It was a cherished memory. One he held onto desperately, even as the monster's flesh gnawed at his mind with its rising madness.
Even as the frenzy of bloodlust consumed him, the tiny fragments of lucidity left within sometimes carried him into dreams. At night, the fennecs stayed hidden, the foxes kept watch but did not hunt, and the western lands lay empty and still. The sky abandoned its eternal gray-white for a deep, endless black. The last rays of sunlight no longer pierced the clouds to glimmer on the falling rain.
That night, there was no rain. No droplets striking the hard earth, no echoes off the tall rocks. Only silence—save for the whisper of the wind across the barren plains.
Aris gazed upward, though the darkness concealed the sky. He thought of his kingdom, his guard, his servants… and his dear counselor.
Perhaps, one day, vengeance would be his. Perhaps his fallen soul would finally find peace.
But for now, all he could do was kill always more beasts, in the western desert.
And so he did.
At dawn, under the gray skies, Aris tugged again on the wire tied to his crude knife. He had mastered a new style of combat—born from his pair of makeshift blades and the taut threads he had learned to harden, forged from the very beasts he slaughtered. Aris was a weapon master; to him, mastery came naturally.
And so with brutal precision, he practiced this new art. The knives spun so fast in the air that they vanished from sight, whirling like slings at impossible speed.
The fennecs never saw death coming. The only question was when Aris would let his blade fly. It launched like a bullet, slicing through prey before they even knew. Worse still, he could redirect it mid-spin, altering its path so the hapless beasts stumbled directly into their own execution. Their bodies split in half in an instant, one after another, as the Mad Beast carved through packs without slowing.
It was lethal. Ruthless.
Boredom had refined his bloodlust into cold efficiency. His goal was no longer to revel in the fight—but to end it as quickly as possible, before the madness could sink deeper. And so, by combining what fragments of humanity remained with his relentless thirst for blood, the deadliness of his strikes doubled.
He no longer toyed with prey. No longer lingered. Every enemy had to die in the shortest possible time.
Battles lasted less than a minute.
Blood sprayed wherever he passed.
The western lands grew emptier and emptier.
And the Mad Beast walked on.
Aris had trained himself to notice every shift in terrain—the smallest crack in the ground, the slightest details on the rocks, the scent of fennecs in the distance, the subtle differences in air pressure and temperature across the desert.
It was a bit primitive for a human, but Aris no longer really considered himself as such. He was closer to a beast with a human's intelligence than a king with a crown. His throne had been lost—along with his habits and survival demanded adaptation.
The western lands had no need for a king.They demanded a beast.
And that was what he had become.
Still, he clung to fragments of his intellect—an anchor to keep him ahead. His human side crafted weapons, wove cloth, studied the creatures he hunted. That was how he learned to exploit weaknesses in the foxes' tangled webs, how he sharpened blades and built new tools.
It was his anchor to evolve and to stay ahead of the beasts and ensure his survival.
But the other side—his beast side—was the one that killed. Tore. Bit. Shredded. Sniffed the air, observed with predatory instinct, struck with ruthless precision. It snarled, destroyed, and above all, it made blood flow. As much blood as possible.
That side was madness incarnate. If anyone glimpsed it first, before the human one, they would mistake Aris for a monster.
And perhaps they would be right.
The world had forgotten the king.The western lands had never known him.
They knew only the monster who fed its emptiness with blood, who devoured all life without mercy.
And so, step by step, Aris advanced into the western lands.
It was disturbing—yet it had become life in these hollow lands.
And though he did not enjoy it, after so long, it seeped into him like a dull, necessary routine.
He thought he was finally walking in the right direction, after rechecking places where uncertainty lingered.
But the rock he had examined turned out to be one he had already visited three times that month. Upon closer inspection, he realized he had been circling again—lost once more.
It hurt him to admit it. But he knew he would be trapped in these lands for a long time regardless. So he simply turned back.
Later, he came across a starving fox—one that looked as though it hadn't eaten in months. Normally, the king might have shown mercy. But this time, his madness overpowered him. Within seconds, the fox was torn apart, and the pack of fennecs trailing behind him devoured its flesh.
That following pack had grown in number, yet somehow never truly increased.
Aris could not provide them with enough meat. So, inevitably, they turned on one another. Time and again, they tore each other apart. Some even attacked Aris himself and he cut them down without hesitation, feeding their corpses to those who remained.
"For next time, buddy."
The pack no longer truly grew. Instead, it replenished itself. Fennecs gave way to foxes, foxes devoured fennecs. The balance shifted, the difficulty rose. Aris knew it was only logical. The longer he walked, the worse the beasts would become.
And then one day, in the damned lands of the West, he came across a wolf...
He emerged calmly from behind a rock like a boss waiting patiently—lean but alert, his paws planted carefully, ready to spring. This was no ordinary wolf. Its coat, a vivid orange, recalled the fennecs' fur—a warm, almost incandescent hue, as if the setting sun had slipped beneath its skin. Obviously not very discreet against these gray, water-streaked lands. Yet Aris quickly noticed that, despite the resemblance, this coat was slightly dulled, colder—closer to the faded color of the threads when they lost all their energy.
The wind lifted the fur along its spine, revealing paler shades on the belly and neck, almost cream, while the top of its back turned to deep russet. Its pelt was neither dense nor sparse; it looked cut for speed, for the hunt, for surviving in a world where light burned and shadow lied.
Its eyes, golden amber, fixed on the Mad Beast with a cold intelligence. No rage, no fear—only a razor awareness, as if it were measuring every movement, every breath, every heartbeat around it.
Its silhouette was lithe and nervous, but every muscle beneath the skin thrummed with contained power. It was not large—and it did not need to be. It was fast. Precise. And above all, it was here for a reason.
Aris stared back, then glanced behind him. His usual pack—normally so eager for combat—had fallen back, leaving a widening gap between them. He felt their fear leak away like a bad joke.
"Well, well…"
Aris faced his new prey again. It was a first. Not surprising, perhaps, but worthy of attention. Bigger, faster, more agile, more intelligent—and bearing an aura far deadlier than the beasts before. This was exactly what he expected from a next-level foe.
At the sight of his adversary, something in him snapped. Excitement spiked into madness, squeezing out whatever remained of his human mind and unleashing the beast within.
A wide, psychotic grin spread across his face as he crouched and drew his knives.
In a voice both terrifying and exhilarated, he addressed his new opponent.
"Let's see what you're worth."