The fire crackled around the beast's paws, Ashar didn't breathe. Couldn't.
The wolf stood motionless, like a statue carved of void and flame. Its eyes were dim suns–watching without blinking.
"Run. We need to run. That's not a fox, that's a Fenrir."
Ashar's fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword.
"A Fenrir?! That's just a myth. Mother told me stories about it–Ancient creature, protector of the old wilds. But this…"
His gaze stayed fixed on the monster.
"This thing feels wrong. It looks evil."
The Fenrir took a step forward. Fire didn't follow–it obeyed. The flames bent around its form, like worshippers bowing to a god of ruin. Its paw touched the ground like a king claiming his land.
"Ancient doesn't mean kind," Renart said grimly. "Ancient means old. Raw. Untamed. That thing's been alive since the first storms howled. What you're seeing is what happens when a sacred creature forgets what it was."
Ashar stared, pulse thunderous in his ears.
"Or like Marlo said…" he murmured, barely hearing himself.
"What if it's cursed?"
The Fenrir looked up suddenly–And for the briefest heartbeat, Ashar saw suffering in those burning eyes.
Something buried. Ancient. Broken. Then it was gone.
"Ashar, move. Now."
Before Ashar could even process the words–The world lurched.
There was no sound. No pain. Just… emptiness.
He stumbled back a step.
Looked down.
His arm was gone.
The blood hadn't started yet. His body hadn't even realized what had happened.
But his eyes saw it.
Where his right arm should've been--there was nothing.
Then came the blood.
A horrible red gush. Warmth spilling down his side.
Then came the pain–raw, white, searing.
And the Fenrir hadn't even moved from where it stood. A single glance. That's all it took and then.
Ashar's eyes lost their light as he collapsed forward, like a puppet with its strings cut.
The Fenrir turned its head, satisfied. A god closing the curtain on a one-act play. It began to walk through the fog again.
His fingers twitched. Then his arm. Then both legs locked beneath him.
Ashar rose. The Fenrir paused. Its molten gaze slid back–no confusion, just...curiosity.
The Fenrir paused mid-step.
Because what stood before it was not supposed to move. Not without a soul.
And the soul it had taken...was still screaming somewhere inside its stomach.
From within the beast, Renart's voice rumbled--not through the air, but inside Ashar's mind, warped like sound underwater.
"Where...am I? Ashar? Ashar, can you hear me?"
Ashar understood the truth: Renart's soul was taken, not his.
Ashar stood, breath shallow. That thing hadn't taken his soul. It had taken Renart.
Ashar clenched his practice sword, vision swimming. His body should've been empty. But something deeper surged through him–not just instinct. Purpose. Fury.
The Fenrir turned fully now, mist curling tighter around its limbs like smoke drawn to flame.
Renart's voice, though muffled, sharpened in urgency.
"No! Ashar, you're not ready! Get out!"
Ashar's reply was a whisper.
Firm. Unshaking.
"I won't lose you twice."
And Ashar charged.
Ashar's legs blurred into motion.
Every step was agony. Every heartbeat thundered in his ears.
But he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
The Fenrir loomed like a monument to ruin–taller than a war beast, its breath steaming black mist.
Ashar clenched his blade hard–cracked, dull, a practice sword.
But mana sparked along its edge, flickering violently.
"Spellblade Art: Arc Gleam!"
The blade ignited with light--mana bursting out in a shockwave as Ashar slashed in mid-air.
A crescent of radiant energy tore toward the Fenrir.
The wolf barely moved. Its paw lifted–and the arc shattered on impact.
Ashar appeared above it mid-flip, cloak trailing like wings.
"Crimson Veil Piercer!"
He came down with a lunge, sword glowing blood-red--aiming straight for the beast's molten eye.
This time, the Fenrir moved.
Faster than thought.
Its head tilted just an inch.
The blade grazed its fur and tore a line of black ichor.
Ashar landed hard, skidding across stone.
He coughed blood--but smiled.
I can hurt it..
The Fenrir's tail lashed like a whip.
Ashar barely raised his sword before the impact–
BOOM.
