The sky split with thunder.
Kaelren didn't flinch.
He stood alone on the corpse-littered ridge, armor wet with blood—some his, most not. His breath steamed in the air, slow and measured, though his heart hammered like a war drum in his chest. Across the haze-choked battlefield, through the thick mist and the stench of rot, it came.
The Beast-Tide Alpha.
It stepped from the fog like a nightmare given form—twelve feet tall, plated in living bone. Its body was hunched like a gorilla's, but the movement was serpentine, deliberate. Chitinous plates jutted from its shoulders in crooked spires, each lined with small, twitching growths—eyestalks, tendrils, or mouths. Its arms were long and muscled, ending in four-jointed claws large enough to crush a man's skull like a fruit. Its chest expanded with each breath, exhaling steam tainted with the scent of sulfur and blood.
And its eyes—
Twin coals of molten orange, locked on Kaelren.
It didn't roar.
It watched.
Measured.
Kaelren stepped forward, cracking his neck to the left, then the right. The ground crunched beneath his boots. The Gene Refinement Sutra burned within him like a second heart—pumping power into every limb. His muscles tensed, his new blood Qi roaring like a wildfire.
The Alpha charged.
And Kaelren ran to meet it.
They collided like gods falling from the sky.
The Alpha struck first—a hammering downward claw, massive and fast. Kaelren rolled under it, shoulder dragging through gore-slick mud, then launched upward, driving his fist into the Alpha's ribs. The impact echoed like steel on steel—bone met bone, but Kaelren did not stop.
He twisted, elbow slamming into the Alpha's gut.
The beast grunted—a sound too human, too wrong.
It backhanded him.
Kaelren flew twenty feet through the air, slammed into the stone wall of the ridge, and bounced—rolling back to his feet mid-slide. Blood dripped from his mouth. His jaw hung loose for a second… then snapped back into place with a sickening click.
The Alpha was already coming.
It lunged.
Kaelren leapt forward—not away, into the strike—ducked beneath the raking claws and drove his knee up into the creature's chin. Chitin cracked. The beast stumbled. Kaelren grabbed a tusk growing from its shoulder and pulled himself onto its back.
He rained punches into the back of its skull.
One. Two. Three. Crack.
The beast bucked, slamming its back against a rock spire—Kaelren snarled in pain, one rib giving way—but he didn't fall. He drove a boot-blade into the creature's spine, anchoring himself. With both hands, he gripped one of the twitching eyestalks growing from its shoulder and ripped it out by the root.
The Alpha screamed.
A psychic howl—pain, rage, hate—exploded through the air.
Kaelren staggered, head pounding, but didn't fall.
Instead, he bit down on the still-moving eyestalk and spat it to the ground.
The Alpha threw itself backward, crashing into the ridge wall again and again until Kaelren finally tore free, flipping in midair and landing hard in the mud. A shadow fell over him.
The Alpha descended like an avalanche—both claws raised.
Kaelren caught one.
The impact drove him into the ground. His legs sank knee-deep in shattered rock. The second claw raked down and tore through his shoulder, peeling armor and flesh in a spray of blood.
He didn't scream.
He grabbed the claw, fingers sinking into the beast's wrist, and yanked.
The Alpha shrieked as Kaelren twisted its arm and broke it sideways with a crunch that silenced the ridge.
Then Kaelren leapt.
He landed on the beast's chest and unleashed hell.
Fist. Fist. Elbow. Knee. Headbutt.
Each strike was its own war.
The Alpha retaliated—biting, raking, throwing its good arm—but Kaelren dodged, tanked, endured. When its claws opened his side, he answered with a knee to the throat that made it gag. When it grabbed his leg to fling him off, he braced with one arm and snapped its finger with the other.
Blood sprayed. Bones shattered. Flesh tore.
They rolled through the trench, trading brutality blow for blow—two monsters locked in a killing rhythm that shook the ridge.
Kaelren's armor was dented, soaked, hissing as blood-Qi surged around his body.
Kaelren's body could be described with one word, bad.
But he kept moving.
He twisted low, ducked under a wild backhand, then jumped, spinning in midair, and drove both heels into the side of the Alpha's skull.
The impact cracked the bone. The Alpha stumbled. Kaelren landed behind it, slid, then shot forward—shoulder-first—into its spine.
It fell to one knee.
He mounted its back again.
Wrapped his arm around its throat.
And began to squeeze.
Veins bulged in Kaelren's arms. His muscles screamed. Blood streamed from his side and shoulder. But his eyes were locked—feral, blazing, inhuman.
The Alpha thrashed.
Its claws tore gouges in the ground.
It slammed backward. Over and over.
Kaelren did not let go.
Then—
A burst of beast Qi erupted from the beast's chest, blasting Kaelren off with force like a bomb.
He hit the far wall of the trench hard enough to crack it.
Dirt and stone rained down.
He slid to his knees, gasping, head ringing.
The Alpha stood.
Bleeding. Limping.
And laughing.
A horrible, gurgling sound.
Kaelren raised his eyes. His lips split in a slow, red grin.
He wasn't done.
He was just getting started.
Kaelren stood.
Slowly.
One foot grounded in blood-soaked earth, the other braced against broken stone. His left arm hung limp, skin torn down to sinew. His ribs groaned with each breath. But his stance—unshaken.
The Alpha came forward.
Slower now. Limping. Its right arm hung useless, the bone twisted backward. Chitin plates along its spine cracked and drooping. Black ichor leaked from a dozen wounds. But those eyes—still ember-hot, still calculating.
Kaelren lifted both fists.
They began again.
The Alpha roared, but this time, the sound was more than volume. It vibrated. Air shimmered. Sound twisted. The roar carried a wave of disorienting force— beast Qi laced with blood-deep resonance.
