The light of the glade had long since died, leaving only the oppressive, soot-choked darkness of the hollow iron-bark tree. Inside, Vurok was no longer a man; he was a map of agony, a shivering heap of broken bone and flayed skin held together only by the cramped, rotting walls of his wooden tomb.

"I'm going to take everything from you, Vurok," Sol whispered, a tiny, playful lilt dancing in his voice. "Your pride, your strength, and finally, your very breath. And when they find you, they'll say the forest was hungry. But we'll know the truth, won't we? It'll be our little secret."

"Why..." Vurok sobbed, his voice a pathetic, bubbling rasp that echoed off the charred interior. He looked around the dark hollow with the one eye that wasn't swollen shut, his mind fracturing. "Why are you doing this?"

Sol didn't answer immediately. Instead, he giggled… a soft, dry sound that felt out of place in the charnel house. "Alas! Seems like you still don't realize your mistake."

He reached into his pouch and pulled out a small clay vial, uncorking it with a soft pop. The acrid, sickly-sweet scent of the fluid immediately filled the small space, stinging Vurok's nostrils.

"Do you know what this is?" Sol asked, holding the vial up to a thin sliver of light filtering through a crack in the wood. "It is the neurotoxin of the Purple Toad of the West. And you know what's so fascinating about this is? Oh, you don't!? Seems like your education is really lacking. Even the kids know… well, I'm feeling generous today, so, I'll tell you… This is a very special stuff, because it does not kill its prey immediately. No, that would be boring. Instead... it paralyzes the nerves. It amplifies pain. It makes a heartbeat feel like a hammer blow. Isn't that... poetic?"

Vurok cursed, writhing in the dirt, his dislocated knees scraping against the rough bark. "W-what are you talking about! Please free me…other–"

"Otherwise what?" Sol interrupted, looking genuinely amused that Vurok still had the strength for threats. He tilted his head like a curious bird.

"Otherwise…. I-if…if my brother knows... you know what will happen! He'll hunt you to the ends of the world!"

Sol hummed a low, slightly melodic tune and smiled brightly. "That is only if he knows," Sol said calmly, his voice a low, slightly amused but still terrifying hum that seemed to vibrate through the very wood. "And why do you even think I'll let you go? And did you forget, Vurok! There are only two of us here. Who would know? The beasts? I doubt they would have interest. The trees? They're terrible gossips."

He leaned closer, his Charcoal-tinted eyes glowing with a predatory light in the gloom.

"Your friends are already being eaten by those pigs. It's a perfect accident. While you guys were busy hunting its kid, the Mama pig came and killed you all. A tragic end for the village 'Elites.' Isn't it a perfect story? I might even cry at the funeral."

Vurok suddenly went cold. His eyes widened, the pupils dilating into thin pins as the realization hit him like a physical blow to the chest. The attack, the timing, the masscare… it wasn't bad luck.

"So it was y-you..." Vurok whispered, a fresh wave of terror washing over his mangled face. "Who lured it here?"

Sol smirked, brightly as if it was something commendable. "Who do you think? I've been a very busy boy. You know I risked my life to have you guys meet, it really makes me sad that you only just realized it. Well, can't blame you for that, you don't seem to be that bright anyways."

"Y-you...!!!??" Vurok began to hyperventilate, his chest heaving against his shattered ribs.

"Anyways," Sol stood up, dusting off his hands with a chilling indifference. "That's not important. What's important is the finale. What will happen to you now?"

Vurok looked at him with absolute horror, only now realizing that behind that innocent mask was a monster hiding.

"Sol continued." I told you I wanted to make this slow. I intend to keep my word."

Saying this, Sol kicked Vurok right in the stomach without warning.

THUD.

Vurok convulsed and retched, dry heaving into the mulch.

Sol looked down at the ruin he had created. As he watched Vurok suffer, he felt the last threads of his past life… the memories of "paved streets," "human rights," and "civilized laws"...snapping one by one. Each one that broke made him feel lighter, colder, and more powerful. He wasn't just killing a bully; he was executing the weakness within himself, the very concept of mercy within himself.

"Oh! You're fading, Vurok," Sol whispered. "Let's bring you back. We can't miss the climax of the show."

He grabbed Vurok by the jaw, his fingers digging into the bruised, raw flesh, and forced the man's mouth open. "Open wide for the airplane," he coaxed, and with a steady hand, he tipped the vial, letting the purplish-black fluid trickle onto Vurok's tongue.

Vurok choked, his body arching in a final, desperate struggle. He tried to spit it out, but Sol held his mouth shut, forcing the venom down.

Almost instantly, the poison hit.

Vurok's body began to convulse with a violent, rhythmic intensity. His back arched in a bridge of pure agony as the neurotoxin raced through his veins, blackening them beneath his skin. But as the seconds ticked by, the thrashing stopped. His muscles didn't relax; they locked. Every fiber of his being became as rigid as the iron-bark surrounding them. His eyes remained wide open, bulging and bloodshot, fixed on Sol in a silent, incandescent scream trapped in a statue of meat.

He was wide awake. His nerves were on fire, the pain of every broken finger and shattered rib amplified a thousandfold…yet he couldn't even blink.

Sol watched with detached fascination. "Oh, it really is a perfect torture tool. Look at you. So still, yet so... vibrant."

"Now you can really feel it," Sol murmured, leaning in until his face was inches from Vurok's. "No distractions. No screaming. Just you and the pain of every debt you've ever owed. Can you hear your heart? Boom. Boom. Boom. Like a drum in your ears, isn't it?"

