Akarad had worked tirelessly to repair the goblin Dink's destroyed body, his consciousness deftly darting around and knitting the flesh together. Despite the constant encroaching darkness, he fought to complete his task. As the dragon soul's efforts took hold, Dink's mind stirred with traces of life, though it remained dormant.

“This is all I can do, the rest is up to the demon heart,” Akarad tiredly spoke inside consciousness, it was the last words he said to Dink before slipping into a deep slumber.

Suddenly, Dink gasped for air and shuddered as his eyes snapped open, swallowing a mouthful of dirt. He had awoken from broken fragments of memory of his past life. Little remained of himself except bestial instinct, his mind was suspended in dreams. Under the towering weight of dirt, something pressed against his chest under his crossed arms that he felt a deep connection to. It pulsed in gleeful greeting as it recognised the life stirring within him.

Dink began to exercise his new muscles, scrambling against the suffocating dirt with blunt claws. He managed to burrow his way out, prying aside dirt with both hands to reveal his face. Gasping in a sweet lungful of air, Dink’s blueish-black Goblinoid features barely fluttered with emotion. He remained completely impassive as he pulled himself from the trench, reaching into the hole behind him and carefully retrieving the object he felt.

The Goblin's tattoos were gone, and any scars had vanished, leaving skin like that of a newborn on Dink’s bent body. His eyes were empty and soulless, clouded by the scattered recollections of his death mixed in with broken memories of his previous Human life. He pulls the inviting object from the dirt, revealing the familiar, yet altered form of the dragon sword.

A strange gem augmented the hilt and pulsed with an eerie red light that spoke to him, urging him to act upon instinct. The gem had an unnerving blood-red liquid that drew in all nearby light as it swirled, with a heat haze distorting the air above it. Dink sat naked on the dirt and caressed the bone blade in his lap, recalling how it changed in his last moments.

***

[Explicit content for Chapter 73.1 Broken Memories found at Patreon.com/jackofheart]

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Dink’s residual consciousness was held to his gruesome skeletal form by Akarad’s dragon soul hard at work, preserving his senses and allowing him to experience the world around him. Inside the false god’s deserted throneroom, Dink’s companions attempted to navigate the wreckage to get to his broken corpse. Unnoticed by all except Dink, a minuscule death gate briefly opened above him.

A cloaked figure was revealed next to Jiltia with a fearsome female Minotaur standing a distance behind them. The cloaked figure reached up and threw back their hood. Dink ignored the Minotaur’s bared breasts and stared at the mummified features of someone he once knew.

The creature in front of him resembled his own undead form, except with the terrifying visage with deep sunken eye sockets inset with blazing orbs amid black sclera. Atop his head was a crown of bone thorns with a mysteriously empty bracket in the centre. The others remain silent as the figure begins to speak with a grotesque smile that was a caricature of his friend, master Jackin.

“Hello old friend, you go by the name of Dink now? The Creator has pulled many strings to ensure you made it to this point, Sword Saint. If we are to combat the awakening of the Primordials, you will be needed,” the former-master Jackin spoke, his voice resonating with the whispers of the dead. The demon Jiltia and the Minotaur both flinched at his words, regarding him with a mixture of shock and fear. He ignored their gazes and continued to speak. “You somehow always manage to exceed my expectations, Leo Cursedblood. I have been blessed with fragments of the difficulties you would encounter and placed the breadcrumbs needed for you to overcome them.”

‘My lord..” Jiltia interjected.

“Silence!” Jackin roared, waving his hand dismissively. Jiltia was thrown backward to hang suspended in the air, blood erupting from the pores of her seductive body to encircle her. The succubus quivered with fear of her master as blood slowly trickled between her voluptuous breasts. Jackin briefly glared at the demon to covey his displeasure before turning back to regard Dink, who was still physically incapable of replying on the other side of the death gate. “Demons are very difficult to deal with but they have their uses. Such as stimulating the dormant bestial bloodline of others.”

Jackin gestured to the Minotaur cowering behind him and Dink came to a sudden realisation, she was the Beastfolk sister dragged through the Hell gate by the demons earlier. He shifted his attention back to Dink and began to speak in a heavy tone.

“Sigh, this next cycle will be far more catastrophic than the last, Dink. The Creator does not have the power to curb the Primordials any longer. He must rely on us lowly creations to supplement Him. The Hags and their Expanding Woods is just a minor threat in comparison to the chaos to come. My visions show that I have much more pressing concerns to attend to, the Soul Forge is stirring in the heart of the Praven Empire. I will come to you once I have completed my task, you should focus on your own for us to be able to resist the Primordials.” Jackin confided. He suddenly spun to reach toward Jiltia’s breasts and buried his hand deep into her exquisite skin, ripping her still-beating heart from her chest. “I have already given you a piece of Primal magic that allowed you to detect magic. Now, I shall gift you with a demon heart to sustain your recovery. The dragon's soul is merely a fleeting shadow and will fail without my intervention.”

The Minotaur involuntarily retreated a step as Jiltia exploded in a cloud of blood that converged on the demon heart in Jackin’s hand. He casually tossed it through the portal in front of him which abruptly closed after it. Dink caught a final glimpse of Jackin’s features shimmering with illusory magic, changing to that of the young storyteller with the rackish smile he recognised.

All remaining demonic corpses scattered in the altar room suddenly burst into streams of blood that flowed into the air in the centre of the underground cavern. The blood formed a swirling mass that acted as a magnet to draw the demon heart to join it. The demon heart changed into an inverse glowing orb that sucked in all light as it travelled closer.