Kaelren stumbled as vertigo hit, a psychic pulse trying to tear his balance away.
Then he slammed his foot into the ground.
The impact cracked the stone beneath him and broke the Alpha's illusion.
"No," he growled, voice raw.
The Alpha moved in an instant—faster than before.
Its broken arm hung, but its claws flashed. With its good limb, it launched a downward slash so fast it warped the air. Kaelren dodged sideways, just in time. The wind from the claw strike carved a trench where his head had been.
Kaelren slid under the follow-up, grabbed a loose stone with his good hand, and jammed it into the beast's wounded thigh. It screamed.
He drove his forehead into its snout—once, twice, again—until its skull split open and black fluid poured down.
The Alpha's tail whipped around—
Kaelren caught it.
Not dodged. Caught.
It slammed him into a wall, dragged him twenty feet, then tried to whip him over the edge—but Kaelren held on, climbed the tail, and sank his boot-blade through the tendons.
The Alpha screamed.
Kaelren swung around its body and plunged his elbow into the side of its neck, tearing through a gill-like slit that leaked boiling air and fetid stench. The beast slammed backward. He twisted midair, landed hard, skidded—then launched forward again.
Fist to thigh.
Palm to rib.
Knee to chin.
Toe-blade to the underside of its jaw, upward, severing nerves.
The Alpha dropped to one knee.
Kaelren's body was wrecked. Torn armor. Cracked bones. Blood in his eyes. But his Sutra burned hotter than ever—each drop of pain feeding it. Each breath filled with raw Blood Qi, coiling tighter.
Inside, something shifted.
A click in his bones.
A snap in his spine.
Not breaking. Changing.
His beast blood surged. Muscles tightened. Vision sharpened.
Every sound slowed.
The Alpha rose once more—one final charge.
Kaelren moved faster.
He ducked the Alpha's swing, slipped inside its reach, and drove a spinning elbow into its solar plexus. Then—
Uppercut to the jaw. Bone cracked. Teeth sprayed.
Spinning knee to the chest. The chitin dented.
Backhand to the side of the neck. A crack.
And finally—
Kaelren leapt into the air, twisted mid-spin, and came down with a double stomp onto the Alpha's spine with all his weight and power behind it.
The trench collapsed beneath the force.
The Alpha hit the ground and did not move.
Kaelren landed beside it, one knee in the dirt.
Breathing heavy.
Blood steaming from his skin.
His body swirled with unspent Blood Qi—alive, trembling on the edge of evolution. But he did not push it.
Not yet.
Not until it mattered.
He stood slowly. Spat blood. Then turned.
The ridge was his.
The Alpha was broken.
The Beast-Tide Alpha twitched once.
Then stopped.
Kaelren stood over it, blood pouring from his side, his vision tunneling. The Gene Refinement Sutra raged in his bones, coiling tighter, ready to evolve—but his body had nothing left.
He swayed.
Took one step back.
And collapsed.
His body hit the earth with a dull, final thud, half-buried in beast gore and shattered stone. His eyes fluttered, then closed. The ridge fell silent.
A minute passed.
Then footsteps.
The battalion that arrived just before the final, rushed into the already won battle field.
To help him.
one young man—barely standing height compared to the monsters around him—collapsed, unmoving, next to a corpse that had terrorized the front for days and nearly caused blood Point to fall.
He was An Ashwalker.
A scout sprinted toward Kaelren's body. It was the same scout who had filmed him earlier, still gripping the communicator. Still streaming.
He dropped to one knee, checked Kaelren's pulse. It was there—weak, but steady.
"He's alive!" the scout shouted. "He's still alive!"
But the signal didn't stop there.
At Forge Front Command Tent
War Commander Zorakh Vann leaned forward, eyes narrowed as the projection rune flared before him. The scout's stream had been auto-flagged. The footage played in silence—Kaelren's fight from start to finish, his blows more monster than man, his rage beyond anything they'd trained.
Then came the Alpha's death.
Then Kaelren's collapse.
Zorakh didn't speak.
He tapped a rune.
"Send the feed."
"To where, sir?" a lieutenant asked.
Zorakh's voice was iron.
"To everywhere."
Within Minutes
The battle feed surged through runic channels, amplified by tower relays and beast-bone conductors. The Ashwalker network pulsed. Then the military channels. Then the warfront lines. Then Blood Gloom City.
And beyond.
Tens of thousands watched it from dark mess halls, barracks, trench outposts, slave pits, and elite towers.
In taverns and fortress walls, the footage ran again and again.
Kaelren.
Alone.
Defiant.
Covered in blood and beast bile, fighting like an ancient war-god dragged from myth.
Kaelrens fight ignited the spirit of all the warriors on the Eastern front. With no Commands or missions, hot blooded Gene refinement warrior of all ranks charged Into the Eastern front in a frenzy. The beasts lost over fifty miles of territory in a single night.
L
Blood Gloom City
Crowds gathered at holo-screens in the plazas. children stared open-mouthed. Synth merchants stopped trading. Gene Warriors raised their fists.
"The Fleshstorm," they shouted.
Again.
And again.
Kaelren kinda hated the name,but for the citizens of blood Gloom City it was his name.
Even in the high fortress In the heart of Bloodfang Clan, The capital.
An ancient city built on blackened obsidian cliffs—the feed reached.
Bloodlords watched. Silent. Calculating.
While Kaelren's battle was impressive for the weaker.
The bloodlord where happy that the front line was pushed back over 50 miles.
They immediately ordered reinforcements to the Eastern Front, and strike while the iron was hot.
Back at the Ridge
Kaelren was lifted gently by the scout and two soldiers. His body was ragged—flesh peeled, armor dented, hair matted with dried blood.
But his breathing never stopped.
Not once.
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