He was flung through a half-crumbled wall. Dust and fire filled the air.
"Ashar!" Renart's voice rang in his skull. "You can't win. You're not strong enough!"
Ashar coughed, rising again, battered and bleeding.
"I don't care. I'm not letting you rot in that thing's stomach."
The Fenrir was walking again–slow, deliberate.
Its mouth opened slightly.
Soulrender Breath.
A silent wave of force burst forward--made of nothing but spiritual weight.
Ashar's ears bled. His vision warped.
His knees buckled.
Ashar laid still, the shattered hilt of his sword cradled in one trembling hand. Blood soaked the earth beneath him. His vision swam. His breath came in broken gasps.
Tears streamed down the sides of his face.
"I couldn't protect him..."
"Again..."
His lips moved, but no strength remained in them.Only grief.
He stared into the nothingness above–a sky swallowed by mist and shadow, uncaring and silent.
He had failed. Again.
Just like back then.
Just like that day.
The fog swirled.
The Fenrir began to turn away once more--its kill complete.
But in the silence… something stirred.
Ashar's blood slowed. His breath stopped.
And in the stillness of his soul, something else opened its eyes.
"You can't die."
The voice was ancient. Unfeeling. It echoed not in his ears but in the deepest marrow of his bones.
"Your father entrusted me with your survival. You will stand."
Ashar's fingers twitched. The shattered hilt in his hand hummed–with dark magic, but with something deeper. Something dark, his torn limb was replaced by a dark hand.
The mist recoiled.
The Fenrir's head tilted, eyes narrowing. For the first time, not curiosity.
Disgust. Recognition.
A dark pulse rippled out from Ashar's chest.
Black veins spread across his skin, glowing faintly crimson. His remaining eye shone with twin pupils–one human, one demonic.
Ashar stood.
The ground cracked beneath him. His aura wasn't his own–it was older. Wrong. Remembered only in ancient whispers. His limbs moved before thought. Not Ashar's instincts–someone else's.
All the skill the unknown entity possessed was flooding into Ashar's mind
The Fenrir took a step back.
It knew this energy.
It was the same that hollowed it.
Ashar's voice was not his own. It layered with a guttural, inhuman resonance.
"Return what you've taken."
And he moved. not like a human, but like a curse unleashed.
The ground fractured with every step, the fog parting in jagged spirals around his form. The air thickened, mana condensing unnaturally.
The Fenrir snarled, mist coiling tighter, claws flexing as it prepared to end the anomaly it had once cursed.
Ashar raised the broken hilt. Shadows wrapped around it, forging a new blade from nothingness.
"Bloodveil Edge."
The sword formed in an instant–black metal laced with crimson veins, pulsing like a living thing.
He vanished–appearing above the Fenrir mid-strike.
"Ruinborn Descent!"
A downward slash cleaved the air in half. The Fenrir dodged—but not fast enough. Its shoulder tore open, spilling darkness more than blood.
It roared, the mist exploding outward like a collapsing storm.
Ashar hit the ground and rebounded, magic swirling at his fingertips.
"Cradle Burst."
The ground beneath the Fenrir erupted–dozens of shadowed arms shooting up, clawing, pulling, screaming with voices of the damned. It howled, thrashing, biting, shredding the grasping magic, but it was slower now.
Ashar raised his hand.
"Gravenbind Sigil"
A dark sigil flared beneath the Fenrir's feet. Chains of molten shadow shot up, wrapping its limbs, burning with ancient fury.
The beast's eyes widened–real fear now.
"You took him," Ashar growled, his voice echoing with the entity's resonance.
"You don't get to keep him."
He plunged Bloodveil Edge forward.
The blade pierced the Fenrir's chest–straight into the place where it stored what it devoured.
For a moment–silence.
Then a scream–not Ashar's. Not the Fenrir's.
Renart's.
The beast convulsed. Its body cracked. The mist exploded.
And in the chaos, all the stolen souls scattered back to the wind–light flickering into the sky like falling stars.
And Renart...
Renart was once again one with Ashar.