Day 36 - Dawn
The scout arrived bloody and barely conscious.
One of Yorrik's advance watchers, a young bear kin named Torr, literally collapsed through the main gate at first light, his armor shredded, one arm hanging useless, and his eyes wide with the kind of terror that came from witnessing something truly awful.
I was halfway through morning coffee when the alarm bells rang.
By the time I reached the courtyard, Yorrik was already there, cradling Torr's head while Mo worked frantically to stabilize him. The young warrior was trying to speak through broken teeth and blood.
"Matron..." he gasped. "Coming home... refugees, hundreds, children..."
"Slow down," Yorrik said, his voice steady despite the fear in his eyes. "Where is Matron Siraq?"
"Two days out. Maybe less. They're..." Torr coughed, blood speckling his lips. "The Light Order. They attacked the northern settlements. Burned everything. The Matron got as many out as she could, but..." His eyes found mine, desperate and pleading. "They're being hunted. The Paladins, they're not just chasing, they're herding them. Toward the Widow's Pass."
My blood went cold. The Widow's Pass was a narrow canyon, easily defensible from above. If you wanted to massacre a large group of fleeing civilians, it was the perfect killing ground.
"How many Paladins?" I asked, my voice coming out flat, emotionless.
"Fifty... maybe more. Battle-Clerics. War-Priests. They have siege equipment, holy fire, blessed weapons... " He grabbed my arm with his good hand, grip surprisingly strong. "Warden, they're not trying to capture. They're trying to exterminate. Every last one. Women, children, elders... doesn't matter. The commander, Gavriel, he's calling it 'Purification.'"
The name hit me like a physical blow. Not the name itself Id never heard it before, but the way Torr said it. The absolute horror and hatred combined.
Through the bonds, everyone connected to me felt the spike of rage that went through my system. Pure, incandescent fury that made my vision tinge red at the edges.
"How long until they reach the Pass?" My voice was still flat, but there was something underneath it now. Something cold and dangerous.
"Hour... maybe two if the Matron can slow them down. But Warden, she's protecting refugees. She can't fight and evacuate at the same time. If they get to that pass... " He didn't finish. Didn't need to.
I stood, every muscle in my body coiled tight. "Yorrik, get every warrior we have ready to march. Now."
"That's twenty fighters against fifty Paladins plus..."
"I don't care if it's twenty against five hundred. We're going. Kas!"
She appeared instantly, already armed. "Here!"
"Gather the Oni. Combat loadout. We leave in ten minutes."
"Knox," Nyx's voice came from behind me, her presence in full dragon form. "If we're doing this, we do it right. I'll fly you there ahead of the ground forces. Get you there faster."
"The refugees will need evacuation support. Air lifting."
"Then I'll make multiple trips. But you need to get there first. Stop the massacre before it starts."
I turned to face my family. They were all there, Nyx, the Oni, the fairies, Yorrik and his warriors, even little Dewdrop looking terrified but determined. They'd assembled the moment the alarm sounded.
"This is going to be bad," I said quietly. "The Empire doesn't send fifty Paladins for a warning. They sent them to kill everyone. To make an example. To punish Siraq for daring to join us."
"Then we show them what happens when they threaten our family," Kas said, her voice deadly calm.
"We show them what happens when they bring their genocide to our doorstep," Yuzu added.
"We show them that Ashenhearth protects its own," Mo finished.
Through the bonds, absolute unity. No hesitation. No doubt. Just pure determination.
"Mount up," I said. "We have people to save and Paladins to kill."
The Flight
Nyx's dragon form was massive enough to carry me, Kas, Yuzu, and Mo without strain. We left the ground forces to follow on foot while we flew ahead, racing against time and the cold certainty that we might already be too late.
The flight should have taken two hours. Nyx made it in forty minutes, pushing herself to speeds that made the wind scream around us.
Through our soul bond, I felt her rage matching my own. This was her family too. Her pack. And someone was trying to exterminate them for the crime of being different.
"There," Mo called out, pointing down. "Smoke. Multiple sources."
The Widow's Pass stretched below us, and it was worse than I'd imagined.
The canyon was maybe three hundred yards long, narrow enough that siege equipment positioned at either end could create an absolute killing field. And the Empire had done exactly that, blessed ballistae at both ends, Paladins in white armor lining the canyon walls, Battle-Clerics with staves of holy fire ready.
And in the center, desperately trying to hold a defensive position, were the refugees.
