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The hunger was a cold, grinding fire in the vulpimancer's bones, a demand that eclipsed even the throbbing, weeping agony of its ruined eye. Its surroundings had become a smear of distorted sound and painful light, the five remaining orbs on its head casted the manicured gardens of Sina in a nauseating, pulsing blue haze. It had lain in the damp soil of a Baron's rhododendron patch for a day, trembling, licking at the festering wound. But the memory of the white room, the cold restraints, and the glinting instruments was a constant phantom pain, a psychic scar that screamed danger at every human scent.
It needed fuel. It needed to heal.
It found the cattle yard on the edge of a sprawling estate after tracking from a mile away. The animals were penned, their warm, dumb bodies a beacon of life. It phased through the wooden fence, the world shimmering around it for a moment before it solidified inside the pen. The cattle, sensing the primordial wrongness of its presence, lowed in unease, shifting their heavy bodies. The vulpimancer ignored the panic, its focus absolute as it singled out a young steer, separated from the others.
The kill was swift and brutally efficient. A single, powerful pounce, jaws closing on the beast's neck with a wet crack that was lost in the animal's final, strangled bellow. The coppery tang of fresh blood flooded its senses, a balm against the deeper, cellular pain. It began to feed, tearing into the warm flesh, the energy already beginning to stitch at the frayed edges of its being.
That was when an old farmer, roused by the unusual commotion, came running from his cottage, a rake held in his hands from the other work he was previously occupied with.
"Boris? What's gotten into you, ya dumb ca—"
The words died in his throat. The sun's light rays fell upon a scene from his deepest nightmares. A creature, larger than any wolf, built of corded muscle and nightmare proportions, was hunched over his prized steer. Its fur was a deep, bruised purple, and along its spine, sickly blue V shaped patterns glowed like cursed runes. But it was the head that froze the blood in his veins; a smooth, eyeless dome from which five slits of pure blue hellfire burned, and a sixth was a ruined, weeping crater. Its maw was drenched in gore, black-tinged blood and saliva dripping onto the torn earth…
…from his cattle.
"MONSTER!" The scream was ripped from the old man's soul, raw and terror-stricken.
The Vulpimancer's head snapped up. The sound was a physical blow, a spike of pure panic that resonated with the memory of screaming scientists and the digital, grating voice of its tormentor. It recoiled, a guttural, defensive growl rumbling in its chest. The scent of the man's fear was a sour, pungent wave.
The farmer, acting on pure survival instinct, held up his rake, holding the wooden handle out with trembling, arthritic hands. "Get back! Get away from my herd, ya demon!"
He jabbed the rake forward. The simple, sharp-ended tool, gleaming in the lantern light, was an echo of the restraints, the probes, the violation. The coppery smell of the steer's blood on its own jaws now smelled like the antiseptic and its own ichor from the laboratory. The Vulpimancer backpedaled, its growl turning into a high-pitched whine of pure, unadulterated terror. It wasn't facing a farmer; it was facing the ghost of the Cerebrocrustacean, the memory of being pinned and cut and rewritten.
The vulpimancer was eventually cornered, its back facing the wooden fence. The five eyes darted frantically, the world a swirling vortex of panic and painful memory. With a final, desperate snarl, it gathered its legs and burst past the old man, who stumbled back and fell hard on his rear while the rake clattered beside him. For a moment, there was only the sound of the man's ragged pants and the lowing of the terrified cattle herd. Then his eyes set towards the deceased calf lying a few meters away.
The sight alone brought a different emotion that surged through the farmer; a hot, blinding rage. That thing had killed Boris, the youngest of the herd and whom he had grown attached to. It had violatedhis land.
"Come back here, you bastard!" he roared, scrambling to his feet, grabbing the rake, and giving chase with a vigor he hadn't possessed in years.
The Vulpimancer fled, not with purpose, but with blind, panicked instinct. It burst from the relative cover of the estate and stumbled, a horrifying spectacle, directly onto a gas-lit street in a quiet Sina district. The scene froze for a heart-stopping second. A couple of nobles taking a casual stroll, their fine clothes suddenly feeling like shrouds. A street sweeper leaning on his broom, his mouth agape. And directly in its path, a sturdy merchant's chariot, its canvas cover bulging with valuable goods, pulled by two powerful horses.
All human eyes were on it. Then, the screaming started, a wave of sound that built from a few startled gasps to a full-blown chorus of terror.
"It's a demon!"
"By the Walls, what is that thing?!"
"MONSTER!"
The Vulpimancer spun in a circle, disoriented. The shouts were coming from all sides, a cacophony that was a physical assault on its sensitive hearing. The merchant on the chariot; a stout, well-dressed man named Dimo Reeve was with the harried look of someone on a tight schedule, however his rider beside him saw the creature and yanked the reins hard, his own cry of panic spooking the horses.
"Whoa! Easy! What in the blazes—?!"
