The bridge tore itself apart beneath him.

Stone split with the sound of ribs breaking, meat-veins writhing in the gaps like parasitic roots suddenly exposed to air. Whole slabs tipped sideways, held together only by cords of slick red muscle that pulsed in time with some unseen heart. Mist boiled up through the cracks, swallowing the view of the far bank until there was only this strip of trembling deck beneath his boots — and the thing that wore his face's faith like a funeral mask.

Dan's clone descended from the air as if gravity had no claim on it. Wings of flayed tendon spread wide, the membrane thin enough to see bone through. The hood of black sinew hid most of its face, but the mouth was visible, lips pale and unmoving. It brought its feet down without sound, and yet where each shadow landed, the bridge died — moss curling into ash, stone flaking away into black dust.

Its shadow was wrong.

It didn't follow the light. It spread outward like smoke in water, spilling toward him no matter where he stood.

Dan's halo flared on instinct, golden light cutting through the mist. The shadow hissed where it met the glow, curling back like smoke from a flame — but it didn't retreat far. The drain hit him instantly, the same bone-deep ache as pouring everything into a patient who wanted him dead.

"You're not me," he said, voice low.

The clone didn't answer. It simply stepped forward, the shadow rolling ahead of it, faster this time.

Dan vaulted into the air, wings snapping wide. Cold hit him instantly — not just wind chill, but the absolute absence radiating from his double's halo. It was a halo inverted, a sphere of lightless cold that seemed to hum in his bones.

The clone rose to meet him.

They clashed in the space above the bridge, his blade flashing in tight arcs while his free hand threw bursts of light to keep the shadow from creeping up his legs. The clone's counterstrikes came without hesitation, without mercy — a mirror in motion, but one that sought only to smother.

Below, the bridge groaned under their circling shadows. Each time the clone's feet or wings brushed the deck, decay spread outward in spiderweb fractures. Meat-veins pushed through the gaps, knotting around the stone as if to pull the whole span into the river.

Dan's eyes narrowed. This wasn't just about killing him. The thing was rotting the bridge on purpose.

He feinted left, drawing its blade wide, then burned forward in a surge of light, driving his sword through the thin tendon of one wing. The membrane tore, but instead of falling, the clone's flight grew more erratic — the ragged wing leaving streaks of black vapour in the air. Where the vapour touched his aura, it hissed like acid.

Pain flared along his forearm. He didn't remember being hit. He looked — the skin was white and numb where a trace of shadow had brushed it.

The clone angled higher, forcing him to follow. From this height, the bridge looked like an open wound — stone islands lashed together by ropes of muscle, mist curling through the gaps. He couldn't see Alyssa or Ying, but he could hear them faintly — the deep, drumlike impacts of Alyssa's fight, the thin tearing sound of Ying's void cutting through air.

Dan's grip tightened on the hilt. He couldn't get to them yet. His job was here.

The clone dove. Shadow streamed off it in sheets, covering the distance between them in heartbeats. Dan met the dive head-on, light bursting from his halo in a sphere that burned back the dark long enough for their blades to clash. Steel rang in the cold air, echoing off the mist.

For a moment, they locked there — his aura against its anti-halo, gold clashing with void — until the bridge below buckled again, sending a shudder through the air.

Dan's boots touched down on a section of deck no wider than a car. The clone landed opposite, its shadow already crawling toward him.

He stepped forward, forcing the light outward in a hard, bright push. The shadow recoiled a fraction. It was enough.

"As long as I'm standing, you don't pass," he said.

The clone tilted its head, as if listening to something only it could hear. Then it moved again, and the fight began in earnest.

***

The thing's bulk moved like a tide, slow but inevitable. Every step crushed the bridge's stone, meat-veins squirming out from the cracks as if eager to taste the air. Its belly dragged with a wet scrape, skin split in places where black ichor oozed down in lazy rivulets. The stench was choking — sweet rot and stagnant water.

Alyssa kept her stance low, eyes tracking the way it favoured its left side. Her chest was tight, not from fear, but from the weight pressing down on her in its presence. This wasn't just size. It was mass, density, the kind you could feel in your bones.

