I pressed the button.

And oh boy—

I really thought I had outsmarted him.

But the bastard outsmarted me instead.

The moment my finger clicked the switch, every instinct I had screamed at me to run.

A primal, bone-deep warning.

Too late.

"Ha… ha… HAHAHA!"

A gurgling, wet laugh echoed through the lab. It didn't sound human anymore—more like something bubbling up from a throat that wasn't made for laughter.

I looked down.

Eldric—what was left of him—was writhing on the ground. His body convulsed, veins bulging like black serpents beneath his skin. The veins pulsed with faint crimson light, crawling upward toward his face as the air filled with the stench of sulfur and burning flesh.

"I didn't want to resort to this," he rasped, his voice warping, breaking apart into layers that didn't belong together. Then, with a sickening crack of bone, he stood. "But since it's come to this… you'll witness the pinnacle of my research!"

The transformation began.

His skin split open like fragile parchment, and something darker pushed its way out. A sound—half roar, half scream—ripped from his throat as his spine arched unnaturally. His torso stretched, ribs bursting through flesh before knitting again into grotesque, twisted armor.

Black, oily mass poured from him, reshaping, reforming. Bones elongated, flesh warped, organs pulsed beneath a translucent membrane. Within seconds, the man was gone—what stood there was an abomination, a monster that defied logic.

He grew rapidly, swelling until his head brushed the ceiling—and then kept growing. Stone cracked. Iron supports screamed. The ceiling gave way under his expanding frame, dust and rubble cascading around us.

"Get back!" I shouted.

Mariella reacted instantly, raising her staff. A translucent dome of blue light enveloped us, the debris shattering harmlessly against it. The sound of destruction drowned out everything—until Celestia's voice broke through, trembling.

"In the Goddess's name… what is that?"

Elisha, her bow trembling in her grip, stammered, "A d-demon… he fused with a demon!"

I cursed under my breath.

"That son of a bitch…"

Through the collapsing dust, the creature straightened—now easily over two meters tall, maybe more. Its shape was an unholy patchwork:

One arm was scaled, taloned like a wyvern's claw. The other was swollen and veined, resembling a giant's arm stitched from raw flesh. Its legs mismatched—one ending in a hoof, the other a mass of jagged bone and sinew. A spine of black spikes jutted from its back like shattered wings.

Where its face should have been was a mess of overlapping jaws, eyes blinking out of sync—some human, others slit-pupiled and glowing red.

It was alive, but only barely coherent—an amalgamation of everything Eldric had ever dissected, combined into his final masterpiece of insanity.

The roof finally collapsed entirely, and the monster rose through it, breaking into the night.

The sky above was pitch black, moonlight veiled by clouds. Only the faint gleam of its molten veins illuminated its form—a silhouette of sin against the stars.

Its roar tore through the air, shaking the very ground beneath us.

And in that moment, staring up at the thing born from one man's madness, I realized—

this wasn't a fight we could walk away from unscathed.

[Ice Lance!]

[Water Cannon!]

Blinding flashes of blue and silver split the night. Celestia's magic flared with divine precision, her frost forming dozens of razor-sharp lances that tore through the air, while Mariella's water magic surged like a tidal wave beside her.

The spells struck the monster head-on—

—and shattered like glass.

The lances broke upon its hide, scattering into frost dust. The water spells splashed uselessly, vaporizing into mist against the creature's dark flesh.

Elisha fired arrow after arrow, her shots guided by glowing threads of mana. Each one hit dead center—

but not one left so much as a scratch.

Eldric—no, the thing that used to be Eldric—laughed. A hideous, distorted sound that seemed to echo from every mouth and eye on his twisted body.

"Pathetic! You worms!" The voice was layered, a dozen tones of madness spilling out of one throat. "You stand before the pinnacle of synthesis magic! Worship me!"

He lifted one grotesque arm—half bone, half molten sinew—and the earth itself trembled. "You should die on your knees, not even daring to resist!"

Then he ignored them.

As if they didn't matter.

As if swatting flies wasn't worth his effort.

"I'll crush you, then this kingdom," he rumbled, his bulk rising higher. "I'll turn this empire into the next foundation for my evolution."

Celestia's breathing was uneven, sweat and frost on her brow. "Where are the city knights? With all this noise—someone should have come by now!"

"They won't," I said grimly, reloading my shotgun. "We're in the slums. No patrols come here. They won't even notice until this bastard's halfway through the district."

Elisha's knuckles whitened around her bow. "By then… it'll be too late."

Before we could regroup, a red glow built in Eldric's chest.

"Move!" I shouted.

A massive orb of black-red energy burst from him—

—silent, then howling as it tore through the street.

We barely rolled aside before it hit.

BOOOOOOM!

The blast swallowed half the road. Buildings folded like paper, fire blooming outward in a wave of crushing heat. The shockwave sent us tumbling. I hit the ground hard, my ears ringing, lungs screaming for air.

When I looked up, the world was chaos. Flames, dust, smoke—and the monster looming in the center like a dark god.

Celestia struggled to stand, blood at the corner of her lips. Mariella's shield spell was flickering, spiderweb cracks crawling across the barrier. Elisha's bowstring had snapped, her hands shaking.

"Celestia!" Mariella screamed. She threw another spell—[Barrier of the Tides]—barely deflecting a follow-up strike. The shockwave still sent cracks splintering through the cobblestone.

Elisha tried to draw again, but a tendril shot from Eldric's back, snatching her bow mid-pull and ripping it from her hands. She fell back, rolling across the dirt, narrowly avoiding another swing that carved a trench where she'd been standing.

"Damn it!" I cursed, firing.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

My shotgun rounds—mana-infused—ripped into his chest, exploding against his flesh. But the monster barely staggered. The wounds closed with a nauseating squelch as black tissue regenerated instantly.

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