Brennick Estate - Kitchen and Adjacent Corridors
Kael's draconic durability bought him ninety seconds longer than human would have survived. Then the wolf's jaws found his throat.
The scales held initially—draconic transformation providing armor that normal teeth couldn't penetrate. But the wolf didn't release, didn't try different approach. Just maintained pressure, jaw muscles contracting with hydraulic force that exceeded what mammalian physiology should have produced. The scales cracked. Then broke. Then the teeth were through armor and into flesh beneath.
Kael's hands scrabbled at the wolf's head—trying to pry the jaws open, trying to create space for breath, trying anything that might interrupt the killing grip. His draconic strength let him actually move the wolf's head slightly, muscles straining against muscles, supernatural power against supernatural power.
It wasn't enough.
The wolf's bite deepened. Crushed trachea. Severed carotid. Kael's struggles became weaker, more desperate, then simply stopped as consciousness fled and body recognized death was inevitable.
The wolf held the grip for another thirty seconds—ensuring kill was complete, that prey wouldn't resurrect or heal or somehow continue threatening. Only when Kael's mana signature fully dissipated, when life force stopped circulating, did the wolf release.
It turned toward Marcus—the last remaining prey, still propped against kitchen wall with his severed arm lying in pool of blood three meters away. The man's face had gone gray from blood loss, his remaining hand still pressed against the stump, eyes glassy with shock.
"Please," Marcus whispered, the professional discipline finally breaking into genuine terror. "Please, I have—I have a daughter. She's six. Lives with her mother in Talvos. If I die she'll—"
The wolf's head tilted slightly—gesture that in human might have indicated consideration, but in predator was just sensory assessment. Listening to tone. Evaluating threat level. Determining whether prey required immediate killing or could be ignored.
Marcus tried to continue. "I was just following orders. The hunt—it was just a job. I didn't—I never wanted to kill children. That was Elara. She was the one who—"
The wolf moved. Not attacking—just closing distance with deliberate stalking approach, each step measured, predatory focus absolute.
Marcus's remaining hand fumbled for weapon—dropped sword lying somewhere in the blood and debris. His fingers found nothing. Just slick floor and his own severed arm.
"Please—"
The wolf's shadow fell across him. Teeth gleamed in firelight from burning curtains. Blood dripped from muzzle—Kael's blood, Elara's blood, mixed together and staining gray fur dark.
What happened next wasn't shown—just Marcus's scream starting then cutting off abruptly, and the wet sounds of flesh separating from bone, and then silence broken only by fire crackling and the wolf's heavy breathing.
Western Wing Drawing Room
John's opponents were flagging.
Not defeated—still dangerous, still capable of killing him if he made mistake—but visibly exhausted in way that John wasn't. Soren's breathing came in labored gasps, his Bloodlust enhancement consuming his body faster than it amplified his capabilities, muscles tearing from strain and blood vessels rupturing from pressure. Brennick knelt on his shattered knee, hands still crackling with lightning but discharge weakening as mana reserves approached depletion.
John stood with staff in hand, his posture relaxed despite wounds covering his body. Left arm hung partially disabled from shoulder cut. Right side was opened from earlier slash. Blood soaked his robes in multiple places. But his breathing remained controlled, his stance stable, his ki perception operating at full clarity.
"Why?" Brennick's voice cracked—not from physical damage but from psychological incomprehension. "Why come back here? What do you want? Money? I'll pay you—ten times what you'd have earned in lifetime of freedom. Twenty times. Name the price and—"
"It has nothing to do with money," John said flatly, his blind eyes fixed on Brennick's position through spatial awareness. "I'm just here to kill everyone."
The casual delivery made the words more frightening than threats would have been. No rage. No satisfaction. Just statement of fact delivered with same tone one might use to discuss weather.
Screams erupted from elsewhere in the estate—distant but audible, filled with agony and terror. Multiple voices, some cut off abruptly, others continuing in sustained shrieks that suggested pain beyond endurance.
John laughed—sound mixing genuine amusement with something darker. "Kiran's already handling business. Efficient boy. Thorough."
Brennick's face went pale. "Your companion—he's killing the servants? The slaves?"
"He's killing everyone he encounters," John corrected. "No discrimination. Equal opportunity violence." The smile on his face widened. "You wanted hunters who'd pursue escaped slaves without mercy? You hired them. They trained him. This is what you created."
