On the surface, the ghost town of Centralia had turned into a battlefield. The ground trembled, houses were more thoroughly destroyed than before, and bursts of energy clashed in the open air.
And at the center of that chaos, Zarvok was imrsed in his hunt. His condition wasn't perfect, he had sustained so wounds, but his healing was already working to repair them.
His demonic smile remained intact.
Standing before him, one bare foot planted on a rocky mound, was the creature that had managed to keep him fighting for ten straight minutes without a real break.
A young female Wendigo.
The legendary monster, or outcast, hard to classify, had a humanoid and beastly form. She was thin, bony, and small, with the body of a preadolescent girl, wrapped in tattered remnants and natural markings that resembled tribal tattoos.
The Wendigo's skin was pale as bone, with a faint grayish tint. Her hair, pure white, fell in wild waves, tangled with branches, bones, and fragnts of skulls. Her eyes glowed a fierce red, a murderous intensity similar to Zarvok's, but more beastlike and less malicious.
Atop her head was a horned skull fused to her body, with natural horns sprouting from her true skull.
Her smile was wide and twisted, a disturbing mix of childishness and predation. Wounds covered her entire body.
Deep gashes ran across her ribs, and her face was streaked with dried blood and dirt.
Zarvok was winning.
The demon had greater strength, endurance, speed, and experience. Plus, he hadn't been weakened beforehand.
Even so, the Wendigo didn't retreat. She stayed on her feet.
She fought with a ferocity that didn't match her size or appearance. She had the body of a slender, small girl, but moved with the violence of sothing that had been caged for far too long.
She was born imprisoned. Since she had gained consciousness, she had known nothing but a cage, injections, scalpels, white lights.
The humans had kept her weak.
But not anymore. She was finally free. And even though she was now facing this strange being, she couldn't help but feel exhilarated by her newfound freedom.
Zarvok launched another attack, enjoying the hunt. He had never had the chance to encounter a Wendigo in such a state, not just young, but also weak and inexperienced.
The Wendigo barely dodged, scraping the ground with her bare feet. She had no strategy, no plan. She simply threw everything she had into surviving.
Zarvok swung his other free arm, and the girl could only raise her arms to shield herself.
BAM!
The Wendigo was sent flying, her arms breaking under the force of Zarvok's blow. She flew over ten ters before crashing into a building, which collapsed entirely from the impact, burying her beneath the rubble.
"Not bad, little one," Zarvok laughed, noticing that the arm he had struck her with bore a slight dent from the girl's fist.
The Wendigo crawled out from the debris, breathing heavily, her body trembling as she rose, ready to continue the fight. Her chest heaved violently, but her eyes remained locked onto him, unwavering.
She had been waiting for sothing like this for as long as she could rember. A battle. Her instincts scread at her to keep fighting, to kill the creature, to feast on its flesh.
Running wasn't an option.
A few ters away, hidden among the ruins, Mortir Spellman gritted his teeth.
"Stupid demon... completely unreliable," he muttered under his breath, frowning deeply.
Centralia was huge. The mines, even more so. Without Zarvok's sense of sll, he had no way of tracking Luke. He was blind.
'He must be deep within this town,' Mortir thought, pulling a sealed grimoire from one of the hidden compartnts inside his robe.
He unrolled the magical clasp carefully, opened the book, and drove his staff into the earth. His other hand held the open to.
"Then seal off all the exits..." he murmured, barely audible.
And he began to read.
The earth responded instantly.
The very space itself started to tremble. A fissure opened in the air, not vertical, but slanted, floating about a ter above the ground.
Dark inside, with edges of black and red energy.
One by one, they began to erge.
Twenty of them crawled out before the fissure closed.
The bodies of the Morraks were enormous, grotesque, and irregularly proportioned.
Four ters tall, with bright blue skin covered in a viscous layer that dripped as they entered this world.
Two small red orbs for eyes, driven purely by instinct and murderous intent.
Their mouths were small but filled with razor-sharp teeth, enclosed by jaws that remained clamped shut until a target appeared.
Their arms were long, ending in massive hands tipped with hardened claws.
Their torsos moved like bellows with each breath.
Their legs were thinner, ending in black claws that scraped against the rock as they walked.
Mortir spoke in an unintelligible tongue, and the Morraks began to scatter across Centralia.
'At least they'll have so fun with those normies,' he thought, knowing full well how difficult it was to control these creatures—even if they were just minor demons. Their killing instincts were too strong to expect them to stay still or systematically surround the area.
