There is a discord for this fic. It has Live Updates about chapter progress and when they are completed, among other things. I'm also very active there and am likely to respond to any message sent there. Join at discord.gg/aWZ9qX9mAW
Glory to my Proofreader: Solare. For he is one who points out mistakes and acts as my favourite wall to bounce ideas off of.
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The wrath that burned in his heart felt overwhelming, utterly unlike anything he had ever felt before.
Oh, he had gotten angry before, of course. The occasional outburst at a game, shouting at a lag spike, the petty fury of a lost match. The quiet helplessness of watching some tragedy unravel beyond his control. He had thrown controllers, splintered plastic beneath his palms, cursed the screen until his throat went raw.
Those had felt real in the moment, but now? Now they seemed like cheap parodies of rage.
What coiled inside him now was different. This was not anger. This was not grief. This was not the heat of temper that faded as quickly as it came.
No.
This was fire.
It roared in his veins, magma boiling in every capillary, itching at his throat, begging- No, demanding to be released. It begged to sear, to burn, to cleanse.
His chest rattled with every breath as though his Immortal Heart itself had become a furnace, its drumbeat pounding so violently it drowned out all else.
And that was why it felt almost insulting to call this a "righteous anger."
That term sounded hollow, laughable, fragile compared to what consumed him now. It was disproportionate, alien in its intensity.
He didn't even know these people. He had no history with them, no ties of blood or memory. By all logic, he had no reason to feel such venom on their behalf.
So why then?
Why did he feel the overwhelming need to burn every last one of these… These maggots into ash and dust?
His knuckles cracked as he clenched the Zweihander tighter, each muscle in his body seizing in restraint. The urge to drop his blade, of lunging forward bare-handed, seizing the nearest Misbegotten by the throat and vomiting his fire down until even the bones were vapor was overwhelming, he could barely restrain himself from doing it.
"Peace, mine Champion." Marika's voice slid through the maelstrom like oil on water, soft but steady. "Breathe deep. In, and out. Lend thine ear to my voice. Madness ill-becometh thee, and thou art my chosen, not some slavering beast."
Her words reached him dimly through the roar, like a distant bell muffled by storm. She hesitated, then added, almost to herself. "This is not the first time, either… Yesterday thou didst quake with rage when the Misbegotten nearly slew Irina. And now again, such disproportionate fury. Hm. These tempests within thee… mayhap they are not mere coincidence."
John sucked air in through clenched teeth, then forced it back out in a ragged growl. The sound rumbled in his throat like a furnace venting pressure. Slowly, painfully slow, the haze thinned, enough for him to hear, enough for him to see clearly once more.
The pile of corpses still towered before him, grotesque and impossible to ignore. But now one figure moved upon it. A larger Misbegotten than most, muscles bulging and sinews taut, its twisted wings stretched grotesquely behind it. With a cruel, crooked grin, it floated down from its throne of carrion. Its stolen halberd gleamed with crusted gore.
The beast laughed, a sound like metal scraping bone. "Look at you! All shocked, all weak. Do you see it now? This is justice! Our justice! For years, years, we were your slaves. Your toys. Your dogs! Now you are meat. Every child, every woman, every old man! Just meat for the pile!"
Its words slithered like oil through the ranks, making Edgar's men twitch and blanch, making Millicent's scowl harden, making Melina's lips tremble with fury.
John no longer cared for the words. Whatever the reason behind this overwhelming wrath, whatever its root, it did not matter. Not now. He would reflect later. He would wrestle with morality later. Now there was only one truth.
Disproportionate rage or not, these Misbegotten needed to die.
Something needed to die.
The ground cracked under his boots as he leaned forward, the stone itself giving way beneath the pressure of his coiled body. A guttural growl burst from his chest as he pushed off with explosive force.
The Misbegotten commander barely had time to widen its eyes. It shifted its halberd up desperately, trying to parry. But John was already upon it.
The Zweihander came down in a brutal diagonal arc, a strike so swift and heavy that the air itself split with the whistle. The halberd shattered on impact, the blade tearing through both steel and flesh alike. In one motion, the Misbegotten's torso split from its legs, its scream cutting short as its body collapsed into halves.
John didn't even let the top half fall. He seized it midair, massive hand closing around its mangled ribs, and with a savage twist of his shoulders hurled the corpse into the nearest cluster of enemies. They went down in a crash of limbs and screams, the grotesque body bowling them over.
That broke the spell.
Edgar's voice thundered across the courtyard. "On your feet! Blades high! Mourn later, fight now! Push them back!"
Soldiers rallied, their shock snapping into grim fury. Shields rose, swords flashed, and boots thundered forward once more.
Melina's voice cut sharp through the din, "John!"
She darted past a snarling Misbegotten, her slim blade flashing low to slice through its ankles. As it toppled, she rolled clean beneath its fall, palm pressing flat to its snarling face. A burst of golden flame erupted, blasting the creature backward in a gout of fire. She rose from the roll, already searching for him through the chaos.
