Blood spatters across white marble, streaking into the grooves between bricks. Each kick drives more out of me—my lungs rattle, my ribs grind, my throat hacks red. The man above me doesn’t flinch. Same white hair. Same face. Only his is unmarked, serene, drunk on violence. Euphoric.

  He keeps at it until his interest fades. Boredom creeps over him, like he’s already wrung me dry.

  I can’t move. Can’t breathe without another gush spilling from me. My organs are pulp, my chest collapsing with every shallow drag. Pain should be fire, but it’s already gone dull—frozen. Numb. Only the blood around me holds a trace of warmth. A cruel little cradle on cold stone.

  He shoves me over with a casual flick of his leg. My back hits the marble. Blood floods my throat. I choke, coughing red into the cracks. He lowers himself until his palm hovers an inch above my forehead.

  The Leech grins. “Farewell, Kaizer.”

  A pale mist seeps from his palm, curling around his arm like veins crawling toward my chest. Then it plunges into me.

  Agony erupts.

  My skin shrivels first, peeled away layer by layer. Nerves catch fire, screaming with signals my brain can’t keep up with. Then muscle tears itself apart, fibers snapping like bowstrings under too much pull. Bones crumble inside me, grinding into shards that cut deeper with every convulsion.

  My jaw locks until teeth splinter. Blood foams out between them. My throat tears open from the scream clawing its way out. I thrash, skull cracking against stone, limbs hammering hard enough to split marble and paint it red.

  The mist digs deeper. It isn’t just my body—it’s me. Memories fray. Faces blur, then vanish. Hein’s smile. Swart’s smirk in the void. The dream of my mother, her voice soft, almost kind. Each ripped away like skin torn off bone. My will unravels strand by strand, a steady current sucked through the Leech’s hand. Seconds stretch. Another strand. Another breath. A minute. An hour. A lifetime. I drown in the pain, in the hollowing.

  My sight dims to a pinprick, but I’m still there, still trapped, still bleeding into his grin. My spine gives with a wet snap, and my body goes slack, but the torment keeps gnawing. No mercy in death. Only the stripping.

  The last strand tears free. A thread of me I didn’t know I still clung to. It rips out, screaming louder than my broken lungs ever could.

  I’m hollow. Empty. A breath without a soul.

  Then even that dies.

  Leaving silence and a gleaming Leech.

  ***

  I wake again. The loop resets.

  I collapse onto the lightless ground, breath thin, eyes hollow. That pain—

  “Hmm. You failed? How many times?” Swart turns toward me, his shape framed by nothing. No temple yet, only void.

  I stare back, empty. What did he ask? What does it matter?

  “The first. All right,” he says, coming to his own conclusion. He walks over, lifts me upright, brushes dust from me like it’s an afterthought.

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  “Well, maybe you’ll succeed this time.” He chuckles, snaps his fingers. The temple blossoms out of the void. Another snap and I’m back inside the cage where I died.

  A spark of fear burns through the apathy. I don’t want to feel that again.

  “What—no! Why? I don’t want to feel that again!”

  Swart actually looks startled at my panic, his voice softening.

  “It’s all right. After you defeat him, it’ll be over.”

  “I can’t. I couldn’t even land a hit. Please…just let me go.”

  He shakes his head. “You’re going to have to go through the pain either way. Here, or outside. Out there you die for real.”

  “Then let me die! I…I can’t—” I break down, sobbing, emotions crashing over me in waves.

  Swart’s eyes drop. When he speaks again it isn’t a threat; it’s a quiet, heavy disappointment.

  “No. We worked too hard for you to exist. You won’t throw your life away because it’s too painful. I thought you were stronger than this. Maybe I overestimated you.”

  Swart snaps his fingers. The Leech materializes grinning.

  “I’m sorry,” Swart says quietly, “but our plan needs you—” He cuts himself off before the rest escapes.

  My sobbing dies mid-breath. He summoned him. Panic roars back, hot and wild, something I’ve never felt before.

  “No—please! Just end it!” I shout until my throat tears. I pound my fists against the invisible wall between us. Bone cracks. Blood spatters the unseen barrier, runs down my wrist.

  Swart doesn’t turn. My pleas fall on deaf ears. His shoulders are heavy as he walks away, leaving me alone with the Leech.

  ***

  I stand in the middle of the void, just before I’m tortured once more.

  My entire being is hollow. My soul has returned, but my feelings haven’t.

  I have gone through that excruciating pain a dozen times now, each as wrenching as the previous. In the first couple I lost all composure to fear and panic. It brought out a side I never thought I had. My will lies shattered; I cling to the small pieces left.

