The world turned to silence in Seth's mind as he watched the viscous black globules of acid splatter against Bob's back. His eyes widened and mouth hung agape at the sight of the white smoke curling into the air, as the viscous acid began to devour Bob's body, tearing it apart like a ravenous beast.

He didn't hear the dragons fearsome roars, even though they were powerful enough to shake the very earth beneath his feet and make the very core of his being, down to his actual genes, tremble in fear.

Seth was simply unable to take his eyes off of Bob's, as he watched his son slowly but surely melt into a sizzling puddle. His face was one of the last things to melt away, holding Seth's gaze the entire time.

Even though this face was utterly expressionless, as it had always been, Seth felt that somewhere inside of him he could swear he saw a smile upon those plastic lips before they dissolved into the acid.

"Are you proud father?"

Those words, which had been little more than a whisper in his final moments, reverberated in Seth's mind over and over, drowning out every possible sound. For those words were the only ones that mattered to him anymore.

Slowly gliding over to the sizzling puddle, all that was left of Bob, Seth paid no heed to the Heart-Eater, who was currently dragging himself across the ground with a half melted arm and tattered wings folded against his back. The sword in his chest dragged along the ground beneath him, drawing a trail of his pathetic crawl as he tried to escape the wrath of the dragon.

Yet Seth didn't even notice him in the slightest, his eyes never leaving Bob's remains. Falling to his knees at the edge of the sizzling puddle, Seth wanted to cry. It felt like it would be right, that it should be right. But despite that he felt... nothing.

Not that he wasn't sad. But that he felt literally nothing. As if his emotions had completely vacated his entire being. It was not the cold, calculating emotionlessness of a psychopath, but the boundless void of true emptiness.

"Are you proud Father?"

That question echoed in his mind, growing louder and louder, as he stared at the puddle like a broken, empty husk. Was he proud? Did Bob think that he wasn't? Did he really fail to tell him that so much that, even in his last seconds of life, all he wanted to know is if the man he called father was proud of him?

Bob died with that question lingering on his mind, never getting to hear the answer. Seth thought it had been obvious... but clearly he had failed. How could he deserve to be called a father if he failed such a basic thing like letting his child know they were loved?

It wasn't just because Bob had saved his life multiple times, that he had taken care of him when he was at his most helpless or for any other reason. Since the first time he met him, Seth knew that they were connected on some fundamental level.

Maybe he didn't want to admit it at first, but in some way... he knew it was right. He was Bob's father. And he had failed his son.

Reaching out with a trembling hand, steel threads dove into the midst of the acid puddle, fishing out the strange stone that had sunk into their depths. Bringing it into his hand, Seth saw that it was some kind of crystalline icosahedron1 that was now resting in the middle of his palm.

It was no bigger than a marble and felt warm through the silken glove of the [Weaver's Curse], although such a warm was just barely noticeable. He had always wondered what made Bob tick, it seems now he had found it.

Seth clutched the icosahedron tight in his hand and pressed it to his chest as he closed his eyes and lowered his head.

'Of course I am proud of you. I always will be.'

As he held it to his heart, Seth finally felt something welling up inside of him. An emotion finally breaking through the barrier of the void and flooding into him, filling the bounds of the empty space left behind until it was all he could feel. He tucked the icosahedron into his armour, keeping it close to his heart, as he let this flood of emotion fill him up once more.

It drowned out the screams of horror and wails of agony emanating from his enemy's army, as they melted into piles of viscera from the dragons acid spews, as it kept exhaling that wretched liquid into the battlefield from its perch atop the walls.

Seth was too busy, drowning in the flood of a singular raw emotion to hear those screams, his mind filled with a singular stream of thought.

This was not the first person he had lost recently. He had lost his teacher first, and now Bob. He was not the only one either, countless people had lost mentors, family or friends. Men, women... children. All had been mercilessly slaughtered by the Hemogoblins.

All of that death and destruction, all of it kept coming back to them. From the first moment he had even left his office building, it had been because of them. Every single death, every single loss, even his god damned arm. Every single drop of blood was on them. It was all on-

"YOU!"

