CH 19 19. The beast in you.

 #Kane

Right now, the room was silent—too silent—but he could still hear their hearts thudding, blood pulsing through the wires threaded into their bodies. He drew a slow breath and assessed the situation. The woman behind the counter had vanished long before the boots scraped asphalt outside. Now their smell was here, heavy, bringing its strange tension with it.

Five guards stepped in. All of them white. None of them green boys—judging by the callouses on their hands and the way life had carved their faces, they had seen blood. It clung to them; you could smell it leaking from their eyes.

Kane spread his mana as thinly as possible to feel how their cloaks dripped onto the dusty floor, how they stood like men accustomed to cold hours and colder orders. One of them—tall, with a face shaped like a butcher’s thumb—rapped his knuckles on the doorframe.

“Query came through,” he said, voice flat as rust. “Dead adventurer. South quarter. Looked chewed. Wide-range Scope scan from an Ascendant Circle flagged a trace here.”

He held up a stamped page bearing the Dominion’s seal and the Circle’s looped rune.

Another sniffed. “That your man?”

No one answered. But Kane was already channeling mana into himself, reaching inward to feel his Sage Path—his blood branch—unlocking.

The shortest guard—older, hawk-eyed—stepped past shelves of brass and cloudy charms. His gaze locked onto the man standing calmly behind the counter.

“Gods below,” he muttered. “On the supreme deities Chizoba—you look different.”

The figure raised his head. Yes, it was the same bone structure, but the skin looked wrong. Then again, he was an adventurer; a breaking body was expected.

“You look different,” the man repeated.

Kane didn’t speak. One guard wore the squint earned from shooting breathless targets at point-blank range. Another kept glancing at his boots as if expecting the floor to shift.

Six total, counting Jason, who stood smiling like he owned the walls.

Kane smiled. “Yeah, things happened with the monster I fought. Anyway—what’s this about?”

“We got a report,” Jason said. “Dead adventurer. Torn open like soft fruit. Trace flagged this shop.”

He looked around at the dust, the metal, the old-world weight of the place.

“Bit of a surprise,” he continued. “Didn’t think Unity still let independent contractors operate without registration.”

His eyes lingered a moment too long on Kane’s skin, then flicked away like it meant nothing.

“Don’t worry, I’m not one of those red-rag zealots. I’ve heard of her—Molly, right? I even like her. Brave girl. Always trying to change things. Reminds me of my daughter.”

He leaned against the counter, voice dipping softer.

“But here’s the thing—liberalists like her?”

A pause. Smile steady.

“They bleed just like everyone else.”

He tapped the warrant on the counter rhythmically.

“And Dominion doesn’t forget betrayal. You know that better than most, don’t you?”

His head tilted slightly, as if thinking aloud.

“They say she’s been spending time with you. The ladies’ man who won’t go hunt monsters. Heard a rumor you’re trying to get into Aureilla—gain citizenship through the Concord?”

“That makes one of the people in this room a traitor.”

Kane looked up. “Does it make people nervous?”

A beat.

“Me? I’m not nervous about any of that. Just wondering what you’re teaching her.”

Another beat.

“And how loud she’d scream when the government sends their Ascendant Circle mages after her.”

That made Kane stop. Suddenly, he remembered why he was feared—how he once transferred a girl’s soul into a pencil and crushed it. He turned slowly.

“You ever wonder what your face would look like if you didn’t try so hard to be who people taught you to be? Pure calamity, right? I’ve seen men peel off layers of their humanity. None of them liked what was underneath.”

They didn’t answer. But neither did they draw steel.

The older one narrowed his eyes, steadied himself, and spoke.

“What did you do to this adventurer?”

Kane stepped forward once. The closest guard flinched—just a flicker.

He nearly laughed. “What are you talking about? Just say you want to pick a fight.”

Why did the universe keep sending him weaklings? That was the real problem. Kane’s fist tightened.

His hand slipped inside his coat and pulled out a cracked pencil.

“Shouldn’t I get a hearing before you pull steel?”

His eyes dropped to the sheathed sword on the guard’s hip.

“No, I’m sure you’re the devil,” Jason said. “But protocol, you know. Can’t kill you without waving the paper first.” He raised a lazy hand. “Besides, you smell like trouble. That’s usually illegal around here.”

Kane smiled with a faint glint. “That’s the beast in you talking.”

The butcher-nosed guard exhaled slow.

His eyes asked how many seconds it would take to kill him.

“I’ll block the exit,” one muttered.

And then it happened.

The man to Kane’s left moved.

Kane let the punch fly past, skin brushing skin. He didn’t counter immediately. He waited—let the air thicken with anticipation.

CRACK.

He struck once. Elbow to jaw. The man dropped like a sack of meat. No scream. No time.

_If he kept killing weaklings, how would he train this body?_

Another guard raised a gun.

Kane threw the pencil—but only after ripping a sliver of his soul free, infusing it into the wood, and shaping it into a conduit he could manipulate at a moment’s notice.