Sol didn't use the blade again. He wanted this to be intimate. He leaned his full weight onto Vurok's shattered ribs, listening to the muffled, internal crackle of bone. Because Vurok was paralyzed, the sound of his own body breaking was the only thing filling the hollow.

"This is the world you loved, Vurok," Sol hissed. "The world of the strong and the weak. You just never realized that one day, you'll become the weak one, the pray."

Sol raised his heavy shoe. He didn't strike fast. He let Vurok watch the shadow of the heel descend, let the terror build in those paralyzed, unblinking eyes until the pressure was unbearable.

CRUNCH.

He brought his heel down on Vurok's groin, grinding the bone and soft tissue into the rotting mulch of the tree floor. Vurok's eyes nearly rolled out of his head, his face turning a dark, mottled purple, but the toxin held his throat in a silent, agonizing grip.

"This is for even thinking about my women…well..future women."

…

Sol stood in the cramped, airless dark of the hollow tree, his hands slick with the price of his vengeance. He watched Vurok's chest… a mangled, purple ruin of shattered bone and stripped skin… struggle to rise and fall. Even with the neurotoxin locking his muscles and the weight of Sol's assault crushing his organs, Vurok's heart continued its frantic, stuttering beat.

Sol leaned in, his fingers tracing the jagged edge of one of Vurok's broken ribs as if it were a musical instrument.

"Ohhh! You're still here," Sol whispered, his voice a dry rasp that seemed to harmonize with the rustle of the leaves outside. "Still clinging to this miserable existence. You're really like a cockroach. I respect that."

Sol raised his hand and began a final, brutal dismantling. He used his thumbs, pressing them into the soft, unprotected hollows behind Vurok's jaw, grinding upward into the nerves. Vurok's eyes nearly burst from their sockets; he tried to scream, but the toxin turned the sound into a faint, rhythmic clicking in the back of his throat.

Sol moved to the shallow slices he had carved into Vurok's chest earlier. With a detached, cold focus, he began to peel back the ribbons of skin just a fraction more, exposing the raw, pulsing muscle to the soot-choked air.

He waited for the light in Vurok's eyes to flicker. He waited for the "Elite" to finally let go. But the heartbeat remained.

Sol stood up, the Charcoal energy in his chest swirling like a dark storm. He looked at the ruin of the man before him… a person who, by all laws of the world he came from, should have been dead ten times over.

"You know," Sol said, letting out a long, slow breath that felt like the last remnant of his old life leaving his body. "Back where I come from, a human would have stopped breathing long ago. Their hearts were weak, their spirits even weaker. They died from a broken rib or a bit of shock. But you guys..." He paused, a cold, mirthless smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

"You guys in this world really have a terrifying vitality. You're built to suffer, aren't you?" He leaned in closer, the acrid scent of the neurotoxin and the copper tang of blood mixing into a perfume he was beginning to enjoy.

"Those crazy underground scientists back in my world... the ones who played with genes in the dark labs where the sun never reached? Oh, they would have loved you, Vurok. They would have kept you in a pressurized glass vat, needles in every vein, just to see how many times they could break your spirit before your heart finally gave up. You're a masterpiece of endurance. A work of art in a cage of meat."

Sol let out a soft, melodic hum, tracing the jagged hilt of his bone dagger.

"Honestly, it's almost a shame to end it so soon. We were just starting to understand each other, weren't we? This... this deep, intimate connection. We've shared more in this hollow tree than you ever shared with your 'brothers' in the ravine."

He reached out, almost tenderly, and patted Vurok's cold, grey cheek with a hand slick with the man's own essence. Vurok's paralyzed eye followed the movement, wide and screaming with a primal, animalistic terror.

"But what can we do?" Sol sighed, his tone shifting to one of mock disappointment. "I still have so much to do. I have a story to write, a village to mourn with, and I simply can't spend more of this intimate time with you. I'm a busy man, Vurok. My schedule is packed."

Sol noticed the way Vurok's eye watered… a single, bloody tear tracking through the dirt on his face with a look of pure, primal pleading. The arrogance was gone. The "King" was gone. There was only the animal, begging for the end.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Sol whispered, his voice dropping into a chilling, playful register. "I know you're also sad that it is ending so soon. I can feel the disappointment in your pulse. You're going to miss me, aren't you? You're going to miss the way I look at you. But well... that's life. Or, more accurately..."

Sol stood up, the shadow of his hood completely eclipsing Vurok's face.

"That's the end of your life. Don't worry, Vurok. I'll tell everyone you died a hero. I'm a very good storyteller."

Sol looked at his bone dagger, the jagged edge stained dark. He felt a profound sense of completion. The "Modern Sol"—the boy who worried about ethics and the "sanctity of life"... was finally dead, buried under the mulch of this tree. Only the predator remained.

"The debt is collected, Vurok," Sol said softly. "But the predecessor... he doesn't want your second-in-command title. He just wants you to meet him in heaven, or maybe the hell, if there is any in this world."

Sol stepped forward, his shadow swallowing Vurok one last time. He didn't go for the heart; he wanted to see the light leave those eyes. He gripped the hilt of the bone dagger and drove it slowly, dispassionately and cold, directly through the center of Vurok's throat.

"Smile for the predecessor, Vurok. He's waiting. And tell the ancestors I said hello."

SQUELCH.

The blade grated against the spine. Vurok's body gave one final, violent shudder…. a silent, paralyzed convulsion that rattled the entire hollow trunk. His eyes bulged, a fountain of dark, hot blood spraying across Sol's matte-black scales.

Sol didn't pull the blade out. He held it there, watching as the frantic light in Vurok's pupils finally dimmed, clouded over, and went still. The rhythmic clicking in the throat stopped. The heartbeat finally vanished.

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