Utterly humiliated, upstaged by a mere child. That was how Everett felt. Just when he thought he couldn't sink any lower. It was a blow to his pride he knew he would never live down.

Oddly, despite the terror that had gripped him before, witnessing his fellow slaves meeting their grisly fates had done little to shake him. However, when the girl fearlessly seized the whip, it was as if a switch had been flipped inside him. If she could summon such courage, why couldn't he?

His heart beat pounded in his ears, the periphery of his vision blurring while his focus intensified on the looming orc before him. Every twitch of the orc's grotesque features, every bead of sweat, became starkly clear to him. His breath grew ragged, teeth clamped together so tightly they threatened to break, nails biting into his flesh, drawing crimson lines as his knuckles whitened from the strain.

After what might have been a split second, or a full minute, he really wasn't quite sure, Everett launched forward with a primal roar that came from depths he didn't know he possessed, or could posess him. He lost all sense self, consumed by an overpowering desire to hurt the towering orc.

Every fiber of his being screamed for release as the dam broke on decades of pent-up frustration, his sole intent now to break, pummel, throttle, and tear with his bare hands and teeth. Tremors wracked his body as he charged forward, but he pushed through regardless. Nothing else mattered now. All that occupied his mind was the burning desire to inflict suffering, as brutally and painfully as he possibly could. Flashbacks of all humiliation he had endured over the years flooded his thoughts, but he couldn't spare them even a moment's attention as his fists surged through the air, about to ram into his tormentor.