The world exploded in a cataclysm of force and sound.
Charlie's shoulder met the Gore-Kragg's descending fist in an impact that defied physics. The air itself seemed to shatter, a deafening CRACK that was felt as much as heard. The ground beneath them erupted, a crater of displaced earth and splintered rock forming in a perfect circle around the point of collision. For a single, eternal second, Charlie held his ground, an immovable object against an unstoppable force. His Unbreakable Body screamed, every bone and sinew vibrating at a frequency that threatened to tear him apart. He channeled the torrent of kinetic energy, a roaring, incandescent river of power flooding into his core.
"AHHHHHHHHH!" A raw, guttural scream was ripped from his throat, a sound of pure, agonizing effort as he resisted the crushing weight of a god's fury.
But the mountain was too massive. The force was too absolute. The dam of his unbreakable will broke.
He was thrown backward, not like a man, but like a cannonball. He tumbled through the air, a ragdoll in a hurricane, and slammed into the jungle floor fifty feet away, carving a deep furrow through the mud and roots before coming to a stop in a crumpled, broken heap.
From his hiding place in a thicket of ferns, Bobby watched in abject horror, a single, strangled word escaping his lips. "Charlie!"
The Gore-Kragg, its fist still smoking from the sheer energy of the impact, turned its horned skull-face toward the sound of Bobby's cry. Its blind, ruined eye sockets were black holes of malevolence. It took a thunderous, earth-shaking step in his direction.
Charlie's world was a universe of pain. His left arm was a useless, mangled ruin, the bones shattered into a dozen pieces, the limb hanging limp and twisted at his side. His ribs felt like a cage of broken glass, and every breath was a fresh agony. But through the red haze of pain, his mind was a shard of ice, cold and clear. Get up. The command was not a thought; it was an imperative.
He forced himself to move. He pushed up with his good arm, his muscles screaming, his body a symphony of protest. He staggered to his feet, his shattered left arm dangling, his vision swimming. I need to get up. He saw the behemoth lumbering toward Bobby's hiding place.
There was no time.
He took a deep, ragged breath and unleashed his Primal Roar. The sonic boom hit the Gore-Kragg, staggering it, momentarily disorienting its sound-based senses. In that instant, Charlie coiled his powerful legs and leaped. He flew through the air, a broken but defiant comet, and slammed into the side of the behemoth just as it raised its fist to pulverize the thicket where Bobby was hiding.
He hit it with all his might, his good shoulder driving into its rocky flank. It was like tackling a skyscraper, but it was enough. The monster, already off-balance from the roar, stumbled sideways, its massive fist crashing into the empty ground, sending a shower of dirt and rock into the air. The behemoth roared in frustration, thrashing on the ground for a moment.
Charlie landed hard, his legs buckling, but he stayed upright. He looked at Bobby, who was frozen in place, his face a white mask of terror. "RUN!" Charlie screamed, his voice a raw, desperate command. "Find help! Get out of here!"
The Gore-Kragg was getting back to its feet, its massive form towering over Charlie.
"NOW!" Charlie roared again.
The command finally broke Bobby's paralysis. He turned and ran, crashing through the undergrowth with a desperation he had never known, tears of fear and guilt streaming down his face.
When Bobby was out of sight, a strange, grim smile touched Charlie's lips. The decoy had worked. Now, it was just him and the monster. He was outmatched, outgunned, and grievously injured. It was a perfect opportunity.
He checked his mental display. The single, cataclysmic impact from the behemoth's fist had done more than just shatter his arm.
System Update: Hits received: 1,398 (High-Impact Multiplier Applied). Total: 4,217/100,000.
He almost laughed. One hit from this thing was worth more than a week of Bobby's punches. A crazy, suicidal plan began to form in his mind, a strategy born from the cold, fearless logic of his new reality. He couldn't kill it. But he could use it. He could turn this engine of destruction into his personal forge.
He faced the behemoth, which was now turning its full, undivided attention back to him. The hunter had become the hunted, but in Charlie's mind, the roles were about to be reversed.
He took a deep breath, his one good hand clenched into a fist. His shattered arm hung at his side, a useless pendulum of pain. He ignored it. He focused, his Battle Instinct sharpening his perception to a razor's edge. He could see it all now: the subtle shift in the monster's shoulders before it swung, the way it planted its feet before it charged.
He would dodge. He would deflect. He would take the glancing blows. And he would get stronger. This was not a fight for survival anymore. This was training.
---
In a dark, hidden cave miles away, Javier Morales felt the psychic backlash of his behemoth's agony. It was not a feeling of damage, but of violation. He closed his eyes, his connection to the Gore-Kragg a faint, thrumming thread, and he saw through its ruined sockets. Blind. The creature was blind.
A low growl rumbled in his chest, a sound of pure, venomous fury. This human, this insignificant gnat in a world ripe for purging, had not only defied him once, but twice. This could not stand.
He was still in his human form, his body recovering from the immense strain of the Annihilating Demonic Beam. He was weak, but his mind was a cold, calculating engine of destruction. He needed to flush the boy out. He needed to level the playing field. He needed to burn the world down to find one man.
He accessed the Infernal Harbinger System, his soul points a healthy, glowing reservoir from the souls of the vanished plane. He didn't waste them on another high-tier creature. He invested in numbers. In chaos.