Millicent, meanwhile, scowled as more enemies surged toward her. "Tch. Get the hell out of my way…" she muttered under her breath.
She slid her curved blade's hilt between her teeth, biting down hard to anchor it. Then, with her one good hand, she drew the twin scimitar Edgar had gifted her. Her green eyes narrowed. She lunged forward, both blades cutting in tandem. One tore across a Misbegotten's throat, the other plunged into its chest, and in a single sweeping motion she ripped through them both.
John's gaze caught her in mid-swing. The odd, unorthodox style, the reckless bravery of wielding twin blades with only one hand, it struck a chord of memory. A flash from his old life, from late nights spent watching anime.
'Zoro…? Really?' He almost laughed at the absurdity, wondering where she even got the idea from. He would have commented and teased her mercilessly, had his mind not still been clouded with smoke and fire, his blood still screaming for slaughter.
Marika's voice slid back into his mind, steady and commanding. "Mine Champion. Let not thy wrath consume thee wholly. My daughter and Millicent shall weather this tide. The swiftest path to victory lieth elsewhere. The Misbegotten's commander yet bears the ancestral blade of Morne. Slay him, wrest it from his unworthy grasp, and let the sight of its return shatter their resolve. Break the head, and the body shall crumble."
John's breath hitched, then steadied. In. Out. His chest rose and fell like a bellows, sparks seeping from between his teeth. He nodded once, his grip tightening on the Zweihander.
"Got it…" He muttered, voice low and edged like iron.
Then he stepped forward.
The massive blade rose and fell. Each heaving cut carved swaths through Misbegotten ranks, bodies breaking like reeds under the tide. Step by step, stroke by stroke, he carved a path through the castle's courtyard and towards the far shores of the Lands Between, where the stolen Grafted Greatsword gleamed in the commander's claws.
From behind, Melina's eyes snapped wide as she saw the direction of his march. She knew that gait, that relentless focus. 'He's going for the commander now.'
"Millicent! Edgar!" she called, her voice cutting sharp through the clash of steel. "See where he goes! We must clear his path!"
Millicent spun mid-swing, her scimitar dragging crimson arcs in the air. She nodded once, fierce determination blazing in her eyes. "Got it!"
Edgar caught the command too, his grizzled face hardening. "Archers! With me! We shall take the ramparts then rain hell on their flanks, give them no room to breathe!"
At once, a squad of his bowmen split from the vanguard, following him up the sloped stone toward the battlements. Their boots clanged against the iron ladders as they scrambled for height, quivers rattling on their backs.
The courtyard roared to life. Soldiers pressed forward under Melina's guiding flame, golden arcs burning through Misbegotten packs. Millicent cleaved a swath in John's wake, biting her scimitar's hilt and drawing her second blade to carve two enemies at once in her unorthodox dance of steel. Edgar's archers reached the parapets above, arrows darkening the sky as they cut down Misbegotten trying to circle behind.
John reached the long ladder set into the wall, a familiar landmark from another life, another world. Without pause, he seized its sides and vaulted upward. He was not climbing, he was bounding in threes. His boots hit the rungs with bone-rattling force, each leap hurling him higher until he was halfway up.
Then wings beat against his ears.
A shriek split the air as a winged Misbegotten swooped down from above, its talons raking across his back as its fanged maw lunged for his throat. The beast's reek filled his senses.
John snarled, his elbow snapping back with explosive force. The impact cracked ribs, forcing a wet cough of blood from the monster's lips. He seized its arm and wrenched it sideways, tearing the Misbegotten free of the ladder.
With a roar, he swung its body into the stone wall and pinned it there, just as a spear of golden flame streaked across the air.
The weapon punched through the beast's chest, embedding it against the wall like an insect skewered to a board. Fire ate its flesh until nothing but ash remained.
John gave a sharp side glance back. Melina stood below, her hand still extended, her chest heaving with the force of the cast. For once her face was not cold, not reserved, but burning with quiet resolve. She gave him a small, determined smile, and nodded once.
He returned the nod, then launched himself the final bound.
His boots hit stone with a blunt thump, scattering dust from the rampart's edge. A trio of bow-wielding Misbegotten whirled, eyes widening as he rose before them like a specter. They raised their crude bows in panic, but his blade was faster. The Zweihander whistled once, twice, thrice, and all three bodies crumpled in a red ruin.
For several minutes he carved his way along the familiar-yet-not walkways. The ramparts twisted differently than he remembered, but his instincts guided him forward. Each Misbegotten he met fell in a single blow, his path painted in their blood.
At last, he reached the battlement's edge and looked out.
Below him stretched the sea cliffs, jagged and sheer, the waves crashing far beneath. A wooden hanging bridge stretched from the castle's belly toward a smaller tower jutting over the southern shore.
Yes, there. That was the path. The Leonine would be near.
But the bridge was far below, inaccessible from here.
