The Beast Beneath the Cross - Chapter Ten: The Devil's Harvest

The night had grown thick and oppressive, the chill of late October settling over Bedburg like a death shroud. Torches flared in the hands of the gathered crowd, their flames casting flickering shadows on the faces of the villagers as they crowded around the execution platform. The anticipation in the air was suffocating, as if the very night itself waited for the final blow to be struck.

Peter Stump, his body broken, bloodied, and bound to the stake, trembled in his chains. His eyes darted wildly across the sea of faces that surrounded him, searching—begging for a single sign of mercy, of forgiveness, of anything that could save him from what was to come. But there was nothing. No salvation. No deliverance.

Only hatred. Only vengeance.