The club struck first, smashing Marcus down into the golden sea so hard that the whole Soul Realm convulsed beneath the impact. World Essence erupted outward in a vast circular wall that climbed higher as it travelled, until whole sections of the distant horizon disappeared behind gold.
Marcus barely registered any of it before the chains came scraping across the surface after him, and the hooks caught: one buried through the shoulder of his manifested Soul, another tearing into the side of his abdomen, a third found purchase somewhere deeper; the executioners hauled together and ripped him back out of the sea while his scream tore across the endless expanse.
Phei kept walking.
Behind him, the ogres were only beginning.
They did not beat him again, not at first.
