The Central Forge of the Earthcrown was a cathedral of heat and violence. Molten "Void-Steel" cascaded from overhead crucibles like waterfalls of liquid fire, illuminating the titanic struggle between the last son of the Swiftfang and the juggernaut of the mountains. The Earthcrown Warlord was no longer a man; he was a mountain of meat and chrome. His massive hydraulic claws hissed with steam as he swung a hammer the size of a transit car, each blow cracking the reinforced floor and sending tremors through the very foundation of the industrial sector.
Zayn was a blur of bruised violet light, his movements jagged and desperate. He was strong, but the Warlord's hide was reinforced with layers of kinetic-absorbent plating. Every time Zayn landed a blow, the impact was absorbed and redirected, rattling his own bones. He felt his Abyssal energy flickering. He was exhausted. The siege of the Viper's Crest and the poisoning of the Deepstream had pushed his human vessel to its absolute limit.
"You are a flea biting a god!" the Warlord roared, his voice amplified by internal sub-woofers. He swung his hammer in a horizontal arc, catching Zayn in the ribs.
Zayn was thrown across the forge, his body skipping off a cooling vat before slamming into a pillar of solid obsidian. He slumped to the ground, blood—thick, dark, and flecked with violet sparks—leaking from his mouth. His vision swam. The screams of the "Shunned Army" fighting outside felt miles away.
Is this the end of the legend? a voice echoed, not in the room, but inside the hollow space of Zayn's mind.
It was a voice like grinding tectonic plates, cold and infinitely ancient. Zayn found himself standing in a mental landscape of endless, black water under a blood-red sky. Behind a massive gate of spectral ribs lay a shadow so vast it seemed to swallow the horizon. Two eyes, like twin dying suns, flickered open.
"Who are you?" Zayn's mental projection hissed.
I am the hunger that the Five Clans tried to starve, the voice vibrated. I am the Primal Rage. I am the Black Wolf of the Abyss. You call upon my power like a thief stealing scraps from a table, boy. You fear the very blood that makes you a King.
"I don't fear it," Zayn spat, clutching his mental chest. "I control it."
The shadow laughed, a sound that felt like a serrated blade against Zayn's soul. You control nothing. You fight for 'meaning.' You fight for 'justice.' These are human delusions. The Swiftfang didn't rule because they were 'good.' They ruled because they were the apex. If you want to survive the mountain, you must stop being a man with a wolf's shadow. You must become the wolf that wears a man's skin.
Outside, in the real world, the Warlord raised his hammer for the killing blow. "Die, glitch."
Zayn's eyes snapped open. They weren't just red anymore. They were voids of absolute blackness, leaking a thick, misty darkness that flowed upward like inverted rain.
"Give me everything," Zayn whispered.
Then drown in it, the Wolf replied.
A pillar of obsidian energy erupted from Zayn, vaporizing the obsidian pillar behind him. His body began to warp. Coarse, black fur erupted along his spine and forearms. His fingernails elongated into jagged, carbon-fiber claws, and his jaw lengthened, teeth sharpening into a serrated grin. This wasn't a full transformation—his body was still too weak to contain the God-Beast—but a "Partial Manifestation." He was a lycanthropic nightmare, a hybrid of human rage and Abyssal divinity.
He caught the Warlord's hammer with one hand. The sound of the impact was like a cannon blast, but Zayn didn't move an inch. The metal of the hammer began to groan, the Void-Steel turning black as the Abyssal rot spread from Zayn's touch.
"My turn," Zayn growled, his voice now layered with the guttural snarl of the Wolf.
He pulled. The Warlord, weighing several tons, was yanked forward like a child. Zayn buried a clawed fist into the Warlord's chest, tearing through the kinetic plating as if it were wet paper. He ripped out the cybernetic heart of the machine, sparks showering his dark fur. The Warlord collapsed, his massive body hitting the floor with a final, pathetic thud.
