Mag Beast Leveling

Before him lay a city in ruins.

Flames licked at the broken skyline, throwing twisted shadows on the crumbling walls.

There were bodies in the streets civilians, soldiers, Guardians.

The cobblestones were covered with deep, glistening pools of blood, the fickle firelight dancing on the surface of a sea of crimson.

Vincent was at the center of it all, inhaling the destruction as a wolf would sniff at the corpse of a freshly killed animal.

His new flesh thrummed with power, every heartbeat a cadence against the hunger eating at his insides.

A silk and steel voice inside Vira purred through him.

"More," she whispered.

Vincent tensed his shoulders, experimenting with the pointed edge of his own fleece, sifting through the very fabric of flesh, scratching the thin pad of palm. His flesh parted readily, dark ichor oozing from the tear.

It didn't hurt. It was almost… pleasurable.

His smile was unnaturally wide.

"Soon," he mumbled, licking blood off his fingers.

Now it tasted richer corrupted, potent.

He had dined on divinity, and he was not the man he used to be.

His gaze wandered to the shattered doors of the Citadel at his back.

The last bastions of this place had fallen to his talons.

The Guardians were no more. No one remained to stop him.

Full-bleed to P2: And yet there were still the ones who ran.

Vincent raised his head, taking a deep inhalation.

The stench of terror hung in the air, rich and euphoric. Survivors.

They were weaklings who had fled, holding onto irrationally optimistic fantasies that they could escape what was coming.

They would learn.

Vincent advanced, his talons scraping among the destroyed stone.

Every step rang like a death knell. He could hear them now the labored breaths, the rushed footsteps, the muffled cries of the hopeless.

"Hunt them," Vira whispered, her voice curling around his mind like a lover's embrace.

"Make them beg. Make them understand."

A chill skittered down his spine, but not from the cold.

This was what he had become.

This was what he had always been destined to be.

A king of monsters.

He had moved silently, a phantom gliding through the ruins.

The night lasted long and dark, and he savored the way the city rotted under his rule.

A flicker of movement.

Vincent stopped short, tilting his head.

In one of the wrecked alleys, a group of them crouched together some men, a few women, a child clutching a tattered doll.

Pathetic.

Vincent walked out of the crackling firelight, the shadows wrapping around him as though they were alive. One of the men turned, eyes frozen in fear.

"Gods, no…"

Vincent grinned. "Gods?" His voice was velvet and venom.

"They abandoned you long before I ever got here."

The man lunged brave, foolish.

Rusted sword in quaking fingers.

Vincent didn't care to evade.

The blade struck his ribs and ricocheted off, the dulled metal useless against the monster he was now.

He grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him without effort.

His claws sunk into flesh, hot blood running down his wrist.

The man was choking, his legs spasming uselessly.

"Please," one of the women cried.

"Don't"

Vincent squeezed. Bone crunched.

The man's body went limp.

He dropped the corpse to the ground with a dull thump.

"Run," he said, his voice heavy with mirth.

"Go on. It won't make a difference."

The survivors paused for just a moment before instinct kicked in.

They fled into the dark, screams ringing in their wake.

Vincent didn't chase them. Not yet.

He enjoyed the thrill of the hunt that moment when hope became despair, when they understood they would never be free of him.

"You like this too much," Vira teased, her voice honey sweet.

"Not enough," Vincent hissed back.

His eyes drifted over to the woman who had pleaded.

She hadn't run.

She dropped to her knees next to the child, wrapping trembling arms around him.

"Brave," Vincent muttered, moving toward her. "Or just stupid?"

The woman lifted her chin, defiant, even behind the tears that streaked her dirt-covered face.

"Please. The child."

Vincent knelt in front of them, his forearms on his knees. "You think I care?"

Terror flickered in her eyes, but she met his gaze.

"You used to."

There was nothing wavering in Vincent's smile, but deep inside him a twist formed.

Something old. Something weak.

Her face…

But a memory emerged, unwelcome, unwanted.

The Ilha das Cobras, telling the carcasses of our feet that it is a summer afternoon, laughing.

A hand in his.

A voice, whispering his name, with something like fear.

Vincent blinked.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, the hunger stopped.

Just for a moment.

And then he crushed it.

"You hesitate," Vira said, her voice thick with warning.

Vincent let out a slow breath, rolling his shoulders.

He reached for her, running his fingers over the woman's cheek.

She jolted, though she didn't recoil.

His claws moved lower, finding her throat, her collarbone.

He could hear the panicked drum of her heart and taste her fear in the air.

But he didn't rip her apart.

Not yet.

Rather, he leaned forward, his lips brushing the shell of her ear.

"Run," he whispered.

She didn't hesitate.

She scooped up the child and ran into the night, disappearing into the rubble.

Vincent watched them leave, something unreadable in his face.

"Why did you let them live?" Vira's voice coiled around his mind, an equal mix of curiosity and warning.

Vincent didn't respond immediately.

He gazed at the blood on his hands, at the ruins of the world he had built.

"Because I wanted to," he said at last.

Vira was quiet for a long silence.

"Easy now, Vincent," she finally said, the tone gentler.

"You're beginning to sound human."

Vincent's jaw tightened.

He pushed himself up onto his feet, brushing off thoughts lingering, clawing at the back of his head.

He pivoted, stepping over the body at his feet, and took one last glance at the shadowy streets.

The city was his.

The world was his.

But even kings had ghosts.

And some shadows never really receded.

Vincent breathed deep, tasting blood and fire in the wind.

"Let them run," he murmured, more to himself than to Vira.

A cruel smile flared; malice returned.

"It just makes the hunt more enjoyable."

And with that, Vincent entered the darkness.