Tied Viper lay on the ground, her limbs and mouth bound. All she could do was stare at Umbra’s back.

  Umbra rested her head in Kai’s lap. It had been a long, brutal night.

  Kai sat quietly on the muddy ground. The valley was gone, burned, shattered, reduced to splinters. The woods around them were nothing but ash and ruin.

  He gazed toward the horizon. The smaller moons were fading, a sign that dawn was near.

  His hand gently stroked Umbra’s fur as his thoughts drifted.

  He wasn’t someone who sought blood. Killing had never been his goal. But after seeing Florian’s twisted experiments, what he’d done to beasts, to people, to Lisa, something inside Kai had snapped.

  His anger, fed by the second magic circle, had turned him into someone who wanted to kill.

  He knew he wasn’t a hero. He had no divine right to judge others. But this… this had pierced his soul.

  Florian had used the weak, tortured them, and desecrated their very souls.

  Kai’s heart pounded faster just thinking about it.

  Umbra stirred, sensing the shift.

  “Kai,” she whispered.

  “I’m fine,” he replied softly, forcing a smile. “Just thinking… I’m tired.”

  He thought of the wolf, its madness and greed.

  Of Dawnbreaker, his thirst for revenge and hatred of injustice.

  Of Lake Serpent, its obsession with dominance.

  Even Umbra’s own hunger for strength, her joy in the hunt.

  He had lived through their memories, felt their emotions. Their lives had shaped him. His soul had grown stronger, but he had changed.

  Killing wasn’t hard anymore. Especially when rage took over.

  I need to work on my control. I can’t afford to lose myself. Umbra and Scry won’t always be there to pull me back.

  Sigh.

  I still need to find Florian. If I don’t… more will suffer. But can I kill a human? I’ve never had to.

  Tears welled in his eyes. The thought felt inevitable. Like he was losing his humanity.

  Umbra felt his pain. She rose slowly.

  Smack!

  Her paw slapped him across the head, sending him face-first into the mud.

  “What the hell, Umbra!” he shouted, sitting up, his face covered in muck.

  “I should be asking you that,” she snapped. “Who told you to carry this burden alone? If moving forward is too hard, I’ll push you. If you fall, I’ll pick you up. Stop stressing over things you can’t change right now.”

  Kai sat there, stunned. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  Umbra continued, her voice softer now. “You’re still a cub. A strong one, yes, but a cub, nonetheless. You helped us. Now we will help you. You’re not alone, you know.”

  “I know… I’m sorry,” Kai whispered. “What do you think I should do?” His heart conflicted.

  “Just be you,” she said simply. “If you see injustice and it bothers you, handle it. If you see evil and it makes your blood boil, kill it. That’s the world we live in. Like you always say: if you have power, you can do whatever you want. Even if what you want is just to be yourself.”

  Kai stared at her, realization dawning. She was right. He didn’t need to be perfect. He just needed to be true to himself.

  “If I have to kill a human… I’ll deal with it when the time comes.”

  Then he blinked. “Wait… Umbra, when did you learn to talk like that?”

  Her tail flicked proudly. “We’re soul-bound, remember? I’ve been absorbing your knowledge from your past world. Just like Scry did.”

  She grinned. That smug little spirit wasn’t the only one special anymore.

  Kai laughed aloud, the tension finally breaking.

  Life, it seemed, was full of surprises.

  ***

  In the heart of a ruined castle, a swirling green portal tore open with a hiss, and a half-naked man was flung out like discarded meat.

  He hit the cold stone floor with a sickening thud. His skin was pale, almost translucent, and in one hollow eye socket, a dark artifact pulsed faintly, like a dying star.

  Florian lay motionless. His breath shallow. His limbs limp.

  Just a day ago, he had servants, monsters, and power. Now?

  Now he had nothing left.

  He had gambled everything and lost.

  Only his body remained, newly restored. No more scars from the dragon’s wrath. No more burned flesh.

  But the price… the price had been steep

  That boy’s final attack…It wasn’t Aura. It wasn’t a spell. It had pierced through shadow mana and devoured the souls of the seventh circle like a divine judgment.

  Florian couldn’t comprehend it.

  It was, after all, a technique lost to time, millions of years buried beneath Sacra’s history.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  He lay there as the moonlight faded, and the first rays of dawn crept over the horizon, bathing his broken form in gold.

