.

The boy collapsed to the floor, his eyes still open, burning with a hatred too deep for tears.

The man turned and walked away.

He climbed the dungeon stairs upward without hurry.

He continued climbing the spiral staircase without pause, the whip hanging loosely from one hand, its leather still damp and dark. In the other, he carried a burning flame stick he had taken from the wall beside the dungeon's second chamber. Its fire bent and flickered with every step, casting warped shadows that crawled along the curved stone walls.

After three full spirals, the ceiling lowered slightly.He bent his head to avoid striking it, his shoulders brushing the walls as he continued upward. On the fourth full rotation, a door appeared–not on the wall, but embedded directly into the floor beneath his feet.

He stopped and pulled it open.The butterfly remained motionless on his shoulder as warm air surged upward from the opening, thick with sweat, smoke, and rot that clung to the stone like residue.

The chamber below was vast, far larger than the vertical distance should have allowed.It was not the first floor of the fortress. It was the fifth.

The butterfly hesitated to take in its surroundings, not from fear, but from the sheer density of what surrounded it. The air itself felt layered, heavy with accumulated suffering and noise that had never fully dissipated.

On all four sides of the chamber, sound rose and fell in overlapping waves–humiliation, crying, laughter, flesh striking flesh, muffled pleading, hoarse screams. Women were being violated. Slaves were being beaten. Bodies were being dragged across stone. Bargains were being shouted and finalized without pause.

The butterfly did not turn its gaze toward any of it.It kept its vision fixed only on where the man was walking, tracking his movement through the chaos as if everything else were a blurred, moving wall of suffering.

He moved forward through the chamber as if none of it existed.At the center stood a ritualistic figure waiting.

The man wore a skeletal goat's head over his own, the hollow eye sockets dark and expressionless. In his hand was a long staff carved entirely from bones. Around his neck hung a necklace made from beast teeth, leaves, and dried fruits, while both wrists were encircled with bangles formed from the same materials.

The prisoner approached him and knelt briefly, lowering his head as if before an altar.He removed the high-grade volcanic ore from his storage pouch and placed it carefully at the ritualist's feet.

They spoke in a foreign tongue, their voices low and rhythmic, structured in a cadence that did not belong to any human language. The sounds carried ritual weight rather than meaning, as if the words themselves were part of an invocation.

The prisoner then handed over his whip as well, placing it atop the ore without hesitation.The ritualist accepted both the ore and the weapon, replying with a short chant that made the flame stick flicker.

The prisoner bowed again.Then turned and walked away without hesitation.

He crossed the chamber and stopped before a door in the wall.He did not open it.

Instead, he knelt and lifted another door embedded in the floor beside it, revealing a second spiral staircase descending beneath the chamber. The heat from below rolled upward in a slow, suffocating wave.

He entered and began walking downward, one full rotation at a time.Twenty-two steps carried him through the first spiral.

At the twenty-first and twenty-second steps, he paused, then stepped on them again.He repeated the same motion five times, deliberately and exactly, his rhythm never changing.

The wall beside the twenty-second step cracked.A massive block of stone slid upward silently, revealing a hidden corridor carved deep into the fortress.

He entered without hesitation.The wall sealed behind him as if it had never moved.

This was the fourth floor.Flame sticks ignited automatically along the walls, flooding the corridor with red-orange light that pulsed faintly with hidden formations.

He walked forward until a door came into view, with a chamber lying beyond it.He did not approach the door.

Instead, he turned to the wall opposite it and tapped three times with the metal tip of the flame stick.Stone shifted, and another hidden door opened.

He stepped inside.The corridor spiraled again.

Once more, he walked twenty-two steps, pausing on the twenty-first and twenty-second.He repeated the same pattern five times.

The wall opened again.He entered the third floor, and the door sealed behind him.

This time, he walked straight toward the chamber without detouring.He opened it and dragged several slaves out by their chains, their bodies jerking forward as their feet scraped helplessly across the floor.

