Chapter V — The Hill, the Blood, and the Howl
The hill was slowly being devoured by fog.
Ash drifted so thickly in the air, as if the sky itself had crumbled and was now descending to bury the cursed land.
With every step, Rintal felt the mud and human bone crumble beneath his boots.
The wind crackled faintly, as if someone were whispering beneath the ground — a voice that could not belong to either the living or the dead.
As he climbed higher, the world began to change.
The trees here stood like black skeletons, their trunks cracked open, and from within seeped a metallic smell — as if blood and oil had mixed together.
Between the rocks, small, rotting flags swayed in the wind — remnants of the Solmaren Empire's emblem.
"They deserve it…"
"So many children lost their parents because of them… and still, many were later conscripted to have their minds washed," Rintal said as he looked at the empire's flags along his path.
The sky was no longer gray, but red and white — like a wound that would never heal.
Panting, Rintal reached the top of the hill.
From here, the land was desolate — as if even time itself had turned its face away.
From beyond the mountains, a faint light glimmered — not sunlight, but a slowly pulsing golden-green glow coming from the direction of the castle.
He had to reach it.
Just another half kilometer…
"Not far now… but what could be there that the relic and the seal want me to find?"
"Areday… could he really be there?" Rintal asked himself.
At the bottom of the slope, a rocky wall rose — not high, but enough to block the wind.
Rintal began to climb. His hands touched cold stone, streaked with traces of blood.
When he reached the top, he froze.
Bodies lay before him.
Not human ones.
Werewolves.
"What the… hell?"
But not as they usually look after a fierce fight.
Around the corpses there was no mud, no splattered blood — only clean, precise, almost surgical cuts.
As if an invisible blade had torn them apart.
Their ribs were evenly opened, their throats cut in exactly the same spot — like a ritual.
Rintal felt that this was not a battle. This was judgment.
"The Sons of the Dawn…" he murmured.
"I have to be careful, because I might not survive another fight against them."
"Geremisz and Rayuka… I have to avoid them if I want to live."
The air turned metallic.
The silence suddenly became heavier.
Two shadows leapt out of the fog.
They made no sound — only fangs and claws.
The first attacked from the air, its wolfish jaws open, eyes shining with golden madness.
The second rushed from behind, moving like a man, but ended up sliding on all fours across the dirt.
Rintal dodged, drew his dagger, and used his momentum as a weapon.
He avoided the first wolf's head from the side and stabbed the second in the chest — not deeply, just enough to break its rush.
A kick, a turn — the first beast vomited blood onto the ground and died.
The one behind, which had attacked first, had no time to react.
With the speed of a thief and a quick step, Rintal struck — two blades, two stabs from both sides — two dead bodies.
"That was quick."
"The potion the old man gave me… it worked," Rintal said.
For a moment, there was silence while he took a deep breath.
Then — a howl.
Not one, but many.
From the fog, sevenwolves emerged — a whole pack.
Their eyes glowed yellow, their fur soaked in blood and mud mixed with ash.
Each was different:
one's arm was made of bone, another had two faces, and a third had chains hanging from its back — the ones it had worn as a human.
But in their eyes, there was one thing in common — hunger.
Rintal did not retreat.
The seal did not glow — he did not need it. He did not want to need it.
"Come on then…" he whispered. "Here, everyone dies eventually… or worse. So as redemption, I'll take a few of you with me if I must."
The first to charge was the pack leader — a huge gray monster with a rusty sword still stuck in its spine.
Rintal dodged at the last moment, grabbed its arm, and tore it from its shoulder with its own momentum.
"Damn it!" Rintal snarled.
He pushed the second one away — then kicked it under the chin, jumped on it as if to grab it, and stabbed its throat.
He used the body as a shield when the third pounced on him.
He gouged out its eyes with his bare hands, then stabbed upward through its skull — through its mouth.
The fourth wolf came from the side, but Rintal dodged quickly, barely managing to push the corpses off himself.
Then he grabbed his dagger.
The wolf attacked wildly, blinded by hunger, only biting aimlessly.
Rintal dodged sideways, then back, and when the wolf attacked from above, he slit its throat.
Blood sprayed; the deformed beast had no chance even to touch the ground.
The blood was hot and smoked, as if it burned.
The fifth grabbed his arm, claws tearing his shoulder — Rintal staggered for a moment, dropped his weapon, and broke the wolf's neck with his bare hands.
"You think you're strong, you little beast ?!" he shouted.
The sixth and seventh did not attack.
They only watched.
The blood on Rintal's body smoked; his eyes glowed with rage, adrenaline, and pain.
He looked like the true monster now.
Then he roared — a sound that shook the mountain — and charged at them like a predator.
The two wolves froze in fear.
Even though they were mutants, it had been so long since they'd felt fear that they had forgotten what it was.
They could not control themselves and turned back into harmless, broken, deformed humans.
Rintal did not hesitate.
He cut through both at once.
It happened so quickly they only realized it later — he hadn't even tried to dodge, just ran straight through them in an instant.
The pack leader only stood and looked at him.
It did nothing.
Its gaze was cold, cruel, and dead.
Rintal saw smoke begin to rise from his hand.
Then the pack leader walked to its fallen companions — and began to eat them.
"I watch… I adapt… I evolve," it said.
It bent down, devouring.
The flesh hissed between its teeth, blood steaming down its chin like a burning divine sacrifice.
With every bite, something moved inside its body — muscles tensed, bones cracked, as if something was rebuilding it from within.
The wounds Rintal had inflicted slowly closed, replaced by new, darker flesh.
The beast grew.
Its chest widened, its spine bent, its ribs tore through its skin.
Veins of blood glowed like embers across its flesh — markings similar to the seal, but rougher, more distorted.
Its eyes darkened — one golden, the other deep red.
The ground trembled as it stood upright.
The air froze.
Rintal stepped back — not out of fear, but recognition.
This was no longer a wolf.
It was something new.
A crueler, more hybrid lifeform — a demon born of evolution itself.
The pack leader slowly turned toward Rintal.
It did not roar.
It only stared, as it tore a piece of flesh from its own arm — and ate it.
"I evolve…" it murmured again, its voice deeper and distorted, as if spoken by several throats at once.
Then it moved.
It did not run — it vanished.
Rintal could only sense from the trembling ground where it was.
The next moment, he was in the air — the leader had struck from nowhere.
Rintal dodged, but the blow still caught his side, where his relic pouch hung — he flew, crashed into the ground, and the air was knocked from his lungs.
The pouch tore from his side, fell to the ground, and the orb rolled out — not far, but just enough.
Rintal looked up, panting, coughing blood.
The pack leader towered over him, blood from its own kind dripping from its jaws.
Their eyes met — one filled with bloodlust, the other with awareness.
Then the seal began to glow, and the orb slid back to him.
And then Rintal saw — the beast, despite all its power and madness, began to back away.
Not out of fear.
But instinct.
As soon as the orb touched his palm, the pack leader roared.
Not a human, not an animal sound — but like bending iron, or the world itself tearing apart.
Rintal looked at the orb, then at the monster.
His eyes glowed, his body trembled — not with fear, but from the overload caused by the seal.
If he fought now, he knew he would become a monsterhimself — he felt it.
"This feeling consumes me… and yet something drives me to kill…" he muttered.
"I must resist," he shouted in his mind.
"I MUST RESIST!"
The pack leader retreated into the fog, slowly, on all fours.
The blood it left behind smoked darker than shadow.
It turned toward its cave — into the mountain's depths, where no light ever shone.
Rintal slowly stood, wiped his mouth, and spat.
"Go then… learn, as you said."
His voice was hoarse but filled with determination.
"Next time, I will be the one who watches — and evolves."
The fog returned.
Behind the hill, the castle's light flared, as if it knew that hunter and prey were now bound by the same chain.
Rintal gathered his bag, cleaned the orb, and slowly began walking toward the bridge leading to the castle.
The wind was calm now, but with every step, he felt as if something deep within the mountain was watching him.
And the whisper returned — distorted, but familiar.
It was a voice he had heard before.
Not the old man's.
Not the shadow's.
Someone else's.
Areday's.
The voice was cold, yet sorrowful.
— "Zofia."