The beast was only the beginning.
The next morning, I walked. Not because I had anywhere to go. But because the silence behind me hurt more than the pain in my body. My skin burned. My bones ached. The blood had dried on my face like a second skin.
And still, I lived.
I didn't eat. I didn't drink. I didn't sleep.
But I lived.
The sword I'd used was rusted, chipped, and soaked in black blood. I kept it anyway. It felt like part of me now, something twisted, something wrong.
Then I heard it.
Laughter.
Not mine this time.
Voices. Male. Cruel. Familiar.
I followed the sound like a demon crawling toward sin. Through the trees. Through the filth. And there they were, soldiers. Empire dogs. Sitting around a fire, laughing over meat and wine.
I knew them. I knew their faces.
One of them had held my sister's wrists. Another had dragged my mother by her hair. The last one… the last one had smiled at me before raising the executioner's axe over my brother's neck.
Something in me snapped.
I didn't scream. I didn't warn them.
I walked into the clearing. Silent. Slow.
"Oi, what's this? A lost brat?" one said.
He stood up.
I cut his legs off.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I had no training, no form. I was just a child.
But something in me took over. Not skill—instinct.
The others shouted, scrambling for weapons. I didn't care. I was already moving. I wasn't fighting like a human. I was ripping, slashing, stabbing with hate as my guide. Their blades cut me. I didn't feel it.
One begged.
I shoved the sword through his mouth until it burst out the back of his skull.
Another ran.
I threw a rock at his head. Then I caved his face in with it until his screams stopped gurgling.
The last one tried to surrender.
He said, "Please, I have a daughter—"
I said, "So did my father."
And I crushed his throat with my boot.
Blood painted the grass. My arms, my chest, my face—soaked in it. I looked at myself in the reflection of a pool near their campfire.
I smiled.
It wasn't joy.
It wasn't satisfaction.
It was freedom.
The boy they broke was gone.
The thing that remained didn't need a name.
Only a purpose.
And now it had one.
The gods would hear of this slaughter.
The empire would feel this scream.
And the world would bleed before I was done.