Its lips peeled back in a slick grin. "We eat. We eat. We eat…"

The voice was thick with phlegm, each word bubbling up like something dredged from a swamp.

It reached for her.

She stepped aside, air hissing between her teeth as she shifted her body's density low — bones heavier, muscles braced — and let the arm sweep past. The force of the miss sent a shudder through the bridge. Fragments of stone fell into the mist below, swallowed before they hit water.

She countered fast, driving her fist into its side. The impact sounded like a fist into a sack of wet clay. The creature swayed but didn't yield. The skin where she'd hit herniated outward, swelling grotesquely before slurping back into place.

"That's disgusting," she muttered, circling.

Its eyes followed her, too far apart to track smoothly. When it turned, its belly dragged slower than the rest of it, like it had to catch up to the movement. She saw the seam then — a faint, pale scar across the swollen flesh, stretching taut with each breath.

Target.

Alyssa darted in, fists light now, body density dropped to maximise speed. She weaved under a grasping arm, planted both feet, and poured all her weight into a single hook across the seam. The skin split. A gout of steaming black slurry burst out, splattering the bridge in thick ropes.

The creature's moan was low, wet, and almost satisfied. Its hands went to the wound — not to defend, but to push the flesh apart wider. Something inside writhed.

Her stomach tightened. She stepped back.

The wound bulged, and a stream of half-digested limbs slid free — human arms, pale and waterlogged, twitching as if some reflex still fired. The stench doubled. Alyssa gagged but didn't drop her stance.

It spoke again, mouth hanging slack. "We eat… we share."

The limbs convulsed and began to drag themselves toward her across the stone, fingers clawing grooves into the meat-veins.

"Nope."

She stamped forward, density surging through her legs, and crushed the first crawling hand under her boot. Bone crunched. The rest scrabbled faster. She began smashing them one by one, each strike ringing through her joints.

The puppet used the distraction to move in. She saw the shadow fall over her a heartbeat before it struck. Alyssa threw herself sideways, rolling under its belly. The world went black and wet for a moment as the dragging mass smeared over her back, the skin pulsing under her shoulders.

She drove upward with all her weight, exploding out from beneath it. The impact heaved the belly sideways, the puppet stumbling one step — enough for her to rise and bring both fists down on the top of its skull.

The crack was sharp. Not bone — the skin splitting again.

It reeled, flailing arms smashing into stone and statue alike. Each strike shook the bridge. One blow sent a shockwave through the meat-veins, making them writhe in every direction.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Alyssa's pulse was fast, but her breathing stayed steady. She circled again, watching the way it laboured to turn. The wound in its belly gaped wider with every shift, the writhing contents starting to spill freely.

She wasn't going to let it get back control.

Her density surged again, heavier than ever, bones like anchors. She dashed forward and slammed her shoulder into the puppet's midsection, forcing it toward the balustrade. It dug its cracked nails into the stone, but the railing began to give way under the combined pressure.

She shoved harder.

The balustrade cracked. The puppet's bulk tipped over the side, claws tearing grooves in the bridge as it vanished into the mist. A heavy splash came seconds later — muffled, but far from final.

The bridge shuddered. Meat-veins near the edge writhed in agitation, as if whatever lurked below was still tethered to the span.

Alyssa exhaled hard and turned. Somewhere to her left, another fight raged, the sound of steel on steel cutting through the mist. She tightened her fists.

"Dan's still out there… and Chloe." Her voice was low, more vow than statement. "I'm coming."

She pushed off at a run, the bridge trembling beneath her feet — never noticing the slow, wet drag of something hauling itself back up over the side behind her.

***

The air was wrong here.

Ying's breath didn't come back to her ears the way it should have — it stretched, thinned, like sound itself was being pulled apart. The mist didn't drift in lazy coils anymore; it curved toward the thing in front of her, drawn into the hollow where its chest should be.

Every instinct screamed to keep her distance. Even her own shadow strained toward that empty centre.

It floated just above the bridge stones, limbs drawn long and thin, sharpened into sickle-like crescents. No face, no eyes — only a pale sliver of bone where its head should be, polished like it had been sanded for years by unseen hands. The pull coming off it wasn't wind or gravity. It was something older. Hungrier.

She shifted her stance, Voidshadow whispering along her blade's edge. "You're nothing… just like the old me."