Summon: Imp x 100.
The air in the cave grew thick and hot, the shadows writhing and coalescing. One hundred small, wiry figures clawed their way into existence. They were creatures of pure malice, with skin like charred leather, small, wicked horns, and eyes that glowed like malevolent embers. They chittered and hissed, a swarm of miniature devils awaiting their master's command.
"Go," Javier commanded, his voice a harsh rasp. "Spread out. Burn this jungle to the ground. Kill every living thing you find. Every insect, every bird, every snake. Leave nothing but ash."
The imps let out a collective, gleeful shriek and swarmed out of the cave, a tide of fiery destruction pouring into the pristine green of the Amazon. A new System notification appeared in Javier's mind: For every ten soul points harvested by your minions, you will gain the ability to summon an additional imp at a cost of two soul points. A cruel, brilliant smile spread across Javier's face. It was a self-perpetuating engine of death. The more his imps killed, the more imps he could create. The jungle was doomed.
He then spent a few of his newly acquired points on himself, bolstering his own stamina and regeneration. He needed to recover. He needed to be ready to fire another beam. This time, he wouldn't miss.
Aboard the Cantacuzino jet, Mihai watched the livestream with a rapt, horrified fascination. The connection was spotty now, the feed cutting in and out as Bobby crashed through the dense foliage with the drone struggling to keep up. But he had seen it. He had seen Charlie's suicidal charge, the cataclysmic impact, the boy being thrown like a broken doll. And he had seen him get back up.
"Incredible," Mihai breathed, a note of genuine awe in his voice. "His mental fortitude… it's inhuman." He was one of the few people left watching the stream. The casual viewers had fled after the behemoth's first roar. Only the most dedicated, or the most morbidly curious, remained.
He saw Bobby scrambling through the jungle, his face a mask of terror, and a new sense of urgency seized him. The boy was a civilian, a liability. And he was leading the drone—Mihai's only eyes on the situation—away from the real fight.
"Varia," he commanded, his voice sharp. "While you manage the drone deployment, I need you to initiate contact with the nearest Brazilian Policia Militar headquarters. Patch me through."
"Contacting now," Varia replied. "A note of caution, sir. They will be… skeptical."
"Let me worry about that," Mihai said. A moment later, a gruff, Portuguese-accented voice crackled through the speaker.
"This is Colonel Alves. To whom am I speaking?"
"Colonel," Mihai said, his voice a smooth, commanding baritone. "My name is Mihai Cantacuzino. I am contacting you from a private flight over your airspace. We have a situation of extreme urgency in the Amazon sector designated..." He rattled off the coordinates Varia had pulled from the stream.
"Cantacuzino?" the Colonel repeated, a note of suspicion in his voice. "The vampire?"
"The very same," Mihai said, his tone unwavering. "And I am telling you that a creature you would classify as a 'demon' is currently on a rampage in your jungle. I have visual evidence. I need you to mobilize your forces immediately." He directed Varia to send a still frame from the stream—a clear, terrifying shot of the Gore-Kragg.
There was a long, stunned silence on the other end of the line. Mihai knew he had to press his advantage. He accessed his own System's data, his mind performing a series of complex calculations at lightning speed. Assuming the creature's hide has a tensile strength comparable to reinforced concrete, and factoring in its estimated mass and the observed velocity of its strike, the force of that impact was approximately 4.5 meganewtons. The boy, Charlie, absorbed and redirected a significant portion of that. His durability is beyond anything I have encountered.
He spent a few more of his precious points on his own strength and endurance. It wasn't much—he had only gained points from the thirty vampires he had sired, and twenty-seven of those were now ash. He needed a new source of power, a way to grow his kingdom without damning more souls. But that was a problem for later.
"Colonel," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I understand your hesitation. But there is a second entity involved. A young American with abilities that defy explanation. He is fighting this monster as we speak. If you do not act, you will not only have a demonic incursion on your hands, you will have an international incident when a super-powered American teenager is killed on your soil. Help him. Contain this. And I will ensure that my organization, Cantacuzino Global, makes a very, very generous contribution to your department's pension fund."
Another pause. Then, "I'm sending a helicopter for aerial reconnaissance. But my men are not equipped to fight… that... thing."
"They won't have to fight it alone," Mihai said. "How much longer until we land?" he asked the pilot.
"Ten minutes, sir."
---
The headquarters of the Policia Militar's jungle operations division was a low, concrete building baking under the Brazilian sun. Inside, Colonel Alves stared at the image on his monitor, his weathered face pale. It was impossible. A hoax. But the man on the phone… the infamous vampire billionaire… had sounded so certain. And the mention of a pension fund contribution was a language he understood all too well.
He slammed his hand on his desk. "Get me air support!" he bellowed to his aide. "I want a reconnaissance chopper in the air five minutes ago! And get a platoon of our best men geared up. Full combat loadout. We are going hunting."
The base erupted into a flurry of organized chaos. Soldiers scrambled for their rifles, mechanics prepped the helicopter, and the quiet hum of a sleepy afternoon was replaced by the urgent thrum of a base preparing for war. They didn't know what they were going to face, but they knew one thing: hell had come to their jungle, and they were the only ones who could fight it.