Hundreds of them. Bear kin families, children, elders. Siraq at the center, her massive bear form already bloodied, roaring defiance as she tried to protect the civilians clustered behind her. A handful of warriors, maybe fifteen total, formed a defensive circle, but they were exhausted, overwhelmed, dying.
Holy fire rained down from above. Blessed arrows found marks. And advancing from both ends of the canyon came ranks of white-armored Paladins, swords gleaming, holy symbols burning bright, singing hymns as they prepared to finish the extermination.
At the head of the force stood a man in commander's armor, more ornate than the others. Gavriel, presumably. He was directing the slaughter like a conductor, his voice carrying across the canyon.
"By Light! Through Light! For Light eternal! Let no corruption escape! Purify the impure! Cleanse the contaminated! Show no mercy to those who reject salvation!"
The Paladins responded in unison, a wave of fanatical certainty that made my skin crawl.
And watching it all, watching children screaming, watching families huddling together knowing death was coming, watching Siraq desperately trying to protect everyone despite knowing it was hopeless, something inside me broke.
Not broke as in shattered. Broke as in the locks holding something caged suddenly gave way.
I'd been so careful. So controlled. Since the dungeon, since the transformation, since becoming this chimera thing... I'd kept the demon part of myself locked away. Contained. The rage, the violence, the part of me that wanted to tear and rend and destroy.
I'd built a gilded cage for it. Told myself it was control. Told myself it was being civilized. Told myself it was protecting my family from the monster I could become.
But watching innocents being slaughtered while singing hymns about purity, watching children die because they were born to the wrong species, that cage didn't feel like control anymore.
It felt like a lie.
"Nyx," I said, my voice coming out wrong. Deeper. Rougher. "Get closer."
"Knox..."
"Closer."
She dove, and through our bond, she felt what was happening. The locks breaking. The cage opening. The part of me I'd been suppressing finally, completely, absolutely unleashed.
[WARNING: DEMONIC ESSENCE UNSEALING]
[WARNING: CORRUPTION LEVELS RISING]
[WARNING: EMOTIONAL REGULATOR COMPROMISED]
[WARNING: POWER...]
I didn't care about warnings. I cared about the child I saw get hit by a blessed arrow. I cared about the elder crushed under a ballista bolt. I cared about Siraq's desperate roar as she tried to protect everyone, knowing she couldn't.
"Knox," Kas's voice was worried. "Your power level, it's spiking. The readings..."
"I know."
"It's not stopping. It's accelerating. Knox, if you lose control..."
"I'm not losing control." I looked at her, and she actually flinched from what she saw in my eyes. "I'm choosing what to control. Nyx, when we're over the center of the canyon, I want you to drop me."
"Drop you?!"
"Trust me."
"Knox, that's a hundred-foot fall"
"I know. Drop me right into the middle of those white-armored fuckers who think genocide is holy. I want to make an entrance."
Through the bond, she felt my intent, my absolute, crystalline clarity about what was about to happen. It should have terrified her. Instead, she felt...
Pride.
"Hold on," Nyx said. "This is going to be memorable."
The Descent
We came in from the sun, making us hard to spot until we were already overhead. Gavriel saw us first, pointing and shouting orders, but by then it was too late.
Nyx pulled up hard, and I let go.
Falling felt like flying in reverse. The wind screamed past, the ground rushed up, and in that moment of absolute clarity, I stopped fighting what I was.
The cage didn't just open. It shattered. Exploded. Ceased to exist.
And the demon I'd been keeping locked away roared free.
My power erupted. Not gradually, not controlled, pure volcanic release of everything I'd been suppressing. The ember-shadow magic that I'd been carefully moderating ignited like a star. The corruption I'd been holding back flooded through every cell. The three races comprising my chimera nature, demon, dragon, astral, stopped being carefully balanced and started being deliberately unleashed.
[WARNING: POWER LIMITERS REMOVED]
[WARNING: CORRUPTION: CRITICAL]
[WARNING: TRANSFORMATION ACTIVE]
[WARNING: THIS... THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED]
[SYSTEM WARNING: YOU ARE EXCEEDING SAFE PARAMETERS]
[SYSTEM WARNING: POWER LEVEL EXCEEDING CALCULATION LIMITS]
[SYSTEM ERROR: UNABLE TO ACCURATELY ASSESS THREAT LEVEL]
[SYSTEM ERROR: DESIGNATION SHIFTING FROM "CHIMERA" TO "???"]