Suddenly the pencil became metal and buried itself into one of the guard’s legs.

All this noise. And for what?

Kane stepped forward again, calm as rainfall, releasing a portion of his soul through the moisture in the air.

Pop.

The man’s shoulder dislocated with a wet crunch, folding him sideways.

A shot rang out, but Kane didn’t flinch. His hand rose—not fast, not flashy, just precise. He plucked the bullet from the air like a man catching snow.

It spun once in his palm.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then he looked up. His eyes weren’t angry. Just tired.

“This is what you brought,” he said quietly. “To kill me?”

He held the slug between two fingers and dropped it. It made the smallest sound. Like a secret falling apart.

“Next time,” Kane said, “bring something real.”

They didn’t run. Not yet.

So he moved.

Aureilla would’ve applauded. She wouldn’t have let them walk.

She had rules.

I had rules.

Once.

Tick.

Clink.

They still didn’t run. A very big mistake.

Kane moved.

Fast. So fast the sound arrived late.

One man’s throat opened clean—no mess. Another’s leg bent backward, cracking like winter wood. Two more fell without grace.

Jason was the last.

He dropped to his knees, shotgun forgotten, hands raised.

“Wait—please—Molly said—I didn’t—”

Kane tilted his head.

The metals in this shop were dragon-breathed.

Two fingers touched Jason’s chest.

BOOM.

No blood—just distortion. Jason folded like a glitch in memory. A puff of light. A gone thing.

Kane stood still. Breath even. Heart steady.

The woman slipped back into the room and froze.

She saw the blood. The silence. And him—more shape than man, steam curling off his skin like spirit breath.

Her throat moved before her mind caught up.

“Nkà.”

Demon. Or god.

Sometimes the difference didn’t matter.

Kane didn’t answer. He turned away.

“You could’ve—”

“I hope the money they paid covered the cleanup,” he said.

He pulled a Benson from his coat, then the lighter.

Click.

Smoke drifted up—sweet, bitter, soft.

The wounds on his arms bubbled shut like time stitching itself back together.

Then—a blur. Small. Fast.

A girl darted around the corner, head down, boots splashing. Kane shifted just enough; her shoulder grazed his leg. She would’ve fallen, but he caught her by the elbow.

“Steady,” he murmured, smoke curling past his lips.

She blinked up at him, breathless. Her tunic was frayed at the cuffs, a wool cap lopsided on her head. She looked at him—at the copper-burnt skin, the soot, the dried blood, the scar at his temple—and didn’t flinch.

“Oh—sorry, sir. Is this the pawnbroker’s place?”

He didn’t answer.

She pointed at the warped wooden sign:

PAWN. REPAIR. REDEMPTION.

“It was,” he said.

Her eyes sharpened. “My dad went in there. He was walking with four men. One tall. Laughs like a broken bell.”

Kane crouched. His joints creaked. “Bald?” he asked softly.

She nodded. “Big hands. Smells like boiled cabbage.”

She brightened. “His name is Jason. He’s part of the Patrol.”

Kane glanced behind him. The door wasn’t closed. Blood threaded through the cracks in the timber. Slow. Steady.

The girl noticed too. Tilted her head. Tugged on his sleeve.

“Mister… what’s that?”

Kane didn’t move. He whispered, “They never listen,” and exhaled a slow stream of smoke.

She stepped back. “I need to go in—he said he’d be right there.”

He caught her hand—not harsh, but firm. “Where are you going?”

She dug in her satchel and pulled a folded parchment. “He said if I got lost, find the sign.” She pointed at a crude scrawl. “And he wrote—‘ask for directions and don’t speak to ones with dark hands.’”

Kane’s face didn’t change. But his eyes did.

Dull grey brightened—color flickering like shards of storm-lit glass.

He knelt lower.

“Listen,” he said. “Forget this place. Forget why you came. Go home and—”

He stopped. _Be happy_ hovered, unwanted. Grief was part of healing. He wouldn’t steal it.

She stared at him. Then smiled like none of it mattered. “Alright!” she chirped, and ran off.

People watched her pass. A man in a fur-lined vest stepped forward.

“Girl, you okay?”

“Yes, sir!” she called.

His eyes narrowed when they found Kane—lingering too long on the skin beneath the hood, the bloodstains, the claws that had just receded faster than sight.

From the alley, another voice cut in—low, calm. “What did you mean by that?”

The first man stiffened. “Just checking.”

The second stepped into the light, face expressionless. “Foreigners and your madness. This is the Dominion. We’ll speak to whoever we damn well please.”

He turned toward Kane, ready to push.

Kane didn’t flinch. Didn’t speak.

Just exhaled—long, slow—watching smoke curl into the cold like fog that clings to dead fields.

“War,” he muttered, pulling his hood lower.

That was why he would break Aurellia.

Not for war.

For the children they taught to kill.