He brought the hammer back with terrifying speed. The shaft slammed into my ribs. Pain flared white hot. I was thrown across the chamber, crashing through a table. The wood shattered. Splinters bit into my skin.

I rolled, coughing, and barely avoided the next strike as the hammer obliterated what was left of the furniture.

The chandelier above us swayed violently.

Blood dripped from GrimWall’s armor now. Not his. Theirs.

“Why isn’t he dying?!”

“He’s leading the captain into us!”

GrimWall swung again. I ducked, then stepped aside at the last moment.

The hammer crushed another knight into the ground. His helmet caved in. Something inside burst. Blood sprayed upward like a fountain.

Screaming filled the chamber.

I moved through it.

The hammer came down again. I slipped past the head, ran up the shaft, planted a foot against GrimWall’s chest, and kicked off.

I flipped over him and landed behind his back.

He spun instantly.

Too fast.

The hammer slammed into the floor where I had been a heartbeat earlier.

The knights were backing away now, slipping in blood, tripping over bodies.

“Get out of the way!”

GrimWall roared again and charged.

I met him head-on.

Then vanished to the side.

The hammer tore through the remaining line of knights like wheat—armor split. Bodies flew. One man was crushed so hard his limbs tore free.

Silence followed. Broken only by gurgling.

GrimWall stood alone now. Surrounded by corpses. Blood dripped from his weapon in thick strands.

He turned slowly toward me.

I raised my blades.

Breathing steady.

Unhurt enough.

He smiled behind his helmet.

Good.

GrimWall charged again.

The war hammer tore through the air, dragged by his full weight. The sound alone made my teeth grind. Stone groaned beneath his boots as he closed the distance.

I raised my blades to block.

The moment steel met stone, I knew I had misjudged him.

The impact hit like a battering ram. My feet left the ground. The world lurched, spun, and then my back slammed into the wall with a force that rattled the chamber. The breath was ripped from my lungs in a violent gasp. I slid down the stone, scraping armor, vision swimming.

Something cracked inside me.

Not the wall.

Me.

Pain exploded through my chest, sharp and immediate. I felt my ribs give way, felt bone grind against bone every time I tried to breathe. I forced air in anyway. Each inhale burned, scraping like broken glass inside my lungs.

I barely pushed off the wall before the hammer came down again.

Too slow.

The shaft smashed into my left arm as I raised it. The force twisted it sideways, bending it where it should not bend. White pain swallowed my vision. My fingers went numb. Something tore deep inside the joint. Not a clean break, but close enough.

I bit down and stayed standing.

GrimWall did not hesitate. He dragged the hammer back and swung low, brutal, meant to crush my legs. I jumped, feeling the wind tear past me as the hammer obliterated the floor beneath where I had stood. Marble exploded outward. Cracks raced across the chamber.

Breathing burned. Every movement sent fire through my ribs.

He pressed forward, forcing me back step by step. Every swing was meant to end me in a single blow. Crush. Pulverize. No finesse.

Another overhead strike came down.

I caught it.

Both blades crossed, trapping the hammer head between them. The impact drove me to one knee. My injured arm screamed. Stone shrieked against steel as the weight bore down on me, forcing my blades toward the floor.

My vision blurred.

I twisted my wrist and drove the tip of my right blade forward.

Not at him.

Into the hammer.

Steel punched into engraved stone. The weapon shuddered violently. The vibration ran up my arm and into my chest, rattling broken ribs. GrimWall’s eyes widened as he felt it bite.

I locked it there, muscles screaming, arm shaking from the strain.

He roared and tried to wrench the weapon free.

I surged forward instead.

My left blade came around in a tight arc, striking the haft just below the head. Once. Twice. Each hit sent a jolt through my body.

The third strike landed with a sharp, final crack.

The hammer broke.

The stone head split apart, fragments exploding through the chamber. The shaft snapped clean through. Chunks of weapon and debris tore into the walls and into the knights behind him. Someone screamed. Then, it went silent.

GrimWall staggered back.

He stared down at the ruined remains in his hands. What had once been a war hammer was now nothing more than a broken stick. His mind struggled to catch up with what his eyes were telling him.

I stepped inside his reach.

I raised my blades again.

From deep in my stomach, I drew mana. It moved slowly, heavily, crawling through my body and down my arm. I fed it carefully into the blade, measured and deliberate.

From deep in my stomach, I drew mana.

It moved slowly through me, heavy and cold, crawling down my arm and into the hilt. The moment it touched the blade, the steel reacted.

The sword vibrated.

Lines etched into the metal began to glow faintly, as if heat were building inside the blade itself. I fed more mana into it, steady and controlled.

The blade lengthened.

Steel flowed forward from its edge like it was being forged in real time. The metal stretched, extending smoothly, seamlessly, as though the sword had always been meant to be longer. The sound was low and grinding, like distant thunder trapped inside steel.

The short sword in my hand was gone.

In its place was a long blade, nearly twice its original length, heavier, sharper, and humming with restrained power. The surface of the metal rippled once, then settled, perfectly formed.

GrimWall looked up.

He saw it.

Understanding flickered across his face.

