Marquis Sarcova snarled, his half-demonic form towering above the ruined ballroom. Twisted horns erupted from his temples. Scales of obsidian crawled across his flesh. Blood, both red and something darker, leaked from dozens of wounds. The old man's arrogance had been replaced by something more primal. More desperate.
Rancid the Unbowed closed the distance. His bastard sword, black as midnight and wreathed in necromantic energy, carved upward. Steel bit into corrupted flesh. The Marquis shrieked, stumbling back as another gash opened across his ribs, spilling ichor onto the scorched tiles.
"You! How are you so powerful?"
Marquis Sarcova's voice cracked with fury and disbelief. He clutched his side, breathing ragged.
"You are nothing but a common maggot!"
The world stopped.
Everything froze mid-motion. Flames hung suspended in the air. Dust particles ceased their tumbling descent. The Marquis's twisted face locked in an expression of impotent rage.
Three lines of text materialized before Rancid's glowing eyes, hovering in the space where reality had paused:
1) Even now, my common blood is more pure than yours, Marquis. You allowed yourself to be corrupted by demonic forces. You aren't even human anymore.
2) Shut up and die! [Keep attacking.]
3) ?SARCASM?
The Knight didn't hesitate. Option one always gave the best reaction, the most satisfying breakdown of the Marquis's noble superiority complex. His gauntleted finger selected the first choice.
Time resumed.
"Even now, my common blood is more pure than yours, Marquis."
The words left Rancid's lips in a cold, measured tone. His red eyes blazed through the dragon-skull visor.
"You allowed yourself to be corrupted by demonic forces. You aren't even human anymore."
The Marquis's face contorted. The remaining human features twisted into something bestial. Veins of molten energy pulsed beneath his scales. His eyes, already burning with hellfire, ignited into twin infernos.
"PURE? PURE?!"
Spittle flew from his fanged mouth.
"My bloodline stretches back twenty generations of unbroken noble heritage! What are you but DIRT given form?!"
The estate erupted.
Flames burst from every surface. The wallpaper peeled and blackened. Portraits of Sarcova ancestors ignited in their frames, painted faces melting into grotesque masks. The crystal chandelier overhead cracked from the heat, raining glass shards that vaporized before hitting the floor. Pillars crumbled. The ceiling groaned.
The Marquis raised both arms. Hellfire coalesced around him in a maelstrom of crimson and orange. The whip multiplied: two, three, five tendrils of searing energy that lashed out in every direction. Furniture exploded into splinters and ash. The floor buckled.
Rancid moved.
He rolled left as three whips converged on his position. The marble where he'd stood liquefied. Another whip came high. He ducked. One more swept low. He jumped, red cloak snapping behind him. His boots landed on a chunk of falling debris. He pushed off, launching himself through the firestorm.
The heat washed over him. His armor glowed orange. Lesser warriors would have been incinerated, reduced to nothing but bones and regret.
But Rancid the Unbowed had ninety-eight percent fire resistance.
The flames might as well have been a warm bath.
He closed the gap again. The Marquis, consumed by rage, hadn't noticed the futility of his assault. More whips materialized. They struck Rancid's armor, his cloak, his helmet. The impacts barely registered. His health bar, invisible to all but him, hadn't dropped a single percentage point.
Rancid's sword swept in a brutal arc.
The Marquis tried to dodge. Too slow. The blade carved through scales and muscle, opening a wound from shoulder to hip. Black blood sprayed across the burning floor. The demon-noble screamed. Not the dignified cry of a warrior, but something raw and animal.
"Impossible! I am chosen by Maldeth himself!"
Another swing. This one took the Marquis in the leg. Bone cracked. He fell to one knee.
"I cannot fall to common filth!"
The estate groaned around them. A section of the roof collapsed, crushing a priceless statue. Flames climbed higher, consuming everything. Through the inferno, Rancid could see them: the bodies.
Servants, charred beyond recognition. Members of the Marquis's extended family, caught in the crossfire of their patriarch's desperation. And there, scattered among the carnage, the hero's party.
Sir Aldric, the Paladin, face-down with a sword wound between his shoulder blades. Elena the Whitehand, the Saint, her healing staff broken beside her corpse. Thom Quickfingers, the Rogue, throat slit. Marcus vel Wissembolt, the Flame Sage, burned by his own mana backlash when Rancid had stabbed him mid-cast.
The Betrayer Sword hummed with their stolen power. Each backstab had fed it. Each treacherous kill had made it, and Rancid, stronger.
The Marquis struggled to rise. Blood pooled beneath him. His hellfire sputtered, losing intensity. The whips faded to wisps of smoke.
"You... you cannot..."
Rancid stepped forward. Slow. Deliberate. The dragon-skull helmet tilted slightly, red eyes boring into the Marquis's fading ones.
"This world deserves better than nobles and demons."
He raised his sword high.
"It deserves a king forged in darkness."