Marika's voice spilled into his thoughts, velvet with amusement. "Ah… Mine Champion. I suppose now would be the time thou throwest thyself from a cliff and pray fate bears thee kindly. As thou art so wont to do."
The quip cracked the haze of wrath, just enough for a sharp grin to split his lips. "Hah. Suppose you're right."
He climbed onto the rampart wall, towering over the abyss, then dropped. His body smashed into the cliffside path below with bone-jarring force, stone crumbling beneath him. But he rose. Always he rose.
He pressed forward along the narrow cliffs, leaping from ledge to ledge, each jump scattering dust into the sea air. At last he reached a lower outcropping of the castle and dropped once more.
The roof beneath him shattered instantly. His weight tore through ancient wood, collapsing into darkness. He crashed through into a ruined kitchen, crushing several giant rats beneath him. Their screeches died in his ears as his armor smeared them into pulp.
John grimaced, the stench of rot and rat-flesh clinging thick, but he moved on. There was no time to waste. Edgar and the others were counting on him.
Through the kitchen's wreckage he stalked, until voices ahead caught his ear. A trio of Misbegotten crouched among corpses, tearing rings from fingers, coins from purses. Their heads snapped up as his shadow fell across them.
Their yellow eyes met his. Their jaws gaped.
What they saw was no man, only a blood-soaked figure clad in armor jagged with gore, eyes glowing molten, Zweihander resting loose but ready in his hands.
The first charged, but John's blade sang once, cleaving its body neatly in half.
The second barely inhaled before he lunged, a piercing strike spearing clean through its chest and pinning it to the floor.
The last one hesitated. Its eyes darted, its limbs trembled. Then it turned, bolting toward the nearest window, desperate to hurl itself out to freedom.
John did not allow it.
With a grunt, he tore his Zweihander free, corpse still impaled, and hurled it like a colossal spear. The weapon flew end over end, the already dying body spinning with it. Both slammed into the fleeing Misbegotten, driving them into the stone windowframe. The iron sang with the impact, nailing them in place like grotesque ornaments.
John stalked forward, planting a boot against their backs. With a savage heave he tore the blade free, the bodies cracking under the strain, then falling limp to the stones.
He leaned through the window, catching sight of the shore below. The sea spread vast and gray, its waves licking at damp sand. The hanging bridge loomed above, but directly beneath lay the path he needed.
Without hesitation, he vaulted through.
He landed hard, knees bending into damp sand. The tide washed close, lapping at his boots. Spirit jellyfish drifted nearby, their pale light shimmering in the gloom, their tendrils trailing with eerie serenity as if untouched by the carnage above.
To his left rose a small island. An immense stone arch crowned its front, and at its back loomed a gravestone so vast it dwarfed the cliffs.
John walked forward, his Zweihander dragging in the shallows. The water hissed as it cleaned the blade, blood pluming off into red clouds that the tide swallowed whole.
He paused, watching his reflection ripple on the surface. His armor blackened, eyes glowing, blood seeping into seafoam. His hand dipped into the water, red threads curling off his gauntlet like smoke.
A pang of body dysmorphia shot through him when he saw it, it didn't immediately register as his face. He wondered if it ever would.
A strange thought also gnawed at him. Not a week ago, this much blood on his hands would have broken him. He'd have panicked, maybe cried, maybe run. But now? Now there was nothing. No terror, no sorrow. Just a strange, quiet weight.
'Never felt anything when I took my first life in this world either… Shouldn't I feel something?' He wondered, a slightly hollow look in his eyes. 'I didn't cry when my grandparents died. Not when my father nearly lost his life in that accident. Not at movies, not at books. Maybe… Maybe I've always been broken.'
Marika's form shimmered into being at his side, her golden hair rippling like sunlight in water. She smiled gently. "Thou art not broken. Some men feel less deeply. Others differently. I knew great kings and warriors with hearts as steady and still as stone, yet they were no less great for it. And thou? Thou art not strange to me. Only… consistent."
She laughed softly, brushing a lock of hair from her cheek. "And in truth, it fits thee. A man who leaps from cliffs without hesitation, who meets death like an old friend. Why shouldst I be surprised thy heart doth beat the same way?"
John's lips curved faintly. He let a shaky exhale escape him, the tide cooling the heat in his blood. "Suppose it's a wonder I didn't die and get reborn here sooner, huh?"
Marika giggled, the sound light and golden. "Indeed. Mayhap the Lands Between simply grew impatient and fetched thee early."
The rage simmered low now, banked embers instead of a wildfire. His Immortal Heart beat slower, steady as a war drum.
Marika tilted her head, nostrils flaring delicately. Then her smile faded. She squinted into the distance, eyes narrowing. "...I scent something. A stench most foul."
John frowned. "You can smell something? How? You only sense what I do. You said so."
"Aye," she replied smoothly. "I sense what thou dost. But sensing and knowing art not the same. Thou catchest the smoke, I know the fire. What lies beneath is mine to interpret."