The words tasted bitter. The old her would have chased this thing until one of them was gone — would have taken the loss just to prove she hadn't been afraid. But fear had never been the problem. It was knowing when to let go. That had been the lesson.

The pull grew stronger. Threads of her cloak began to fray at the edges, dissolving into the thing's centre like ash caught in an invisible current. She moved — a blur of black and steel — and struck for its arm.

Her blade never touched it. The metal's edge rippled, its mass leeching toward the hollow before the strike could land. She tore herself back with a grunt, shoulder screaming as she broke the pull's hold.

It drifted closer.

Ying's mind went quiet in that way it always did when death was certain and close. She shifted to angles, cutting low, high, feinting sideways. Each strike warped before contact, her momentum bleeding away like it was being stolen mid-swing.

Fine. She could play that game too.

She let the pull take her just far enough — feet sliding on the slick bridge, boots skimming the meat-veined stone — then kicked off one of the balustrade statues and used the added speed to drive Voidshadow into the space where its leg met its torso. The blade phased, bypassing the strange distortion, and for a heartbeat she felt resistance.

Then it was gone.

Her eyes narrowed. The thing hadn't moved. It hadn't blocked. It had simply… eaten the wound.

Chunks of stone began lifting from the bridge, not by her will — by its pull. The fragments orbited the hollow like debris around a collapsing star, grinding against each other until they crumbled into nothing.

Ying's grip tightened. She could fight until her strength was gone… but it wouldn't matter.

Somewhere down the bridge came the sound of a statue shattering — Dan's fight. Alyssa's voice carried faintly through the mist, sharp with urgency.

Ying made her choice.

She slashed Voidshadow wide, not at the clone, but at the nearest wall of meat-vein blocking the bridge. The phase-edge sliced clean, severing the cords with a wet rip. The wall peeled away in great curling sheets, tearing the fight wide open to the chaos beyond.

The hollow surged forward at the movement — but she was already gone, flickering through the gap before it could drag her back.

Mist and battle-noise flooded in, and Ying didn't stop moving. She didn't need to win this fight. She just needed to live long enough to join the others.

***

Dan's halo burned low.

The thing in front of him — his thing — circled just beyond the golden reach of his light. Its form was human only in the way a corpse might still be called human after a week in the ground. The hood was a curtain of black sinew. Wings spread from its shoulders, not of feathers, but flayed tendons pulled into brittle arcs of bone. They moved without sound, stirring the mist.

But the real danger was its shadow.

It didn't follow the light. It crept outward along the bridge in whatever direction it pleased, sliding over the stone like spilled ink. Wherever it touched, the world died — moss shrivelling to dust, meat-veins turning to blackened husks, even the air growing brittle in his lungs.

He stayed between it and the gap in the bridge where the others were fighting. Every step forward it took, he matched with one back — not giving ground, but making sure none of that shadow reached farther than his boots.

It tested him with a dart of movement, wings snapping in a blur. He caught the strike on his forearm guard, golden light flaring with the impact. The bone edge still cut through the metal beneath, scoring a line down to his skin. He didn't react.

"As long as I'm standing," he said evenly, "you don't pass."

The clone tilted its head like it was listening to something far away. Then it stepped. The shadow surged forward.

Dan's halo flared. Golden light poured into his arms, across his shoulders, into the battered shield on his left arm. The shadow hissed as it met the barrier, curling away like steam from hot iron.

That was when Ying burst through the mist.

She was a streak of black and silver, Voidshadow still bleeding distortion from its edge. She didn't slow, vaulting over a meat-vein lump and landing in a crouch beside him. Her breathing was sharp, her eyes flicking once to his.

"It's not beatable," she said. "Not alone."

Dan didn't waste time asking. "Where's yours?"

"Following." She jerked her chin toward the breach she'd carved in the bridge wall. Even as she spoke, the void-shaped silhouette of her clone slid into view through the gap — limbs scissoring, the air warping in its wake.

Dan's clone moved at the sight of it, wings unfurling wider, shadow doubling in size as if to claim the fresh prey.

The two horrors were closing fast.

Ying's voice was tight. "We need to link up with Alyssa."