The only upside was that they didn't fear death, their hunger was far more powerful.
If they caught a whiff of Luke, with his delicious psychic three-aura soul, they would throw themselves at him without hesitation, desperate to devour his essence.
"What the hell are those things?!" shouted one of the normie soldiers, opening fire with armor-piercing rounds as he retreated toward cover.
The bullets either bounced off or barely sunk into the creatures' viscous skin.
"Demons," replied Jack Rourke from his higher position, his face covered in dust and dried blood, "And I don't an that as a taphor."
His voice was firm, but he couldn't hide the tension.
Rourke's eyes stayed locked on the twelve creatures advancing toward them from different directions.
The surveillance outpost was gone, reduced to rubble. It had been destroyed when Zarvok stord through without warning.
The massive creature, with its elongated head like a hardened mushroom and unmatched physical strength, tore through the reinforced walls as if they were paper.
The underground scientific facility, where the Wendigo had been held, was the first to fall.
The servers, the containnt cells, the access tunnels... everything was destroyed.
Many of their soldiers, staff, and scientists perished in the crossfire.
Only a small group managed to escape: Rourke, Evelyn, Marcus, and twenty elite soldiers, all genetically enhanced. Along with them, a dozen scientists, non-combatants, but valuable, were rescued and protected during the retreat.
Now, they were cornered by the lesser demons.
The Morraks advanced without hesitation, their small red eyes gleaming, locked onto the normies like a pack of predators.
Of course, none of them dared to steal Zarvok's prey, so they had to settle for this.
"Defensive circle!" Rourke shouted, barking orders.
Evelyn, positioned higher up as a sniper, fired with surgical calm.
Marcus stood on the front line, his body partially transford, claws exposed, ready for the fight.
Two battles had erupted simultaneously.
On one side, among the rubble and fractured structures, Zarvok and the Wendigo clashed with brutal force.
On the other side, the Morraks threw themselves relentlessly against the defensive periter.
Crossfire was constant.
The normie soldiers held their ground, but they were beginning to fall.
One was caught by a claw. Another was crushed under the weight of a Morrak that didn't even slow down despite being riddled with bullets.
Three dead in thirty seconds.
If it weren't for Rourke, Evelyn, and Marcus, they would have been annihilated within the first monts.
Four.
Five.
The line still held, but it was shrinking.
"Hold your ground!" Rourke shouted. "Don't break!"
The scientists, huddled at the center of the circle, watched the situation unfold with grim expressions and sweat beading on their foreheads.
The chances of survival were looking slimr by the second.
At that very mont, the earth trembled.
At first, it was subtle, a vibration running through the underground. Then, a low, muffled cracking sound traveled across the ground.
Everyone felt it: Zarvok, the Wendigo, Mortir, Rourke, Evelyn... Even the Morraks paused for a second.
And then the earth split open.
A vertical fissure tore through the ghost town, running straight from the depths below to the surface, with a dry, deafening sound.
It wasn't an explosion, it was a cut: clean, precise, and violent.
A line of destruction carved itself into the terrain, splitting rocks, soil, ruins, and abandoned structures.
Everything in its path was divided.
The closest Morraks were cleaved in half without even realizing what had struck them.
Burning gas, steam, and pressure burst forth in a violent column that rose dozens of ters into the air.
And from the bottom of that fissure... sothing was ascending.
Mortir Spellman whipped around from his hiding place among the ruins, his eyes wide open.
His staff slipped from his fingers, clattering against a stone. He said nothing, but his brow furrowed sharply.
Zarvok halted his next charge. His claws were already inches from the Wendigo's face, but he didn't strike. Instead, he slowly turned, his eyes blazing.
His sense of sll flared to life, and he muttered, "It ca out of that hole."
On the other side, Rourke, the soldiers, the hybrids, and the scientists stared in bewildernt, struggling to comprehend what had just happened. They stood agape at the sight of the destruction, as if a giant scalpel had sliced the earth itself.
And then, they all saw it.
A figure erging from the fissure.
It was Luke, his appearance immaculate, no dust, no dirt, nothing. In his right hand, he held Eclipse, its runes now glowing and the blade still faintly vibrating with the remnants of the slash.
A Morrak lunged at Luke.
It had caught his scent, and that was enough to drive it wild.
Its mouth opened unnaturally wide, stretching far beyond what it should, filled with razor-sharp, wet blades of teeth.
