Rayon's laughter broke.
It wasn't his voice anymore.
The sound was deeper, warped, dripping with venom and madness. His head tilted unnaturally, a jagged grin stretching across his bloodstained face. The forest went silent. Even the eleven-headed serpent froze, every eye flickering with instinctive fear.
The seal had cracked just enough.
And that was all Erethon needed.
"Finally," the voice slipped from Rayon's mouth, slow and deliberate, as though savoring every syllable. "How long… I have been caged in this fragile thing."
His hands flexed, and the Hollow Strings surged outward—not threads anymore, but tendrils of shadow, writhing and twisting as if alive. The ground beneath him bled darkness, the roots of trees blackening and curling. Every breath he exhaled carried a stench of rot and dread, spreading through the clearing like invisible poison.
The serpent hissed, all eleven heads snapping forward in unison. Erethon didn't move at first. He stood there, tilting his head, his grin widening as though amused. At the last possible moment, his hand twitched.
The strings lashed out.
Each head that lunged was caught mid-strike, threads piercing through scale and bone as though they were paper. Blood spattered the trees, hot and steaming. The monster shrieked, thrashing violently, but Erethon only pulled tighter, dragging it closer, closer, until its massive bulk crashed into the dirt before him.
Rayon's eyes—no, Erethon's eyes—glowed pitch black, flecked with streaks of crimson, pupils dilated into thin slits.
"You thought you were a god," Erethon whispered, his voice reverberating like layered echoes. "But gods bleed too."
With a savage yank, the threads tore one of the heads clean off. Blood sprayed, coating his face. He licked his lips slowly, almost deliberately, and smiled.
This wasn't fighting.
This was cruelty.
The serpent roared in agony, thrashing wildly. One of its massive tails swung, colliding with Erethon, crushing his body into the ground with bone-breaking force. But instead of groaning, instead of screaming, Erethon began to laugh. The sound echoed through the forest, unnatural and endless, making the air itself seem heavier.
Bones cracked and popped as he pulled himself up, shoulders twisting until they snapped back into place. He dragged a hand across his chest, strings stitching torn muscle and shredded skin back together in an instant.
"Pain?" Erethon grinned. "No… that is just the body reminding me I'm alive."
The serpent struck again. Another head lunged. Erethon didn't dodge. He let the fangs pierce his torso, blood gushing down his suit. Then, with a calm smile, he wrapped his arms around the serpent's skull, threads digging into its eyes, its mouth, its brain.
"Die slowly," he hissed, before ripping it apart from the inside.
The head exploded, raining gore across the battlefield. The other ten heads shrieked in unison, a chorus of despair.
And still, Erethon was laughing.
Inside, the faintest fragment of Rayon remained, buried deep, suffocating beneath the tide of madness. He could feel what was happening—he could see it—but he wasn't in control anymore. His body moved without him, his words weren't his.
Erethon had taken over.
And the forest, the serpent, even the earth itself now understood:
this was not a man, not a warrior, not even a monster.
This was madness