[ALERT: THE WARDEN HAS STOPPED...]
I hit the ground in the center of the Paladin formation like a meteor.
The impact cratered the earth, sending up a shockwave of dust and debris. Paladins went flying. The shockwave alone killed three of them, their armor crumpling like paper.
When the dust cleared, I stood in the center of a perfect circle of destruction.
I'd changed. The transformation was visible, visceral, terrifying.
My height had increased to maybe nine feet. My horns had grown, curving back in wicked arcs that gleamed with inner fire. My scales had darkened to absolute black, shot through with veins of ember-orange that pulsed with barely contained power. My claws extended to proper talons, each one glowing hot enough to leave marks in the stone. My tail had become a weapon in its own right, thick with muscle and tipped with a blade-like growth.
My eyes burned. Not metaphorically, actual flames, ember-gold and dragon-bright, creating shadows where there shouldn't be any.
And my aura... my aura was wrong. It pressed against reality like it was rejecting my existence. The air shimmered with heat. Shadows bent incorrectly around me. The ground beneath my feet cracked from the sheer pressure of power I was radiating.
The Paladins stared. Some in shock. Some in fear.
Gavriel in recognition.
"Abomination," he breathed. Then, louder: "DEMON! The corruption made manifest! Brothers and sisters, the Light has delivered our true enemy! This... this thing is why we purify! This is the threat that lurks in every mongrel bond, every impure union! DESTROY IT!"
Fifty Paladins raised their weapons, holy magic flaring bright.
I smiled. All teeth and malice.
"Wrong move."
The Slaughter Begins
They came at me in a coordinated wave, exactly as trained. Shield wall advancing, spears bristling, Battle-Clerics chanting holy wards, blessed weapons raised.
I was already moving.
My speed had increased with everything else. I crossed twenty feet in a heartbeat, my claws finding the first Paladin's throat before he could even register I'd moved. Blood sprayed, hot and red, and something in me that had been locked away for so long sang with vicious satisfaction.
The next Paladin swung a blessed sword. I caught it with my bare hand, the holy magic burning my palm but not nearly enough to stop me. I yanked him close, drove my other hand through his chest plate, and threw him into three of his companions.
"Formation!" Gavriel screamed. "Hold formation! Don't let it..."
I was already there, in the middle of their formation, too close for spears, too fast for coordination.
My tail swept through a line of them, the blade-tip opening armor like silk. My claws found gaps in protection with surgical precision. My ember-shadow magic erupted in bursts of concentrated destruction, holy wards shattering like glass.
But it wasn't just physical anymore. The power I'd unleashed, the full weight of three combined races, manifested in ways I'd never let it before.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: ASTRAL REND]
Reality itself cracked where I struck. Dimensional tears that confused space, making attacks land from impossible angles. Paladins would block one direction and die from another, their holy protections meaningless against attacks that ignored conventional geometry.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: DRACONIC FEAR AURA]
Nyx's heritage expressed through pure, primal terror. The nearest Paladins simply stopped fighting, minds overwhelmed by the genetic memory of being prey to apex predators. Some dropped their weapons. Some ran. Some just stood there, paralyzed, waiting to die.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: DEMON'S WRATH (UNSEALED)]
This wasn't the controlled version I'd been using. This was the true expression of demonic rage, power that increased with every wound given and received, that fed on violence and returned it tenfold. Every Paladin that died made me stronger. Every drop of blood spilled increased my speed. Every scream of terror amplified my power.
I was becoming a feedback loop of destruction.
"HOLY FIRE!" Gavriel commanded, desperation creeping into his voice. "BURN IT! PURIFY THE CORRUPTION!"
The Battle-Clerics complied, calling down pillars of blessed flame. Holy fire that could burn demons to ash, that had cleansed thousands of "impure" beings.
It hit me directly. I stood in the center of a pillar of white-gold flames designed to destroy corruption.
And I laughed.
The flames didn't burn. They fed me. The corruption I'd been suppressing... the dungeon heart's darkness I'd balanced... it consumed the holy energy and converted it. Transmuted purity into power.
I walked out of the flames, wreathed in shadow-fire that burned black and gold, my aura now actually visible, a corona of twisted light that made reality bend around me.
"Impossible," one of the Battle-Clerics whispered. "Holy fire can't feed corruption, it's fundamentally opposed..."
I reached him in two strides, grabbed him by the face, and channeled all that converted holy energy back into him at point-blank range.
