Persuasion

Following the direction of the other man's finger, Guk's gaze swept across photo after photo, some blurred, some damaged, a few even stained with blood.

But what interested him more was what they captured. Without exception, every image embodied madness.

One photograph showed a horned monster hunting in the shadows, finding pleasure in slaughter.

Another showed a pack of savage crimson hounds prowling through a dark forest amid eerie mist, resembling some sort of oil painting.

The next depicted a thunderous beast charging into a village. People fled in all directions at night with torches held high, while many corpses lay strewn across the ground.

He paced as he looked, the blades of his mechanical claws lightly tapping the tabletop with every step.

Suddenly, he stopped before a photograph that looked as though it had nearly been burned away. Within it was the faint image of a huge palace, its interior a sea of blood. Countless headless, naked male and female corpses were skewered upon iron poles more than ten meters long, and at the center of the blood lake stood a vast pile of pale skulls.

Forming a mountain that looked both sinister and terrifying.

But those scenes were not what drew Guk's attention. His eye had caught a red symbol at one corner of the skull mountain. He had seen that symbol on a demon he had killed before.

"Blood Temple."

Grakas glanced at it, then said quietly,

"The Blood-Worship Cult has built these beneath many cities—"

"What's it for?"

"To please the Blood God, gain power, and summon some foul things that should not exist in this world."

"Blood God..."

Guk stared at the brass symbol in the photograph for a long while before picking up another photo.

This one was unusual. It showed only one person: