Noah stood motionless—his frame cloaked in writhing crimson fire, each flame twisting and coiling through the air like serpents born of wrath.
They didn't scorch his flesh.
They devoured something deeper.
His soul burned.
The air thickened, heavy enough to choke. Heat flooded the room, but it wasn't heat that made breathing impossible.
It was malice.
Pure, undiluted, suffocating malice.
The walls seemed to groan. The ceiling felt lower. It was as if the whole building had gone still, holding its breath in terror of the thing that had just been unleashed.
Ryan. Jake. Liam.
Frozen.
Their eyes locked on Noah—not with ordinary fear, but with the bone-deep recognition that the figure before them… was no longer human.
"W-What's happening to him?!" Ryan's voice cracked as he stumbled backward, like a child caught staring at a nightmare made flesh.
Jake was still trapped in Noah's grip, knees buckled, his body trembling like prey in a predator's jaws. His mangled hand dangled uselessly, skin stretched taut over twisted bone. His face had turned ghost-white, and the only sound from his lips was a strangled whimper.
"N-No way…" Liam's voice was barely a whisper at first, then broke into a shriek. "You didn't awaken—you weren't supposed to!" He sounded like a man clinging to the last seconds before an executioner's axe fell.
Noah's head tilted slightly, a crooked, blood-smeared smile curling across his lips.
And then—
CRACK.
Jake's scream didn't sound human anymore. It was raw, guttural—an animal caught in a steel trap—as his arm didn't just break. It detonated. Flesh split. Bone splintered. Shards punched through his skin, spraying crimson in the flickering firelight.
But Noah's hand didn't release him.
Fingers plunged into the wreckage of Jake's arm. The sound was wet. Wrong. He dug until his nails scraped bone, then tore free a jagged shard—still dripping marrow, steaming in the heat between them.
The shard flashed once in the firelight—
STAB.
Jake gagged, eyes bulging.
STAB.
Blood sprayed across Noah's cheek, painting him in a darker red.
STAB.
It was fast, vicious, and personal—like every ounce of humiliation and agony Noah had endured was now finding its way into each strike.
Jake collapsed to his knees, hands clawing desperately at his throat as blood gushed between his fingers. A choking, bubbling rattle spilled from his mouth—half air, half liquid—as his lungs fought for a breath that would never come. His gaze glazed over before the first breath could even leave him.
The body toppled sideways, twitching once before going still.
Ryan's voice cracked into a scream. "WHAT THE HELL IS HE?!"
He threw his hand forward, desperate to summon his ability—
Too slow.
The world blurred. Ronan was already there. His fist drove into Ryan's chest with the force of a sledgehammer. Bone folded under the impact, ribs snapping like dry twigs, lungs collapsing as blood erupted from his lips.
Ryan flew backward, hitting the wall so hard it cracked. He slid down, gasping like a fish out of water.
A wooden beam lay at Ronan's feet. He didn't hesitate.
BANG.
It punched through Ryan's skull like paper. The head snapped back violently, blood and fragments splattering across the wall. His body slumped in an instant—lifeless.
Now only Liam remained.
The leader. The smirking vulture from minutes ago was gone. All that was left was a trembling man, knees threatening to give, sweat running in rivulets down his face.
"P-Please…" he whimpered, voice shrill. "I—I was just joking! We were just messing around! I didn't mean—"
CRACK.
Noah's boot connected with Liam's knee, bending it at a grotesque angle until bone tore through skin in a spray of red.
"AAAAAAARGH!"
Liam's scream tore through the air, high-pitched and frantic, but it only made Noah step forward slower, like savoring a hunt.
He grabbed Liam by the hair and dragged him down, slamming him onto the cold concrete. Liam's head bounced with a dull thud as Ronan crouched over him, their faces inches apart.
"You know…" Noah's voice was low, steady—like a man confessing a secret. "I've always wondered… what it feels like to crush a human skull. With. My. Hands."
"Wait—WAIT—!"
BAM!
The first punch shattered his nose.
"I'm sor—"
BAM!
A tooth spun across the floor, clinking softly as it landed.
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
His jaw dislocated. His eyes swelled shut. Blood flooded from every opening.
BAM!
The skull cracked. The sound was wet, sickening. Brain matter began to leak.
BAM!
The screaming stopped.
But Noah didn't.
Knuckles broke. Healed. Broke again. He kept going until there was nothing left to hit—only a wet crater of pulp where a head had been.
Silence swallowed the room.
Three corpses lay in broken heaps around him.
The crimson fire still danced across his body, casting hellish shadows on the walls.
[Devil's Covenant: 60%]
Noah stood there, chest rising and falling slowly, blood dripping from his fingers to the floor in heavy, rhythmic taps.
And then—
He laughed.
Not the laugh of joy. Not the laugh of madness.
The laugh of a man finally free from the chains that had bound him.
Tonight, the weak Noah Caine had been buried.
What stood now—was something else entirely.