The Shrieker opened its mouth. No sound came out. A ripple distorted the air instead. The visible wave shot directly at Luthra. Lilith’s voice panicked in his mind, but the wave already hit him. His world dissolved into pure agony. Every molecule in his body vibrated apart. His vision went white, his thoughts shattered, his control slipped. The door he had cracked open in his soul was kicked down from the other side. The mad, giggling whisper he had heard before roared now. ’Finally! A real fight! Let’s play!’ His head snapped up. His eyes blazed with manic, predatory light. An unnatural grin split his face. Rebecca watched from her perch on the rock. Cold dread washed over her. Darkness exploded outward from him. The tangible aura of negative energy made the trees recoil. The other Shriekers hiding in the gloom froze. Their predator instincts screamed that the thing under the tree was no longer prey. It was something far worse. The first Shrieker opened its mouth for a second blast. The new Luthra laughed, sharp and unhinged. He was no longer by the tree. He was in the air, above the Shrieker, his broken arms held out to his sides. He dropped down with his knee, driving it into the creature’s head. The impact sounded like a melon hitting concrete. The Shrieker’s body collapsed, its legs buckling as its skull caved in. Before the body hit the ground, he was moving. The black chain shot from his arm like a living serpent of black iron. It spiraled around the neck of a second Shrieker preparing to attack from the side. The Shrieker’s head came off. Two more creatures lunged from the darkness. He reappeared between them, his back to both. He kicked backward with his left foot, catching one under the chin and sending it flying. He stomped his right foot on the ground. A spike of black energy erupted from the earth beneath the second creature, impaling it from below. Rebecca watched from the rock, her body frozen. This wasn’t the man who had trained her, who had patched her up. This was a demon wearing his face. His movements weren’t human. Too fast, too efficient, too brutal. He wasn’t fighting. He was dismantling the monsters with terrifying, joyful sadism. In his mind, the real Luthra fought a different battle. ’Stop! That’s enough! You are tearing me apart! ’But they’re fun animals! Look how they pop!’ The manic voice giggled as his body whipped the chain around. Its end smashed through the chests of two more Shriekers in one fluid motion. He could feel the power surging through him. The drop of madness he had taken from the seal wasn’t just a power source. It was a personality, a parasite at the wheel, having the time of its life. [Luthra, you have to regain control! This level of output is shredding your soul! The seal is destabilizing!] ’I’m trying! It won’t listen!’ Ten Shriekers were dead. The remaining half-dozen hesitated. Terror overwhelmed their predatory instincts. They began backing away into the shadows. "No, no, no! The game isn’t over yet! Don’t run!" His body shot forward, a blur of black energy. He tore through the remaining creatures with savage grace, breaking wings, shattering bones, crushing heads until the forest was silent. The ground was littered with broken bodies of the D-Rank monsters. He stood in the center of the carnage, chest heaving, the manic grin still stretched across his face. He turned his attention to Rebecca. "You look fun, play with me!" He charged. She screamed and ran, the forest swallowing the sound like it was nothing. ’He’s going to kill me, he’s really going to kill me.’ She scrambled over a twisted root, her clothes catching and tearing on the bark. He stayed right behind her, laughing like something had broken in his mind. "Where are you going? The game’s not over!" Inside his own mind, Luthra watched everything happen, trapped like a prisoner in his own skull. He saw his hands reaching for the terrified child, saw his face twisted into that horrible grin. ’No! Stop! That’s a kid!’ The other consciousness giggled in his head. ’She’s a toy! And she’s fast!’ Rebecca slipped, her feet sliding out from under her. It was all the opening he needed. He was on her in an instant, grabbing her arm and yanking her off her feet like she weighed nothing. He threw her against a tree trunk hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs. He slapped her across the face, the force sending her spinning to the ground. She landed hard on her side, a cry of pain escaping before she could stop it. She tried crawling away, her hands scrabbling in the dirt for purchase. He kicked her in the ribs, rolling her over onto her back. "Get up! The game’s not fun if you just lie there." He grabbed a handful of her hair and lifted her head from the ground, making her look at him. Tears were mixing with dirt on her face now, leaving muddy tracks down her cheeks. "Stop? But we just started!" He hit her again, harder this time. Inside, Luthra roared against the overwhelming power. ’THAT’S ENOUGH!’ But fighting it was like trying to stop a flood with bare hands, like screaming into a hurricane. His body kicked her again, and something cracked inside her. She curled into a ball, her whole body shaking with sobs. Her arms wrapped over her head, trying to protect herself from the next blow. "I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! Please, I’ll be good, I promise! Please stop!" Luthra went completely still. ’That voice. Those words.’ He’d heard them before, in her story about her father. She wasn’t talking to him anymore. She was talking to a ghost, and he was the one holding the fist. Cold rage rose from somewhere deep in his core, nothing like the wild madness of his power. This was his own anger, pure and focused. ’This is my body. This is my will. And you will not hurt this kid.’ He focused everything he had, every shred of himself, into one unbreakable command. His body froze mid-swing, the fist hanging inches from Rebecca’s curled form. The mad voice screamed inside his head, thrashing like a caged animal. ’No! I was having fun! Let me GO!’ ’You are part of me. That means you listen to me.’ He couldn’t destroy the power, he knew that. But he could lock it away. He imagined a cage deep in his soul, a prison where the screaming thing would stay until he called for it. The dark energy swirling around him collapsed inward, flowing like black ink into his right arm. It burned patterns into his skin from wrist to shoulder, the pain so intense he almost lost consciousness right there. When it ended, a tattoo remained on his arm. A black serpent, coiled and sleeping. [’Incredible. He created a containment seal on his own. He forced his own Path into existence to protect her. My master is...’] His body swayed, the wild light vanishing from his eyes, replaced by hollow emptiness. He collapsed to the forest floor, unconscious before he hit the ground. Rebecca stayed curled in her ball for a long time, her body trembling even after the sounds stopped. The forest had gone silent again, that terrible waiting quiet. She finally peeked out from between her arms, checking if the monster was still there.