The first giant fell with a sound like a tree splitting. Mike wrenched his claws free from its skull, and before the body even struck the earth, he was already moving.
Another swung a crudely forged sword, wide and heavy, its edge jagged with half-melted steel. Mike ducked low, his tail whipping outward with a crack that shattered the giant's knee. The creature crumpled with a scream, and Mike was on it in an instant. His claws tore through its throat in one swift motion. Hot blood fountained across his chest, hissing where it struck his scales.
The whispers were screaming now, a choir of madness that drowned out all reason.
More! Tear! Feed!
Mike didn't resist. He tore a club from the slackening grip of the dying giant and hurled it into the campfire. Sparks burst into the air, scattering like a thousand fiery insects. The giants staggered back in confusion, their deep voices shouting in tones Mike no longer understood, blurred into nothing against the pounding in his head.
A third giant barreled toward him with a sharpened stake. Mike let the weapon pierce his side. Wood split scale and flesh alike, blood pouring from the wound but he didn't flinch. He surged forward, ramming himself down the length of the stake until he was face-to-face with his attacker. The giant's eyes widened, panic flashing in them an instant before Mike's jaws unhinged. He bit through its throat with one grotesque crunch.
Hot blood poured down his body, soaking him, and with it came euphoria. The gaping wound in his side knitted itself closed as he ripped free of the corpse, breathing hard, laughter bubbling in his throat.
Yes… more… never stop…
The camp's blacksmith roared, his rune-tattoos flaring a molten gold. His hammer, forged from steel and stone, blazed as he lifted it high. He brought it down with enough force to shake the earth. Mike leapt aside, the shockwave blasting the fire into a storm of embers and toppling one of the sharpened barricades that ringed the camp.
"Beast!" the blacksmith bellowed in a tongue Mike suddenly, impossibly, understood. The word cracked the air like judgment. He raised his hammer again.
Mike's laughter tore free, jagged and wild. "Yes," he snarled, his voice no longer wholly human, his words layered with the growl of the dragon. "Beast."
He lunged. Claws flashing. Teeth bared. The hammer swung again, a blur of molten light. And in the firelit chaos, the massacre began.
The giants rallied, four of them encircling him with shields torn from slabs of iron. They slammed forward in unison, walls of steel closing in. Mike roared, his throat glowing, and loosed a torrent of dragon-fire. The nearest shield glowed red, then warped, then melted into slag that fused with the arm of the giant behind it. The creature shrieked, thrashing as its own flesh burned, dropping to its knees. Mike vaulted over its body and drove his claws into its skull.
The camp dissolved into chaos, giants screaming, fire spreading, smoke thickening the sky.
And Mike, at the heart of it, was the storm. Every strike was killing. Every bite a feast. His body healed faster than it could be harmed, fueled by blood and frenzy.
But his humanity was slipping.
His eyes burned brighter, glowing crimson coals. His form no longer shifted between human and dragon; it fused, becoming something feral, something born for slaughter. A monster neither man nor dragon, but hunger incarnate.
The blacksmith charged again, hammer raised high. Mike crouched low, claws digging into the dirt, ready to meet him.
The whispers surged like thunder.
Kill them all. Devour everything. Even the chosen watching you…
Mike's head snapped toward the trees. Through the fire and smoke, he saw Sorina, her spear gripped tight, her face pale. Watching him.
For a heartbeat, his instincts wavered. Was she ally? Or prey?
The hammer came down. Mike turned back with a snarl and leapt forward. The head of the weapon grazed his arm and side, tearing flesh open in a spray of blood. The impact hurled him across the ground. He rolled, soil and ash caking his wounds, until he came to rest beside a giant's corpse.
Pain seared him but the corpse was right there.
He launched himself onto it, ripping a mouthful of flesh from its belly. Warm blood filled his throat, and the rush of healing flooded his mangled arm and side. His skin crawled as torn flesh sealed, scales hardening anew.
With a roar, he charged the blacksmith again.
The hammer swung, but Mike moved faster. He vaulted onto the giant's back, claws tearing deep into muscle. He ripped away hunks of flesh, his teeth snapping through tendon and bone. The blacksmith howled, staggering as his blood splattered across the flames.
The screams carried into the night, mixing with the roar of the fire.
At the treeline, Sorina and the other humans stood frozen in horror. They backed away slowly as the last of the giants collapsed, the monstrous figure tearing it apart piece by piece. And Mike devoured. Flesh. Bone. Sinew. Until there was nothing left but a steaming husk.
The camp was in ruins. Smoke curled into the sky in choking black ribbons, the firelight painting the shattered trunks and blood-soaked earth a hellish orange. Giants lay broken in grotesque heaps, their bodies split open, steaming in the night air. The metallic stench of blood was suffocating, thick enough that Sorina pressed her sleeve over her face as she and the others crept back through the trees.
None of them spoke. They didn't dare.
Mike was no longer a man nor was he simply dragon. He was something in between, something that had no name, something that should never have been. His claws clicked as he prowled over the corpses, tearing another strip of flesh from a dead giant's thigh and swallowing it whole. The sound of his feeding carried over the crackle of fire, wet and obscene.
One of the villagers beside Sorina retched, trying to hold it back but failing. The noise cut through the night like a blade.
Mike's head snapped up.
Blood ran down his chin. His eyes glowed red, brighter than the fire, pinning them where they stood. For a long, unbearable moment, he didn't move. His chest rose and fell in slow, deliberate breaths. His gaze shifted between them, and Sorina swore she could feel the weight of his hunger pressing against her skin.
The villagers panicked. One stumbled backward into a tree, snapping a low branch with a sharp crack.
The sound broke the silence.
Mike roared. It was no longer human, nor even entirely dragon, it was something primal, monstrous, a sound that reverberated through their bones. In an instant, he blurred into the smoke, his outline vanishing in a rush of speed that left only the echo of that roar behind.
Sorina froze. Every instinct screamed at her to run, yet she gripped her spear tighter. The others scattered, bolting into the dark, tripping over roots, gasping as they fled. But Sorina knew one thing with sick certainty.
The beast was hunting them now.