Chapter 11: Inevitable Clash (Part II)

Previously:

Raul’s lips curled into a snarl, his voice breaking with anger and pain.

“I left nothing alive. Nothing! You speak lies to bind me, Father, to shame me before this boy. I will not bow to blood I did not choose!”

Yet his trembling hand gripped the hilt until his nails pierced his own flesh, blood welling in his palm.

I lifted my head from the stone, eyes raw with tears, Beast gnashing against the cage of my ribs.

“You turned my mother’s village to ash, but she still defied you. She still gave me her last breath. And you—” my voice broke with fury, “you tried to kill me before I could even breathe.”

Raul’s laugh died in his throat. For a heartbeat, silence crushed him.

Then his face hardened, rage sealing over the crack in his pride. Steel flashed as he raised his blade high, snarling like a beast.

“Then let me finish what I began. If you are my son, you are my greatest mistake. Better ash than Scion.”

Clan Elder stepped forward, his voice a thunderclap that rattled stone.

“Touch him, Raul, and you war against blood itself. Even your abominations will not shield you from that judgment.”

Raul’s blade froze mid-swing. His eyes burned between me and the Clan Elder, caught in the vise between denial and a truth he could not unhear.

I staggered to my feet, the echo of my mother’s last breath still tearing through my skull. The chamber swam with torchlight and shadows, Raul’s snarl clashing with the Clan Elder’s thunderous voice.

I could not stay. Not another breath, not another heartbeat.

The air itself pressed down on me, thick with blood and memory. My beast clawed at me, urging me toward violence, but my human grief pulled me toward flight. 

My claws scraped the stone as I turned, my body surging toward the only path that promised air.

Behind me, Raul’s roar shattered the silence.

“Run, Go! Run like the coward you are! No shadow in this city will hide you from me!”

The words chased me into the dark, snapping at my heels like hounds. But I did not falter. I let the tunnels swallow me whole, the shadows devouring my form.

Clan Elder’s voice followed, faint, thunder dulled by distance—yet I had no strength left to hear.

Only one sound pierced the storm in my skull: the faint, remembered whimper of children in cages.

The visions seared into me when I drank the blood.

The tunnels bled into Calumpang’s undercity. Air thickened with iron and rust, lantern-light dripping across wet stone.

My pulse thundered in my ears, louder than my own footsteps. The scent of old blood pulled me onward, winding through passages that stank of oil and rot.

Then—

I found it.

The laboratory

A cavern carved of steel and stone. Iron cages lined the walls, their bars slick with rust.

Glass jars glowed faintly with sick light, shadows twisting inside them like things half-born. Tables sagged under the weight of scalpels, bone saws, vials of black-red liquid still warm.

And the children. Tiny hands clutching the bars. Eyes wide and glassy with terror. 

Whimpers that broke into silence as they saw me, their bodies curling against the cage walls like cornered animals.

My Beast surged at the sight. 

My claws extended, my breath deepened, my chest vibrating with a growl. I moved to the cages, fingers curling around the locks. My voice came low—raw, broken, yet edged with a fury that smelled of promise: 

“You’re free. I’ll tear down every chain. I will end this before Raul touches another child.”

The lock screeched under my claws, metal giving way.

A child whimpered, shrinking back from me even as the cage opened.

The scent of their fear sliced me deeper than any blade.

A voice cut the gloom—cold, mocking. “You shouldn’t be here, boy. The Master will skin you alive.”

A shadow peeled from the far wall. Raul’s guard; armor like black iron, a blade that drank light and spit poison. His eyes held no mercy—only obedience.

I bared my fangs. Claws dripped.

“Then I’ll tear him apart before he touches another child.”

The guard lunged. Steel met claw with a scream. Sparks laced the air.

Glass cracked—jars toppled, spilling their sick light. Instruments scattered, metal clattering like teeth. Children screamed, a thin, fractured chorus that filled the cavern. 

Blow answered blow; I moved like animal and man at once—fast, brutal, close. The lab became my storm of flying shards and blood.

The guard’s weapon hissed through the air, a silvered curve designed to carve through flesh and tendon. 

I barely twisted aside, the steel slicing a ragged line across his shoulder. Blood sprayed, hot and immediate, the sting only fueling the Beast in my chest.

The children whimpered in their cages, tiny fists jammed against their mouths to strangle the sound. Eyes wide. Trembling. Torchlight flickering inside them like dying stars.

The guard’s blade traced lazy arcs, his voice dripping contempt.

“See how they cower? They know what you are. Beast. No savior comes from Raul’s blood.”

The words slithered through the cages, through my chest. Every flinch of the children, every shiver of their fear, cut sharper than steel.

I snarled, claws sliding free with a screech of keratin over stone.

I lunged—feral, unstoppable— my swipe raking across the Footman’s chest.

Sparks burst as claw scraped plated leather. The impact hurled the guard backward into a rack of glass.