Soren attacked through the conversation—Bloodlust overriding his exhaustion, his obsession making waiting impossible. The sword came at John from diagonal angle, enhanced speed making the blade blur.
John's staff intercepted two seconds before the attack arrived—his precognition placing defense perfectly, the ironwood meeting steel with impact that sent vibration through both weapons.
"Still can't touch me," John observed conversationally, spinning staff to redirect Soren's blade into empty air. "Still two seconds behind. Must be frustrating."
Brennick summoned his remaining mana—everything left, gathered into single desperate discharge. Lightning arced from both hands toward John, voltage enough to stop a heart, burn flesh to char, kill instantly if it connected.
John's light Uncos flared through his staff—creating barrier of concentrated photons that ionized the air and disrupted electrical conduction. The lightning hit the light barrier and dispersed, arcing harmlessly into floor and ceiling, leaving John untouched.
"My turn," John said quietly.
He moved with speed that belied his injuries—staff striking toward Brennick's head with lethal force. Brennick tried to dodge but his shattered knee made mobility impossible. The blow connected—ironwood meeting skull, audible crack of fracture, Brennick collapsing sideways with blood streaming from temple.
Not dead. Unconscious, concussed, probably dying from head trauma. But not immediately dead.
Soren screamed—wordless sound of frustration and rage and obsessive need finally breaking into incoherence. His Bloodlust Uncos surged past sustainable levels into territory where enhancement became self-destruction. His skin began splitting from internal pressure. Blood vessels burst in his eyes and nose. Muscles tore from strain.
But he was fast. Faster than he'd been all fight. Faster than John's two-second precognition could fully compensate for.
The sword found John's leg—deep cut through thigh, severing muscle, compromising his mobility. John stumbled, nearly fell, staff barely keeping him upright.
Soren pressed the advantage—combination of strikes that forced John into pure defense, the blind hunter finally achieving the overwhelming assault he'd been building toward for months. Each strike came faster than the last, enhancement burning Soren's life force as fuel but providing the power to finally threaten his obsession's target.
John's defenses held—barely. His precognition let him position blocks before attacks arrived, but Soren's speed meant the margin of error was approaching zero. One miscalculation, one moment of delayed reaction, and the fight would end with John's death.
Then Soren made mistake. Overextended on overhead slash, putting too much force into strike, Bloodlust-induced rage overriding tactical discipline.
John saw it coming two seconds ahead. Calculated response. Committed.
He let his wounded leg collapse—controlled fall rather than desperate stumble, dropping below Soren's strike arc while simultaneously driving staff upward in thrust that used falling momentum for additional power.
The ironwood caught Soren under the jaw—direct hit to vulnerable soft tissue, force transmitted through mandible into skull cavity, brain stem compressed by sudden upward pressure.
Soren's attack stopped mid-swing. His body went rigid. The sword dropped from nerveless fingers.
John stood—difficult with injured leg, requiring staff for support—and watched Soren collapse face-first onto destroyed drawing room floor. Breathing but unconscious. Possibly brain-damaged from the strike. Definitely no longer threat.
Two opponents down. Only Brennick remained, and he was bleeding from head wound that suggested skull fracture and possible intracranial hemorrhage.
John limped toward Brennick's prone form, staff raised for finishing blow—
Movement. Brennick's body spasmed, convulsed, began changing in way that had nothing to do with normal Uncos manifestation.
His skin darkened—not tanning or bruising but actual color shift toward charcoal gray. His frame expanded, muscles swelling beyond normal human proportions, bones restructuring with audible cracks and wet sounds of cartilage reforming. His face elongated, jaw extending forward, teeth growing into fangs while eyes receded into skull sockets and began glowing with dull red bioluminescence.
The transformation completed in fifteen seconds. What stood from Brennick's collapsed form wasn't human anymore.
Demonic entity. Two and a half meters tall. Disproportionate limbs—arms too long, legs bent at wrong angles, spine curved in ways human skeleton couldn't achieve. Gray skin stretched tight over exposed muscle tissue and visible bone. Face was nightmare rendered physical—no nose, just holes, mouth extending past where human jaw should end, filled with irregular teeth like broken glass.