He didn't scream. He didn't have time. His body simply came apart, unable to contain energy it was fundamentally incompatible with.
The other Clerics backed away, their faith wavering for the first time in their zealous lives.
"What are you?" one of them asked, voice shaking.
"Wrong question," I said, my voice echoing with harmonics that shouldn't exist. "The question is: what did you think would happen when you came to exterminate my family?"
The True Horror
Up until this point, I'd been fighting. Efficient, brutal, but still within the framework of combat. Attack, defend, kill, move on.
But watching these Paladins... these people who'd come to murder children while singing about righteousness... finally understand that they weren't the apex predators in this scenario...
Something in me decided efficiency wasn't enough.
They needed to understand terror. Needed to feel what their victims felt. Needed to know, viscerally, what it meant to face overwhelming force with no hope of survival.
I stopped killing quickly.
The next Paladin I reached, I didn't kill. I broke. Systematically. Every bone in his sword arm, then his shield arm, then his legs. Left him alive, screaming, a message to the others about what happened when you brought genocide to my doorstep.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: SHADOW MANIPULATION (EVOLVED)]
The shadows in the canyon weren't just darkness anymore. They were extensions of my will. They reached out, wrapped around Paladins, and held them in place while I worked. Living restraints that fed on fear and grew stronger with every scream.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: CHIMERA'S DOMAIN]
The area around me became mine. My rules. My reality. Within this space, I decided what lived and died, what burned and froze, what stood and fell. The Paladins found their blessed weapons failing, their holy magic sputtering, their faith-based protections crumbling against something that simply rejected their entire paradigm.
I was creating a zone of absolute dominance, and everyone in it knew they were prey.
Gavriel's Desperation
"FALL BACK!" Gavriel finally screamed, his tactical mind recognizing a massacre in progress. "RETREAT! STRATEGIC WITHDRAWAL!"
But I'd learned something from Mo's planning sessions. You don't just defeat an enemy, you eliminate their capacity to threaten you again.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: ASTRAL STEP]
I was at the canyon's exit before the first Paladin reached it. They crashed into me like a wave hitting a mountain, and I held the line alone.
"No one leaves," I said, my voice carrying across the canyon with supernatural clarity. "You came here to exterminate refugees. To murder families. To call genocide righteousness. You wanted purification?"
I gestured, and my ember-shadow magic exploded outward in a wave that painted the canyon walls with light and darkness intertwined.
"Let me show you what true purification looks like."
The magic didn't kill them. Not immediately. It burned away their holy protections first, stripped their blessed enchantments, reduced their consecrated armor to mundane metal. It exposed them... made them as vulnerable as the civilians they'd been slaughtering.
"Now," I said, walking toward them slowly, deliberately, giving them time to understand their situation. "Now you're just people in armor, and I'm the monster you created by threatening my family. Who wants to try their righteousness against me now?"
Silence. Absolute silence except for the crackle of my aura and the ragged breathing of terrified Paladins.
Then one of them, younger than the others, dropped his weapon.
"I surrender," he said, voice breaking. "Please, I surrender... I didn't want to do this, they made me, the orders..."
"You were singing hymns while children died," I interrupted. "Surrender denied."
"Wait-WAIT..."
I didn't wait.
Gavriel's Last Stand
By the time I reached Gavriel, I'd killed thirty-seven Paladins and maimed a dozen more. The commander stood in the center of his surviving forces, maybe ten Paladins still combat-capable, plus his personal guard.
He'd activated every defensive blessing he had. Holy barriers layered three deep. Divine protection spells that should have made him invulnerable to demonic attack. Faith-based wards that claimed absolute righteousness as their shield.
I walked through all of it like they didn't exist.
The barriers shattered at my touch. The protections unraveled. The wards crumbled. Because I wasn't just a demon anymore, I was the living embodiment of what they feared most. The corruption that adaptation blessed, that thrived on their attempts to destroy it.
I was their nightmare made manifest, and all their faith couldn't protect them from what they'd created.
"Abomination," Gavriel said, raising his sword. The blade burned with holy fire, blessed by the High Luminary herself. "I am Paladin-Commander Gavriel Lightsbane, Voice of the Light, Bearer of Judgment. By the authority vested in me by the Empire and..."
I caught his sword mid-swing. The holy fire burned my hand, charred the flesh, but I didn't let go. I just stood there, letting him see that his ultimate weapon, his blessed blade, his divine authority... it wasn't enough.