Shards rained. One jar exploded, spilling luminous red fluid that hissed and bubbled, eating into the floor with a stench like burning marrow.

The children shrank deeper into their cages, their thin cries weaving through the clash of steel and claw.

The Guard kicked out, boot slamming into my chest, sending me staggering into a blood-slick table. 

Surgical instruments clattered —- scalpels skittering across the floor. 

One pierced into my palm as I caught myself, blood smearing across steel.

The Guard advanced, blade leveled at my throat, voice like a rasping promise.

“The Master warned us—your kind can’t control itself. I will gut you here and send your carcass back to him.”

I tasted blood. My breath hitched.

Something low and animal thrummed beneath my ribs, a hungry vibration that wanted only to tear and end. 

My fingers flexed, slick with blood, balancing between Beast’s pull and whatever scrap of human will still reached for mercy.

My lips curled back, fangs bared. I didn’t retreat. 

I surged forward into the arc of the blade, letting it bite deep into my side. Pain flared white-hot, but it gave me the opening— I caught the Guard’s wrist in one clawed hand, crushing bone until it splintered.

The guard screamed, dropping his weapon.

I slammed him into the wall, claws puncturing flesh, blood spraying in a warm mist. My Beast roared in my skull, urging me to rip, to feast, to end. 

For a moment, my jaw lowered toward the guard’s throat, hunger rising in a savage wave.

The children’s whimpers cut through me like razors.

I froze— fangs hovering above the Guards throat— every muscle a drawn wire. My Beast clawed at the bars of my restraint, furious and starving.

My voice came low, trembling:

“No more… not before them…”

The Guard spat a spray of blood into my face, sneer crawling across it even as pain warped his features.

“You think they will ever see anything you but nothing as a monster? Tear me apart, boy. Show them what you are.”

Rage surged. I forcefully slammed him across the lab, my body shattering another cage. 

A child screamed as the soldier tumbled, scrambling to his knees. Blood poured from his mangled wrist, but he drew a dagger with the other hand, teeth bared in manic devotion.

The Guard snarled.

“For the Master, I’ll bleed you out.”

He charged.

I met him head-on.

Claws tore through leather, through flesh, into the ribs beneath. The soldier choked on blood, eyes bulging. I drove him back against the bars of a cage—metal groaned, children cried out.

 Then, with a final, merciless thrust, I claws punched through his chest, piercing the heart.

The Guard’s scream curdled into a gurgle. His body went limp, sliding down the bars, leaving a smear of red. The dagger clattered from his hand, forgotten.

Silence swallowed the lab’s room. Only my ragged breathing and the children’s muffled sobs filled the void.

I pulled my claws free, trembling, my hands slick with blood. 

My chest heaved, my Beast pacing, still unsatisfied. The scent of death hung thick, cloying, whispering to me to take more.

But the sight of the children— huddled, terrified— I held back.

I staggered, gripping the bars of their cage, my bloodied claws curling against iron. 

My voice cracked, softer this time:

“I’m not him. I won’t be him. You’re safe now.”

The words hung hollow, for me could see the terror in their eyes— their savior was no less monstrous than their tormentor.

The Guard’s body slumped into stillness, blood dripping down the bars in slow rivulets. I staggered back, chest heaving, my claws trembling with gore. 

The laboratory reeked of copper and smoke, the silence broken only by the uneven sobs of children huddled in their cages.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, smearing blood across my jaw, then moved toward the nearest lock. My claws dug into the cast, twisting, tearing the latch apart with a screech of tortured metal. The cage swung open.

The children did not rush into my arms.

They shrank deeper into the cages, pressing into each other— wide-eyed, lips trembling.

My voice came hoarse, softer:

“It’s over… you’re free. I swear it.”

But their fear was a mirror. My claws dripped, my fangs still bared from the fight, my chest smeared in crimson. To them, I was only another predator.

I lowered my hand, forcing my claws to retract with a pained groan. Flesh tore as the beast yielded, leaving my fingers bloodied and raw. 

I held them open, empty, like a beggar.

One child stepped forward—little more than shadow and bone.
Her hand lifted, then froze just short of mine. Her gaze climbed to my eyes.

“…monster?” she whispered, voice trembling.

The word cut deeper than any blade. It got me frozen, my throat tightening. I wanted to deny it, to swear I was not my father, but no words came. Only silence, heavy as stone.

I turned away, choking back the Beast’s growl that stirred at the insult. Instead, I focused on the locks, tearing them open one by one, freeing cage after cage. Metal shrieked, chains rattled. Children crept out, uncertain, skittish as deer, keeping distance between themselves and me.

My eyes burned. My mother’s whisper haunted me: “Live. If I die, you live.”

I breathed the vow, low and fierce: “I’ll carry it. Even if they fear me — I’ll carry it.”

For the first time since the ceremonial chamber, there was no roar, no clash, no command. 

Just me, blood-soaked, breathing in a room of freed children too frightened to call me a  savior.

And then—

— End of Part Two —

To be continued….