The horses reared, whinnying in terror, their eyes rolling white. The rider fought the reins but it was too late. The wagon, top-heavy with its cargo, tilted with a sickening groan of wood and slammed onto its side with a thunderous crash that echoed down the street. Barrels shattered, spilling fine grain across the cobblestones. Crates splintered, revealing glints of porcelain and metalware. A cask of wine burst open, painting the street the color eerily similar to blood.
The chaos was absolute. Reeves and the rider were thrown from their seat, landing hard on the street and rolling to a stop. Reeves staggered to his feet, disoriented and furious, his hat askew.
"You brainless fool!" he roared, first at his terrified driver, before his eyes swept over his ruined livelihood. "Do you have any idea what this cargo is worth?! That was for the interior garrison! You'll be paying for this out of your hide, you—"
His tirade cut off as his eyes finally followed the pointing fingers and the wide, terrified stares of the crowd. He saw it then. The thing. The demon. It was twitching in the center of the street, its form flickering like a broken lantern, five pools of blue hellfire set in a dome of nightmare. The rage in his gut instantly froze into a block of sheer, primal ice.
This was too much for the Vulpimancer. The noise, the lights, the closing circle of fear, the scent of spilled wine like a mockery of blood. It had to escape. It tried to phase, to warp away from the nightmare, but its concentration was shattered. Its form flickered violently, distorting like a reflection in troubled water; a leg would vanish, then its head would become a blur of static, the blue glow of its stripes strobing erratically. It soon became a seizure of light and matter.
The commotion had finally drawn the one group that could make it worse. Two Military Police officers on horseback rounded the corner, their jackets billowing in the hot afternnon air. Their trained eyes took in the scene: the overturned wagon, the screaming populace, the pale-faced merchant, and at the center of it all, the twitching, monstrous form.
"Open fire!" one of them yelled, not waiting for an explanation. The sharp crack of rifles split the air.
A bullet whizzed past its head, another grazed its flank, a searing line of fresh pain. The shock of it jolted the creature into a single, coherent thought: RUN.
It abandoned its phasing efforts and simply ran, a lopsided, terrifying gallop towards the only structure that promised escape from the closing circle: the immense, shadowed bulk of Wall Sina. The MPs gave chase, their horses' hooves striking sparks on the cobblestones, shouting ahead to the gate guards who were only now peering out to see the source of the bedlam.
"CLOSE THE GATE! CLOSE THE GODDAMN GATE! THERE'S A BEAST LOOSE!"
At the main thoroughfare gate, a handful of Garrison soldiers, bored from a routine shift, snapped to attention at the shouts and the sound of gunfire. They saw the MPs pursuing something. With a shared, panicked effort, they heaved the massive gates shut, the groaning wood slamming closed with a final, resonant BOOM just as the Vulpimancer was a dozen yards away.
Trapped.
It didn't even break stride. With a furious, pained snarl, it launched itself at the vertical stone face of the wall. Its claws, designed for tearing and digging, found purchase in the microscopic imperfections of the masonry. It began to climb, a grotesque, glowing spider scaling the impossible height. It moved in a jerky, distorted fashion, its body still flickering, making it a maddeningly difficult target. More shots rang out from the MPs below, pocking the stone around it.
On the top of the wall, the Garrison soldiers stationed there watched in utter disbelief. One of them, a young, jumpy cannoneer with more enthusiasm than sense, was already swiveling a mounted cannon, his hands shaking.
"What are you doing?! Don't fire that thing in the city!" his sergeant barked.
But the garrison, eyes wide with terror, had already lit the fuse. "It's coming! It's coming right for us!"
The cannon roared, a deafening blast that momentarily silenced the street. The cannonball screamed towards the climbing horror, but the aim was true to his panic; it was wide, destined for the creature's general vicinity but not a direct hit.
"YOU IDIOT! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE FUCKING AIMING!" a soldier beside him screamed, grabbing his arm too late.
The Vulpimancer, its senses screaming at the incoming projectile, phased. The cannonball passed through the space its body had occupied, a rush of displaced air and heat, and sailed on, crashing into the roof of a nearby townhouse with a devastating explosion of brick, timber, and shattered glass. A woman's scream pierced the air from within the cloud of dust.
The Vulpimancer solidified, standing on the rampart now, surrounded by stunned and horrified Garrison soldiers. It was cornered again, high above the world. It threw its head back and roared, a sound of such primal rage, pain, and defiance that it silenced the chaos below for a moment. The five burning eyes swept over the terrified faces of the men.
Then, it turned and ran along the wall's length, a streak of blue and purple against the afternoon sky. It reached the outer edge, where the wall dropped away into the blackness of the territory between Sina and Rose. Without a moment's hesitation, it leaped.
The Garrisons rushed to the edge, expecting to see a falling, broken body. They saw nothing. It had vanished into the air, not falling, but simply ceasing to be.
One of the younger soldiers, his rifle shaking in his hands, finally found his voice, a whisper of pure, unadulterated shock that echoed the thoughts of every man present.
"Shit... just what the hell was that?!"
Chapter 22-30 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.