  These small pieces are the reason I’ve decided to keep fighting—not for myself, but for the people who rely on me, the people I swore I wouldn’t fail. Since the day I came here, I never really had a good enough reason for why I do these things—fighting tooth and nail, slaughtering hundreds of beings, enduring sanity-breaking pain—beyond being forced in some situations. I blindly chose to follow a path set for me by people not brave or willing enough to reveal why I’m doing what I’m doing. The only real reason I’ve had is the chase, the thrill of battle. I shamelessly walked around like an animal chasing my desires. Now I bear the consequences, but at least I now have a purpose, an actual one.

  Beyond finding a reason to keep fighting, I found some information between my murmurs and pleas at each loop from Swart and the Leech. I have confirmed that attacks aimed at the soul are the only way to deal with the Leech. Swart also told me that while I’m stuck here, my soldiers are still fighting tooth and nail. Apparently, he had to sacrifice the time-freezing aspect of his ability to keep me from being consumed. Outside of Swart’s domain, if the Leech consumes my soul, it would preempt the loop—meaning it would kill me without a foresight loop.

  He tried to explain it in terms he learned from my Earth memories: execution order. Imagine my brain is a computer—obviously, in some sense, it is a very complicated one. The brain executes certain steps in sequence, and the Leech’s existence and domain inside me precede my bloodline ability. The reason: the Leech needs access to my loop-produced memories to cleanse them, to keep me sane and keep my brain from imploding under overload. Currently, the loop’s memories are not being cleaned, so the feelings are more vivid, lasting, and extreme than usual—on top of the pain of having one’s soul ripped out in the first place.

  Swart snaps his fingers twice and I’m back in the cage, the sound knocking me out of my thoughts as the Leech appears. Swart glances over, surprised at my lack of reaction, and seems to grasp why.

  “Good luck. I’m sure you’ll beat him.” He chuckles and leaves, as usual.

  Leaving me with the last—and probably most important—piece of information, and one of the biggest reasons I haven’t given up: a glimmer of how to make a soul-affecting attack. I caught it through observation after realizing I could still use internal mana while my soul was being torn out. Maybe Swart’s ability slips, or maybe it’s by design. Either way, between the wailing and the convulsions, I focused.

  The Leech pulls my soul with mana and something else—something that looks and feels like my own soul; his soul, most likely. If he’s using his mana and soul to rip mine free, there’s a chance to replicate it. When that moment opens, I can seize the mana that unlocks inside me, wrap it around my departing soul, shape it into a weapon—and cut him.

  With that said, I sigh—dead eyes, a hollow face. He always wants a show before he rips my soul out. I’ve tried; he just stands there, waiting. I don’t have time. The loop resets to zero, sure—but once I beat him, the time I spent becomes permanent. Everything that passes outside while my soldiers fight will stick.

  “Alright,” I mutter, and launch myself toward him.

  ***

  “Argh.” I grunt as his kick catches my defenseless body. Blood pools on the white marble, running through the cracks, painting this bright temple in macabre streaks. The Leech stands over me, elation fading to boredom as breaking me loses its novelty.

  He lowers himself like every other time. His palm hovers an inch from my forehead. The mist-like substance spills out, clinging to his arm, vines slithering toward my chest.

  Then the pain hits—hellish and absolute—as it plunges deep. The convulsions come the same as always, but I’ve tempered my focus over the dozen attempts. Between the violent, uncontrollable jerks, my eyes stay fixed, narrowing on the pillage of me.

  My internal mana flickers. I push it to my eyes, trying to see the soul work—trying to feel it.

  His mana clouds everything, heavy and overpowering, but not completely. I can feel it. It feels…happy. Twisted happiness—emotion, the soul. As the first drop of mine enters him, his shifts to satisfaction. I search for the feel of mine—nothing, almost. A feeling of—not pride, but something burning steadier. Duty.

  I drive my mana after that thread of self. It slips. I chase. Slip—chase. I pour more, scraping the bottom of me. The pain drowns the shape of it; I breathe through it in short, broken pulls and reach again. Fingertips on a frayed cord. I clamp down—just a sliver. Hold. Hold. The convulsions try to shake it loose. I press mana around it, grain by grain, until something thin and rigid forms. Small. Tight. Shaking. I angle it for his palm and push. It meets skin, hesitates, then slides. The surface parts. One gray bead.

  The Leech jerks back, more surprised than hurt.

  A heartbeat later, the needle shatters to nothing. As if nothing happened, he finishes the job, and my body lies still—empty of soul.

  But I touched him. I made him bleed.