The creature didn't hesitate. Its eight arms shot forward, claws wrapping around Zedrik's ankles with a grip that made the bones creak. Zedrik had just enough time to let out a single, terrified squeak before the monster swung him like a ragdoll, spinning in a wide arc, building momentum with each rotation.
The wind howled. Zedrik's screams were torn from his throat, lost in the rush of air. His massive breasts flattened against his chest, his torn suit flapping, his red hair streaming behind him like a bloody banner.
And then the creature let go.
Zedrik flew across the throne room like a comet, arms and legs flailing, mouth open in a silent scream.
He slammed into a marble pillar near the back wall with a sound that was wet and hard and final. The pillar cracked. Blood sprayed. Zedrik's body crumpled to the floor, limbs bent at angles that limbs should never bend, his head twisted almost all the way around. His one visible eye was still open, still wide with terror, but there was nothing behind it anymore.
He was dead. Instant.
Painless.
Lucky.
The creature wasn't done.
It charged across the room, hooves clicking against the marble, eight arms reaching. When it reached the corpse, it didn't stop. It leaped into the air, all eight feet of muscle and rage, and came down with both legs extended, feet first, like a meteor.
The impact shook the throne room. Marble tiles cracked and shattered, sending shards flying. Water from beneath the floor sprayed up through the gaps, mixing with the blood that was already pooling around Zedrik's broken body.
The creature raised its arms over its head, all eight of them clasped together like a single massive fist, and brought them down on the corpse with the force of a wrecking ball. The sound was apocalyptic. A crater formed beneath the body, the marble giving way, the water below bubbling up. The creature did it again.
And again.
And again.
Each slam drove the corpse deeper into the floor, flattening it, pulverizing it, reducing what had once been a person into something that looked more like ground meat than a body.
"Stop," John said.
The creature froze, arms raised, chest heaving. Its maw was dripping drool and something darker, something that might have been blood. The painted smile on its mask seemed wider now, more manic, like it was enjoying itself.
John stood up from the throne and walked down the stairs, his boots crunching on the broken marble. He stopped at the edge of the crater and looked down at what was left of Zedrik. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't anything, really. Just a mess of broken bones and torn flesh and blood so dark it looked black in the torchlight.
"System," John said. "Revive him."
Again?
"Again. And this time, make him immortal. I don't want him dying on me. Not until I'm done with him."
You're sick.
"You love it."
Damn right I do
The blue light washed over the crater, over the pulverized remains, and the flesh began to knit itself back together.
Bones realigned. Organs reformed.
Skin stretched over muscle, smooth and unblemished, as if the last few minutes had never happened. Zedrik gasped back to life, his chest heaving, his eyes snapping open. He was whole again. Perfect. Unharmed.
And then the pain hit.
"Oh god—OH GOD—WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME—" Zedrik's scream was raw, primal, torn from the deepest part of his soul. His body was writhing on the broken marble, his hands clawing at his own chest, his legs kicking. Every nerve was on fire. Every breath was agony.
The slightest touch, the faintest breeze, sent lightning bolts of pain shooting through his system.
"Quadrupled his pain sensitivity," John said, almost casually.
"Figured it would make things more interesting."
You're not wrong.
John turned to the creature, which was still standing over the crater, its eight arms twitching, its maw dripping. "Continue."
The creature didn't need to be told twice.
It reached down with two of its arms and grabbed Zedrik by the ankles again, lifting him off the ground. Zedrik screamed, the pain of the grip alone sending him into convulsions.
The creature ignored him. It swung him once, twice, three times, building momentum, and then it slammed him against the nearest pillar. Not hard enough to kill. Hard enough to hurt.
Zedrik's body bounced off the stone, leaving a wet smear of blood, and the creature caught him mid-air, spinning him around and slamming him against a different pillar. Then another. Then another. Each impact was measured, precise, designed to cause maximum pain without causing death. Bones cracked but didn't break. Organs bruised but didn't rupture. Skin split and bled, but the wounds were shallow, superficial.
