"However, I don't have an ugly son like you,"

Hearing Damien's taunt, the Corpse Collector neither laughed nor raged at the insult.

Instead, his four mismatched eyes, two reptilian, two human, shifted their focus.

They didn't look at Damien's face, rather they locked onto the Void Gem worn around Isabelle's neck.

"Fathers... sons..." the Collector rumbled, his voice sounding like wet gravel churning in a mixer. "Irrelevant concepts."

Unfortunately, Damien at this time was too focused on the goblin girl to hear that part

Confirming his guess, the collector took a step forward, the bone bridge groaning under his immense weight.

"You think this is a robbery, soft-skin? You think I stopped you for a toll of meat?"

"Look around, even if I needed experimental subjects, do you really think I would need to go out of my way to get you here"

"So much so that I had this filthy insectoid follow you around from the start"

The Collector sneered, exposing rows of sharpened iron teeth.

"The Sanctuary Lord felt the Garden go silent. The Weeping Angels stopped crying and the gears of destiny have begun to turn"

"He knows you didn't fail the quest. He knows you stole the Sovereign's Blinfold."

"Had he not been sealed in that place of his, do you really belive he would have just let you go after summoning you before?"

Hearing this, Damien and Isabelle couldn't help but freeze in shock, how did he know that they were summoned by the sanctuary lord

And just who exactly was this corpse collector?

Unfortunately, no one here could answer their questions

Rax, who should have been the knowledgeable one, was currently crouching behind Isabelle, his face pale and blood drained from his scarred face.

"The... The Veil?" Rax stammered.

"You can't have that, it's for the sanctuary lord, if you take it, he'll kill all of us."

Although he didn't know what the veil was, but according to the orginal plan, both he and Sanctuary lord, and the corpse collector were meant to be in tandem

The corpse collector getting Damien and Isabelles bodies and he the veil.

Now listening to the collector speak, it was obvious he wanted to take things for himself

"You are a fool, Rax," the Collector spat.

"Did you really think I would hand things over to that trapped idiot, once I get the veil, then I would be the new sanctuary lord! Scratch that! I will be the new lord of the abyss!

"You're crazy!"Rax spat in response

To which the Collector just laughed his aura shaking the sky

Raising a massive hand he squeezed the rib-cage prison hanging at his waist.

CREAK.

The bones of the cage bent inward. Inside, the small goblin girl whimpered, curling into a ball as the space around her shrank.

"Hand it over," the Collector commanded, extending a palm stitched together from three different species.

"Or I pop the brat like a grape."

…....…

Time soon passed, and with the threat of the Collector, no one made a move.

Seconds seemed to stretch into years as both sides waited for the others response

The wind howled across the chasm, carrying the scent of despair.

Rax looked at the cage. He looked at the monster he had led them to.

CLATTER.

Rax, unable to take it any longer, fell to his knees looking at Damien, the outsider whom he had let into such a situation.

He grabbed the hem of Damien's trench coat with dirty, desperate fingers.

"Please," Rax sobbed, the tears cutting tracks through the grime on his face.

"She isn't my blood," Rax confessed, his voice breaking.

"I found her in the Ash Wastes many years ago, She was abandoned in a refuse pile, just like I was banished from the surface. We were both trash."

He looked up at Damien, his insectoid eye twitching with raw emotion.

"We starved together. We breathed this poison air together. When I had nothing... when I wanted to end it all... she was the reason I woke up. She is my everything."

Damien looked down at the weeping guard.

He saw the desperation. It was the same desperation he had seen in his father's eyes as he gradually succumbed to the madness of the Void. The willingness to lock himself here to protect his family.

"I know the way out," Rax whispered rapidly.

"The Lord blocked the bridge mechanism, but I know the manual override. I can get you to Layer 2 without fighting the entire army. Save her... and I will give you the anything!"

Silence…

Damien looked at the weeping father, then at the terrified girl in the cage.

He let out a sigh, his breath misting in the cold Abyss air.

"You people," Damien muttered, shaking his head. "Always making it personal."

He tightened his grip on the Pantheon Sword.

"However, I said it on the surface and I'll say it here again..."

Damien's cross-shaped pupils flared with golden light.

"I am not a Hero"

He looked at the Collector.

"However, this once, I'll act like one."

The Collector looking the scene in front of him roared in annoyance.

"That's it, I'm tired of waiting"

"Then die with your sentiments!"

He slammed his fist into the bridge.

CRACK.

The bone floor fractured. From the fissures, shapes began to crawl out.

They were Stitched Minions, headless torsos fused with spider legs, zombies with blades for arms, horrors created from the Collector's leftovers.

Hundreds of them swarmed up from the underside of the bridge.

Isabelle stepped forward, her horns glowing bright red.

"Trash," she spat.

She slammed her foot down.

"Gravity Magic: Event Horizon."

BOOM.

A crushing wave of purple gravity expanded from her position.

The first wave of Stitched Minions didn't even reach them. They were flattened instantly, their mismatched limbs snapping like dry twigs under the pressure of twenty Gs.

"Go, Master!" Isabelle shouted, holding the line against the horde. "Get the girl!"

Damien didn't hesitate.

VWIP.

He vanished.

[Phantom Speed].

He reappeared instantly in front of the Collector's chest, the Pantheon Sword glowing with white hunger.

"Too big," Damien whispered. "Too slow."

He slashed at the Collector's torso, aiming to sever the belt holding the cage.

CLANG.

Sparks flew.

It skidded off a patch of grey, rocky scales grafted onto the Collector's chest.

Quickly he spent a few Dp

[Analysis: Rock Drake Scales]

[Defense: High]

"Drake Scales?" Damien clicked his tongue.

The Collector laughed. "I am perfection! I am evolution!"

His four Mantis Arms on his back snapped forward faster than the eye could follow.

Damien parried two of them, but the sheer weight behind the attacks knocked him backward.

WHAM.

The Collector's main hand, the massive Ogre fist, caught Damien in mid-air.

It was like being hit by a train.

Damien was slammed into the floor of the bridge. The fused bones beneath him cracked from the impact.

"Gah!" Damien gasped, the air driven from his lungs.

The Collector pinned him down, leaning over him with his grotesque, stitched face. The smell of formaldehyde was overpowering.

"You want to fight for that trash?" the Collector sneered, raising one of his scythe-arms for a killing blow.

"Then die with him!"

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