John's ki perception identified the mana signature immediately—demonic essence, the kind produced when someone made contract with entities that existed outside normal divine hierarchy. The Supreme Gods had strict prohibitions against such arrangements, which meant Brennick had gone through back channels, made deals in secret, paid prices that would horrify even his fellow slave owners.
"The Supreme Gods really put people in deals with devils for this?" John's voice carried genuine disgust mixed with disappointment. "Look at you. Ugly. Disfigured. Barely coherent. This is what you traded your humanity for? Pathetic."
The demon-Brennick roared—sound that rattled windows and made John's teeth ache from subsonic vibration. Then it charged with speed that shouldn't have been possible for something so malformed.
John barely dodged—rolling sideways, staff coming up to block follow-up strike. The demon's fist connected with ironwood. Impact sent shockwave up John's arms, nearly broke his grip, forced him backward three meters from pure kinetic force.
Strong. Durable. Fast. John's tactical assessment ran automatically. Hit me once clean and I'm dead. Bones broken, organs ruptured, internal bleeding.
He adjusted strategy—abandoning direct confrontation in favor of evasion and precision strikes. His precognition let him avoid the demon's attacks, staff redirecting strikes rather than blocking them directly. But his wounded leg compromised mobility, made some evasions impossible, forced him to block where dodging was optimal.
Each block stressed his arms. Each impact jarred his injured body. Each exchange reminded him that one mistake would be fatal.
The demon's durability was extreme—John landed strikes that should have broken bones, should have caused injury that slowed opponent. Staff hits to joints, to vulnerable organs, to head. The demon absorbed them all without apparent effect, its transformed physiology resistant to impacts that would incapacitate humans.
And it was getting faster.
The demonic transformation was still progressing—body adapting to combat, optimizing for current threat, becoming more efficient at killing. Its strikes increased in speed incrementally but noticeably. Its movements became more coordinated as whatever remained of Brennick's consciousness learned to control the altered form.
John's two-second precognition began struggling—the demon's acceleration pushing closer to threshold where prediction couldn't compensate for raw speed. Attacks that he'd been seeing two seconds ahead were now arriving one-point-eight seconds after precognitive warning. Then one-point-six. Then one-point-four.
The margin was closing. Soon his defense would fail.
Need to end this. Now. Before it becomes too fast to counter.
John's mind calculated with cold precision—assessing options, evaluating risks, planning combination that would either kill the demon or exhaust him trying. High-risk sequence. Massive mana expenditure. Success uncertain. But alternatives were worse—continuing current pace meant inevitable defeat once demon's speed exceeded his precognition threshold.
He committed.
First movement: Channel light Uncos through staff at maximum intensity. Not for blinding—demon's eyes were essentially useless anyway, relying on other senses for tracking. Instead, heat. Laser-focused beam of concentrated photons, all available mana directed into single point, temperature approaching levels that could cut through steel.
The staff's end glowed white-hot—literally incandescent, the ironwood beginning to char from energy passing through it. John thrust toward demon's center mass, the superheated point finding flesh and burning through. Smell of cooking meat filled the room. The demon roared, staggered, but didn't fall.
Second movement: Sweep staff low while demon was off-balance. Trip attempt, using demon's excessive weight against its malformed leg structure. Connected. The demon crashed forward, massive frame hitting floor with impact that cracked stone.
Third movement: Strike to head while demon was prone. Full force overhead swing, every gram of remaining strength channeled through ironwood into demon's skull. Impact. Crack. The demon's head bounced off stone floor.
Fourth movement: Light emission directly into the burn wound John had created moments earlier. No longer trying to cut—just heating internal tissue, causing thermal damage to organs that even demonic durability couldn't completely protect.
The demon screamed—sound mixing pain with rage, thrashing on floor, arms sweeping wildly to dislodge attacker.
Fifth movement: Final staff strike to spine while demon was disoriented. Targeting vulnerable junction between transformed vertebrae, seeking structural weak point in altered anatomy.
The blow connected. Vertebrae separated. The demon's lower body went slack—paralyzed from spinal severance, its legs no longer responding to neurological signals.
John staggered backward, breathing hard, mana reserves depleted, physical stamina approaching zero. His wounded leg nearly gave out. Staff was the only thing keeping him upright.