Her gaze hardened, turning back toward the island. "And this stench… I know it well. 'Tis not the Frenzied Flame as thou might suspect. Nay. This is the touch of another Outer God entirely…"
Her lips parted on the words like a curse.
"The Formless Mother."
John slowed to a halt just beneath the massive archway that opened onto the shore-island arena. The air beyond it was heavier, darker, as if the stone itself remembered the blood spilled within. He stepped forward, boots grinding across the wet sand, Zweihander dragging at his side and hissing when its gore-slick edge kissed the water.
Through the archway lay the island proper. The place reeked of iron and rot, the stench so thick it clawed at his throat. Corpses littered the rocky ground like broken dolls, dozens of them, their blood runnels weaving together into a sluggish tide that drained toward the island's center. There, at the heart of it all, stood a figure.
The Leonine Misbegotten.
His body was a nightmare of fur, muscle, and scar tissue, every inch of him marked by chains long-since snapped and wounds long-since healed. In his claws he wielded Castle Morne's stolen relic, the Grafted Greatsword.
Its tangle of swords fused into one colossal abomination, edges rasping against each other with every motion like the hiss of a thousand damned. The beast stood hunched but proud, crimson veins glowing faintly beneath his skin, pulsing in rhythm with the great pool of blood beneath his feet.
When John's shadow fell across the island, the Leonine raised his head. His yellow eyes blazed with a heat not wholly his own, the hunger in them sharpened into zealotry. He sniffed the air, lips peeling back into a grin that was all fang and malice.
"So... Another dog of man comes to die on our soil." The voice that rolled from his throat was cracked, guttural, yet each word carried the weight of something older whispering just beneath the surface.
He stepped forward, the grafted blade dragging deep scars into the stone as though the earth itself recoiled from its touch. Corpses shifted at his feet, arms twitching, eyes rolling faintly though no breath remained in their lungs.
"I was born in chains. Shackled in blood. Beaten for my curse. My kind spat upon, slaughtered, broken to amuse the lords of men."
He spread his arms wide, towering even as his frame shook with violence barely restrained.
"And in that silence, when hope was but ash, she came. The Formless Mother. She whispered to me, to all who would listen. Promised strength. Salvation. The power to rend our oppressors and make the land itself drown in their blood."
The pool of gore at his feet rippled outward, tendrils of crimson slithering like veins across the island, soaking into the corpses, painting the stone in dark gloss.
"And I… I answered." His grin widened, splitting his muzzle into something hideously triumphant. His claws stroked reverently across the massive blade, leaving smears of blood upon blood.
"These offerings, these sacrifices… They are not meaningless. They are devotion. Justice, at long last, for every Misbegotten life stolen, for every shackle wound into our flesh." The beast leveled the sword at John, the weight of his hatred hanging on the edge. "And you will be the next."
The ground beneath him pulsed as the pooled blood throbbed in unison with his words. The air grew thick, heavy, suffocating, the sound of distant heartbeats pounding in John's ears as though the island itself shared the Leonine's fury.
John didn't flinch. His gaze swept once, deliberately, over the scattered corpses of men, women, children drained like cattle, before snapping back to the beast. The corners of his mouth curved into something sharp and humorless.
"Justice, huh?" His voice was low, bitter with mirth. He stepped forward, Zweihander dragging in the muck, his dragon-slit eyes burning with contempt. "I never claimed to be a Saint."
He stopped dead, shoulders squaring. "So save the monologuing for someone who gives a shit."
The words landed like stones in still water, breaking the silence.
"I'm just here to put you down."
The Leonine's grin twisted into a snarl as his muscles coiled. His chest heaved as the blood around him surged upward like geysers, splattering across his fur in baptism. His roar shattered the air, a sound so raw it rattled the bones of the dead.
[Corrupted Leonine Misbegotten]
The grafted blade lifted high, its twisted edges gleaming red, and the beast lunged forward, the pool of blood at his feet erupting into violent life as the battle had begun.
John planted his feet, raising his palm to his chest. His voice came low, guttural, carried by the dragon's flame in his lungs:
"Flame, Grant Me Strength…"
Crimson fire burst across his chestplate, coiling in streams along his arms, his chest, his Zweihander. His muscles thrummed like iron strings, his breath turning molten, the heat distorting the air around him.
The Leonine roared back, but his fury was not his own. The Formless Mother's whispers echoed in his tone, his eyes glowing blood-red as rivulets of gore crawled up his legs and into his veins. His body thickened, his claws bulged, and when he swung the colossal grafted blade, it tore the air apart with raw force.
The first clash came like thunder.
John met the strike head-on, Zweihander braced across his chest. Sparks and blood sprayed as the grafted edge grated against his steel, the sheer weight forcing him back a step. His arms screamed with strain, but he grinned anyway, baring dragonfangs.
"Not bad…" he hissed, shoving the weapon aside. "But not good enough."
He lunged.