"I am Knox Ashford," I said quietly, my voice carrying the weight of three races and absolute fury. "I am the Warden of Ashenhearth, protector of the broken, sanctuary for the persecuted. And you came to my home to murder my family."
I crushed the blade. The blessed steel crumpled like tin foil, the holy enchantments dying with a sound like a scream.
"You made a mistake," I continued, releasing the ruined weapon. "You thought being strong and righteous made you predators. You forgot that predators can become prey when something bigger shows up."
Gavriel stared at his destroyed sword, then up at me, and for the first time, I saw actual fear in his eyes.
"The High Luminary will hear of this. The Empire will hear of this. You've just declared war on the greatest power in the world, and they will..."
I grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off the ground. "Let them come. Let the whole fucking Empire come. Let them see what happens when they bring genocide to my door. Let them understand that Ashenhearth stands, that we protect our own, that we don't kneel to murderers who call themselves righteous."
I threw him toward his surviving Paladins. He crashed into them, armor dented, pride shattered, fear written across his face.
"Go," I said. "Run back to your Empire. Tell them what you found here. Tell them that if they ever threaten my family again, I won't stop at defending. I'll come for them. And I'll show them exactly what happens when you push monsters too far."
Gavriel stumbled to his feet, supported by his guards. For a moment, I thought he might actually try to attack again, might let zealotry override survival instinct.
Then he looked around at the canyon... at the bodies of his Paladins, at the complete destruction of his force, at the refugees he'd failed to exterminate... and something in him broke.
"Retreat," he whispered. Then, louder: "RETREAT! Fall back! Everyone fall back NOW!"
The surviving Paladins didn't need to be told twice. They ran, abandoning their siege equipment, their wounded, their dead. Just pure, animal panic flight from something that had shattered every assumption they'd held about power and righteousness.
I let them go. Watched them flee. Made sure every single one of them understood, viscerally, that they'd lost not just the battle but the fundamental certainty that they were the apex of power.
The Aftermath
When the last Paladin disappeared from view, the power I'd unleashed started to recede. Not quickly, this wasn't something you just turned off, but gradually. The aura faded. The dimensional tears sealed. The shadows returned to normal.
I shrank back down from nine feet to my usual eight. The excess scales retracted. The burning in my eyes dimmed to a manageable glow.
But I was still covered in blood. Still had the gore of thirty-seven Paladins painting my hands, my arms, my chest.
And I still felt good about it.
That should have worried me. Probably would later. But right now, looking at the refugees I'd saved, at Siraq, alive, at the children who'd been minutes from slaughter, at the families huddling together in exhausted relief, I felt nothing but grim satisfaction.
I'd become exactly what they feared most. And I'd used that to protect people who couldn't protect themselves.
If that made me a monster, fine. I'd be their monster.
"Knox?" Siraq's voice, rough and exhausted. She was in her half-form, bloodied but alive, limping toward me with disbelief written across her face. "How... what... that power..."
I opened my mouth to respond and realized I didn't know what to say. How do you explain that you'd just murdered almost forty people and felt absolutely no regret?
Then small arms wrapped around my leg.
I looked down to find a bear kin cub, maybe five years old, hugging me with everything she had. She was crying, terrified, but also safe. Protected.
"Thank you," she whispered. "The light men were going to hurt us. You stopped them. Thank you."
And just like that, the moral ambiguity didn't matter. The question of whether I'd gone too far, whether I'd become what I'd been fighting against, none of it mattered compared to this child being alive because I'd unleashed the demon I'd been caging.
More children approached. Then parents. Then elders. Then Siraq, finally reaching me and pulling me into a crushing hug that should have broken ribs.
"You saved us," she said, voice cracking. "The entire clan. They came to exterminate us, and you... you..."
"I protected my family," I said simply. "That's what family does."
Through the bonds, I felt my people arriving. Nyx landing, the Oni rushing to the canyon entrance, Yorrik and his warriors finally catching up.
They stopped at the canyon entrance, staring at the carnage. At the bodies. At the blood. At me, standing in the center of it all, covered in the evidence of what I'd done.
Kas spoke first. "Knox... that power... I felt it through the bond. You unsealed everything."
"I did."
"Why?"
"Because they were going to kill children while singing hymns, and the part of me that I've been locking away decided it was done being civilized about things like that."
"And now?" Mo asked carefully. "The demon aspect... can you control it, or..."