The blade fell.
Steel met flesh. Met bone. Met nothing.
The Marquis Vakke vel Sarcova's horned head tumbled across the scorched floor. It rolled to a stop against a burning curtain. The body remained upright for one impossible moment, then collapsed. Black ash erupted from the corpse, spreading outward in a wave. The flesh dissolved. The bones crumbled. Within seconds, nothing remained but a pile of dark powder that scattered in the hot wind.
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The flames vanished.
All of them. Every fire, every ember, every glowing coal, extinguished in an instant. The estate fell silent except for the creaking of damaged structure and the settling of debris.
Rancid stood in the center of devastation.
He lowered his sword. The Betrayer Sword's dark glow pulsed once, satisfied. Around him stretched what had once been the most beautiful ballroom in the kingdom. Now it resembled a battlefield in the underworld. Smoke drifted through holes in the ceiling. Bodies littered the floor: servants, guards, nobles, heroes.
All of them obstacles. All of them removed.
Rancid reached up and removed his helmet.
Pale skin, white as fresh snow, caught the dim light filtering through the ruined roof. Blood-red eyes glowed with their own inner luminescence, casting faint crimson shadows across his sharp features. Black hair, slick with sweat, fell across his forehead.
Rancid allowed himself a smile.
Marquis Sarcova, the final villain, the ultimate threat to the kingdom, lay dead. Demon King Maldeth's primary agent in this world, his gate to invasion, had been severed. The infernal realm could not breach the mortal plane now. The kingdom was safe.
Safe under HIS rule.
The thought brought a wider grin.
Before coming here, before confronting the Marquis, Rancid had paid a visit to the capital. The royal palace had burned beautifully. King Aldwin and Queen Seraphine, their children, their advisors, their loyalist guards; all of them put to the sword. The Betrayer Sword had drunk deep that night.
No rivals remained. No claimants to the throne. No heroes to oppose him.
The kingdom needed a ruler. It needed strength. It needed someone willing to do what others could not.
It needed Rancid the Unbowed, soon to be Rancid the First, King of Ashes and Blood.
He threw back his head.
The laugh started low in his chest. It built, echoing through the ruined estate. It grew louder, more triumphant, spilling out into the night air. A villain's laugh. A conqueror's laugh. The laugh of someone who had betrayed friends, murdered royalty, and slain a demon-possessed marquis to claim ultimate power.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
The sound rolled across the burning grounds, proclaiming his victory to the uncaring stars above.
The credits scrolled across my monitor in elegant white text against a black background. I pumped my fist in the air, nearly knocking over my energy drink.
"Yes! YES!"
I had done it. The secret Super Evil Ending of Path of Exemplar. The ending everyone on Reddit swore didn't exist. The ending the Discord server mods kept deleting threads about. The ending that had spawned countless conspiracy theories and flame wars across every gaming forum I frequented.
And I had just unlocked it.
My hands trembled with adrenaline as I watched the names continue their slow crawl upward. Lead Designer. Art Director. Composer. All of them had worked to create this masterpiece, and I had conquered every single path it offered.
The orchestral soundtrack swelled through my speakers, a dark, triumphant piece that perfectly captured Rancid's ascension to the throne. Violins shrieked. Brass thundered. Percussion crashed like the footsteps of an approaching army. I leaned back in my gaming chair, the worn leather creaking under my weight, and closed my eyes.
This was it. This was what gaming was about.
Not the casual nonsense my roommates wasted their time on. Not the battle royale garbage that dominated Twitch streams. Not the sanitized, hand-holding experiences that modern AAA studios churned out like factory products.
This was art.
Path of Exemplar stood as the pinnacle of single-player RPG design. Everything about it sang with quality. The character customization let you build anything from a holy paladin to a necromantic warlock, with hundreds of skills and abilities to mix and match. The combat system rewarded skill and strategy, punishing button-mashers with swift deaths. The story branched and twisted based on thousands of player choices, creating a narrative web so complex that players were still discovering new dialogue options years after release.
And the endings. Oh, the endings.
Ten official endings, the developers had announced. Ten different conclusions to your journey through Allstone Academy and beyond. The Hero ending, where you saved the kingdom and married your chosen romance option. The Sacrifice ending, where you died destroying the demon invasion. The Exile ending, where you abandoned the kingdom to its fate. The Betrayal ending, where you joined the demons. Seven more, each crafted with the same attention to detail and narrative weight.
But whispers had circulated since launch about an eleventh ending. A hidden path so dark, so evil, that the developers had buried it deep in the code. Most dismissed it as rumor, the gaming equivalent of schoolyard urban legends. Some claimed they had found hints of it in the game files but couldn't trigger the necessary flags. A few swore they had achieved it but provided no proof, their claims drowned out by skeptics.
I had the proof now.
The achievement sat in my Steam library, its icon still glowing with the "newly unlocked" border: KING OF ASHES - Complete the Super Evil Ending.