The demon lay on floor, lower body paralyzed but upper body still functional, still trying to crawl toward John with its too-long arms, rage undiminished despite catastrophic injuries.
It tried to rise. Failed. Tried again—
Something massive erupted through the drawing room's western wall. Not breaking through doorway—just through the wall itself, masonry exploding inward, dust and debris cascading.
Kiran's wolf form appeared in the breach. But wrong. Changed.
The wolf was massive now—easily twice the size it had been at fight's beginning, standing nearly two meters at shoulder. Its fur was matted with blood—some its own, most belonging to others. Flames still flickered across its shoulders but dimly, erratically, like dying embers. Its eyes glowed with predator focus that held no recognition, no intelligence, no humanity.
The wolf's jaws closed on demon-Brennick's head. Single bite. The demon's skull crumpled. Body went limp. Death was instant and absolute.
John stood there, using staff for support, watching the wolf that had been his companion dispatch his enemy with casual brutality. He took deep breath—relief mixing with exhaustion mixing with recognition that situation had just become different kind of dangerous.
"Thank you, Kiran," John said quietly, lowering himself to one knee from sheer fatigue. His leg wound was bleeding freely. Multiple other injuries demanded attention. His mana reserves were empty. He was, by any objective assessment, helpless.
The wolf didn't acknowledge the thanks. Just turned from demon's corpse to face John, growling—low rumbling sound that came from chest rather than throat, the kind of vocalization predators made before attacking.
John looked up at the wolf through his ki perception, mapping its position, its stance, its mana signature. And recognized immediately what he'd been too focused to notice earlier: the signature was wrong. Similar to Kiran's but different—the human consciousness that had always been detectable beneath the beast was absent. Just predator now. Just wolf. No boy remaining in that massive form.
"What happened to you?" John asked under his breath, already calculating defensive options despite knowing he had no stamina left for prolonged combat.
The wolf lunged—not committed attack, just testing strike, claws sweeping toward John's face.
John rolled sideways—avoiding by centimeters, staff coming up in defensive position despite arms screaming protest. He looked around the destroyed drawing room properly for first time—saw the bodies scattered throughout adjacent rooms visible through broken walls, saw the amount of blood painting surfaces, saw the destruction that spoke of violence far exceeding combat necessity.
"Did you do all this?" John asked quietly, already knowing answer. His ki perception traced the wolf's mana signature backward through estate corridors—finding it present at every massacre site, every corpse, every scene of excessive violence. "Kiran... did you lose yourself completely?"
The werewolf threw its head back and howled—sound that echoed through estate and beyond, carrying across grounds and into forest, the kind of vocalization that made prey animals freeze and other predators retreat. Its eyes began glowing brighter, luminescence intensifying from dim red to brilliant amber.
John's gaze followed the wolf's upward. Through broken ceiling he could see night sky—and the full moon rising above the estate, its silver light painting everything in pale radiance.
Full moon. Perfect. John's thought carried sarcastic acknowledgment of timing. Just when he's already lost control, add lunar enhancement to make him stronger. Because this wasn't difficult enough.
The wolf's body began changing again—growing larger, muscles swelling, its already-massive frame expanding toward three-meter height. The full moon's influence amplified beast transformation, pushed it past normal limits into territory where lupine physiology became something closer to mythical monstrosity.
John looked at the beast that had been his companion. The creature that had just saved his life and now might kill him. The friend who'd lost himself to instinct and violence and couldn't find his way back to humanity.
He smiled—expression mixing exhaustion with genuine dark humor, finding absurdity in situation despite mortal danger.
"You know," John said conversationally, staff raised in token defense that both of them knew was inadequate, "killing me would be really inconvenient. For both of us. You'd regret it when you came back to yourself. If you come back."
The werewolf's eyes fixed on him—tracking his position with predatory focus, calculating attack angles, preparing to finish what instinct had started.
John kept smiling. Kept talking. Kept buying seconds he desperately needed to figure out how to survive this.
"So here's a thought: don't kill me. Just... consider the option. Really think about it. Take your time."
The werewolf howled again—sound that shook remaining intact windows—and lunged forward with jaws open wide enough to engulf John's entire head.
And John, exhausted and wounded and completely out of viable options, did the only thing he could think of that might possibly work.
He laughed.