It finished changing in silence.
The convulsions stopped first. The jerking, the broken spasms — they ceased as if a switch had been thrown. The body stilled on the fractured concrete, limbs splayed at wrong angles.
Then it slowly rose.
Bones lengthened with a deep, grinding sound that vibrated through the rubble. Flesh did not tear — it stretched, darkened, absorbed into something denser. The guard's uniform split along expanding muscle and was swallowed into a growing mass of matte black.
The spine extended.
The torso broadened, ribs pushing outward beneath skin that no longer looked like skin — but something closer to charred stone.
The head reshaped last.
The jaw cracked forward, teeth flattening, then reforming into blunt, grinding plates before sharpening again into jagged crescents. Bone surged from the skull in two violent bursts—
Horns.
Where the guard's face had been, there was now the heavy, elongated structure of a bull's head—nostrils flaring, breath steaming in thick, black vapor. No fur. No hide. Just a smooth, obsidian surface that reflected nothing.
It stood fully upright. Five meters tall.
For a moment, it did not move.
Then its head turned slowly.
Scanning the graveyard of collapsed buildings and broken streets.
There was no wind. No civilians. Nothing stirred in the ruined district.
Except—
One frightened boy.
His boots slipped against loose gravel as he forced himself upright, slate still clutched in one trembling hand.
The abjection's nostrils flared.
It focused.
On the only thing moving away from it.
"How many tabs are there on this thing?!" he rasped, half to himself, half to whatever indifferent force had decided he needed administrative literacy mid-pursuit.
His boots pounded against fractured asphalt. The slate's screen jittered in his shaking grip, menus layering over one another as proximity alerts began flashing red across the interface.
Behind him—
A thunderous step.
Then another.
"Sector—no—report—no—damn it—"
He swiped again. The interface resisted him, demanding confirmation codes, grid verification, threat classification.
Threat classification?
"What do you think it is?!" he gasped.
A shadow stretched over him.
He veered sharply around a toppled streetlight, nearly losing his footing as loose gravel skidded under his heel. The abjection didn't slow. It moved with terrifying efficiency — long strides devouring distance, horns slicing through hanging cables without resistance.
Kael's lungs began to burned.
After a few frantic swipes — misclicks, backtracks, and cursed corrections — he saw it.
Emergency Field Escalation.
His thumb hovered for half a second.
"I found it—!"
The words were still leaving his mouth when the world moved. A blur of black muscle and sweeping force entered the edge of his vision.
He didn't even see the full motion. Just the arc. The abjection's arm cut through the air in a wide, brutal swipe.
Impact!
Something slammed into his side like a moving wall. The air left his lungs in a single, violent burst as he was lifted clean off his feet — slate flying from his grip — body spinning weightless against a sky choked with ash.
Then—
He crashed through the shattered window frame of a collapsed storefront. Wood splintered, and glass erupted inward.
His body finally hit the ground in a heavy and graceless thud.
The impact bounced him once against the dust-caked tiles before he rolled onto his side, coughing violently as debris rained down around him. The world rang — high and unrelenting.
For a moment, he couldn't tell if he was breathing. His vision bleached at the edges, white swallowing color until everything looked distant and unreal. Through the blown-out entrance of the storefront, framed by drifting ash and fractured sunlight—
It stood there.
The minotaur.
It threw its head back and roared into the open air.
Kael squinted through the haze.
"What the hell is that…?" he rasped weakly, voice raw.
"Some kind of victory roar?"
He tried to push himself up and failed halfway.
"I'm still alive, you damned bastard…"
The words barely carried past his own ears when a flicker of realization suddenly hit him. He blinked once. Twice.
He became aware of his limbs. His arms moved. His fingers curled. His legs even responded when he told them to.
He lay there for another second, stunned less by the attack—
And more by the absence of what should have followed.
From a strike like that… one would expect something broken. A limb flailing uselessly. Ribs shattered inward. Spine compromised. Hell — even death.
But aside from the bruising throb spreading along his side and the sharp sting where glass had carved shallow lines across his forearm—
He was still…
Fine.
The ringing in his ears wasn't helping, of course. Nor was the dizziness that made the ceiling tilt slightly when he tried to focus.
But he was not broken.
Not even close!
That… wasn't normal. A hit like that from something that size should have ended him.
His hand tightened against the dusty floor.
Unless—
'The Gnosis...'
Were these—
Perks of being a Gnostic?
Another roar split the air — closer this time, angrier.
The storefront's entrance darkened as the massive silhouette shifted.
It had found him again.
And it was charging.
"You're joking me—!"
Kael forced his body upright, ignoring the protest in his ribs. The floor trembled violently as the minotaur lowered its horned head and rushed forward, each step cracking tile beneath its weight.
Without wasting another second, Kael threw himself sideways toward the broken display window, shoulder first. Remaining shards exploded outward as he crashed through, jagged glass tearing fabric and biting skin in passing.
He hit the pavement outside and rolled hard.
Behind him—
Impact.
The entire storefront convulsed.
The abjection did not slow.
It barreled straight through the entrance, its bulk slamming into already-compromised support beams. Wood snapped like dry twigs. The ceiling buckled inward with a deafening crack.
For a single suspended heartbeat, the structure seemed to hesitate—
Until the whole building finally folded in on itself.
Concrete slabs pancaked downward. Steel supports twisted and gave way. A wave of dust and pulverized debris burst outward into the street as the minotaur vanished inside the collapsing mass.
Kael didn't wait to confirm. He was already running. Retracing his path through the fractured road, eyes scanning desperately across the rubble.
"The slate—"
It had flown out of his hand when he was struck.
He spotted it half-buried near a broken streetlight. Kael skidded to it, dropped to one knee, and snatched it up—
The screen was broken beyond recognition.
"Shit!"
Because he knew better.
A rumbling building like that wouldn't be enough to kill something of that size.
And as if to confirm his thoughts—
The collapsed storefront convulsed from within. Concrete slabs shifted. Steel groaned in protest. Then, in a violent eruption of dust and fractured debris, the horned silhouette surged upward once more. It rose from the wreckage like something reborn from its own grave.
One horn was chipped along the edge, but the rest of it remained intact — five meters of obsidian mass, eyes locked onto him with renewed fury.
It didn't hesitate.
For the third time, it charged.
"You've got to be kidding me—! It's like a crazy stalker!"
Kael bolted.
He cut hard down a side street, boots slamming against uneven pavement. The ground shook with every thunderous step behind him. The distance it closed was obscene — each stride of the abjection devouring meters that took him three desperate steps to cover.
He vaulted over a fallen barricade, barely clearing it before a massive clawed hand smashed through it from behind, splintering reinforced plastic like paper.
A parked transport carcass lay ahead. Kael ducked under its tilted frame and slid through the narrow gap beneath the chassis. The minotaur did not bother crouching.
It plowed through.
Metal shrieked and crumpled as the vehicle was shoved aside like scrap.
Kael staggered upright and sprinted across a stretch of open asphalt—
A mistake.
"Damn!"
There was no cover here.
No obstacles.
Just him.
And it.
The shadow swallowed him whole.
He heard the shift in air before he saw it—the abjection drawing its arm back for another devastating swipe.
Kael braced—
Something whistled through the air.
Impact.
A heavy metallic clang rang out as a solid object struck the minotaur squarely in the side of its head. The force wasn't enough to injure it—but enough to disrupt.
Its head snapped sideways, causing its charge to faltered.
It stumbled one full step, claws gouging deep trenches into the asphalt as it regained balance.
At Kael skidded to a halt, stunned.
From somewhere to his right—
"Hey! Over here!"