Zayn stood over the fallen giant, steam rising from his transformed limbs. He felt the Wolf's consciousness scratching at the back of his skull, begging to be let loose entirely, to feast on the city above. He fought the urge, forcing the fur to recede and his teeth to dull, though his eyes remained black.
He looked out at the factory floor. The "Shunned Army" had stopped fighting. Both the survivors and the remaining Earthcrown guards were staring at him in paralyzed terror. Zayn realized then that the "meaning" of his movement had changed. He wasn't just a rebel leader anymore. He was a symbol of the "Primal Truth"—that the hierarchy of Metamorphia was a lie built on stolen strength.
"The steel is ours!" Zayn shouted, his voice echoing through the forge. "Arm yourselves! No more cages! No more harvests!"
The shunned let out a roar that rivaled the forge's heat. They began grabbing Void-Steel blades and rail-rifles, turning the Earthcrown's own technology against the remaining oppressors.
But the victory was short-lived. A high-pitched, harmonic whistle began to pierce through the roar of the fires. Sariel, who had been guarding the perimeter, sprinted into the forge, her face pale.
"Zayn! Get everyone out! Now!" she screamed.
"What is it?" Zayn asked, the Wolf's senses already picking up a shift in the air pressure.
"The Skymantle," she gasped, looking toward the shattered roof. "My sister... she's not waiting for a ground assault. She's executed the 'Solar Purge.' She's bombing the entire industrial district. She's going to bury the Earthcrown and the rebels in the same grave to consolidate power!"
Zayn looked up. The "Total Blackout" was gone, but not because the power was back. The sky was filled with hundreds of glowing, gold-winged shapes—the Skymantle's elite "Solar-Vanguard." They weren't dropping traditional bombs. They were focusing the light of the artificial suns into concentrated beams of pure thermal energy.
"She's killing her own allies?" Zayn muttered, horizontal rays of golden light already beginning to pierce the thick smoke of the district.
"To the Matriarch, the Earthcrown are replaceable," Sariel said, her eyes filled with a bitter realization. "She's using your 'revolution' as an excuse to wipe out the other clans and rule the Apex alone."
The first beam hit the far end of the foundry. The explosion didn't just destroy the building; it vaporized everything in a three-hundred-foot radius. The heat was so intense that the stone floor turned to glass instantly.
Zayn looked at the hundreds of survivors—the people he had just freed. They were trapped. If they stayed, they would be ash. If they ran, they would be picked off by the Skymantle raptors.
Let them burn, the Wolf whispered in his mind. Save yourself. Reach the Apex. Kill the Matriarch. That is the only path.
Zayn ignored the voice. He looked at the red cloth tied to his arm. He had created this movement. He had given them hope. If he abandoned them now, he was no better than the Kings he sought to kill.
"Sariel! Take the Vanguard and lead the survivors into the Earthcrown's deep sub-tunnels! They're shielded against thermal radiation!" Zayn commanded.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, her violet eyes searching his.
Zayn looked up at the sky, his black eyes reflecting the coming golden fire. The Abyssal Aura began to spiral around him again, but this time, he wasn't just hoarding it. He was expanding it, creating a dark dome of energy that stretched across the ceiling of the foundry.
"I'm going to give them something else to look at," Zayn said.
As the Skymantle fleet began their second, larger volley of Solar beams, Zayn leapt through the shattered roof, propelled by a burst of dark energy. He was a lone black speck against a sea of golden predators.
The plot twist was revealed in the clouds: as Zayn ascended, he saw that the Skymantle fleet wasn't just attacking the foundry. They were deploying massive, biological harvesters into the cloud layer—devices designed to collect the "soul-essence" of the thousands of people they were about to kill. The Matriarch wasn't just purging; she was performing a mass-sacrifice to complete her own metamorphosis into a goddess.
Zayn's ascent was met with a barrage of light, but he didn't falter. He was the Nightmare of the Abyss, and he was taking the fight to the sun.