Their eyes never lifted.None resisted.

He shoved them forward and pointed at an old slave woman standing among them."Open it," he ordered.

She stepped toward the chamber door with trembling hands, her shoulders shaking as she reached out.The moment her fingers touched the surface, a black tentacle burst outward.

It wrapped around her waist and neck.And dragged her screaming inside.

The door closed by itself.Her scream cut off instantly.

The man laughed, low and satisfied.He turned to the remaining slaves.

He tapped three times on the opposite wall.The hidden door opened again.

He forced them through, gripping their chains tightly as they stumbled forward.They followed him in silence, their fear no longer chaotic but trained into submission.

At the next spiral, he pointed at one man."Stay."

The man collapsed where he stood, his legs folding beneath him.The prisoner did not look back.

He descended again, counting his steps without moving his lips.Twenty-two steps.

He repeated the twenty-first and twenty-second step pattern five times.The wall opened.

This was the second floor.He dragged the two remaining women forward.

He threw them into a chamber where bodies shifted unnaturally, distorted shapes pressing against the bars.Transformed beasts growled from the darkness.

The door slammed shut.Their screams began.

Outside, on the stairway, another scream rose.Not theirs.

He tapped three times on the wall he had come through.The door opened.

He entered the spiral again.This time he did not stop at the twenty-second step.

He continued downward.

At the bottom, a three-headed Hellfire Dog was tearing into a man's body, its jaws burning as they crushed bone and flesh. Each head fed separately, snarling at the others as blood and fire spilled across the floor.

The dog lifted its head and spat a severed toe at the prisoner's feet.He picked it up without expression and walked to a birdcage mounted on the wall.

He dropped the toe inside.A black bird devoured it instantly.

The man turned and stepped out of the fortress through an open door.

The Chief had one final task left to complete.

The entrance itself still needed to be tested–whether direct entry and exit would trigger any response, any disturbance, any hidden mechanism that had not yet revealed itself.

The butterfly lifted from his shoulder and rose into the air.

It followed the unnatural current moving through the fortress, letting the pressure guide its path instead of resisting it, drifting back toward the chaotic frontal market zone.

It crossed above tents, cages, and trading stalls without slowing.

Then it angled forward, flying straight toward the open entrance.

A faint shimmer rippled as it passed through the boundary.

The formation at the gate activated briefly, its structure simple and utilitarian–nothing more than a regulated teleportation array for entry and exit.

The butterfly was not hindered.

It moved through cleanly, without resistance, distortion, or delay.

Outside, the air shifted.

The concealment domain unfolded around it again as it entered the hidden zone where Kiaria and the others waited.

The butterfly descended and settled gently onto the Chief's outstretched hand.

Its paper body trembled once, then began to darken.

The origami folded inward on itself.

Edges curled, joints collapsed, and the structure burned soundlessly into fine ash that scattered into the air and vanished.

Kiaria stepped forward.

He placed two fingers against the Chief's forehead.

A pellet-sized monochrome orb condensed at the tips of his forefinger and middle finger, swirling faintly with layered images.

The orb pressed forward and sank into the Chief's forehead.

Kiaria's eyes shifted.

The world inside him changed.

He saw everything.

The dungeon.

The ritual floors.

The Demi Beast God.

The infant.

The auction stage.

The missing treasure hunters.

The slaughter system embedded into the fortress itself.

His breath remained steady.

Then he lifted his hand again.

One by one, he formed identical monochrome orbs and sent them into the foreheads of the others–Diala, Hylisi, Ru, Yi, Princess Lainsa, Mu Long, Azriel.

Each received the vision.

Each saw the same truth.

Their bodies stiffened.

Fists clenched.

Teeth ground together.

Rage rose across the group.

But it was controlled.

Superficial.

Contained behind discipline and restraint.

Even Diala's anger did not break her posture.

Kiaria noticed.

Dia has grown up, he thought.

He turned to face them all.

"So," he said calmly, "what are your plans and opinions?"

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