Hiraya opened her eyes to a world blurred by pain and the lingering scent of ozone. The first thing she saw was a silhouette—a jagged shadow standing against the moonlight. It was a boy in a tattered robe, but he was no longer the fragile "mutt" she had pulled from the mud. His body was wreathed in a pulsing, liquid aura of crimson light. It flowed like silk and hissed like steam, a shroud of blood-shadows that defied the laws of the world.

  “S-Sugat...?” her voice was a ghost of a sound. “You’re alive!”

  The Black Hound Aswang skidded back, its massive paws tearing trenches into the dirt. Neyoundo’s obsidian eyes narrowed, his snout wrinkling in a bestial sneer. “How!” he roared, the sound vibrating through the very marrow of Hiraya’s bones. “The blade took your heart! How do you still draw breath!”

  With a guttural growl, Neyoundo reached back with a clawed hand, gripping the crystallized shards of blood Sugat had buried in his shoulder. With a sickening crunch, he tore them out and crushed them into dust within his palm.

  “I do not know where you stole this power, freak,” Neyoundo snarled, his ivory fangs glinting. “But it is useless! A dying spark before the sun!”

  Sugat didn't answer. He didn't even seem to hear. His gaze was fixed on the monster, his eyes burning with a red, starlit fire that eclipsed the moon. With a sudden, violent motion, he thrust his hand forward. The ground beneath the Aswang erupted. Massive, glowing spikes of crystallized blood shot upward with the speed of a lightning strike.

  Neyoundo yelped, a sound more dog than man, as he threw his massive weight to the side. The spikes missed his throat by an inch, impaling the air where he had stood. As the beast scrambled for footing, he realized the truth of the maneuver. The attack wasn't meant to kill him—it was a wall. A barricade designed to lure him away from the broken, bleeding girl on the forest floor.

  Sugat rushed to Hiraya’s side. He moved with a strange, fluid grace, as if the blood-aura around him was carrying his weight. He knelt, his hands—now circling with that terrifying crimson glow—lifting her with a tenderness that made her heart ache. He placed her behind the safety of an ancient, moss-covered stone.

  “How did you...?” Hiraya whispered, staring at his healed chest.

  Sugat looked down at his palms. The blood didn't just sit on his skin; it danced, humming with a dark, ancient frequency. “The Shadow Phoenix,” he confessed, his voice sounding deeper, as if echoed by the wind. “It gave me this. It gave me a choice.”

  Hiraya’s breath caught. The Phoenix of her visions wasn't just a sign; it was a pact.

  Before another word could be traded, a sharp whistle cut through the air. Neyoundo had recovered. He swung a massive claw, sending a crescent wave of compressed wind—a blade of air that threatened to cleave both boy and witch in two. Sugat didn't flinch. He gestured, and a dozen blood-spikes surged from the earth to meet the wind-slash. The collision resulted in a deafening blast of red dust and splintered mana.

  “Hiraya, stay here,” Sugat said, his voice dropping to a low, steady vow. “I will finish this.”

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  He turned and rushed toward the monster. Sugat’s hands blurred as he forged weapon after weapon from the air. Spikes, blades, and jagged shards of his own life-force flew at the Aswang. Neyoundo met them with his steel-hard claws, shattering the crystals with brute force.

  “Is that all!” the Aswang roared, leaping high into the air. He came down like a falling star, his massive form intended to crush Sugat into the bedrock. BOOM. The ground shattered, sending debris flying in every direction.

  But Sugat wasn't there. High above, tied to a thick oak branch by a shimmering rope of glowing blood, the boy swung out of harm's way. He realized it then—the power wasn't just in the spikes. My blood... this power... I can forge anything I can imagine.

  As he descended, Sugat unleashed a barrage. It wasn't just a few spikes this time; it was a storm. Scores of crimson projectiles rained down on Neyoundo. The beast was forced into a desperate dance of evasion, his massive body lithe but struggling to keep up with the sheer volume of the assault.

  This power, Neyoundo thought, his black eyes darting frantically. It is sustained by his life. Every strike is a drop of his soul. He is burning himself alive!

  Sugat hit the ground running, preparing for another strike, when his knees suddenly buckled. A wave of cold, hollow exhaustion washed over him. His skin turned a sickly pale, and the brilliant glow of his aura flickered, then vanished. Sweat poured down his face as he gasped for air. W-why? Why does my body feel so empty?

  Neyoundo saw the opening. A cruel, toothy grin spread across his snout. “Blood is vital, boy! To use it as a weapon is to invite the grave!”

  The monster blurred, a shadow of obsidian fur and bone-blades. Sugat saw the massive claw in the corner of his eye, the steel-hard talons aimed at his throat. At the final microsecond, the blood-glow flared back to life, fueled by sheer desperation. He ducked, the claw whistling over his head, and lunged.

  Instead of a spike, Sugat released a dozen ropes of glowing liquid. They didn't strike; they wrapped. They coiled around Neyoundo’s limbs, his torso, and his snout, tying the massive beast to the earth.

  “Arrgh! Let go!” Neyoundo thrashed, his muscles bulging against the crimson restraints. “Why can I not move!”

  Sugat didn't answer. He stepped back, his breath ragged, the wound in his stomach beginning to weep fresh red. He focused everything—every remaining drop of his mana, every ounce of his anger, every memory of the bread thrown in the dirt—into his raised hand.

  “You say I don’t matter,” he whispered, the blood drying along the jagged line of his healed torso. He looked into the eyes of the monster that Hera called a hero. “But even nothing...” his voice dropped to a terrifying, absolute vow, “...can end everything.”

  Neyoundo’s black eyes widened. A roar of primal fear detonated from his throat, his fangs carving at the air as the crimson ropes began to glow with a blinding heat.

  Sugat stretched his arms wide. The forest turned bone-chillingly cold. There was no chant. No ancient words of magic. There was only the singular, unstoppable intent of a boy who was done being a victim.

  He whispered one word:

  “Rain.”

  The cosmos answered.

  A thousand needles of crystallized blood shot upward first, blotting out the moon like rising smoke made of stars. Then, with a sound like a thunderclap, they reversed. They plunged downward in a blinding, vertical torrent of truth-steel.

  The clearing erupted. Thrack-thrack-thrack!

  Neyoundo was impaled in a heartbeat—pinned to the earth by a forest of crimson glass. Blood met blood. Monster met consequence. Every lie the Captain had ever swallowed, every cruelty he had ever inflicted in the King’s name, seemed to burst from his throat in one final, agonizing howl that shook the trees to their roots.

  When the rain stopped, the Black Hound was gone. In the center of the crater lay a man in shattered white armor, his body a map of red crystals.

  Sugat stood in the silence, the glow finally fading from his eyes. He didn't look like a king or a god. He just looked like a boy, standing in the dark, finally casting a shadow of his own.