The double doors to the mayor's office exploded with a crack that echoed down the corridor.
Splinters spun through the air. A blur of fur and bone and wrongness collided with the floor between them and the mayor's desk.
The creature dragged itself upright on three limbs.
Where there should have been four, there was only a ruin of scar tissue and exposed bone. It had healed badly and cruelly. It felt as if whatever had taken the limb had not bothered to finish the job cleanly. Its remaining forelegs were too long. Its joints were bending at slightly unnatural angles. Its spine was curved in a way that suggested it had grown unevenly. Its fur was patchy and matted with old blood near the missing limb. Its muzzle was elongated like a wolf's. Its eyes were too large, too round and set too forward in its skull like a dog begging for approval.
It was a grotesque mixture of wolf and hound.
"Why are you hesitating?"
The creature's lips peeled back, revealing teeth too numerous and too narrow. Vastarael forward instead.
"What is your reason for being alive?"
The creature's ears twitched. For half a second, it seemed to understand.
Then it moved launched itself toward the mayor's desk with a broken snarl. A translucent wall of golden light snapped into existence in front of them with a sharp crackle, forming a barrier just as the creature slammed into it. The impact resounded through the office. The creature hit the floor, rose up and began clawing at the barrier with frantic desperation.
It was trying to break through the barrier directly toward the desk.
Its claws screeched against the mystical surface as it scratched and scratched and scratched with a persistence that bordered on madness.
Asenane narrowed her eyes.
"It's... mundane. In fact, it cannot be classified as an Ascender at all."
"No. It's not weak. It can kill a Divine. It tears the soul directly from the body."
He did not deny that.
The creature rammed itself into the barrier again, harder this time, yelping in pain as the force rebounded through its already twisted frame.
"Asenane, look at it."
She did. And for the first time, she truly looked.
The creature was not positioning itself to strike them. It was angling its body to shield the mayor's corpse behind the desk. Every movement was defensive. Every glance it threw toward them was paired with a quick look backward. It was calculating not how to kill them but how to get past them without leaving the body exposed.
Asenane's gaze slowly shifted toward the mayor's remains. It had been preserved.
"It's protecting him. But why?"
He closed his eyes briefly and opened his Soul Vision again. The mayor's body was a void. His gaze settled on the creature. Its soul flickered but it was extremely dim.
"Souls age like mortal bodies. The older a soul becomes, the brighter it grows. Even the most corrupted ancient soul burns like a dying star. This one does not. The soul does not match the body."
Her eyes widened.
"How old?"
"Not older than seven."
The creature was still scratching at the barrier but the movements were slowing now. Its breathing had grown ragged. Its claws were beginning to splinter with little streaks of dark blood trailing down the barrier's surface. It looked at them and back at the mayor's corpse. Its ears flattened. Asenane felt something twist violently in her chest.
"No..."
"It's acting on instinct to protect the mayor. That means..."
He did not finish the sentence since it was obvious.
The mayor was either a guardian or a father to it.
The creature's posture changed.
It slowly lowered itself in front of the desk, placing its body squarely between them and the corpse. Its three limbs trembled as it tried to steady itself, trying to appear larger. It opened its mouth again but instead of a roar—
"...d-don't."
The creature flinched at its own voice but it tried again.
"...don't... take..."
Its tongue stumbled clumsily around the syllables as though it had not used them in a long time.
"...papa."
Veneri's barrier flickered slightly as his focus wavered. Asenane staggered back half a step. He let the creature pass, which pressed its body closer to the desk.
"He's... sleeping. He said... he said not to let bad things... in."
Its large, too-large eyes filled with a wet shine.
"I didn't let them. I didn't. I bit them. I bit them all."
It had ripped them apart because that was the only weapon it possessed and yet it had failed.
"...why won't he wake up?"
Asenane's hands trembled. She was a mother and in that broken, monstrous frame she did not see a predator. She saw a child who was desperately trying to obey a final instruction it did not understand.
Her throat burned.
"Vastarael. Is there... is there any way—"
"No."
"Why?!"
"Even though it was mortal, the body is long gone. It's been like this for years. Using my Body Reconstruction would only give it more suffering."
The creature flinched at his tone. It looked at him.
"I was good," it insisted, almost pleading. "I stayed. I didn't leave him. I didn't run. I didn't run like they did."
Its body trembled violently now.
"I kept him safe."
The office suddenly felt suffocating. Awards lined the walls. Framed decrees glimmered.
A calendar was still marked with meetings that would never occur. In the center of it all, a child was trapped in a monster's body guarding a corpse that would never respond.
Asenane's vision blurred. She could not remember the last time something had hurt like this.
The creature lowered its head slowly.
"...you're not... bad things?"
Asenane covered her mouth with one hand. Her heart ached so violently it felt like something was physically tearing inside her chest. Vastarael sighed when he realized what happened.
Something had taken this child's soul and forced it into this body.
"I'm tired..."
Asenane stepped forward instinctively before she even realized she was moving.
Veneri hesitated but did not stop her. Asenane's voice broke as she spoke.
"We are not here to hurt him."
The creature stared at her.
"Promise?"
"Yeah. Promise."
Asenane patted its head and summoned her frost. In a split second, the entire body turned to ice. She turned to look at Veneri, who summoned a Soul Energy blast and destroyed both the body and the soul in one fell swoop.
The creature was dead.