Seth snapped his head towards the pathetic, dishevelled form of the Heart-Eater as he slowly dragged his broken and half melted body away. Pure, unfiltered rage filled every inch of Seth's body, so much that it seemed like it was overflowing from his pores like a miasmic haze.

Whipping his hand towards the disfigured monster, the steel threads coiled around his throat and immediately pulled themselves taut like a noose, pressing tight against flesh and quickly drawing blood.

The threads began to retreat back into the fingers of the [Weaver's Curse] dragging the Heart-Eater across the ground, back towards Seth like he was reeling in a fish.

At the same time the sword still buried in this monsters chest wiggled slightly before ripping itself free, forcing stifled cries of pain to leak from the Heart-Eaters chest. The sword moved through the air, cleaving through the tendrils multiple times until he had hacked off those vile appendages.

It then moved to his other hand, hacking into it again and again, like an axe burying into the trunk of a mighty oak, until the Orcish arm was cleaved off, leaving nothing but a bloodied stump, before the sword plunged itself back through the Heart-Eaters chest.

Symbols, formed of ethereal threads, formed in the air before bursting into pale blue flames. The flaming symbols pressed against the bloodied stumps, searing them closed and cutting off the Heart-Eaters final act of defiance, leaving him utterly defenceless.

Seth tilted his head to the side as he carried out the spectacle, carving apart the still living cockroach known as the Heart-Eater like he was nothing more than a hunk of meat. His eyes were as cold as a tundra, despite the unyielding rage burning behind them like an inferno.

He rose from his knees, standing up straight once more as he ripped apart this cockroach like an insect. The pain in his twisted ankle was still there, but it was being drowned out by the rage burning within his soul., and so he stood tall and proud.

The Heart-Eaters broken, bloodied and disfigured body raised itself off the ground, lifted by the sword in his chest and the steel threaded noose around his throat. Finally having his cockroach facing him once more, Seth could see that his smug, self assured expression was long gone.

Fear painted his monster's face as he gazed down at Seth, his eyes trembling as he locked onto Seth's icy gaze. There was no doubt what was to come next.

Yet even with the rage filling up every fibre of his being, so much that his muscles twitched insistently as they overflowed with adrenaline, Seth still couldn't help but wonder how this wretch was still alive even with a sword speared through his chest, right where his heart should be.

Four of the five threads around his throat loosened, leaving one still tight like an assassins fibre wire and digging into his flesh more as it kept him suspended in the air. The sword pulled itself out as the four steel threads plunged into the open wound, immediately beginning to squirm their way through the Heart-Eaters body.

He wanted to scream, he wanted to struggle, but there was nothing he could do to stop what was happening to him now.

The threads were visible under his crimson skin as they wriggled and slithered throughout his body, until they finally stumbled across his secret. There it was, the Heart-Eaters heart, on the opposite side of his chest. Dextrocardia, the last remnant of the human named Xavier in this monster's existence and proof that he had once been human.

But Seth didn't care for that proof. The Heart-Eaters body jerked and spasmed, his eyes rolling so far into the back of his skull that it was as if he was trying to see his brain, as the steel threads within his chest wrapped tight around his heart and squeezed it from within.

There was no valiant final battle, no final words or battle cry. The only sound was gargled chokes and a squelching pop as the Heart-Eaters heart was crushed within his own chest.

His corpse thumped to the ground as the [Weaver's Curse] melted back into ink and crawled its way back up Seth's arm. He panted heavily, staring at the corpse as if he was wishing it would come back to life, so he could put it down over and over. Kill him once for every life he had taken.

But it never did. It laid there, much like corpses do, as Angel whispered in his mind.

[Congratulations. You've earned a Requital.]

[You should probably turn around.]

Seth frowned at their comment, wanting to dismiss it and just continue stewing in his rightful rage. Yet a puff of warm air blasting against his back and ruffling his air strangely cooled down his rage.

Turning slowly, Seth found himself face to face with a nostril the size of his own head as it puffed out another blast of warm air, as if sighing in annoyance.

The giant head connected to the nostril turned, revealing the black scaled face of the acid breathing dragon as it gazed down at him with a single eye, with a slitted pupil and emerald eyes that almost seemed to glow like radiation.

A polyhedron with twenty sides, think like a 20 sided dice, or D20, used in table top games.

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