His gaze wasn't one of rage, it was one of greed.
It wanted to devour Luke's soul before its companions could steal it away.
Luke glanced at it out of the corner of his eye. In a fraction of a second, he concentrated 50% of his telekinetic power into the blade of Eclipse.
The process was instantaneous.
Previously, condensing telekinetic waves of that magnitude onto his own arm had taken much longer. His attack to cut through mythical bronze had taken about 45 seconds.
But now he had a real sword, a channeler designed for cutting.
He made a single movent and slashed.
The Morrak was decapitated instantly.
There was no resistance, not even a sound.
Its head was cleanly severed from its body and tumbled through the air before crashing to the ground, skullless.
'Fatigue is minimal after two telekinetic cuts: 80% condensed in the first attack and nearly 50% in the second,' Luke thought, analyzing his new strength.
His training at the Addams Mansion had significantly increased his power, and now he was witnessing the fruits of that training.
He had perfected the use of his four auras.
And now, with the green aura active, his cellular regeneration, oxygenation, and physical efficiency were operating at maximum levels.
Moreover, with Eclipse, not only was condensing his telekinesis faster, the slash was far more powerful.
The tal of the blade was made of an alloy he didn't recognize, but he already understood its purpose.
Durable. Stable. A perfect structure for condensing his telekinesis.
A few ters away, Rourke watched Luke.
Then his gaze shifted to the Morrak's decapitated body, the head had landed just three ters away from him.
'He killed it that fast?' he couldn't help but think.
The enhanced bullets fired by his soldiers barely scratched those demons. So rounds even bounced off their skin entirely.
To take down just two of them, several enhanced agents had died.
And even then, they had only succeeded thanks to the direct support of Evelyn and Marcus, hybrids with genetic reinforcents and elite training.
In contrast, Luke had sliced through the demon in a single move, without apparent effort.
Not to ntion, he had also opened a massive fissure stretching dozens of ters from God knows how far underground.
Luke then turned his gaze toward the next group of Morraks nearby.
They were lined up about ten ters away from the normies.
"Shambles," he murmured, and his body vanished instantly.
The Morraks didn't even register the movent. A second later, Luke appeared right between them.
Once again, he condensed telekinetic waves that hovered in a razor-thin layer around the blade. And he slashed.
Another head was instantly severed.
The Morrak didn't even have ti to react to Luke's teleportation technique and swift attack.
Luke didn't stop, he slashed toward another Morrak.
However, this ti, he didn't need to recondense his telekinesis.
As long as he didn't release it, he could maintain the telekinetic waves constantly around the blade. He didn't have to discharge the energy in a single burst.
Now he could sustain it. And in this kind of battle, it was far better, not having to constantly condense waves into Eclipse allowed for faster, continuous attacks.
He moved forward, spun, and delivered a diagonal slash.
Two more Morraks fell, one cleaved from shoulder to hip, and another with its head sliced cleanly in half.
After three Morraks dropped, the others finally reacted.
The remaining seven lunged at him simultaneously, their massive bodies charging like a coordinated swarm, driven by instinct.
They sought to crush him through sheer brute force.
Luke lowered his center of gravity and gripped Eclipse's hilt with both hands.
He rotated his body into a full spin.
A spinning slash, and this ti, he released the energy.
The telekinetic waves surrounding the blade burst outward in a circular sweep.
Just as the seven Morraks were re ters away, mid-leap toward Luke, the sweeping slash struck them.
They were severed instantly.
Torsos divided.
Heads rolled.
Limbs were cut with absolute precision.
They died before even hitting the ground.
Luke ca to a dead stop and calmly observed the demons, each one cleanly sliced apart.
Back during the incident at Petropolus Manor, it had taken him far longer to kill these kinds of demons.
And even though it hadn't been particularly difficult back then, now he achieved it much faster, and far more brutally.
He had just killed more than ten of them in under thirty seconds.
Luke stared at the bodies.
'It's not enough,' he thought, feeling no satisfaction from the victory.
The power was there.
But he still felt the hollow ache left by Edgar's farewell.
He needed an opponent who could withstand more blows.
He slowly turned his head.
About twenty ters away, behind so debris, an old man in a robe was staring back at him.
Mortir looked at Luke and couldn't help but feel a flicker of surprise at the boy's gaze, the boy who had co to hunt.
Why did it feel like he was the prey?
And in that instant, Luke vanished.
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