My talons sank into the elder’s grotesque form, latching onto bones and tissues with a brutal grip. I didn’t slice through him with my talons, I dug them in at an angle, anchoring myself into his body so tightly that each muscle was wound and taut. The impact from my momentum crashed us both off-course, jerking his drooling, pincer-filled maw away from Alex at the last second. His gaping jaws missed her by inches, but one of his massive legs thrashed wildly and smashed down onto her left thigh. It shattered bone with a sickening crunch.

As we collided, I severed the arm pinning Alex to the wall. She was torn loose from the horror. The grotesque bone spike, slick with her blood and that unnatural oily sheen, remained planted in the wall after she slid off, her leg a limp weight beneath her. She collapsed onto the ground, broken and unmoving. Blood streamed in torrents from her chest where the spike had torn through, pooling beneath her. Though her body was still, I could hear her heart thundering, each frantic beat a surge of life that fought against her grievous wounds.

I redirected all my fury to the twisted creature, our bodies colliding with bone-crunching and flesh-rending sounds of horror as he fought against my unrelenting strength. I swung my tail into its side again and again as I remained latched on. I twisted the slicing-edge down along its length and struck his body with the flat side, using it like a brutal hammer, moving him away from Alex. Each strike splintered his limbs, pulverizing his arms, and sending him sprawling further back as I finally tore my talons free. He only had one good arm left now, the others shattered and mangled, hanging limp like snapped branches. I saw it then… a realization that slithered through my monstrous mind: he wasn’t a true shapeshifter, not like those with full command over their bodies. This was something else, a grotesque transformation bound to him, one he couldn’t mold or control. And that oily sheen… it brought back echoes of the shapeshifter in the city with Charles. It had similarities… but stark alterations. But I didn’t need answers. I didn’t need his secrets. All I needed was to KILL!

I approached his scrambling form… each step a heavy thud, that made the floor tremble against my weight and size. The elder shrieked, a desperate, pitiful sound, struggling to rise as his shattered limbs collapsed beneath him. He tried and failed to use his one good arm as a kind of crutch, or cane to pry himself up. It was too weak to take his full weight, and he buckled back down. His exhale came out in a ragged hiss like a tire slowly bleeding out air. Backing away, he began to shrink, losing mass as he retreated. His grotesque limbs retracted, his body pulling back into a smaller, pitiful shape.

He finally slumped against the wall, now only a shadow of the monstrous form he’d taken. His six arms hung loosely from his shrunken frame, all but one bent and twisted at impossible angles. Black, tainted blood seeped from gashes across his torso, a memento of my razor-sharp talons. He wheezed, breaths coming in ragged gasps as he lay before me in a pathetic heap, his shattered form finally comprehending an agony it hadn’t known in centuries; if it had ever known it at all.

“What are you?” it gasped, desperation thick in its dying breaths. “Where do you come from? How did you gain entry?” Its need to understand was fierce, even as death clawed at its throat. It wanted one final answer… to know what kind of being stood over it, closing in on its end.

Dread rolled off me in waves, a pulsing rhythm that filled the room like a heartbeat. But this wasn't my heart… it was the Primeval’s. The heart of Myoordrakien thrummed like a deep drum with murderous… cataclysmic power from beyond the living world. It rang out from within the fields, Death’s domain. The pulse of annihilation reverberated the whole area, each beat sending shockwaves through the structure, making the elder quake beneath my shadow.

I stopped directly in front of it, towering over him. I grew taller, feeding off the Primeval's dark essence, swelling to a size barely contained within the towering chamber. I stared down at him… blonde hair plastered over a face twisted with terror, his last plea flickering in his eyes. It wanted… no, it needed to know what I was.

Without a word, I lifted my monstrous foot and brought it down with bone-crushing force. Its chest caved, splintering like a cheap shell. His body convulsed beneath me, blood and viscera splattering outward in grotesque pools as I continued, smashing him like an insect. Each stomp echoed, cracking the floor and sending his gore spilling through the gaps between.

I didn’t stop. I was lost in a bloody rage, tearing through him until he was nothing but a shredded mass of bone and flesh, my monstrous roars reverberating, warning any living thing within earshot: I was here. And anything that crossed my path would meet the same fate.

Finally, silence settled, broken only by the grotesque, dripping sound of his remains seeping into the cracks. The rage eased, my mind cooling to a dull throb, though my form still pulsed with the Primeval's power. I turned and saw Alex, slumped against the floor, quiet. Her body was limp, her blood-red hair hanging over her face, blood trailing down her side.

I moved to her, knocking debris aside, my hulking frame casting long, twisted shadows over her. I reached down with clawed hands, sharp talons hovering dangerously close to her torn flesh, carefully lifting her from the ground. Gripping Alex's body, her form small and broken, her twisted leg mangled beyond repair, I recovered her carefully.

