The wind howled as the dust cloud dispersed, scattering debris across the jagged mountain trail. The earlier clash had already torn apart the surrounding wilderness—snapped trees, shattered boulders, deep gouges carved through the earth where Erevos had slid or collided. Karl's breath echoed through the internal cockpit link, syncing with the pulsing hum inside his chest as nanites ran corrective diagnostics.
The mountain wind howled across the broken ravine, carrying dust, gravel, and the distant echo of sirens far below. Karl stood within Erevos, blue overdrive lines pulsing like a heartbeat, each throb illuminating the fractured terrain around them. Agnes hovered beside him in projection form, wings flickering like holographic glass—dimmed, strained, but still poised.
Agnes hovered above his vision like a holographic specter of calm efficiency.
"Structural integrity stable. Yggdrasil bond optimal. Prepared to reengage."
Karl wiped the blood from his lip. He'd been thrown around before—but this demon was different. Everything about it felt wrong. Its body was thick with black ichor veins, twitching with a barely contained violence. Its breathing came out guttural and uneven, like a malfunctioning machine trying to imitate life.
The demon across from them, the hulking, grey-skinned mass of hatred and sinew, slowly straightened its posture. Its chest rose and fell with ragged breaths that sounded more like metal scraping against bone. Thick rivulets of dark ichor dripped from its arms, steaming when they touched the ground.
But now… it was changing.
The demon twitched. Once. Twice. Its claws dug into the soil, carving trenches as it hunched forward, as if trying to hold something inside itself.
Its eyes—if they could be called eyes—flared a deeper crimson. They vibrated in their sockets, micro-shakes like something boiling behind them.
It opened its mouth.
A sound dragged out—wet, broken, distorted—as if its vocal cords were learning to move for the first time.
Then it spoke.
Not in sentences—those were far beyond its grasp—but in broken shards of words that made the atmosphere itself tighten.
"Ch… cho… sen…"
Its voice staggered, glitching like a corrupted audio log.
"G…ghh—"
Its jaw snapped once, cracked back into alignment.
"Grrr… graa… tsss…"
Karl tensed. Agnes sharpened her analysis lens.
The demon slowly lifted its head. And finally—
"…Gratulations…"
Karl didn't move. But Erevos' internal readings spiked.
"Agnes," he whispered. "Is it… trying to congratulate us?"
Agnes shook her head. "No. It is announcing trigger conditions for something. Karl—its neurological patterns are unstable."
The demon stopped thrashing. Stopped roaring. Stopped smashing terrain like an angry beast.
Instead… it stood still.
Perfectly still.
Its chest rose and fell with deep, thunderous breaths that vibrated the stone beneath their feet.
Its crimson eyes narrowed, focusing with a clarity that made Karl's skin crawl.
Then—
It spoke.
A deep, wet, gravel-grinding attempt at language, each syllable like bones under pressure:
"You… two… good."
"Force… me. Force… rage… body… change."
Agnes stiffened in the HUD.
Karl felt the mech's fingers tighten by instinct.
The demon grinned, teeth pressing so hard against each other that its gums bled fresh ichor.
"Y-you… make… me… rage."
The word splintered, but the intent was clear.
It pounded its chest once—BOOM—and a shockwave rolled outward. Black smoke erupted from its pores, spiraling upward and stitching itself into its muscles like dark lightning. The earth blackened around its feet.
Erevos' sensors lit crimson.
UNIQUE PASSIVE DETECTED
CATEGORY: DEMONIC ENRAGE PROTOCOL
EFFECT: UNKNOWN
Agnes' voice cracked. "Karl—its body temperature is rising. Muscular density increasing. Rage-linked stimulation pathways… oh no."
Agnes whispered urgently:
"Karl… its adrenaline readings just multiplied. This is no natural response. It's a triggered state—likely a unique passive."
The demon nodded aggressively, as if confirming her analysis purely by instinct.