Dan's eyes never left the approaching shapes. "Then we move now."

The shadow hit his shield again. This time, cracks spidered across the golden surface. Dan pushed back with a grunt, light flooding the stone at their feet long enough for them both to break away and sprint toward the sound of Alyssa's fight.

The mist churned behind them, wingbeats and the hiss of warped air following close.

***

The air had changed. It was heavier now, carrying a slow, almost tidal pulse she felt more in her teeth than in her ears.

Alyssa heard them before she saw them.

Heavy boots on stone. The staccato slap of bare feet that weren't quite human. The whisper of something thin slicing air. All threading through the deep, wet thuds of her own opponent's movements.

Her clone loomed between her and the noise — swollen and obscene, belly dragging the bridge, its cracked nails leaving gouges in the stone. It had chased her halfway down the span, voice dripping phlegm: "We eat. We eat. We eat…"

It swung low again, one stubby arm swiping with enough force to crater the bridge where she'd been standing. She stepped in close under the arc, density shifting through her muscles until she was a wall of iron in motion. Her shoulder slammed into its gut like a piledriver.

The thing folded, more from the shock than any real injury, and she rolled past its flank just as the mist tore open in front of her.

Dan and Ying came through at a run, side by side. Behind them, the winged shadow-thing's darkness crawled over the bridge, and the hollow-shaped nightmare that was Ying's clone glided in silence, its void pulling strips from the mist.

"Company," Alyssa muttered.

"No kidding," Ying shot back. She didn't stop moving, angling wide to keep both horrors in her peripheral.

Alyssa snorted. "Figures you'd bring yours to the party."

Ying's mouth twitched — not quite a smile, but close. "Sometimes winning's knowing when to run," she said, eyes still tracking the hollow as it glided into view.

Even Dan's jaw eased for a heartbeat before tightening again as the winged shadow circled closer.

Alyssa's eyes flicked to Dan's halo — dimmer than she'd ever seen it. His jaw was set, but there was a tightness around his mouth she recognised from the worst days in the field. Ying's stance was all economy, no flourish, but Alyssa saw the way her blade hand trembled for a fraction of a second before she reset her grip. None of them were fresh. None of them could afford to fall here.

Dan slid in next to Alyssa, his halo flickering low but steady. "We need to keep them off each other's strengths."

The bloated thing in front of Alyssa lumbered toward her again, muttering its mantra. Ying's void-clone shifted toward Dan as if drawn to his light. The winged one flared its tendons like a predator scenting a weaker kill.

They didn't have time to plan.

Alyssa feinted left and then cut hard toward Dan's winged double, taking its attention before it could flank. The move left her own gluttonous puppet to him. Dan didn't hesitate — golden light arced down his arm, and his shield came up under its dragging belly, lifting the bulk of it enough to shove it back.

Ying's blade caught the light once before she vanished sideways, intercepting the winged clone's shadow before it could stretch to the others. Voidshadow's phase-edge bit into the mist itself, severing tendrils of darkness that curled toward Dan's feet.

The bridge bucked beneath them, meat-veins tightening like ligatures. From the direction they'd come, Chloe and Liz's battle roared closer — stone cracking, something screaming in a voice not meant for any throat.

Alyssa ducked under a backhand from the winged clone, her density spiking as she drove both fists into its ribs. Ying darted through the gap she opened, cutting for the hollow's spindly limbs. Dan pivoted between them, shield catching the worst of the glutton's charge.

They were three separate duels forced into one killing ground — and for the first time, the clones hesitated. The patterns they'd been locked into didn't fit this chaos.

Mist swelled around them, heavy and damp, until it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the bridge began. From somewhere in that white shroud, a deeper sound rose — slow, deliberate, and too vast to be anything on the bridge itself.

Alyssa's head turned toward it. So did Dan's. Even Ying's breath caught for half a second.

The sound came again, closer this time. A heartbeat. Not theirs.

Dan's voice was low but certain. "That's him."

The bridge shuddered like a living thing. Meat-veins flexed, statues shifted, and the mist boiled upward in fat coils that hid the far spans entirely. The three of them tightened formation without speaking, their backs almost touching now.

And somewhere ahead — just beyond sight — Belphegor began to rise.

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