  Eventually, he stirred.

  Using his scythe as a crutch, he dragged himself through the shattered halls, each step echoing like a death knell.

  He reached his chambers, lined with grotesque containers filled with organs, twitching limbs, and half-formed abominations suspended in green fluid.

  I can rebuild. I still have resources. Once Viper returns, I’ll use her to gather more.

  But I’ll need a stronger trump card to fight that boy. I won’t let him escape.

  “NEVER!” His voice cracked the silence like thunder.

  He stumbled to a hidden drawer and retrieved a golden syringe, its contents swirling with black, viscous liquid that shimmered like oil in moonlight.

  Only one dose. Let’s see what happens.

  He stabbed it into his heart and collapsed into an empty containment pod, locking himself inside.

  Green liquid surged through the pipes, flooding the chamber.

  His body convulsed violently.

  His grey core turned dark green, pulsing like a heart infected with madness.

  His back arched as bat-like wings tore through his flesh, dripping blood.

  His arms thickened, claws erupting from his fingers like daggers.

  His legs twisted into wolf-like limbs, sinewy and powerful.

  His spine exploded outward, forming a black, spiked tail that lashed against the glass.

  His face contorted, bones cracking, reshaping into a demonic visage. Two crooked horns burst from his forehead, gleaming with abyssal black.

  He smiled, his mouth now filled with razor-sharp teeth, dripping with green saliva.

  Florian was finally reborn into something Sacra had never seen before. He had changed his complete genetic structure into something new. A true Chimaera.

  Only one thing left: my soul.

  He truly lost his mind.

  Before, he had never dared to experiment on himself. Even after losing to the dragon, he remained a creator, not a subject.

  But now he had lost to a boy, a mere Knight

  He, Florian, the architect of evolution. The god of rebirth.

  “UNFORGIVABLE!” he screamed again, voice raw and broken.

  His mind had shattered, fractured by the souls he had consumed previously.

  He marched to his soul vault.

  A safe opened with a pulse of corrupted mana.

  Inside, hundreds of cores floated in green liquid, each one stolen from a life extinguished.

  He scanned the row with divine beast cores.

  Hmm, which one to pick?

  Then he saw it.

  Oooh, this will be perfect.

  A deep red core, glowing faintly. Inside, a small red lizard squirmed.

  It was a core of Royal Salamander, a race of lizards closest to dragons.

  They were called wingless dragons throughout Sacra.

  He took the core and left, didn’t even bother locking the safe. He was all alone here after all.

  He went into another room.

  The room was empty, and in its center stood a huge table with a needle positioned above it.

  He inserted the core into a soul-fusion mechanism and lay on the table.

  The needle descended, ethereal and real, piercing not just his core, but his soul.

  “AAAAAAAARGHHHHH!”

  The pain was unbearable; His soul felt like it was being torn apart, thread by thread...

  Finally, he understood what pain he had caused to the others. But he cared not.

  He ground his teeth and tried to hold his soul together from cracking by force.

  A voice echoed in his mind.

  You worm. You dare enslave me? My ancestors were dragons. You are nothing but a boy, barely a few thousand years old.

  Florian snarled, rage boiling.

  He activated his soul magic, conjuring ethereal chains that slammed into the salamander’s soul, binding it with brutal force.

  Each chain pierced his own soul, tearing holes that the salamander’s essence filled.

  The lizard screamed, its soul stitched into Florian’s like a grotesque patchwork.

  After an hour of agony, the fusion was complete.

  Florian opened his eyes.

  One eye remained black and hollow. The other, draconic, glowing with ancient fury.

  His skin turned crimson. Scales spread across his body like wildfire.

  He staggered to a mirror. Then he laughed.

  A twisted, echoing laugh that shook the castle walls.

  “In the end, it was always me. I was meant to be the perfect member of my new race. ME!”

  He looked demonic. Wrong. Truly something Sacra had not seen before.

  Even demons would hesitate to face such monstrosity.

  I’ll have to thank the boy. If not for him, I’d never have dared this.

  I’ll tear him apart. I’ll kill that beast of his. Then I’ll fuse their souls and let them feast on humans, since he loves them so much.

  “HAHAHAHA!”