0.01% of players had earned it.
I grinned like an idiot.
My Discord notifications had to be blowing up right now. The achievement would broadcast to my friends list. The haters who called me obsessed, who told me to "touch grass" and "get a life," would have to eat their words. I was part of an exclusive club now. One of the elite. One of the few who had truly mastered this game.
The music shifted to a softer piece, still dark but contemplative. I let it wash over me, savoring the moment. If I were to die right now, I would have no regrets. My life's work was complete. I had beaten Path of Exemplar in every possible way, explored every branching path, romanced every available character, found every secret, unlocked every ending.
Wait.
I opened my eyes and sat up.
What was I saying? The DLC wasn't out yet!
My gaze snapped to the wall calendar hanging between my Dark Souls poster and my framed Baldur's Gate V box art. September 12, 2035. The release date circled in red marker, with "DON'T MAKE PLANS" written in all caps beneath it.
Three months away.
Three. Whole. Months.
I slumped back in my chair. The credits finished, replaced by the main menu screen. Rancid's theme played, a brooding orchestral piece that perfectly captured his dark antihero vibe. On the screen, my character stood atop the palace ramparts, silhouetted against a blood-red moon, the kingdom spread out beneath him in all its conquered glory.
What would I even do for three months?
I had beaten Path of Exemplar eleven times now. Every ending discovered. No stone left unturned. The thought of starting a twelfth playthrough felt hollow, like eating your favorite meal when you were already stuffed.
Maybe I could try a different game? I pulled up Steam and scrolled through the upcoming releases. A farming simulator. A visual novel about dating ghosts. Some indie platformer with pixel graphics. Nothing that scratched the itch. Nothing with the depth, the complexity, the sheer roleplaying potential of Path of Exemplar.
My friends then. I could hang out with them.
Except they had all turned into normies somewhere along the way. Jeff wanted to go to keg parties every weekend. Greg had gotten a girlfriend who "didn't understand our hobby." Samantha had traded D&D for rock climbing, of all things. What happened to the crew that used to run twelve-hour sessions, that would debate character builds until 3 AM, that understood what made RPGs special?
Whatever. Their loss.
I could just play more Path of Exemplar. Hunt down achievements I had missed. Try a pacifist run, maybe. Or a speedrun. The game had endless replay value if you approached it creatively.
My stomach growled, loud enough to be heard over Rancid's theme.
Right. Food. That thing humans needed.
I pushed back from my desk and headed downstairs. The apartment was dark, quiet. My roommates were probably out at another party, wasting their lives on shallow social interaction instead of meaningful virtual experiences. The kitchen light flickered when I flipped the switch, casting everything in harsh fluorescent white.
The refrigerator hummed when I pulled it open.
Empty shelves greeted me. The condiment door held a bottle of sriracha and something that might have been mustard once. The main compartment contained exactly nothing. Not even expired takeout containers.
I checked the veggie crisper out of habit. Also empty.
Damn it. I had forgotten to grocery shop again. When was the last time I went? Tuesday? Last Tuesday?
My gaze drifted to the cheese hatch, slightly ajar in the door. I frowned. The cheese hatch was this weird feature the fridge had come with, a small separate compartment that was supposedly perfect for storing cheese at the ideal temperature. I had never used it because who stores cheese separately?
But it was open.
Curiosity pulled me forward. I reached out and gripped the edge, pulling it up. The hinges protested, metal grinding against metal with a sound like a medieval torture device. Rust flaked off onto my fingers.
Inside sat a block of cheese wrapped in faded plastic packaging. Yellow cheese. Cheddar, maybe? Or colby?
I picked it up. Heavy. Solid. The plastic crinkled in my hand, and through the wrapper I could feel that it hadn't turned to liquid or grown fur. That was a good sign, right?
I brought it to my nose and sniffed. Cheese smell. Normal cheese smell. No hint of death or decay or the usual warning signs that food had turned into a biological hazard.
The wrapper had writing on it. I turned it to catch the light. There, in tiny print near the bottom: Expiration Date: 1/1/2033.
Two and a half years expired.
My stomach rumbled again, more insistent this time.
Expiration dates were just suggestions anyway. Legal disclaimers to prevent lawsuits. I had read about it online once, in some article about food waste. As long as it smelled fine and looked fine, it was fine.
I peeled back the plastic, examining the cheese itself. Yellow, firm, no visible mold colonies or suspicious growth. No discoloration beyond the normal variation you would expect from aged cheddar. It looked perfect, actually. Almost better than fresh cheese, like it had been aging in a cheese cave or something.
My stomach rumbled a third time.
Decision made.
I unwrapped the rest of the plastic and opened my mouth. The cheese felt cool against my teeth as I bit down.
REST IN PEACE
***** *** *****
Born: November 11, 2015
Died: June 12, 2035
"Always Check the Expiration Date."