Have you ever been stabbed? Not with a needle or a syringe, but with a proper knife. Have you ever had an honest to go knife plunge into your soft, tender flesh and force it to part for its steel body?

I doubt you have, however on the off chance you have I'd be more curious than surprised. But for those who haven't, instead try to imagine the pain of stepping on a nail, or perhaps breaking your bones or even the most common, mundane injury. A paper cut.

Try to imagine a paper cut, the throbbing and pulsating pain that you get from it. Now try to imagine a second paper cut, it can be right next to the first or somewhere else entirely, like between your fingers so that you feel it every time you close your hand.

Stings, right? Not pleasant. Not pleasant at all.

Now try to imagine another. Then another, and another and another. Try to imagine the pain of having every single inch of your body covered in paper cuts. From the tips of your fingers, to the ends of your toes. From every inch of your privates, however many you claim that to be, to even the entirety of your tongue or the surface of your eyeballs so that every blink is a fresh hell of pain.

Imagine that each of the cuts on your skin carves so deep that you can see the fatty insides as each pathetic paper cut cleaves into your bones. Now finally, take all that pain you can imagine, if you can still imagine it, and picture how much worse it would be if you dove into a swimming pool filled with a vile concoction of salt, vinegar and alcohol. Imagine how much pain you would be in as every drop of that liquid seeps into your wounds and makes every one of them bubble and burn.

Can you imagine that? Imagine the pain and unending agony such a situation would bring? Good.

Alas no matter how vivid your imagination is, whatever horrors you could picture in your head could only ever be a tenth of the inexplicable agony Seth was currently undergoing as his soul was being treated as a dogs chew toy by the worlds worst dog.

It was inexplicable simply because of the source of the pain. Humans before the fall were still arguing with each other over the existence of the soul, and could never dream of what its pain felt like.

While I could weave countless words and create you an intricate tapestry of misery and pain, throughout human history no one has truly experienced the pain of having their soul torn apart. That was, except for one man. Seth himself.

No matter how much pain he was going through, how history defining his suffering was, this was not the first time Seth had experienced the true pain of the soul. In fact, this current pain was only the second most painful experience of his life, second only to the pain of having his soul core shattered apart and having to stitch it back together piece by piece.

Compared to that... what else could dare to compete?

However, whilst this meant that the pain was not debilitating like his previous experience, that did not mean he was completely immune to its effects. His mind had already been brought to the brink of sanity, edging into the territory of ferality, by his undeniable rage towards these beasts.

He had been holding himself together, just barely, in an attempt to use humanity's greatest weapon against these beasts. That weapon naturally is his intelligence.

But the influx of indescribable pain of a history defining nature, even if it was only the second worse, was simply too much for his fragile mind to handle in his current state. It drove him over the edge, as he finally snapped. Leaping from the safety of sanity, abandoning the weapon of intelligence and fully embracing a primal, feral instinct to just Kill.

His scream was not just one of pain. But of rage. Of Bloodlust. It was the sound of the beast within being unleashed.

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHH!

His eyes burning like an inferno being the slit of his visor, Seth roared like he was demon possessed, just throat tearing up as it forced itself from the abyss of his being.

He curled his fingers, the muscles in his arm bulging beneath the armour, straining to crack it as he pulled against the Hell Hounds teeth. The ethereal threads went completely taut, trembling in the air as he pulled harder and harder, stretched them further and strained them beyond anything they had experienced before.

Every moment of it was torture, every moment added to the excruciating pain burning within him. Yet that same pain just fuelled his rage, fuelled his blood lust. It fuelled his soul itself.

As he strained against the Hell hounds grip, the threads began to illuminate, glowing like the filament of a lightbulb until finally they snapped. Half of their length remained in the Hell Hounds mouth, clutched between its soul snaring teeth, while the other half curled freely in the air.

The former lost their bright lustre, returning back to the translucent threads they were previously, but the latter? Those attached to him simply glowed even brighter, until he had lines of pure white light emanating from his fingertips.

Thrusting his hand forwards, Seth whipped his threads towards the ravenous hound, but he wasn't aiming for the spear still embedded in its torso. Instead he wrapped the threads around the hound itself, curling them around its body, before tightening them closed.

The pure white threads clenched tight and, instead of passing through its body harmlessly, pressed tight against its flesh and drew countless droplets of blood like it was wrapped in piano wire. One thread especially was wrapped around it's slobbering maw, clamping it closed like a muzzle and digging in so deep it was as if he was threatening to slice off its snout.

Sending another hell hound sprawling with a skull shattering back hand, Seth yanked his hand with another guttural growl, pulling the beast from its feet and dragging it - spear and all - through the air towards him.

It landed face first in his palm, before he slammed its head into the ground. The earth tremored and split beneath him, a spider-web of cracks cascading outwards from the freshly created crater.

It tried feebly to claw at him, but its paws just brushed helplessly through his body which disappeared into wisps of white smoke where the claws should have landed. A special ability of his new armour, thanks to the Ghost Ant. An ability that had been almost entirely spent negating the multiple bounces he had on his dismount.

However, Seth didn't seem to notice that the last charge of his armours mystical ability had been spent. It would be a wonder if he even remembered he was wearing armour, he was so far absorbed in his mindless rage of death and destruction.

Slamming the hounds head down again, he raised his falchion high before plunging it deep into the hounds chest. Over and over he stabbed, letting out a feral growl each time as every stab wound hissed violently from the effect of the salt water blade.

[Congratulations. You've earned a Requital.]

At some point Angel whispered in his mind, confirming the kill as well as his new prize for said kill. But he was too obsessed with stabbing. The only reason he stopped was when another hound finally lunged at him, sinking its teeth through his armour and into the depths of his metallic arm, halting it in its movements.

Seth whipped his head around, growling underneath his helmet like a wild dog, glaring at the hound as it held his arm in place. The metal of his arm bubbled and glowed under the heat of the Hell hounds sulphuric and utterly hellish teeth, the metal offering little resistance to the piercing yet refused to give way when Seth tried to tug it free.

With his sword arm trapped, Seth growled in annoyance before simply... letting go. The Falchion dropped from his grip, landing squarely in his other hand, before swiping upwards at the neck of the halted wolf. He might have been immobilised, but so was it.

It's eyes were still wide open and twisted in anger, its lip curled in an intimidating growl as its teeth clung to his arm, even when the Hell Hounds body fell and left its head behind, attached to Seth's arm.

Uncaring of his new accessory and with his pure white armour stained completely red with sulphuric blood, Seth stood slowly and let out another guttural, feral roar.

His glowing eyes peered out of the visor, glaring hatefully at the surrounding Hell hounds. Those who remained still kept themselves at a distance, surrounding him in a loose semi circle as Omelette's body laid at his back.

He staggered forward on trembling legs, each step causing more droplets of blood to dribble down his snow white armour and for the wolf head clinging to his arm to tremble ever so slightly.

"More. Mooore. Mooooore! MOOORE! MORE!"