"…You… CHO… sen…"
It snarled, voice glitching.
"Make… me… fast…"
The demon lifted one massive clawed hand and tapped its chest, where veins like molten red rivers throbbed violently.
"Passive… mine.
Rage… give… speed."
Its grin stretched wide — far too wide.
"More… angry… more… fast."
Its shoulders trembled. Then its entire frame swelled, muscles twitching and inflating unnaturally as if invisible strings were forcibly pulling them taught.
The demon slammed a fist against its own chest, laughing—not joyfully, but triumphantly, as if its body unlocking new horrors was a personal celebration.
"Every… time…"
It tapped its head, where veins had begun glowing like molten magma.
"I get… ANGRY…"
It punched the air—speed blurring its arm into a shadow.
"BODY… FASTER… stronger…"
Agnes whispered sharply, "It's gaining movement speed from emotional escalation. The more hatred he feels, the more it compounds. Karl… this thing is a recursive accelerator. It's a demon built to snowball."
Agnes whispered:
"Karl… that's— that's not good. That's not good at ALL."
Agnes' voice turned sharp.
"Karl! Its movement speed is climbing—rapidly. If it continues at this pace—"
The demon cut her off.
"Nnngh—be… prrr… proud."
It clenched a shaking clawed fist. The demon stopped throwing boulders. It didn't need projectiles anymore.
Instead, it clenched both fists.
Knuckles cracked like detonating bones.
It looked directly at Erevos.
The demon kept talking, vowels smashed together, consonants rumbling out of its throat like someone trying to speak through a landslide:
"No… demon…"
It growled, leaking ichor from its fangs.
"Ever… make… me… THIS… en—ra—ged."
Each syllable hit like a hammer.
Karl's heartbeat steadied instead of rising.
Cooling. Centering.
Erevos straightened as nanite plating adjusted over Karl's limbs.
A pulse of red energy rippled across its skin like a shockwave.
"And YOU…"
It pointed at Karl.
"YOU… CHOSEN… FIRST… to PUSH ME."
Then it bowed its head — slightly, mockingly.
"Tell name.
Want… remember… Chosen… who push… me… to THIS."
The demon pointed at him.
"NAME…"
It growled.
"I… want… NAME.
Chosen… who push… me… to… THIS."
Karl tilted Erevos' head slightly, his tone flat, cold, and sharpened.
"You want my name?"
"Yes…" the demon rasped. "Name… to REMEMBER… Chosen… who push me… to EVOLVE."
Karl exhaled once through clenched teeth.
"Oh? My name?"
He scoffed.
A smirk edged across his lips, cold and sharp."What's a dead creature going to do with my name?"
The demon froze.
Its grin vanished.
The air pressure dropped instantly—so violently that gravel lifted off the ground. Agnes' projection flickered as the system strained to compensate.
"Karl—provoking is unwise—"
"It doesn't matter," Karl whispered. "He's already dead. He just doesn't know it yet."
Agnes didn't approve of the line—he could tell from the small red warning symbol that flickered behind the visor—but she said nothing. Even she understood that in moments like this, bravado was a weapon.
For a second, a flicker of confusion crossed the demon's face.
Then it twisted into pure, explosive fury.
The earth under it cracked.The demon twitched.
Once.
Then—
IT MOVED.
But "moved" wasn't the right word.
One moment it stood twenty meters away.
The next—
It was a blur.
The demon's smile sharpened — literally. Its teeth shifted and extended like they were growing even as it grinned.
Then—
Silence.
Not the calm kind.
The kind where the world seems to blink.
Karl's sensors flashed red with warnings he didn't understand.
Agnes screamed in the HUD:
"KAR—!!"
But she didn't finish.
The next—
It was an impact.
Karl's eyes widened.
"Wait—"
The demon appeared at his flank mid-punch.
"F A S T!"
Its fist connected.
BOOM
Erevos didn't dodge.
Couldn't.
Couldn't even see it.