Cliff looked at his trembling hands, his fists still stained with blood, while the creature, half-crushed against the wall, remained curled up at his feet. His eyes, usually so cold and calculating, wavered with a mix of emotions. He could almost feel his internal barriers crumbling.
His gaze landed on Taryl, the dwarven maid—or rather, what was left of her. Her body was covered in deep burns, her features frozen in an agony that Cliff found hard to confront. Everything inside him screamed to run to her, to check if she was still breathing, but a cautious part of him held his steps back.
Those marks... he recognized them. He knew them too well. Those burns... they weren't from just any spell or trap. They were the result of the Purifying Barrier of the fortress, designed to detect and purge any foreign entity to the demi-human nature. But they didn't just appear on naturally foreign creatures. They also targeted those who tried to imitate demi-humans.
