The storm hadn't stopped since the bloodshed.
Thunder rolled across the skyline like the growl of some ancient beast, shaking dust from the skeletons of buildings. The Bone Rats moved through the ruins in silence — scavengers reborn as soldiers, their faces painted with streaks of crimson to mark allegiance.
To him.
Ethan walked at their head, the damp wind pulling at his coat, the scent of rust and old death thick in the air. Every footstep echoed through the hollow overpass like a heartbeat — his heartbeat, their heartbeat. A shared rhythm of fear and awe.
Selene trailed a few paces behind, rifle slung over her shoulder. She didn't speak. She hadn't since the moment they'd left the overpass. Her silence pressed against him harder than any words could.
He could still feel her gaze, sharp as a blade between his shoulders.
The Core inside him pulsed with approval. They follow. They kneel. You are becoming.
Ethan clenched his jaw. Becoming what? he thought back, though he knew the answer before the Core could whisper it.
A predator. A sovereign. A weapon carved from hunger.
They stopped in what had once been a parking structure. The Bone Rats moved efficiently, clearing debris, setting crude watchposts, dragging out fuel drums to light as makeshift fires. It was chaos molded into purpose — his purpose.
He didn't need to give orders; they looked at him, read the intent in his eyes, and moved. Instinct. Submission.
Selene leaned against a cracked pillar, her expression unreadable. Her voice, when it came, was quiet but cutting.
"So this is your kingdom," she said. "Concrete and fear."
Ethan exhaled slowly, watching smoke coil upward from the fires. "It's survival."
"No," she replied. "It's control. And control has a price."
He turned to face her fully. "You think I wanted this?"
"I think you didn't stop it," she said. "And maybe you couldn't."
That last part landed too close to truth. The Core stirred in him like a restless heartbeat, whispering things he couldn't unhear — that the moment he'd torn out the Bone Rat leader's heart, something inside him had shifted.
He'd felt good.
Too good.
The thought sickened him, but the memory still burned with dark pleasure.
The Core spoke again, voice rich as velvet and venom: You are what this world needs. Mercy is a relic of the dead. Dominion is survival.
Ethan pressed a hand against his chest, as if he could still the voice by touch alone. His fingers brushed warm skin, the faint pulse of red light beneath it.
Selene's gaze followed the motion. For a moment, he thought he saw concern flicker there — brief, human, unwanted.
Then she looked away. "You're losing yourself, Ethan."
"Maybe that's the only way to survive," he murmured.
She pushed off the pillar, boots crunching across the broken ground. "Then I hope you survive alone."
Her words hit harder than they should have. But before Ethan could answer, a low sound rippled through the encampment — the rhythmic stomp of approaching boots.
The Bone Rats scattered, weapons rising. Through the haze of rain and smoke, three figures emerged — scavengers from another faction, their insignia marked by a black serpent coiled around a blood-red sun. The Serpent Marauders.
Ethan recognized them instantly. Raiders. Killers. The kind who preyed on the weak.
Their leader, a lean man with silver piercings glinting in the firelight, grinned when he saw Ethan. "So it's true," he drawled. "The Crimson boy's playing warlord now."
The Bone Rats tensed.
Ethan didn't move. "You're trespassing."
The man chuckled. "And you're breathing my air, wearing my colors, standing on ground that used to belong to my crew." He spread his arms. "So what's it going to be, Crimson King? Tribute or blood?"
The Core stirred eagerly. Show them.
Ethan stepped forward. The world seemed to slow around him, sound blurring into the steady rhythm of his pulse. The Core's energy thrummed under his skin, sharpening every breath, every thought.
"I don't pay tribute," he said softly — the same words he'd spoken before.
The Serpent's grin faltered. "Then—"
He never finished. Ethan moved — a blur of motion and crimson light. His fist struck the man's chest like a hammer. Bone shattered. Blood exploded outward in a scarlet arc.
The Core roared in triumph.
The Serpent Marauders screamed, weapons rising — but the Bone Rats were faster. What had been scavengers an hour ago now fought like predators, driven by fear and faith.
Gunfire thundered through the ruins. Blood misted the air. The scent of it hit Ethan like a drug. His Core drank it in, every heartbeat a surge of power, every kill another whisper of approval.
When the last Marauder fell, silence swallowed the field. Only the rain spoke, washing the blood into dark rivers.
Ethan stood amid the bodies, chest heaving, crimson eyes flickering. His Core hummed with ecstasy. He felt unstoppable. Infinite.
Then he felt Selene's hand on his arm.
It wasn't gentle. It was grounding.
"Look at them," she said.
He did. The Bone Rats were kneeling again, their faces pale, their hands slick with blood. Some trembled. Others looked at him like he was something divine.
"Is this what you want?" she whispered. "A world that only moves when you kill something?"
Ethan opened his mouth — to deny it, to defend it — but the words died.
Because somewhere deep inside, the Core was laughing.
And part of him wanted to laugh with it.
Selene's grip tightened briefly before she let go. "You're not a god, Ethan. You're just the latest monster this world has made."
Then she turned, walking into the rain.
The Bone Rats watched her go, uncertain, waiting for a command. Ethan could feel their fear clinging to him, their reverence burning like firelight.
He should've called her back. He should've told her she was wrong.
Instead, he turned his gaze skyward. The storm clouds pulsed red against the horizon — the light of the Core reflected in every drop of rain.
