Absolute Cheater

The rhythm of footsteps against black stone echoed as Asher moved deeper into the vast hallway, his stride measured, unhurried. The disguise was flawless—no head turned twice, no suspicion lingered. The cultists streamed past him in small groups, carrying offerings of bone, bowls of thickened blood, and scrolls inked in twisted glyphs. They muttered chants under their breath, each syllable threaded with an odd resonance that pressed faintly against his soul.

Asher's eyes, hidden behind Raymam's cracked mask, flicked across everything. He wasn't here to strike—not yet. He was here to learn.

The walls themselves seemed alive. The runes carved into the black stone shifted faintly when watched too long, spirals and jagged lines writhing like worms in flesh. He reached out subtly with his will, brushing against their resonance, tasting the echo of their function. They weren't just decoration—they were channels, veins through which a strange energy pulsed. Not mana. Not soul force. Something else, something gnawing and alien. A power borrowed from the Maw itself.

He walked on, cloak brushing the floor, until he neared a smaller chamber branching off the grand hall. He paused at the archway as two cultists bowed inside, palms pressed together, chanting low. The walls here were covered in painted sigils, layered over one another in clashing patterns. As the chants rose, the sigils glowed faintly, and Asher felt the pulse of an art—an invocation that reshaped flesh and blood.

They are cultivating, not through cores or scriptures, but through sacrifice. He realized it in an instant. They fed their life and blood into the runes, and the Maw's shadow answered, filling them with borrowed strength. It was crude. Brutal. But it worked.

Asher moved on before their eyes turned outward.

Deeper still, he passed an open training ground. Dozens of cultists knelt in a circle around an iron pit. Inside, two figures fought—bare-armed, skin marked with burned-in sigils. Their movements were sharp, driven not by technique but by frenzy, each strike echoing with a strange force that tore stone when missed. When one fell, blood spraying, the crowd roared in unison—not with cheers, but with a chant that seemed to stitch strength into the victor's wounds.

He studied carefully. Their techniques were rough, yet layered with ritual. Every movement bound to rhythm, every strike linked to chant. Fighting not with themselves—but with the Maw riding their flesh.

His scythe hand twitched faintly beneath the cloak, instinct whispering to silence this place. But he suppressed it, forcing calm. Rage would not serve him here.

Instead, he turned his gaze upward. Across the walls hung chains, hundreds of them, hammered into the black stone. From them dangled corpses—some shriveled dry, some still bleeding. Every drop of blood that fell vanished before it touched the ground, absorbed by glowing veins carved into the floor. The energy gathered, flowing deeper into the fortress, toward a central point.

Asher followed that pull, step by step.

Eventually, the great hallway narrowed into another passage, and beyond it, a chamber pulsing with power. Here, the cultists were silent, kneeling with foreheads pressed to the floor. At the chamber's heart rose a vast column of black crystal, its surface veined with liquid crimson that pulsed like a heartbeat. Each pulse released a wave of pressure, thick with hunger.

Asher drew closer, every sense alert. His disguise still held—no one questioned his presence—but his mind sharpened like a blade. The crystal wasn't just a focus of energy. It was a reservoir, a fragment, a seed of the Maw.

He stopped at its edge, feeling the current of blood within him stir in response. His own power resonated faintly, caught between rejection and temptation.

And in that moment, a thought crystallized in his mind:

If I unravel this, I won't just weaken them. I'll learn their path—the exact techniques they use to bind flesh and blood to the Maw.

He turned away slowly, careful not to linger too long. Patience was his weapon here. Strike too early, and the knowledge would be lost.

For now, he was Raymam. One among many. Watching, listening, and silently unweaving their secrets thread by thread.

The deeper Asher went, the more the fortress revealed itself not as a single chamber, but as a labyrinth built like an organism. Veins of crimson light ran through every wall, pulsing toward a central core. The air grew heavier, thicker with the tang of blood and smoke, yet the cultists moved through it with reverence, their bodies already bent to the rhythm of this place.

He followed their flow, blending seamlessly. No suspicion touched him.

The chanting grew stronger the deeper he descended. At first it was scattered—low murmurs, scattered prayers—but now it gathered into a single cadence that shook the stone itself. The sound was not merely heard, but felt; each syllable throbbed in his chest, as though his own heart wanted to join. His vampiric blood resisted, burning with defiance.

Then he reached it.

A great sanctum.

The ceiling soared into shadow, and the entire chamber pulsed with the same black veins that had fed the altar. At its center stood a wide dais carved with spiraling glyphs, and upon it knelt a circle of cultists. Their bodies were marked with cuts, some fresh, others old scars layered upon scars. Their blood flowed freely into grooves in the stone, forming an intricate pattern that glowed faintly with a hungry crimson light.

And towering above them—three figures.

The Disciples.

Each radiated pressure that bit into the air, different from one another yet all rooted in the same devouring core. Their black masks glinted in the firelight, runes etched deep into the iron.

One, cloaked in heavy chains, lifted his arms. His voice boomed across the chamber:

"By flesh offered, by blood surrendered, we bind ourselves to the Maw. Let its jaws open wider. Let its hunger claim all."

The kneeling cultists echoed him, their voices blending into one resonant roar. Blood surged faster through the grooves, rising like liquid fire toward the dais's heart.

Asher watched, still and silent, hidden behind Raymam's mask. His gaze traced every movement, every ripple of power.

The blood reached the dais center—then rose, pulled upward into a great sphere of crimson that hung in the air. The chains of the first Disciple shot outward, piercing the sphere, drawing it into himself. His body convulsed, then steadied as his frame grew thicker, skin darkening, eyes glowing through the mask.

They refine blood as we refine essence, Asher thought, sharp and calculating. But not their own. They hollow themselves so the Maw can pour into the gap. They gain strength, but lose everything else.

The second Disciple stepped forward. Her mask gleamed with etched spirals, and her hands weaved intricate signs in the air. The blood that remained twisted into ribbons, wrapping around the kneeling cultists. Some screamed, their skin splitting as jagged jaws formed along their arms and backs. Others slumped lifeless, their blood consumed entirely. Those who survived staggered upright, transformed, their bodies half-human, half-beast, ready to serve as living weapons.

The third Disciple watched silently, his presence heavier than the other two combined. He did not move, but the air bent faintly around him, as if reality strained beneath his weight.

Asher's blood thrummed at the sight. Every instinct told him to strike, to cut these puppeteers down before the ritual reached its peak. But he held still. He forced patience through his veins, colder than the hunger gnawing at him.

Not yet. Learn first. Then bleed them dry.

He shifted subtly, memorizing the sigils, the rhythm, the way blood itself was shaped into weapon, armor, transformation. Their techniques were not elegant, but brutally effective. Each ritual replaced weakness with borrowed power.

But Asher saw the flaw.

The cultists screamed not in glory, but in torment. The blood binding them was not theirs. It was stolen. Their bodies rejected it, even as the Maw forced obedience.

A power Asher could unravel.

His eyes narrowed behind the mask.

Soon.