“What did you do?” he asked, his voice unsteady.

GrimWall looked up.

He saw it.

Understanding flickered across his face.

“What did you do?” he asked, confusion thick in his voice.

I gripped the blade with both hands and took a stance. Slowly, I drew the sword back.

“Wha—”

I lunged.

There was no resistance.

The mana edge passed through armor, flesh, bone, and steel as if they were nothing. The physical blade followed an instant later, tracing the path already carved.

For a heartbeat, he remained standing.

Then the line appeared.

Blood followed.

His upper body slid forward and struck the floor. His lower half collapsed a moment later.

Blood poured across the marble.

I stood on the other side of him, my blade dripping red. It struck the ground with a wet sound, painting the floor beneath us.

I took a moment to breathe.

Then I heard it.

Gurgling.

I turned.

GrimWall was still alive.

Barely.

He gasped, one hand clawing weakly at the floor. His fingers closed around something at his belt.

“Damn it,” he muttered. “Damn it…”

“Captain GrimWall has been defeated,” one of the knights whispered.

They stood frozen, shaking, unsure. Some muttered to each other. Others turned and ran.

I stood there, strangely numb.

Then I heard laughter.

I turned back.

GrimWall was laughing.

His body was severed in half, his upper half dragging itself forward, leaving a thick smear of blood behind him.

“Do you really think you’ve won?” he asked, coughing blood onto the floor.

I stared down at him.

“Seeing your sorry-ass,” I said. “Yeah. I do.”

He reached into his shattered chest plate and pulled something free.

A small object. Dark. Veined. Pulsing faintly, like it was breathing. No larger than an apple. A bundle of living flesh.

Blood bubbled from his mouth as he looked up at me.

“You were never meant to fight me,” he whispered. “You were meant to witness.”

“For I am the captain who once served Britannia,” he declared, veins bulging as blood spilled freely from his ruined body.

Before I could move, he shoved the thing into his mouth.

“Done talking?” I said, stepping back. “Was that your last meal?”

Instinct screamed.

Something warm crawled down my chest. I touched it.

Blood.

A rough, jagged cut had opened across my chest, running down toward my stomach.

It was still spreading.

Warmth soaked through my clothes. I looked down just long enough to see blood spilling between my fingers before instinct dragged my gaze back up.

GrimWall.

Or what was left of him.

His lower half was still standing.

His upper half was not.

It writhed on the floor a short distance away, jerking and convulsing like something half-drowned. The severed torso moved in short, violent spasms, the surface of the flesh rippling as if something beneath it were trying to push its way out.

Then it did.

Flesh bulged outward from the open wound, swelling, twisting, stretching. Guts followed, spilling free, not falling but pulling themselves forward. Wet sounds filled the hall as muscle and sinew reached across the marble, dragging themselves toward his legs.

The knights screamed.

“What is he doing?!”
“Captain?!”

The blood on the floor thickened, darkened, then began to move. It flowed backward, crawling toward him in slow, deliberate streams, sinking into the mass of flesh as it reconnected.

Bones cracked loudly.

Not breaking. Reforming.

I watched ribs bend and snap into new shapes. A spine stretched, segments popping into place as the two halves of his body pulled together. Flesh knitted itself closed with sickening speed, sealing the divide as if it had never been there.

His head snapped back.

The scream that tore out of his throat was no longer human.

His jaw split wider than it should have been, skin tearing as teeth multiplied inside his mouth, row after row pushing forward. Eyes bloomed across his face and skull, opening in places where no eyes belonged, blinking out of sync.

The body finished pulling itself together.

Heavier.

Larger.

It rose to its full height.

What stood there was no longer Captain GrimWall.

All of its eyes were fixed on me.

It smiled.

The grand hall trembled as it took a step forward.

Some of the knights backed away, horror etched across their faces. Weapons slipped from shaking hands and clattered uselessly to the floor. Others froze, unable to understand what they were seeing.

A young knight stumbled backward and fell, scrambling across the marble on his hands and knees.

“Gods…” he whispered. “What did you do?”

The creature crossed the distance in a heartbeat.

It grabbed him.

And tore him apart.

There was no struggle. No resistance. Just wet, tearing sounds and a violent spray of red as the body came apart in its hands. Blood splattered across the marble, across armor, across the stained glass high above.

The remains were dropped without care.

The creature turned back to me.

“The Master promised,” it said. Its voice layered over itself, overlapping, wrong. “Said if I became this… I’ll be granted a wish. Prove my worth.”

It flexed its new limbs. Wings spread wide from its back, membranous and veined, stretching nearly wall to wall.

“The lord said,” he said, coughing up blood,” it continued. “That I’m gifted.”

The remaining knights broke.

They ran through doors, down corridors, anywhere that put distance between them and this thing.

I did not stop them.

I tightened my grip on my blades.

“You made a mistake,” I said.

The creature tilted its head. Several eyes blinked independently. “What mistake?”

I looked at the blood soaking the floor. At the scattered pieces of the boy. For everything this place had done.

“You should have stayed human.”

Its smile widened, revealing far too many teeth.

“But I’m better now.”

Then it lunged.

End of chapter 8