She felt so fragile in my grasp, a shattered doll held together by torn skin. I could feel it… the awful damage inside, bones crushed and splintered from her impact against the wall. Every tiny movement shifted those broken pieces, her body feeling like shards of glass grinding within her skin. Even as I held her, my grip as steady as I could manage, I knew that every moment was agony for her… but I would carry her, shattered and all until she healed… if she healed.

There was no time to waste. I wouldn’t worry about Alex… not now, not with the lesser monsters outside swarming. I could feel them… they were drawn by the elder’s death like flies to blood. They’d felt his power die, a shockwave rippling through his domain, here in the Primeval leg, and I knew they’d be coming with a vengeance. I scoped the room quickly, my gaze darting from shadowed corners to broken stone, until I spotted it; a gap high in the wall, some sort of storage nook filled with old, forgotten things.

With as much care as my monstrous form allowed, I gently swept aside the rotten stacks of books and dust-covered parchment. It was the kind that reeked of decay and was almost slick to the touch… flesh-bound pages, saturated with dark, dried blood. I scattered them aside, and with a precise, ginger movement, I eased Alex into the narrow space. Her body was small and limp, her red hair falling in tattered waves around her bloodied face. Crimson leaked from her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. She was hemorrhaging… bad. I wasn’t usually in the loop on how much a vampire could take. Usually, I just did so much damage, so fast, that they had no hope of survival. I was no scientist running experiments to see what kind of things other creatures could come back from. I had one standard… mass brutality. That usually worked. And this… this looked bad… especially knowing Alex. She was supposed to be one of the strongest vampires I’d ever met. But now… she looked so fragile there, hidden and tucked away from the horrors that would soon flood this place.

Turning back, I steeled myself, tightening my claws as I prepared for the onslaught. The snarls and growls of the creatures outside were growing louder, rabid, and unhinged, their steps like a frantic stampede through the winding passages. But… this wasn’t just rage. I could feel it seething through the walls. There was something else in the air… a hunger, a palpable greed. They didn’t just want blood… they wanted something far more insidious.

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Then I saw it… the elder’s ruined body smoldering on the ground. Wisps of acrid smoke curled around him as his flesh melted away. And from his chest, in the center of that decaying mass, an ominous red glow seeped through tattered skin. With each passing second, it grew stronger, more intense, until the flesh gave way entirely, revealing a gleaming, blood-red stone. It was about the size of a grapefruit, jagged and oddly shaped, burning with an inner fire that throbbed in sync with the primal hunger saturating the air.

The Primeval’s stolen power… the very reason we were here. The creatures were fighting to claim it.

I reached down, my hand slick with blood and remnants of the fight, and gripped the stone. It was heavier than I expected as if it pulsed with its own gravity, an insatiable force compressed into this jagged crimson shard. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do with it; I’d thought killing the elder would release the essence back to the Primeval of Hunger. But this… this was solid, dense. Unwilling to fade. I had to think quickly… figure out what to do. I knew where it had to go.

Moving quickly, I returned to Alex’s small, still form. Her breathing was shallow and faint, and her body had curled in a twisted, broken position. But she was alive in her hiding place. I tucked the stone beneath her, burying it between her arm and side, obscuring its glow beneath her form. Light seeped faintly from her edges, casting a dim red hue in the dark slit where I had hidden her away.

I turned back, stepping forward, every ounce of strength and rage thrumming to the surface. I’d be the barrier. Nothing would reach Alex or the stone. I’d kill every last one of these mother fuckers. I had carved a bloody line in the sand they wouldn’t cross. As the snarls grew to a climax and their eyes appeared in the shadows, I braced myself.

I was now the guardian of this chamber, the line they wouldn’t cross. And by the time this was over, the only ones left breathing would be Alex and me… I hoped.

The snarling mouths and twisted claws were closing in; scaling the walls, crawling from shadows, dragging themselves through every crack and crevice toward the beating heart of power they craved. They were here for the relic of Hunger. They wanted power for themselves, never able to steal from the elder, but now ripe for the taking. They’d find nothing but death. Utter obliteration.

They poured into the chamber, first eight, then twelve, more crowding in as they scrambled over each other. All of the eyes gleamed with feral hunger and avarice. I couldn’t let a single one get past me. I couldn’t risk them snatching the stone I’d hidden with Alex. I couldn’t let them near her while she was defenseless.

With a controlled turn, I unfurled my tail, the newly formed muscle rippling with lethal weight, spiked edges gleaming in the dark; blood dripped from each black spike… leftovers from the elder. With the sheer force of a predator unchained, I whipped it around in a brutal arc, swinging with such velocity that my entire body had to act as a counterweight. My tail cleaved through them like a blade through soft flesh. They split apart mid-growl and screams; bones snapping like brittle twigs, limbs separating from torsos in sprays of blood, bodies crumpling to the ground in disjointed pieces. The room became a canvas splattered in gore, remnants of shattered bone and muscle painting the walls… oozing to the floor.