The Zweihander became a storm in his hands, every swing cleaving through air with a howl, each impact denting the sand beneath them. His strength and speed, amplified by the Flame's blessing, pushed him beyond human limits.
The Leonine barely kept pace, only managing to match him by drawing on the cursed ability of his blade. With each swing of the Grafted Greatsword, the fused blades sparked with faint, arcane light. It was the legendary relic's gift: Magnified vitality, swollen muscle, speed where there should have been none.
Yet even so, John was faster. Stronger.
The Leonine roared again, voice cracking as blood burst from his maw. His claws slammed into the earth, and the pool of blood responded. It surged like a living tide, erupting in crimson spikes that lanced toward John's chest.
John snarled, twisting his body just as the spikes split past him. One grazed his shoulderplate, cutting a furrow deep enough to spray sparks. He answered with a backhanded swing, the Zweihander tore through three of the spikes in a single sweep, scattering gore in every direction.
But the Leonine was already airborne.
His leap carried him half the length of the island, the grafted blade raised high. He crashed down in a whirl of strength unnatural for even his twisted kind, the impact shattering the stone and sending a shockwave outward.
John rode the quake backward, boots skidding across slick rock, and then he surged forward into the collapsing dust. His Zweihander struck first, a diagonal arc that would have severed the beast's torso outright had he not twisted away at the last second. Even so, sparks and blood cascaded as the steel kissed his ribs.
The Leonine retaliated with a savage sweep, the grafted blade howling. John ducked low, feeling the wind shear just over his horns, and his counterstrike slammed into the beast's shin. Bone cracked. The Leonine stumbled, growling in pained rage, before steadying himself with another wave of blood-fueled energy from the Formless Mother's gift.
He was fighting like a cornered animal given divine fire. Every wound fed his frenzy, every strike carried not just his wrath but something deeper, alien – the Mother's hunger gnawing through him.
John knew he couldn't give him space.
He pressed. Zweihander strikes fell one after another, each one a hammer blow, every arc carving deeper. The Leonine caught some on his weapon, others with his claws, but the sheer weight of John's assault drove him back toward the bloody pool at the arena's center.
At last, John snarled, teeth sparking with embers. His left hand clawed open, fire flaring across his palm, his veins glowing as he called upon the draconic gift.
"Dragon Claw!"
The spectral talons erupted from his arm in a blaze of molten scale and flame. He didn't slash with it — he drove it straight into the Leonine's gut like a molten gauntlet, the impact folding the beast over with a deafening crack.
The corrupted monster's roar turned into a strangled scream. Blood and bile spewed from his jaws, spattering the ground in steaming arcs.
John didn't hesitate. He ripped the claw free, stepped in, and swung his Zweihander in a brutal diagonal slash. The steel carved from the beast's hip to his shoulder, sparks and gore exploding as the cut forced him staggering backward.
The Leonine dropped to one knee, clutching at the wound with claws slicked in his own ichor. His breath came ragged, his chest heaving. The glow in his eyes flickered, dimming for a moment as if his own strength faltered beneath the weight of his borrowed gifts.
Above his head, his health bar dwindled to a sliver, about 1%.
John exhaled sharply, chest heaving, heat steaming off his armor. He planted the Zweihander tip-first into the stone with a grunt, eyes locked on the kneeling beast. Every instinct screamed for him to finish it.
But he didn't move.
Not yet.
O'Neil's false death lingered fresh in his memory. He'd been played once, nearly gutted for his carelessness. Not again, never again.
So John stood, muscles taut, eyes narrowed, every ounce of his being ready for the inevitable trick.
He growled low, steady, molten sparks spilling from his fangs.
"Try me, pussy."
John's grip on the Zweihander tightened as he watched the Corrupted Leonine Misbegotten sway on his knees. For a moment, the beast's chest heaved shallow, breath rattling as if the fight had truly ended.
But then… the muttering began.
Low at first, barely audible beneath the crash of waves against the cliffs, but it grew in volume and speed, a dissonant chant spilling from his throat like a hymn gone wrong.
"...mother… salvation… freedom… mother… kindness… blood… blood… blood…"
John grimaced, shoulders rising with a low growl. He knew that cadence. He'd heard it before, different words, different gods, same madness. The kind of whisper that chewed through reason until nothing human remained.
The Leonine froze suddenly. His head twitched, like a hound catching a scent on the wind. For a single, sick heartbeat, silence ruled the island. Then, with eyes rolled wide and crimson tears streaming, he laughed.
"Y-yes! I hear you! I hear you!"
Before John could react, the beast lifted the Grafted Greatsword high and, with manic devotion, drove it into his own gut.
The sound was sickening. Meat tore, bone cracked. He rammed the blade deeper, carving himself apart as his body convulsed. His blood didn't spill, it flowed, gushing upward, sucked into invisible sigils that burned across his skin like brands.
John's eyes narrowed. He recognized them. Not all, but enough. They looked similar to those at Moghwyn's palace, the altar of the blood cult.