  He laughed and laughed. His mind was broken.

  But his body? More deadly than ever.

  And the limits of his strength?

  Unknown.

  ***

  Back in the valley, Kai and Umbra turned toward the Viper.

  The monster resembled a young girl. Her hair was light blue, icy in hue. Her skin shimmered silver, and her eyes were reptilian, slitted, and cold.

  Of all the monsters they had encountered, she looked the most human.

  “Umbra, untie her mouth, please.” Kai stood up and walked towards the Viper.

  Woosh.

  A shadowy whip vanished into the air, the same one that had gagged the Viper until now.

  Viper stared at Kai, her heart pounding.

  She had listened to their conversation and realized this godlike warrior was far more complex than she had imagined.

  His humanity resonated with her own buried fears.

  “Monster,” Kai asked, “why did you stay behind? Why let us catch you so easily?”

  Viper twitched. “Sir, forgive me. I didn’t plan anything. There was no point in running; you could kill me with a single strike.” Her voice was steady, but the truth weighed heavily.

  Kai narrowed his eyes. “What will your master do when he sees you surrendered like this?”

  Florian was not a merciful master.

  “He’ll kill me,” she replied coldly.

  “You seem different from the others. Why is that?”

  “Most of them were driven by madness and Master’s orders,” she said, sighing. “But me, Tweek, and Mantis… we recovered fragments of our old memories. It gave us some independence.”

  Kai’s tone hardened. “Yet you still killed for him. Tortured others.”

  “We’re bound to him. We can’t disobey,” she said, sadness flickering in her eyes.

  Kai felt the lines between good and evil blur. “You were human once? Can you tell me your story?”

  Viper looked at him, surprised. She had expected scorn, not empathy.

  He talked to her like she was a real person, not a monstrosity.

  She spoke of her village. Of how the Master found her. Of how he merged her with the creature that had killed her family, the Viper. She recounted the horrors she had committed under his command.

  Then, unexpectedly, a few tears fell from her eyes. As they dropped, they turned into snowflakes, disintegrating mid-air.

  Kai listened, anger rising in his chest. But he breathed deeply, keeping his emotions in check.

  Umbra listened too. She felt Kai’s emotions and shared them. The more she learned from him, the more her worldview shifted.

  To hunt and kill for survival was natural.

  To defend her territory and kill intruders was expected.

  To seek revenge was the nature of her kind.

  But to torture the weak for pleasure or control, that was something she could never accept.

  “Kai,” Umbra interrupted, her voice firm. “We need to find that monster.”

  Kai nodded. “Agreed. He deserves to die.”

  Resolve settled in his heart. To kill someone so vile was something he deemed necessary; he would not torture himself over that decision anymore.

  Viper watched them, stunned. “He’ll be stronger now. He has experimental weapons… monsters stored in his castle.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Kai said. “I haven’t even used my strongest ability yet.” He smiled gently. “But we’ll need your help to find his castle. Can you guide us?”

  Viper hesitated. “He expects me to return. He won’t suspect anything… but once he sees you, he might force me to fight.”

  Kai frowned. “Maybe Scry will have a way to block his control.”

  He turned to Umbra. “Let’s go. Let’s check on the others. Bring the girl.”

  “Wait,” he said, pausing. “What’s your name? Your human name?”

  Viper blushed. “No one’s asked me that in centuries. I was Eira, of the Southern Anghar tribe. My grandmother named me for my hair, which means ‘snow.’”

  Kai smiled softly. “Eira, it is. I can’t untie you yet; we don’t know if he can still control you. Bear with me, okay?”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, smiling faintly.

  Umbra grabbed her and slung her over her back.

  Before they could leave, Eira pointed toward something glinting faintly in the morning light.

  “Before we go… You might want to grab that,” she said, nodding toward the black, half-cracked orb lying in the dirt, the one that had fallen from Florian’s chest.

  “It’d be a shame to leave it here,” she added with a faint smile.

  Kai turned and walked over to the orb.

  Even now, he could feel the dark mana pulsing within it, cold, heavy, and unnatural.

  He picked it up. The orb was ice-cold in his hands, its surface slick.

  Without a word, he stored it in his belt.

  Then he turned back, and together they walked toward the facility.

  The morning sun broke over the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and gold.