But more came, surging through the entrance in waves, ravenous and relentless. Without a pause, I charged forward, slamming into a group of six that hadn’t even had the chance to react. My talons extended, thick and sharp, and I reached out with my hands transformed into weapons; grasping, crushing, ripping. I felt their flesh give way under my grip, their twisted faces contorting in terror as I tore the life from them with a viciousness that left their remains unrecognizable. Blood drenched the floor in thick pools, and I let myself wade in it, smashing through the bodies, their dying gasps just fueling the monster that raged in me.

It became a blood-soaked blur. I lost track of how many I’d killed, how many bodies I’d shredded, how many heads I’d crushed in my hands like overripe fruit. The essence of my Primeval surged through me, an intoxicating flood of destruction, and the only thought that pulsed in my mind was to kill, to eradicate, to end anything that dared step into my domain. I didn’t count. I didn’t care. Each snap of bone, each final, choking gasp was its reward. Their lives were extinguished in brutal, unforgiving violence, and I reveled in it, drunk on the power, high on the massacre.

Then, suddenly, I found myself standing still. The only sounds in the room were my ragged breaths, hot and shuddering. But it was not from exhaustion… no, this was a thrill. The edge of total abandon, a thirst so deep it nearly swallowed me whole. Bodies littered the floor, torn and broken beyond recognition; pieces strewn so thickly I couldn’t see the ground beneath my feet. Whatever this place had been, whatever purpose it had served, it would be forever stained with the slaughter I’d unleashed.

I felt them, the others, lurking just out of sight, skulking in the darkened corners of the cavernous walls. They retracted themselves away from the building, too afraid to come near. My senses shot out instinctively, an involuntary pulse of awareness, and I felt their cowardice, their fear. The greed that had once driven them here was now replaced by terror, a frantic need to escape. A new beast had claimed the power of Hunger. They couldn’t have it… and they knew it. They fled, never glancing back at the carnage, their hollow eyes wide with horror. They were in the presence of something they didn’t understand; something foreign, something they now understood was stronger than they could ever hope to be.

With a low snarl, I turned my back on the devastation and returned to where I’d left Alex. Her body lay untouched, the small storage nook shielding her from the red-stained wreckage just feet away. Slick arcs of blood painted the stone around her, but only a few stray drops had reached her small refuge. I leaned in to retrieve her, my monstrous hand pausing as I took in what I saw.

Her leg, once a mangled ruin, was healed, the pale flesh smooth and whole. Her pants hung in shreds where the elder’s bone-bladed leg had torn through, but her body was intact, flawless where it had once been savaged. The wound in her chest, where he had pinned her to the wall, was gone, skin unblemished save for the rent fabric and the ghost of red stains. She was breathing steadily, each rise and fall calm and even, with no sign of pain or struggle on her face. My pulse flickered, echoing through her chest as I listened closer, and felt the soft beat of her heart, the rhythmic pulse of her blood. She was healed, somehow, beyond the reach of the brutality she’d suffered.

I grabbed Alex's body with my monstrous hands, pulling her tightly against me, desperate to shield her from the chaos that surrounded us. But as I shifted her, my heart sank. The stone I had sworn to protect was gone. I thrust my claws into the small cupboard, frantically rummaging through the remnants of this place, searching for any sign of it. Anger boiled in my gut, a primal snarl ripping from my throat as frustration gnawed at me. No one had slipped past, no one had gotten close, so where was it?

It was official: the stone was missing. The piece of Hunger, the stolen essence of the elder that had lingered here for ages, was nowhere to be found. A stray thought flickered through my mind, a small hope that it had returned to Hunger's heart, the sickly, feeble core that throbbed somewhere in this forsaken place. That had to be it. But the cold reality weighed heavily on me… whatever had happened, it was not here.

I scanned the room again, taking in every shadow, every crevice, my protective instincts flaring as I assured myself that I hadn’t just dropped it in the slaughter. My mind expanded outward, searching for any trace of the relic, probing the space with a primal urgency. I focused on the feeling I had sensed when I first encountered the elder, trying to connect with the familiar pulse of the primeval essence.

And then, like a beacon, I felt it… the relic’s presence was still in this room, clutched tightly against my chest. But as I shifted my gaze, I realized something crucial. I could no longer see the stone. It had transformed and changed, and the realization hit me like a bolt of lightning. It was inside Alex.

The truth crashed over me, and I felt a surge of protectiveness course through my veins. The stone had found a new home within her. A place where it could relinquish its physical form and do what it was meant to do; to empower. I pressed her body closer into my monstrous form, cradling her gently, fierce determination flooding my senses. Whatever had happened, whatever darkness loomed ahead, I would fight tooth and claw to keep her safe. She was my priority now, and I would destroy anything that dared threaten her to steal back this stone.