The auction square reeked of iron, sweat, and despair.
Caged platforms lined the cobbled plaza, each holding a cluster of shackled bodies. Most were Beastborn—ears twitching, tails limp, eyes hollow. A few elves, dwarves, and even lesser spiritkin huddled among them, stripped of dignity and dressed in rags. The stone walls of the auction house loomed high behind them, banners of the Valerius Empire fluttering above like mocking gods.
A rotund man in crimson merchant robes stepped forward, his voice booming over the murmuring crowd.
"Step right up, nobles and knights! Fresh stock today! Hardy laborers, exotic breeds, even a few untamed ones with fight left in their blood! Nothing like a beast to remind you of your divine place atop the world!"
A burst of cruel laughter rippled through the audience.
"Next!" barked the handler, yanking a whip.
A metal gate screeched open, and two guards dragged out a lean boy with black hair matted in blood and dirt. His caramel skin was bruised, his wrists raw from chains. But his amber eyes burned. Not with fear. Not even with pain.
With hatred.
He didn't beg. Didn't flinch. He simply stared, like a wolf forced into a collar.
"Lot thirty-four!" the auctioneer cried. "Beastborn male—unknown lineage, age estimated sixteen. Wild, yes, but unbroken. Might make a fine pit fighter or dungeon runner. Ten silver to start!"
A hush.
Then a voice, smug and cold: "I'll take him."
Heads turned. A nobleman stepped forward, draped in velvet and arrogance. He smiled, a snake wrapped in silk.
"I like the fire in his eyes. That's the kind that breaks the hardest… and screams the loudest."
The slave handler grunted as he locked the boy's shackles and hauled him toward the transport.
"Get in with the rest of the filth," he sneered, shoving him into a reinforced cage bolted to the back of a thick-axled carriage. The metal grated underfoot as he stumbled inside.
It was already crowded.
Dozens of others filled the space—most Beastborn, their animal traits muted by exhaustion and pain. A fox-eared girl with broken fingers stared at the floor. A lionkin slumped in the corner, blood dried on his muzzle. Among them were a few elves with dull eyes and torn cloaks, and even a pair of humans—criminals or debtors, no doubt—who still managed to look at the others with quiet disgust.
He felt their stares when he entered. Not sympathy. Not even curiosity.
Disdain.
To them, he was just another mongrel. Another worm.
The door slammed shut behind him, and the carriage lurched forward, pulled by armored beasts with dull eyes and metal-plated hides. The wheels creaked along uneven stone roads as they left the auction square behind, headed for something far worse.
He didn't speak. Neither did most of the others.
The only voices came from outside—two men talking, muffled but clear enough through the iron bars.
"Another dungeon, huh?" one of them said, chuckling. "That'll chew 'em up good. How far down are you sending this lot?"
"The lower floors," replied a familiar voice. It was the buyer—Thomas. "Deeper than the scouts cleared. Too many eyes near the top, too many bleeding hearts. Nobles visit the upper levels. Gotta keep the pretty slaves up there. These? These ones are fodder."
A pause.
"Throw 'em at the dark. If they find anything valuable, good. If they die… well, that's what they're for."
Laughter again.
Inside the cage, no one reacted. Not a twitch. Not a cry.
Just silence.
But in the dark corner of the cage, amber eyes gleamed. He didn't cry. He didn't beg.
He waited.
He remembered their faces.
And he dreamed of blood
The carriage groaned with every rut in the dirt road, its wooden frame creaking like bones ready to snap. Chains clinked in rhythm with the wheels, iron links biting into flesh. Bodies swayed, slumped, silent.
But not him.
In the farthest corner of the cage, he sat hunched forward, eyes burning holes into the floor. His lips moved, whispering, then speaking, then whispering again—like a mantra building toward madness.
"I saw his face. The way he smiled when he bought me… like I was meat. Like I was his."
He laughed—sharp and sudden. The kind of sound that made the other slaves flinch, even if they didn't look up.
"He thinks owning chains makes him strong. That a collar makes me less. That I'll forget who I am because I'm on my knees."
His voice was low and steady now. Controlled. Dangerous.
"I will remember his face. Every wrinkle. Every wart. Every breath he took while grinning at me like I was dirt."
The others didn't speak. Didn't move. Their eyes were dead things, sunk deep into skulls that had long since stopped hoping. Even the Beastborn among them—his kin—had hollowed out their souls like rotted logs.
He saw it. And it twisted something in his chest.
But not pity. Not exactly.
"You gave up," he muttered to no one in particular. "You let them feed on your will until there was nothing left. But me?"
He tilted his head back and smiled—a slow, sick thing that had no joy in it.
"I'll keep my hate. I'll sharpen it. Every second I'm alive, I'll feed it with their names. With their faces. With their screams."
He clenched his hands slowly, fingers curling as if they were already around a throat.
"One day, the chains will break. One day, I'll return the favor. I'll put a leash around his neck and drag him through fire until he remembers what it's like to be prey."
The others kept their silence. But something in the air shifted. Maybe they felt it. Maybe not.
Didn't matter.
Because he wasn't talking to them.
He was talking to the gods.
Or maybe just to the beast inside his own mind.
The carriage jerked to a halt. Iron hinges groaned as the back gate dropped open with a thud, and a sharp bark from one of the guards signaled the start of the next routine.
"Out! Now! Line up, filth!"
The slaves obeyed. Not because they were loyal—but because pain had taught them faster than obedience ever could.
He stepped out last, his bare feet hitting the cracked stone ground. The air was cold here—unnaturally so. The cave ahead gaped like the throat of a dead god, wide and black and hungering. Mana fog drifted from within, soft and faintly glowing, curling around ankles like fog made from ghost breath.
Another carriage rolled up beside theirs. More slaves stumbled out—thin, broken, blinking too slowly, some with bruises fresh, others with scars so old they looked carved.
"Form ranks!" shouted a guard.
The two lines merged like streams of blood in the dirt. Dozens now. Waiting. Shivering. Silent.
He didn't look at the others.
He stared into the cave.
He felt it breathing.
Meanwhile, their masters stood off to the side beneath a canvas tent, far enough from the dungeon's edge to feel safe, close enough to issue commands. One was the fat man from before—Thomas, or whatever rotting name he went by. Another wore a long black coat embroidered with golden vines and sunbursts. A noble. Maybe even a mage.
Their voices drifted over the stillness.
"So the lower floors have been cleared, yes?"
"Just last week," the noble replied, sipping wine from a silver cup. "Took a full team of D rank adventurers. Had to burn out a nest of mana beasts and collapse a few unstable corridors."
"Hmm. And the artifacts? Have they been activated?"
"Of course. You think I'd risk losing my investment? Warding runes are stable. They'll suppress mana flare and delay mana beast re swpan . The mine veins are exposed, but the mana density won't be enough to spawn anything... unless some idiot dies down there and leaks too much blood."
They both laughed.
Laughed.
He stood in line, fists clenching, staring at their backs. His voice was low again, barely a whisper against the wind curling out of the cave.
"Keep laughing. Keep drinking. We'll see if those artifacts protect you when your blood starts summoning worse things than beasts."
One of the guards walked down the line, inspecting the slaves. His whip dragged along the ground like a snake too lazy to strike.
"You worms are going into floor 50. You'll work until the stones shine or your arms break. No food until quota's met. No rest until you're told. And if you even think about hiding a mana shard..."
He held up a shriveled hand—blackened and burnt, the bones visible through melted skin.
"This was the last thief's reward."
He moved on.
The cave loomed larger now. The first group was beginning to march, guided by torchlight and cruel hands.