And as thunder rolled again, he felt the truth settle deep in his bones.
He wasn't sure he wanted to be saved anymore.
The rain didn't stop.
It fell harder now, relentless — a thousand cold knives drumming against steel and skin. The fires hissed and died, their smoke curling into ghosts. The Bone Rats began to move again, dragging corpses away, gathering weapons, whispering the same word under their breath.
"Crimson."
Ethan heard it again and again — a prayer, a curse, a name that didn't belong to him anymore.
Crimson King.
The title slipped like oil through the cracks of his mind, seeping deep.
He stood still, letting the rain wash the blood from his hands. It didn't feel like enough. No matter how much the storm bled over him, the stain remained — invisible, but carved into his skin.
Selene's words still echoed, sharp and echoing: You're just the latest monster this world has made.
He wanted to hate her for it. But he couldn't.
Because part of him agreed.
The Core pulsed inside him, slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat too heavy to carry. Its voice was quieter now, almost tender.
They fear you because you are free.
She fears you because she cannot control you.
"Shut up," Ethan muttered, his voice hoarse.
The Core chuckled — a sound that wasn't sound at all but sensation: warmth sliding down his spine, the taste of copper on his tongue.
You deny what you are, but every drop of blood proves me right.
He clenched his fists. The glow beneath his veins flared briefly, then dimmed as he forced his breathing to slow. He didn't want to lose control again. Not here. Not now.
A small figure approached — a girl no older than sixteen, wrapped in a torn jacket too large for her. Her face was smeared with ash and fear. One of the Bone Rats. She held something out to him — a makeshift emblem cut from metal, marked with the same crimson spiral that now stained his coat.
"It's for you," she said softly, voice trembling. "So… so they know who leads us."
Ethan stared at the emblem. The spiral seemed to pulse faintly, alive with reflected firelight. He didn't reach for it.
"Keep it," he said. "You'll need symbols more than I will."
The girl hesitated, then nodded and backed away, clutching the emblem to her chest as if it meant salvation.
He turned toward the darkness where Selene had vanished. For a long time, he just stood there — between the ruin and the rain, between who he'd been and what he was becoming.
Then he started walking.
Each step echoed against the broken concrete, down through the flooded streets. His reflection followed him — warped and fractured in the water. Red eyes, pale skin, something too still to be human.
The city was dying. He could feel it in the air — a sickness that wasn't just rot and ash, but despair. People were turning on each other for scraps, for shelter, for the illusion of safety. And now, they were turning toward him instead.
He should have felt something noble in that. Hope. Purpose.
Instead, all he felt was tired.
He stopped beneath a half-collapsed bridge, leaning against the cold metal. His fingers brushed over a shard of glass embedded in the wall, reflecting his face. He barely recognized it anymore. The man who'd once just wanted to survive looked back at him through crimson light — harder, colder, but still trembling deep inside.
For a moment, he pressed his forehead against the wall and whispered, barely audible, "What am I doing?"
The Core's reply was a whisper in his blood.
Becoming inevitable.
He slammed his hand against the wall. Cracks spidered outward, dust raining down. He wanted to tear the thing out of him — the parasite, the gift, the curse. But even as fury surged through him, another feeling twisted underneath: the terrifying realization that he needed it.
Without the Core, he'd be nothing. Weak. Prey again.
And he couldn't go back to that.
A voice cut through the rain behind him. "You shouldn't be alone right now."
He turned sharply — hand instinctively glowing, ready to strike — but stopped when he saw who it was.
Mira. The Bone Rats' medic. Small, wiry, always moving like she was afraid of standing still too long.
She held a blanket and a look that was too knowing. "You'll catch cold," she said, offering it.
Ethan almost laughed. "Cold's the least of my problems."
She hesitated, then stepped closer anyway. "They're scared," she said. "The Rats. They think you'll abandon them like every other leader did."
He looked away. "Maybe they should."
Her eyes softened. "And yet you're still here."
That simple truth hit him harder than any blow. He didn't answer. Mira left the blanket on a rock beside him, gave a small nod, and slipped back into the shadows.
He stood there for a long while after she was gone, staring at the faint shimmer of light on the wet concrete. The storm was easing. The night stretched long and hollow.
He could almost hear Selene's footsteps in the distance — fading, but not gone.
When dawn finally broke, the city was silent. The crimson clouds began to thin, leaving streaks of weak sunlight bleeding through. Ethan stood on the overpass again, looking down at the Bone Rats gathering below. They watched him like believers at an altar, waiting for direction.
His voice, when it came, was quiet but absolute.
"We build," he said. "We hold this ground. We don't kneel again — to anyone."
A murmur of assent rippled through them. Some looked terrified. Others looked inspired.
Ethan didn't know which was worse.
The Core purred with satisfaction.
Yes. Claim what's yours. The world will follow your blood.
He closed his eyes, feeling the wind rise again — cold, metallic, alive.
Maybe Selene was right. Maybe he was becoming a monster.
But if monsters were the only ones who survived now…
then maybe it was time to stop pretending he wasn't one.
The storm broke fully, sunlight striking the blood-wet steel. For a moment, the ruins glowed — like a kingdom rising from death.
And high above it all, Ethan stood alone — the man and the Core, heartbeat and weapon, both whispering the same truth.
There was no going back.