"I can control it. I am controlling it. I'm just not caging it anymore." I looked at my blood-covered hands. "Turns out, the monster I was so afraid of becoming? It's useful when you need to murder genocidal zealots."
"That's a concerning realization," Yuzu pointed out.
"Probably. But I'm done apologizing for protecting my family."
Nyx approached slowly, her dragon eyes taking in every detail. Through our soul bond, I felt her assessment, not of what I'd done, but of what it meant for us going forward.
"Knox," she said quietly. "You just declared war on the Empire. They won't ignore this. They'll come with more than fifty Paladins next time."
"Let them. I'll keep killing them until they understand that Ashenhearth is off-limits. That refugees under our protection don't get exterminated. That we don't kneel to murderers with holy symbols."
"You sound very certain about that."
"I am. Because I finally understand something." I gestured at the refugees, at Siraq, at the children who'd been minutes from death. "I've been so worried about becoming a monster that I forgot there are worse things than monsters. Like standing by while innocents die because you're too afraid of what you might become if you really fight."
"So you're accepting what you are?"
"I'm accepting what I need to be. Demon, dragon, astral... whatever combination keeps my family safe. I don't care about being civilized anymore. I care about being effective."
She studied me for a long moment, then smiled. "Good. Because that thing you just did, where you terrified an entire Paladin company and made them flee screaming? That was the sexiest thing I've ever seen."
Despite everything, the blood, the carnage, the exhaustion, I laughed. "You have strange standards for sexy."
"I have dragon standards. Watching you defend your territory by absolutely destroying threats? That's peak attractiveness." She pulled me into a kiss that tasted like fire and possession. "Also, you're mine, and watching you protect what's yours makes me want to remind everyone of that."
"Nyx, there are children present."
"They're not looking. They're too busy being alive because you went full nightmare demon mode. Let me have this moment."
Fair point.
[BATTLE COMPLETE: IMPERIAL FORCES DESTROYED]
[CASUALTIES: ENEMY - 37 KILLED, 13 MAIMED, REMAINDER ROUTED]
[CASUALTIES: FRIENDLY - ZERO (YOU ARRIVED IN TIME)]
[REFUGEES SAVED: 347]
[REPUTATION WITH EMPIRE: HOSTILE ~~ ACTIVE WAR]
[REPUTATION WITH REFUGEES: LIVING LEGEND]
[POWER UNSEALED: DEMON ASPECT INTEGRATED]
[WARNING: YOU ARE NOW CLASSIFIED AS CONTINENTAL-CLASS THREAT]
[WARNING: EMPIRE RESPONSE IMMINENT]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: THEY SHOULD HAVE SENT MORE]
[TITLE EARNED: THE MERCY THAT CAME TOO LATE]
The rest of the day was spent organizing the refugees, treating wounded, and beginning the long journey back to Ashenhearth. Siraq stayed close to me the entire time, her presence both grateful and slightly wary.
"You changed," she said quietly as we walked. "Not just physically. Something fundamental shifted."
"I stopped pretending the demon part of me was something to be ashamed of," I said. "Turns out, it's useful for killing people who need killing."
"That's a dangerous philosophy."
"Probably. But I'm done being careful about violence when violence is what's needed to protect my family."
She was quiet for a moment, then: "Thank you. For coming. For saving us. For..." She gestured at the refugees streaming past, alive because I'd unleashed something I'd been suppressing. "For being what we needed, even if it meant becoming something you were afraid of."
"I'm not afraid of it anymore. That's the part that should probably worry me but doesn't."
"Maybe it shouldn't worry you. Maybe that's exactly what we need... someone willing to be the monster that protects the innocent from other monsters."
"That's a very convenient rationalization."
"It's also true."
We walked in silence, and I thought about what I'd become. What I'd done. What I was willing to keep doing.
I'd murdered thirty-seven people today. Brutally. Efficiently. Without mercy.
And I'd do it again. Without hesitation. Because they'd come to exterminate families, and that was something I would never allow while I had the power to stop it.
The demon was free. The cage was gone. And honestly?
I felt better than I had in weeks.
That probably said something concerning about my mental state. But right now, walking alongside rescued refugees and knowing I'd stopped a massacre, I couldn't bring myself to care.
The Empire wanted to call me an abomination? Fine. I'd be their worst nightmare.
But I'd be my family's protector first.
And anyone who threatened that would learn exactly what I was capable of when all the self-imposed limitations came off.