The creatures, sensing a shift, a flicker of weakness, began to circle again.
The one with the tail that had cut him lunged. Tysone sidestepped, but this time, he didn't counter.
Instead, he reached out and grabbed the creature's tail as it whipped past.
"Gotcha!" He snarled, and with a mighty heave, he swung the creature around in a wide arc—something that was possible only thanks to his evolved strength.
The creature became a flail, its own body a weapon against its kin. Bones cracked and flesh tore as it smashed into its brethren. One of them was impaled on its own sharp spikes. Another was sent flying into a brick wall with a sickening thud. Tysone slammed it into the ground, over and over, until its body was a mangled pulp.
He dropped the mangled corpse and breathed heavily, a small trail of steam rising from his skin. The heat inside him was a roaring.
The rest of the pack stared at him. Hesitated.
Then, a new sound cut through the night. A piercing shriek from the sky.
The pack turned as one. They looked up at the rooftops.
A larger creature, bigger than the others, stood perched on a nearby building.
"Oh shit. The boss?" Tysone thought, gritting his teeth.
The larger creature let out another shriek.
It wasn't a call for reinforcements. It was a challenge.
The smaller creatures, the ones that hadn't been turned into paste by Tysone's rampage, hissed and skittered backward, clearing a circle in the rain-slicked street. They moved with a deferential fear, pressing themselves against the brick walls of the alleyway and the rusted chassis of abandoned cars.
Tysone rolled his neck, the vertebrae popping loudly. "Finally. The main event."
The creature on the roof didn't climb down. It dropped.
It landed with a heavy, wet impact that cracked the pavement, absorbing the shock with its four muscular limbs. It was significantly larger than its brethren—sleeker, with spikes jutting from its spine and shoulders like jagged obsidian shards. Its tail was longer, barbed at the tip, and whipped the air with a menacing whoosh.
It didn't waste time posturing. With a shriek that sounded like tearing metal, the Alpha launched itself at him.
Tysone barely brought the halberd up in time.
CLANG.
The impact slid him backward five feet, his boots carving grooves into the asphalt. The creature's claws were locked against the shaft of his weapon, its needle-toothed maw snapping inches from his face. Acrid saliva splattered onto his cheek, burning slightly.
"You need a mint, buddy." Tysone grunted, straining against the creature's weight. And its fetid breath.
He channeled the heat. It wasn't a conscious effort this time; it was a desperate reflex since he was actually being pushed back.
The furnace in his gut roared to life, and the heat flooded his arms, pouring into the steel of the halberd.
The weapon hissed as it heated up. The creature screeched, smoke rising from where its claws gripped the metal, and it leaped back, shaking its hands like a cat that touched a hot stove.
"Doesn't like the heat, huh?" Tysone smirked, though his chest was heaving. "Good to know."
He didn't let it recover. He swung the halberd, the heated blade cutting a glowing arc through the rain. Kotha would've likely marveled at the sight of the glowing trails left by his swings, akin to light sabers.
The Alpha was fast—faster than Tysone expected. It ducked under the swing, and whipped its tail around.
The barb caught Tysone in the shin.
"Fuck!" He stumbled, pain lancing up his leg, nearly making him drop to one knee. Blood flowed freely from the open wound. The bone didn't seem broken, but the pain was debilitating.
Sensing that brief window of weakness, the Alpha pounced.
Tysone bit his bottom lip as he ended up dropping to one knee. And just as the Alpha was within striking distance, he brought the butt of the halberd up to catch the creature in the jaw.
The blow connected with a satisfying crunch, snapping the creature's head back. Tysone roared, ignoring the pain in his leg, and drove upward, thrusting the spear-tip of his weapon toward its concussed head.
The Alpha twisted mid-air, a feat of agility that left Tysone stunned, and the tip grazed its flank instead, carving a trench of sizzling flesh.
The creature landed and scuttled up the side of a building, clinging to the brickwork like a gecko.
"Oh, come on!" Tysone panted, wiping rain and blood from his eyes. "Get down here and fight like a man. Or a dog. Whatever the fuck you are."
The Alpha hissed and pushed off the wall, diving at him like a missile.
Tysone didn't dodge. He planted his feet. He gripped the halberd. He focused every ounce of that strange, burning energy into the axe blade. The metal began to glow cherry-red, steam hissing from the rain on its surface.
WHUMP.
He swung the halberd not at the creature, but at the large puddle of water between them.
The superheated blade hit the water and the result was instantaneous.
The water erupted into a massive cloud of scalding steam. The steam exploded outwards, briefly obscuring Tysone from view as the Alpha crash landed blindly in the street.
Tysone lunged through the cloud, using the cover to close the distance before the steam had fully dissipated. He brought the red-hot axe-head down in a powerful, overhand strike.
The Alpha's skin was tough, but it wasn't invincible. The glowing blade sheared through its shoulder, sinking deep into its chest.
The creature let out a piercing shriek, a sound of pure agony this time, not aggression. Its tail, on pure reflex, snapped towards Tysone faster than he could track it. The barbed tip tore a deep, bleeding gouge across Tysone's chest.
He grunted, the pain nearly making him black out, but he held onto the handle. He twisted the weapon, channeling that final, desperate burst of heat into the wound.
The creature convulsed, its insides cooking from within.
Just as Tysone started to smell victory─which, to be honest, was actually just more charred meat—its head tilted back as it shrieked. Not one of pain, Tysone noticed, as the rest of the flock, previously observing from the side-line, responded with a cacophonous sound of agreement.
Uh-oh.
Tysone pulled the axe free just as the remaining creatures rushed forward in an orchestrated offensive.
"Well, I am so, SO fucked."
Tysone tried to keep his breathing steady. Adrenaline kept his muscles taut. The bloodloss, on the other hand, threatened to weaken his movements.
One lunged from the left. Tysone spun the halberd in a spectacular move of martial prowess. The blade took the creature's head clean off, black blood spraying onto the ground.
The body still moved, stumbled forward a step, then fell.
Another jumped onto his back. Claws tore at his shoulders. "Agghh! Fuck!" He grunted, reached back, grabbed a handful of scaly skin, and flung the beast into two others approaching from the right. They tumbled together in a heap of snapping jaws and thrashing limbs.
Tysone didn't wait. He slammed the butt of his halberd down, crushing the skull of another getting too close to his feet.
Movement everywhere. One on his front tried to bite his face. He slammed his knee into its chest, hearing bones crack. It staggered back, gasping, before Saeko's sword—if she were here—would've ended it.
A tail whipped at him from the side. He barely ducked, felt the wind of it pass over his head, brought the axe edge down on the creature that had lashed out. He saw his own reflection for a second in its dull black eye as the blade sank home through its neck.
Then the Alpha was up again, bleeding heavily but shaking with rage. It fixed on Tysone, ignored its still-dying kin, and charged.
It used its two front claws to launch itself, crashing directly at him.
He braced. "Oof!" His whole body screamed as the creature hit him like a falling tree.
Pain exploded in his ribs as his feet lifted off the ground for a second before he crashed down on his back. The halberd fell from numb fingers, still within hand reach but strength was quickly fading.
All its weight pressed on his chest, pinning him. Its maw opened right over his face, giving Tysone an unpleasant view of its throat canal and the rows of disgusting teeth surrounding it.
The needle-thin teeth descended.
He grabbed its jaws just in time. The muscles in his arms burned, ached, felt so, so weak. Black drool dripped onto his cheek, smelling like a sewer after a hundred years.
The Alpha pushed. Tysone strained. The teeth pricked the skin below his eye.
Something inside his chest cracked as he mustered up every single bit of heat pumping from his heart and right into his hands.
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.