The flames were dying.
What was left of Greystone Hollow smoked in silence — only ashes and ghosts now. Alex stood among them, the last screams fading from his ears. Snow fell again, trying to cover the blood. But the ground was still warm.
Too warm.
Alex narrowed his eyes.
Magic pulsed in the air — wrong, twisted, rotting.
Liora stepped beside him, her pistol raised. "You feel that too?"
He nodded. "We're not alone."
A heartbeat later, the cobblestone ruptured — as if something clawed its way from beneath the world.
And then it emerged.
Ten feet tall, cloaked in plated black armor fused with bone. It wore no helmet — instead, its head was a skull of twisted iron and glowing green eyes, breathing black mist with every snarl.
The Crown's secret weapon.
"Runebound," Liora whispered, voice cracking. "No... it's worse. That's... a Hound."
The Hound of the Crown.
A hunter forged in the capital's forbidden sanctums — a blend of undead magic, divine punishment, and pure, cursed will. No voice. No soul. Just death.
It pointed at Alex.
Target confirmed.
Alex moved first — he launched a shadow bolt straight into its chest.
Nothing.
The Hound charged — faster than anything that size should move. It hit him with enough force to crater the earth. Alex flew back, slammed into a ruined wall, breath crushed from his lungs.
Liora fired twice — bullets hit, bounced off. The thing turned its glowing gaze toward her.
"Liora, run!" Alex roared.
She didn't.
The Hound swung a cleaver-sized blade of rune-etched iron. She ducked, barely dodging. But the magic blast that followed sent her flying.
Alex saw red.
He stood — bloodied, shaking — and unleashed.
Shadows roared out of him like a living storm, swirling into tendrils and blades, into wolves and screaming wraiths. The Hound charged again — they clashed mid-air, magic against death.
And the world split.
Lightning cracked.
The buildings nearby shattered under the force. Magic arced like thunder gods fighting in the hollow.
And then — a scream. The Hound's chest cracked.
Alex slammed both palms against its core and poured every ounce of corrupted power he had into it.
"YOU WANT A MONSTER? HERE I AM!"
BOOM.
An explosion of black and green flame lit the ruins — the Hound was blasted backward into the sky, landing in a crater, unmoving.
Silence.
Alex collapsed, vision blurring. Liora crawled toward him.
"You... you killed it," she breathed.
"No," Alex whispered, eyes on the burning crater. "It wasn't alive."
And from the crater, the Hound's body twitched.
A voice echoed from its chest — not its own.
"Very good, Subject 47."
Alex's blood ran cold.
That voice… he knew it.
The one from the laboratory. From the needles. From the dark.
Dr. Kael Thorne. The man who built the experiments. The man who turned Alex into what he is.
And he was still alive.