The abomination howled.
Not a roar of rage. A wail. A broken symphony of stitched vocal cords and fractured humanity. The sound echoed through the arena—high-pitched, layered, like a hundred different mouths crying out at once. Mason braced himself, claws digging into the cracked ground, eyes glowing like smoldering gold.
The air distorted. The thing charged.
It moved like a nightmare—too fast for its size, unnaturally fluid. Its limbs dragged and snapped, twisting into new joints mid-lunge. Bones jutted from open wounds, its own flesh folding in on itself like origami in reverse. Where it should've been slowed by agony, it was instead empowered. Like pain fueled it.
Mason met it halfway, slamming into the beast with the force of a speeding truck.
Claw met metal. Flesh tore. The impact cracked the earth, flinging dirt and blood into the air like confetti. Mason raked his claws across its chest—one, two, three deep slashes—but the monster didn't falter. It retaliated with a bone-armored elbow, catching Mason in the ribs. The sound of crunching cartilage cracked like a tree branch.
He staggered back, gasping.
It was strong. Stronger than expected.
He smirked through the pain.
Good.
The abomination lunged again, maw split open horizontally now, revealing a sickening spiral of teeth that churned like gears. Mason rolled beneath it, leaving deep claw marks across its exposed underbelly, slicing through a tangle of pus-filled tubes and twitching organs. Dark sludge splattered across his face, hissing like acid.
He growled.
Not from pain—he was used to pain.
From memory.
Amy. Her name slipped through the cracks in his mind like poison gas, invading his focus.
He saw her lips on Toby's.
He saw her tears when she ran to him—like she wasn't the same girl kissing someone else seconds earlier.
He roared and slammed his claws into the abomination's left leg, severing it at the knee. The creature collapsed, screaming. Its body convulsed, reforming, absorbing nearby debris into its open wounds. Metal and bone restructured, forming a jagged new leg within seconds.
Adaptation. Regeneration.
This wasn't going to be easy.
And that's why he was here.
From above, behind the shadows of a broken observation tower, a figure watched.
Still. Silent. Unseen.
Eyes tracking every movement. Every wound. Every roar. Every flicker of pain behind Mason's fury.
She didn't move.
She didn't blink.
She simply watched.
Back on the battlefield, Mason's breath grew ragged. Blood soaked his fur, some of it his, most of it not. The abomination charged again—its limbs now an asymmetric mass of jagged edges and blade-like bone protrusions. It struck with a flurry of swipes, forcing Mason on the defensive.
Claw parried claw. Flesh ripped. A rib snapped.
Mason snarled, pushed back, then rolled and spun behind the beast, leaping onto its back with an enraged howl. He drove his claws into the base of its neck, tearing downward, splitting a gaping trench through vertebrae and spinal tissue.
The creature shrieked and flailed violently, slamming backward into the arena wall, crushing Mason against it. His bones cracked audibly. Pain flared through his shoulder. He bit down on his lip until he tasted blood.
"Focus," he muttered.
"Forget her."
He tried. Gods, he tried.
But grief lingered like a curse. It wasn't just the betrayal—it was the illusion of love being shattered. The truth that everything he'd built with Amy had meant nothing. That trust could be so fragile. That he had been so naive.
The creature spun and punched, a club-like limb smashing into Mason's jaw, flinging him across the arena. He hit the ground hard, bounced once, rolled, then slid to a stop.
Dust settled.
He lay still.
Blood dripped from his mouth. His vision blurred.
For a second, the world dulled. Everything slowed. He saw stars—real ones this time—floating above the dome's glitching sky.
And then…
A voice. His own.
"No alcohol. No smoking. No drugs. No running."
His rules.
His identity.
He'd kept them like scripture after his parents withered away, after the streets chewed him up and spat him into this supernatural system of training, blood, and combat.
He wasn't here because he was broken.
He was here because he refused to be.
With a snarl, Mason surged forward. His wounds burned, but his mind was fire.
He ducked under a swipe and leapt again—this time higher, faster. He landed on the beast's shoulder, clawing through its eyes—each grotesque orb bursting in a wet spray of dark bile. The creature thrashed, but Mason didn't stop.
He carved downward, into its chest. Past the corrupted muscle. Past the armor plating. Past the twitching, shrieking head embedded in its torso.
And found it.
The core.
A pulsating black organ, beating like a war drum—unnatural, fused with tech, magic, and something else… something rotten.
Mason gripped it with both hands.
And ripped.
The abomination let out one final, apocalyptic scream.
Then silence.
Its body collapsed, twitching violently, then stilled. Limbs froze. Its jaw hung open in a grotesque final breath. Black ooze pooled beneath it like tar.
Mason stood over it. Covered in blood. Panting. Barely able to remain upright.
He won.
But it wasn't clean. His ribs were cracked. His shoulder hung at an angle. His legs were trembling from blood loss and fatigue. His face was bruised and bleeding. But he was still standing.
He looked down at the dead thing.
And then up.
He felt it.
Someone watching.
His ears twitched. His eyes scanned the tower ruins, but there was no movement.
Just shadow.
Wind.
Stillness.
Somewhere high above, the hidden figure remained.
She didn't speak. She didn't move.
But her breath had caught in her throat when Mason fell.
And now that he stood victorious, bloodied but unbowed…
She exhaled. Just once.
Soft.
Like relief.