The patrol arrived minutes later.

  Eight Illuminated soldiers advanced cautiously, weapons raised. Four carried micro-railguns, their movements sharp but tense. The others wielded blades, spears, and axes forged from the glassy remains of Starspawn.

  The formation was tight. Too tight.

  They moved like trained soldiers, but their new strength had not yet reshaped their instincts.

  The Fiend struck the moment the entered the bottleneck.

  It erupted from concealment like a launched boulder, furnace flaring as it crossed the distance in a blink. Its right gauntlet punched through the chest of the nearest railgunner, tearing through armor and flesh alike. The impact lifted the man off his feet and pinned him against the hood of a car.

  The Fiend twisted.

  The body shredded.

  It hurled the corpse into its furnace without breaking stride.

  The formation shattered.

  The Spiny Fiend and lesser Starspawn surged from hiding, snarling and screeching as the soldiers scrambled to react.

  A glass-edged axe slammed into the Fiend’s flank. The blow bit deep deep, carving a glowing trench through ash-flesh. The furnace flared in pain.

  The Gauntleted Fiend answered instantly.

  It stepped in, drove its claws into the attacker’s throat, and lifted him before smashing him into the pavement hard enough to fracture the street.

  A spear thrust came from behind. The Fiend pivoted, caught the shaft mid-strike, yanked the soldier forward, and buried its left gauntlet into his sternum with a brutal underhand blow.

  Micro-railguns finally opened fire.

  Hyper-velocity slugs tore through two of the lesser Starspawn, reducing them to collapsing heaps. The Gauntleted Fiend blurred forward, closed on one of the shooters, feinted low, then punched upward.

  The main sailed into the air and did not come down intact.

  Two melee soldiers converged, blades swinging in desperation. The fiend stabbed low, claws punching through one thigh and ripping upward through the abdomen. It parred a sword with the flat of its gauntlet and lunged, impaling another through the jaw.

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  At the rear, two railgunners held position, firing disciplined bursts into the pack. Two Starspawn fell around them.

  The Spiny Fiend answered.

  A volley of glowing spines hammered one soldier to his knees. His weapon clattered away. A Starspawn pounced on the impaled soldier before his partner could react.

  The last railgunner drew a horn-shaped dagger, but never used it. The Spiny Fiend leapt from above, its flower-mouth opening wide, and swallowed him whole.

  Silence returned to the cul-de-sac.

  Distant fires crackled. Smoke drifted.

  Four Starspawn lay dead.

  All eight humans lay broken.

  The Gauntleted Fiend stood amid the carnage, its body marked by a deep axe wound. A reminder that these bright-souled prey could fight back.

  Its furnace burned hotter than before.

  Human souls flared inside it like live coals tossed into a forge. Bright and satisfying.

  The Spiny Fiend returned to its master’s side. The remaining Starspawn slunk back into formation.

  The Fiend tilted its furnace toward the sky, sensing more flares in the distance.

  Whatever these beings were, they burned hotter than anything it had consumed before.

  It fed.

  Eight souls in total, some taken directly, others by proxy through its pack. As the leader the majority of the energy was transferred to it.

  The souls did not burn quietly.

  The writhed.

  Unlike the dull, even heat of Remnants or the quick spark of normal human souls, these souls fought back. They pressed against the walls of the furnace, filling every seam of the Fiend’s ash-forged body with unbearable light.

  The furnace flared white.

  Then blue-white.

  Heat rippled outward, cracking pavement and igniting a nearby fence.

  The Gauntleted Fiend staggered.

  Its claws gouged trenches into the street as it hunched forward. A deep, resonant sound poured from its furnace, like a groan of metal under impossible strain.

  The pack recoiled. Even the Spiny Fiend backed away, vents fluttering in agitation.

  The furnace pulsed unevenly.

  With each surge, fractures spiderwebbed across the Fiend’s torso, glowing from within.

  The souls were reshaping it.

  Its back arched violently. Cracking sounds echoed like stone splitting in fire. White-hot struts forced their way outward, forming a jagged exoskeletal lattice across its torso and spine.

  Armor with an additional purpose.

  Structure.

  A framework grown from internal pressure, stabilizing the power within.

  Ridges crawled down its limbs, locking into the gauntlets and shins, fusing flesh and weapon more completely than before.

  The Fiend clawed at its own chest as if to tear itself open. The air shimmered.

  For a brief instant, the white fire condensed into shape. A pulse of intent.

  The Fiend did not understand it.

  But something answered.

  Deep within its core, a faint echo formed.

  Will.

  The ground cracked under the rising heat. Flames leapt from nearby debris.

  Then the convulsion ended.

  The furnace dimmed to a steady molten orange. Contained.

  The Gauntleted Fiend straightened.

  Its silhouette had changed. Sharper. More defined. A rib-like lattice of glowing bone framed its torso and spine. The furnace burned tighter, cleaner.

  It flexed its claws.

  Like a tesla coil, a shimmer rippled across them.

  Will.

  Newborn. Flickering.

  The Spiny Fiend crept closer, spines low. The lesser Starspawn collapsed to the ground in submission.

  The Gauntleted Fiend was no longer Dormant.

  It had kindled.