The city was silent when it happened.
I was walking back toward the ruins I called home, the echo of my own boots barely audible against the cracked stone. The air felt wrong—too still, too sharp.
Then something grabbed my ankle.
Before I could react, my body was hurled backward. My spine met cold brick, and the world flashed white. The wall cracked behind me. My vision steadied just in time to see a familiar, hunched figure dragging himself from the shadows.
Harus.
That damned hunchback.
I didn't even have time to curse before Gemma lunged at me with his longsword, his blade glinting red from the torches. Behind him, the rest of the hunters fanned out like a pack of starving wolves — maces, spears, swords, all pointed at me.
My instincts took over. I rolled back, summoned Beast, and felt the surge of blood-bonded power ripple beside me. He materialized with a snarl, claws scraping against the cobblestone.
"Guard my back," I muttered.
Beast growled in response as the hunters closed in.
I didn't wait for them to strike. I went forward.
The first fool swung a sword at my head. I caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted it, and ripped the arm clean off. His scream was cut short when I condensed the gushing blood into a spear, the weapon forming in my grip like liquid glass.
Would my own blood be stronger? Yes. But surrounded by blood bags, why waste the effort?
I thrust the spear into the throat of another man, twisting it until his head popped free. His body collapsed, and I reached out with my will — his blood rose from the corpse, snaking around the neck of another hunter. I forced it down his throat, watched his eyes bulge as it filled his lungs… then detonated it.
A spray of crimson painted the stones.
Beast tore through a man wielding a mace, ripping out his jugular and dragging him to the ground. For a brief moment, I had space.
I spun my spear in wide arcs, keeping the others at bay, then leapt to the balcony of a nearby building. My crossbow finally materialized in my hand, humming with restrained power.
Perfect timing.
I drew the blood from the dead, compressing it into a single spiraling bolt — a drill arrow. When I fired, it screamed through the air, boring through three skulls in a single line before embedding into the far wall with a sickening crunch.
But the shot left me open.
Something slammed into my side — a tackle. We rolled across the ground, his fists hammering into my face. I felt teeth loosen, tasted iron.
Big mistake.
I gathered the blood pooling in my mouth, hardened it, and spat. The crimson spike pierced his eye and exploded inside his skull. His body went limp instantly.
I pushed him off, reforming my spear just as Beast crushed another hunter beneath his claws. The ground was slick, wet, vibrating with life and death.
I could feel it — all of it.
Blood. Everywhere. Around me, beneath me, in the air.
I reached out with my mind and seized it. The crimson sea obeyed. Tendrils of blood shot up from the ground, coiling around the hunters' legs, holding them fast.
Then I rampaged.
Each swing of my spear took a life.
Each kill fed me.
Each death made me faster, stronger, less human.
I spun with the weapon, decapitating two men in one motion, the blade singing through the night. Another hunter stabbed me, piercing my armor — it didn't break, but I felt my ribs crack.
I turned, drove my spear through his heart, and ripped it out again, using the blood to harden my armor around the wound.
Then Gemma came at me again, roaring, his sword flashing toward my neck — but Beast intercepted, unleashing a beam of concentrated blood that tore through one of Gemma's legs.
"Damn you, bastard!" Gemma screamed before Beast lunged and crushed him under claw and fang.
But I had no time to gloat. Harus was already on me. He swung a chain that wrapped around my torso before I could react. The links glowed faintly with soul-light. I tried to tear free, but he yanked hard — and threw me straight through a wall.
The impact made my vision blur. Dust filled my lungs.
I could feel my blood boiling. Too much of it was flowing into my fake arm, draining me.
"I guess you're right, Sei…" I whispered to no one. "I have to forsake the last bit of humanity I have left."
Harus stepped through the broken wall, his shadow stretching over me.
I smiled. My right arm began to twist and lengthen. The blood red skin peeled away. Veins pulsed, stretching into curved, hooked blades — a grotesque scythe, born from my blood.
When he swung, I met him halfway, the scythe screaming through the air and cleaving the wall beside him.
He flinched, ducked, and then light flared. I was blinded.
The world went black.
But only my eyes were gone.
I could still see him — through the flow of blood in his veins. I aimed my crossbow and fired blind. He dodged, just as I expected. My scythe-arm whipped through the air and slashed his shoulder.
He grabbed it before I could retract. His grip was like iron. He yanked me forward and brought both fists down like a guillotine.
Pain bloomed, sharp and total.
My body hit the floor, and the world folded into silence.
The last thing I managed before the dark took me was unsummoning Beast, saving him from destruction.
~~~
When I came to, the first thing I felt was cold metal around my neck. Chains. My memories were locked away, buried under fog.
Then came the shouting.
"Monster!"
A rock hit my face. Then another.
I was being dragged — through mud, through streets, through the outskirts. People screamed, spat, threw whatever they could find.
The same faces I once passed in silence: the handmaidens, now looking at me with worry and a little disgust; the shopkeepers, pelting me with rotten fruit.
And there, at the castle gates…
Kai.
He stood there, eyes burning with fury and disbelief.
I almost laughed.
I wonder why he's angry.