The creature was playing with its food.
It dropped Zedrik on the floor and stomped on his left hand, grinding its hoof into his fingers. The crunch of breaking bones was loud in the quiet throne room.
Zedrik's scream was louder. The creature moved to the right hand, grinding that one too, reducing his fingers to pulp.
Then it grabbed his arm, one of the eight hands wrapping around his wrist, and pulled.
Not hard enough to dislocate.
Just hard enough to stretch, to strain, to make the tendons scream. Zedrik's back arched off the floor, his mouth open in a silent wail. The creature pulled harder, and the shoulder joint popped, the arm coming free of the socket with a wet, sucking sound.
Zedrik's scream came back. Loud. Desperate. Begging.
"PLEASE—PLEASE—I CAN'T—I CAN'T TAKE IT—"
The creature grabbed his other arm and pulled that one too. Another pop. Another scream. Zedrik's arms hung at his sides, useless, disconnected, the pain so intense that his vision was whiting out at the edges.
But he couldn't pass out. The system wouldn't let him. He was trapped in his own body, forced to feel every second of agony.
The creature moved to his legs. It grabbed his left leg with two hands and twisted.
The knee joint rotated in a direction it was never meant to go, ligaments tearing, cartilage shredding.
Zedrik's scream went up an octave, becoming something almost musical. The
creature twisted the other leg, the right knee going the same way, and then it pulled both legs out of their sockets, leaving Zedrik's limbs dangling at unnatural angles.
He was a broken doll. A ragdoll. A collection of meat and bones held together by skin that was already starting to bruise.
The creature stood over him, eight arms hanging at its sides, its maw dripping. It looked at John, waiting.
John nodded. "Good. Keep going."
The creature reached down and grabbed Zedrik by the hair, lifting him off the floor. His broken arms and legs swung uselessly beneath him, his body a limp, screaming sack of pain.
The creature carried him over to one of the remaining pillars and pressed him against it, holding him in place with four arms while the other four went to work.
It started with his fingers. The ones that weren't already crushed. It took each finger, one by one, and bent them backward until they snapped. Then it did the same with his toes. Then it moved to his ribs, pressing inward with its thumbs until each one cracked, the sound like stepping on dry twigs.
Zedrik was beyond screaming now. His mouth was open,
but all that came out were wet, choked gurgles. His eyes were rolled back, showing only white. His body was shaking, convulsing, every nerve ending firing at once.
The creature wasn't done.
It grabbed his left arm, the one that was already dislocated, and began to twist. The skin stretched.
The muscle tore. The bone, exposed now, glistened wetly in the torchlight.
The creature twisted faster, and the arm came off at the elbow, ripped clean, blood spraying across the pillar and the floor.
Zedrik's body jerked. A sound came out of him, something between a scream and a sob, something that didn't sound human at all.
The creature dropped the arm and grabbed the other one.
John watched, his expression calm, almost bored. "You know," he said, "you could have just paid your taxes. That's all you had to do. Collect the money and leave. But noooo. You had to make it fun. You had to make it a game."
The creature ripped off Zedrik's other arm.
"And now," John continued, "we're having our own game. Isn't that funny? How things come full circle?"
Zedrik couldn't answer. He couldn't even hear. His body was in shock, his mind retreating to somewhere far away, somewhere safe.
But the system wouldn't let him go. It kept him present, kept him aware, kept him feeling every single thing.
The creature grabbed his left leg and pulled. The hip joint gave way with a wet pop, and the leg came free. Then the right leg. Zedrik was just a torso now, a screaming, bleeding torso with a head and nothing else.
The creature held him up to its mask, the painted smile inches from Zedrik's face, and let out a low, rumbling growl.
Zedrik's eyes focused for just a moment. He saw his own reflection in the dark eyeholes. Saw what he had become. What he deserved to become.
And then the creature opened its maw, wider and wider, and bit down on Zedrik's head.