Chapter 32: In the Thick

[You have arrived on the SECOND FLOOR, the Crucible of Twin-faced Hope]

As the Host Guide announced the strange name of the new Floor, Arlosse hardly registered it in his head. His mind was a bit preoccupied trying to reconcile that he was back in a place like this, the home of death, its emissaries and victims, all of whom raged senselessly – recklessly – as though possessed by devils.

Blood spilled every which way the Incarnate looked.

Bones crunched under the feet of whinnying horses and tamed, canine beasts he didn’t recognise.

Flesh squelched, torn open for all to see the unsightly beauty it hid.

The scorching orange sun above, merciless and uncompromising, seemed determined to make all the thousands of corpses lying about look as insignificant, shameful and irrelevant as possible by arousing the stink within them, summoning flies and starved critters in the dry, rocky desert.

Human men and women with assortments of armour roared, their steel clashing against that of enemies whil