Mag Beast Leveling

Vincent glided through the ruins like a specter, his breath steaming in the frigid night air.

The hunger writhed within him, a thing that would not die, crawling in his blood and setting up a voice in his ear.

The city was reduced to rubble, its streets colored by fire and blood.

His prey had escaped, but they were never really gone.

Not until he decided it.

Not until he had consumed their hope.

The echoes of his final hunt still echoed, woman and child sifting through his fingers like ashes.

A mistake. A weakness.

He rolled his shoulders, the hot bite of Vira's displeasure still blazing in the center of his chest.

"You stumble," she said, whispering like breath in his mind.

"You hesitate. You let them go."

Vincent breathed out, raking his claws through the rubble of the broken wall.

The stone crumbled at his touch, dust and debris scattering to the wind.

"I decide," he said, his voice ragged. "Not you."

A chuckle, low and knowing.

"Is that your belief, my king?"

He turned away to concentrate on the trail floating through the rubble.

Blood, hot and thick in the air.

It sang to him, more heady than the best wine.

His mouth slacked, fangs burning with the taste of blood.

Someone was still living, still breathing, still running.

He was moving, his body smooth, easy.

He no longer saw the world around him as he trailed the scent, sliding through the alleys as if he were mist.

The far-off flicker of torchlight, the hushed voices of survivors clustered around the wreck.

A foolish hope, hanging onto the wreckage of a world that no longer had room for them.

Vincent smiled and moved forward.

A whisper of movement. A shift in the air.

He veered, but it was too late then.

Whatever hit him was huge, and it rocked him so hard that the next moment he found himself plowing into the wreckage of a fallen building, pain bursting through his side.

He rolled and snarled, the dust filling his eyes, forcing himself to his feet.

The hunger surged, unraveling his senses, demanding penance.

A shape stepped out of the dark, tall and cloaked in shadow.

Iron hung on them, mixed with something deathly and ancient.

Vincent's eyes narrowed.

This was no mere human.

This was something different.

Something like him.

The stranger moved closer, the roll of the fires marking their shape.

A man, or what once had been a man.

His skin was pale, almost translucent, stretched too much over his bones.

His eyes were empty, holes of black that seemed to swallow the light.

From his fingers extended jagged claws, sparkling with moist blood.

Vincent bared his fangs.

"Who the hell are you? "

The creature cocked its head, a malignant smile splitting its face.

"The stench of her clings to you," it said, voice marred, doubled and redoubled as though more than one creature spoke in unison.

"The parasite inside you."

Vira hissed, recoiling. "I know this stench."

Vincent's grip tightened. "Friend of yours?"

"An enemy.

A blunder that never should have been repeated."

The creature grinned wide, exposing the crooked teeth of jags and points.

"And yet, here I stand.

I hoped for more from the one she has selected."

Muscles tightened on Vincent, hunger coursing through him.

This thing was mocking him, poking at the delicate divide between man and monster.

A challenge. A test.

Good.

He lunged.

The impact was savage, their bodies meeting with the force of a hurricane.

Claw sank into flesh, blood spraying across the ruins.

Vincent twisted, his claws scraping down the beast's torso, shredding sinew and bone.

The thing hardly flinched, its own claws burrowing in Vincent's side, the blow sinking deep.

He hissed, wrenching himself clear, feeling the pain as it only added to his fuel.

It laughed, and it sounded broken and grating.

"Not enough," it whispered.

Vincent wiped his bloodied lips clean.

"I haven't even started."

He summoned Vira, sensed her power flow through him, and their merging became more intimate.

His body writhed, claws bursting forth, muscles rippling and clenching.

His eye sharpened, the world in bright hues.

He could sense how the creature moved, how its muscles hardened, how its breath stuttered just slightly before it leapt.

He avoided it, quicker now, tougher.

His fist hit the fucking thing's jaw, staggering it back.

A moment of triumph.

Then searing pain.

A hand-stab thrust through Vincent's torso like a spear, the creature's arm extended.

He wheezed, blood pooling around his lips, his body resisting the intrusion.

He staggered, vision swimming.

Vira screamed inside his head.

"No! No, no, no."

The creature leaned close, breath putrid.

"You are not the only one who eats."

Vincent's vision darkened.

His body was faltering, his mind fading.

That once-constant hunger now felt distant, muted.

He was dying.

Vira howled, a presence coursing through him, overwhelming, feral.

"You will not take him away from me!"

A blast of heat erupted inside him, a violent jolt of energy that propelled him in a throw.

Vincent fell to his knees, gasping, his body fighting to hold itself together.

His torso, the wound miraculously closing, the flesh grinding itself back to correct shape at an excruciating pace.

The thing snarled, its shape flickering.

"This is not over," it said, its voice hoarse.

Vincent righted himself, panting.

"Damn right it isn't."

But the thing was already drifting away, disappearing into the night like smoke.

Vira had gone silent, but he could sense her trembling inside him, caught between the two stimuli, the anger and the fear.

He breathed out, releasing the pain.

His hunger was still there, deeper and darker.

Because this enemy had drawn blood and made him feel something he had not felt in a long time.

Vulnerable.

His fingers bore to twitch, his claws yearning to shred something, anything, to reclaim his dominance. But night wore on, and there was still so much to hunt.

He faced the city, toward the smell of the survivors still so foolishly holding onto life.

The hunt was far from over.

And neither was the war.