Marika's voice hissed sharp in his skull. "The Formless Mother molds him, foul parasite!"
The Leonine howled as wings split from his back, jagged, raw, more bone than flesh at first. They burst outward with a spray of gore, the membrane knitting together in trembling shreds of crimson and black. His frame warped, claws lengthening into hooked talons, his teeth growing into razors that jutted through his jaw.
When he stood again, he was no longer merely a Misbegotten.
He was a vessel.
The rambling grew louder, feverish. He wept blood as he staggered forward, clutching the Greatsword as though it had become a holy relic. "Kindness… Kindness beyond words! Salvation! Mother.. O' Mother, I am Yours! Yours! Thank you! THANK YOU!"
His claws slammed into the ground, and the island shuddered. The pools of blood that stained its surface ignited in an instant, bursting into Bloodflame. The sickly crimson fire licked upward, devouring the air itself, the stench of iron and ash thickening until it was all John could taste.
The Leonine threw his head back and screamed, the sound splitting the sea air like glass.
"BLOOD! She yearns for BLOOD! The blood of man, the blood of all! BLOOD! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
Above his head, the boss bar refilled in a surge of crimson, the title burning itself into existence as though carved by the Formless Mother's will.
[Blood-Starved Beast.]
John huffed out a laugh, dry and mirthless, rolling his shoulders as he readied the Zweihander.
"Of course…" He muttered, lips curling into a wiry grin. "I'd blunder my way into a fucking Bloodborne boss in Elden Ring of all places."
The beast's eyes snapped to him, madness blazing. The Bloodflame surged higher, and the second phase began.
The Blood-Starved Beast lunged.
It did not sprint so much as lurch, as if dragged forward by a hunger too large for its reshaped body. Bloodflame hissed around its claws, trailing embers that smoldered even upon seawater-slick stone.
The first attack came as a howl and a spray. The Leonine jerked his mangled arm, and the pools underfoot surged in response. Thin jets of blood rose from the ground like a dozen serpents. They arced in unpredictable crossings, hissing with crimson fire. Where they landed, the stone blackened and bubbled.
John moved, low and fast. He twisted left, let two streams cut past his ribs, then slid across wet rock as three more lanced his previous position. One clipped his pauldron. It hissed, the leather beneath searing as heat kissed his shoulder. He grunted and kept moving, boots biting for purchase.
The beast laughed, a wet burble under a shriek. Its wings shuddered open, not yet strong enough for proud flight, but steady enough to lift and tilt its weight. It swiveled on the balls of its taloned feet and raked a claw through the air.
Chains answered.
They did not appear from steel. They rose from the island itself, links of congealed blood yanked upward by unseen force, each length wreathed in sickly flame. They snapped toward John in a crisscrossing lattice meant to bind, to tear, to hold him still while the stronger killing blow arrived.
He planted the Zweihander's tip hard and vaulted sideways, letting two chains scythe the space where his waist had been. He yanked the greatsword free with a grunt and rolled, then came up under a third chain, catching it across the flat of his blade. He shoved. The blood-link severed in a spray of sparks and embers that sizzled on his greaves.
"Mother's chains…" The Leonine crooned, voice broken with elation. "Mother's mercy. Mother's law."
"Your mother has terrible manners." John shot back, feet already moving.
The beast hammered a claw into the ground. The island answered with a cough of pressure. A geyser of blood erupted under John's heels and blew him forward with violent force. He caught himself on a knee and slid, head snapping around to track the beast's follow-up.
Claws. A spinning rake, low to high. He ducked and felt heat comb his hair. He came up inside the arc, letting muscle memory hook his stance to the Zweihander's weight. He cut. The blade kissed the Leonine's chest and skittered across blood-wet hide without purchase, leaving a shallow groove.
"Thicker," he muttered, reading the resistance. "Right. New skin."
"Thy foe is bolstered," Marika's voice threaded his thoughts, calm despite the heat. "The Grafted blade's sigils still suffuse his frame. His sinew hath drunk its legend. Thou must unmake that certainty."
"Working on it."
The beast backed away on all fours, eyes rolling, breath coming in fevered pants. Its chest swelled and its throat tensed. The next spray came not as jets but as a sweeping scythe. It vomited a fan of blood that ignited midair with a bark of red light.
John charged straight through it.
The first lick of it burned along his left forearm, searing through the cloth between plates, a white-hot bite that made his fingers spasm. He bared his teeth and kept going. The iron stench clogged his mouth and nose, he tasted copper and smoke and something sweetly rotten. But thankfully, his armour kept him mostly protected from the Bloodflame's haemorrhage.
He smashed the flat of the Zweihander across the beast's jaw. Bone crunched. The head snapped sideways. He followed, pivoting off his right foot and bringing the blade down like a falling door. The Leonine braced with the Grafted Greatsword, sparks exploding in a sheet of orange as steel met steel. The shock ran up John's arms and hammered his shoulders. The beast's knees dipped, then locked.
"Salvation…" The Leonine hissed through broken teeth, eyes wild. "She promised. She promised I would never bow again."
It shoved. Bloodflame flared around its calves and back, a burst of ugly power that jarred John's stance. He skipped back a step, avoiding the counter-rake that ripped grooves in the rock where he had been.
The wings fluttered. The beast leapt.
It was not graceful. It was not elegant. It was violence given purchase by wind. The Leonine climbed in two heavy beats of gore-lacquered membrane, then stooped, claws extended and Greatsword raised for a two-handed chop that would split him like a log.
John exhaled and let his world narrow to timing.
The blade came down. He stepped in.
The Zweihander rose in a short guard. The clash stung his bones. The Leonine's weight crashed against him like a falling tree. John bent his knees and let it spill past, sliding the larger blade off the greatsword's face and shoving the angle aside. The chop screamed into the stone and sparked.
He pivoted to the beast's exposed flank. The Zweihander cut. The edge bit deeper this time, a harsh grind through corded muscle, a splatter of blood hotter than bathwater that pattered his faceplate and hissed on the plate around his neck.
The beast yowled and launched a backhanded slash. John slipped under it, the claws grazing his backplate hard enough to clang his spine. He stumbled forward two steps, then found his feet. His left forearm throbbed where the earlier spray had kissed him. The scent of his own cooked skin reached his nose and he ignored it.
The island turned treacherous.
Geysers spat at random now, columns of blood that burst from hairline cracks with the force of a battering ram. One clipped his thigh as it died and buckled his leg sideways. He fell to a knee and rolled as a second erupted where his head had been.
"Adapt." Marika urged softly. "Read its rhythm."
"I am." He grunted, stabbing the Zweihander into the ground to use it as a lever. "Fucker's moodier than a cat in a bath."
The beast came again with a chain-whip flourish. Two lengths of congealed links snapped like bullwhips and crossed in an X for his chest. John dropped the greatsword's point and took one on the flat, sparking it off to his left, then threw his elbow into the second, letting his pauldron take the blow.
Fire licked his neck. He tasted ash.
Enough. He needed to force it.
John's left hand opened, fingers spread. He inhaled a short, sharp breath, drawing on the bestial magic he had learned from the Beast Clergyman's altar.
"Stone of Gurranq!"
The air around his palm condensed. Rock knitted itself out of nothing and weight. A jagged boulder formed in his grasp, twice as big as a man's skull. He hurled it at the Leonine's face.
The stone shattered against the beast's cheek with a crack like thunder. It lurched sideways, one eye squinting shut as blood and grit mixed. John took the opening, feet sprinting before thought could catch him.
The Zweihander sang. He swung in a hard horizontal and felt the blade chew through the cords of an inner wing support. The membrane tore. Blood sprayed. The Leonine staggered and lashed with the Greatsword, wild and deadly.
John had learned the tempo now. The heavy chop came twice in succession, the third a feint, the fourth a low sweep meant to catch ankles after the second backstep. He met the first two with the flat, slid the feint away with a twist, then jumped the sweep, boot skimming the burning arc by a finger's breadth.
He landed inside the beast's reach. His shoulder slammed into its ribs. He snarled and drove forward, using every pound of his armor and the momentum of his sprint to knock the larger creature off balance. They crashed through a pool and sent a ring of crimson ripples outward.
The beast scrabbled to gain distance. John did not let him. He raised one hand, claws surging from forearm to fingers as he called on a draconic rite.
Dragon Claw.
His left arm distorted, scales rippling under skin that flexed and hardened. He brought that claw in a tight arc under the Leonine's guard. It crushed rib and muscle and found belly. He drove it in up to the forearm and felt the wrongness of borrowed organs pressing against his knuckles. He ripped outward. Blood howled into the air.
The Leonine reeled, eyes bulbous, mouth opening on a ragged gasp. John's Zweihander rose again. He did not have the leverage for a full overhead, so he took the angle he had. He slashed diagonally from hip to opposite shoulder. The blade bit deep, nearly taking the arm. The beast stumbled, fell to a knee, and bowed under its own weight, breath sawing out in ragged, wet pulls.
The boss bar shrank to a whisper of red.
Blood hissed between the beast's teeth. He blinked, the mortal part of his mind trying to get its bearings. The inhuman part slammed forward to take the reins.
He laughed again, a bubbling thing, and whispered to nothing present that his mother was kind, that she would not forsake him, that this was but the beginning, that-
"Enough." John asserted softly.
The Leonine surged.
It was not a feint. It was not measured. It was the feral charge of a creature that had been promised the world and found, at the last, that it would be allowed only one more mouthful. The Greatsword came up in a frenzied slash aimed at his head.
John's eyes cut colder. "How's this for some blood spill?"
He turned his wrists, angled the Zweihander, and let the incoming stroke glance along his blade with a shower of sparks. The deflection tore the beast's balance wide. In the same breath he stepped and chopped.
The Zweihander took the Misbegotten at the wrist.
The Grafted Greatsword clanged to the stone, the legendary weight of it kicking up a spray of Bloodflame that guttered out as it left the Leonine's skin. The severed hand spun away, fingers still spasming. The beast howled and reached with its other hand, trying to seize John's throat.
He cut that one as well. The second wrist parted under steel and rage. The hand fell, claws scrabbling blindly. The Leonine choked, trying to lunge with the remainder of his forearm in a brutal stump-strike born of instinct.
"Stay down."
John shifted his stance and hacked again, this time above the joint. The remaining forearm severed. A third blow took the upper arm for certainty. Blood poured in sheets.
The Leonine toppled to both knees, chest heaving. It sagged forward, hauling breath through a ruined mouth, eyes swimming in red. Wings beat weakly, trying to lift dead weight by instinct. The tips clawed at the air like a drowning swimmer.
John drove the Zweihander point-first into the beast's sternum.
The island shook with the impact. Bone cracked. The blade punched through cartilage and into the stone beneath. The Leonine's back arched as if electrified, the last of its voice ripping out in a single scream that broke halfway through.
The wings still flapped, frantic, dragging at him. John reached back, seized a handful of membrane and bone in each gauntlet, and squeezed. The newly formed structures crushed under his grip with a wet crunch and a ripping sound that was part sail tearing and part ribs snapping. The wings fluttered once more in a reflex and then sagged like torn flags.
John inhaled, chest expanding, the heat in his gut getting a new voice. The taste of ash and iron had not left his tongue since the first spray struck him. He let it sharpen his focus.
Agheel's essence stirred.
Flame Grant Me Strength had already thickened his muscles and lent a tremor of power to each movement and elemental flame, but this was different. This was the ancient breath that slept against his heart. He called it up and it answered.
His jaw ached. His teeth felt too big for his mouth. His throat burned with the kind of pain that promised to become pleasure the instant it was given release.
He lowered his head and opened his mouth.
Dragonfire poured out.
The first breath ran hot and golden-red, brighter and heavier than his earlier flames. It hit the Leonine at point-blank range and turned the beast's fur and hide to bubbling pitch. The scream that tried to form found no space to live. It was soundless under the roar of heat.
The second breath widened. He swept it. The flames licked the pools and set them off. Bloodflame met dragonfire and sparked a war of colors that lasted for a heartbeat and then surrendered. Agheel's heat devoured the crimson light, folded it into a unified inferno that rolled across the island as a low tide.
The third breath deepened. He could feel the way it snapped at the air, the way it took greedy mouthfuls of oxygen and turned it into searing weight. He angled it, burned the severed hands to cinders, cooked the wings to brittle lace, and kept the pressure on the beast's ruined chest.
The island became a kiln.
Spirit jellyfish along the shore brightened and drifted back, their pale bodies glowing in wary circles. The water boiled at the edges. The arched gate cast a rippling shadow as heat rose in a shimmering veil. Smoke climbed in a column that the sea breeze could not tear apart quickly enough to matter.
John broke the breath with a cough that let out a cloud of sparks. He panted once, then twice, the Immortal Heart behind his breastbone beating a slow, steady drum now that the writhing thing before him was little more than a charred mass pinned to stone.
He was quite honestly surprised he had that much fire left in him, though he supposed he could thank his blood for that. Perhaps the previously FP intensive incantations had become quite efficient rites that were his to command after all.
The Blood-Starved Beast sagged against his blade, whatever animating rage it had held now drained from it like wine spilled on sand. The boss bar in John's mind's eye guttered and went out.
[PREY SLAUGHTERED]
He pulled the Zweihander free with a harsh jerk. The corpse slumped. The last of the makeshift wings flaked apart as ash.
Silence fell over the island save for the hiss and crack of cooling rock and the far-off pulse of the sea. John stood amidst it, chest rising and falling, the edge of his mouth pulling into a grim line that was not quite a smile and not quite a snarl.
Marika's presence drifted close, the gold of her gaze weighing the blackened altar the island had become. For a moment, she said nothing. When her voice came, it was soft and cool.
"'Tis done."
John rolled his shoulder, felt the sting of the burn on his forearm, and flexed his fingers. He eyed the Grafted Greatsword lying where it had fallen, its legendary aura already uncoupled from the sinew that had worn it like a blessing. The blade's grotesque mass caught the firelight and threw it back in dull red.
He snorted, wiped at his brow with the back of his wrist, and then nudged the charred carcass with a boot to make very sure it would not rise again.
"Yeah…" He said, voice rough from overexertion. "It is."
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Author's Note:
7.5k words… Maybe unc still got it?
Oh who am I kidding, ofc I do! GIVE ME ALL YOUR STONES!
Anyways, I feel like I should mention that Godrick is dead and buried in the Patreon :3
…
Next Chapter Title: To Be Held.
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