The Dread of Damned

He lunged at me, his speed far greater than before. It was almost impossible to track him now, and I only reappeared on the other side of the room because my instincts flared in warning.

So, those powers really did grant a monstrous boost.

Lucian appeared beside me just as Gunnar lunged again. But before he could reach us, he flicked his wrist—a jagged spear of ice shot forward. Gunnar twisted aside, dodging right, but I had already launched my own attack. A spear of pure silver essence rippled through space, distorting reality as it materialized before him. It tore through his arm, rending flesh, splintering bone. The limb was shredded, a mangled ruin of exposed muscle and shattered bone fragments flying in all directions.

But his regeneration had grown monstrously fast. Before the last scraps of severed tissue even hit the ground, a new arm had formed. He lashed out, claws gleaming wickedly. I blinked away, vanishing to the opposite side of the room—just as Arion appeared in a flash of silver. His sword met Gunnar's attack, the blade radiating with a golden glow.

Arion sidestepped, moving with lethal elegance, his blade weaving through the air in a dance of silver and gold. The strike came too fast for Gunnar to evade. His legs were severed—cleanly, effortlessly—cleaved apart at the thighs. The wet thud of his lower body collapsing to the ground barely echoed before I struck, slashing from afar.

Rippling waves of severing essence tore through the space between us. The blades carved deep gashes across his torso, flaying him open. But my essence was draining—I could feel the depletion like a hollowing void inside me. The wounds, though deep, were not fatal. And just like that, his legs regenerated.

And then, he lunged at me again.

"Enough."

Lucian's voice cut through the air, and in the next instant, the temperature plummeted. The very atmosphere seemed to crack, brittle with an unnatural frost. The moisture in the air crystallized, creeping in delicate, deadly veins of ice. Gunnar's movements faltered, slowed—then froze entirely.

His body became a statue, encased in thick frost.

A powerful nocturnal could regenerate from nearly anything—so long as they could circulate their essence. But Lucian hadn't just frozen his flesh. He had frozen the very essence flowing through him.

And without that, Gunnar was nothing more than a frozen corpse.

I exhaled, letting a smirk curl my lips. "You really held back with me, huh?" I clapped Lucian on the shoulder.

Then I turned to Gunnar, walking up to his frozen form. His eyes, wide with terror, locked onto me.

"I won't kill you yet," I murmured. The words slithered from my tongue, curling like smoke in the icy air. Even through the frost, I could feel it—his despair, thick and suffocating.

No, death would be far too merciful.

"I will show you every single one of your bloodline dying."

I turned to Lucian. "Unfreeze his eyes. He has to see this."

The frost around his eyes melted, revealing golden orbs filled with raw, unfiltered horror.

"Now watch."

I laughed.

And the chains tightened.

The room itself seemed to inhale, as if the walls held their breath.

Then—a wet, visceral rip.

The weakest among them, a maid, split apart, her body tearing open in a grotesque spray of viscera. A strangled, gurgling scream died in her throat as her organs spilled to the floor, steaming, glistening. Intestines slithered onto the blood-soaked ground like serpents, pooling in thick, pulsing ropes of violet and red.

Then another.

And another.

The blood fell like rain, warm and thick, coating my skin in a crimson sheen. It dripped from my fingers, trailed down my arms, seeped into my very pores. A still-beating heart thudded against my foot, twitching, spasming in its final desperate beats. Intestines wrapped around my boots like limp, lifeless vines.

I looked up.

At the butchered bodies hanging in the air. The half-ripped torsos suspended by sinew and shredded muscle. Their faces frozen in agony, mouths open in silent, endless screams.

The child sobbed. Then her body tore apart, ribs cracking like brittle twigs. Her chest split open, a ruined flower of shattered bone, her tiny heart tumbling free.

I opened my mouth.

Blood splashed against my tongue, thick, metallic, intoxicating. It slid down my throat in warm rivulets, feeding something deep inside me.

Something insatiable.

A hunger. A craving.

I shuddered as a deep, guttural growl rumbled in my chest. My barriers cracked, splintering under the sheer carnage.

Then the child's heart landed in my mouth.

I bit down.

Gunnar's golden eyes locked onto me, trembling with helplessness.

The flesh was soft, delicate, dissolving beneath my fangs. The flavor was exquisite—the essence of despair itself, distilled into the richest delicacy I had ever tasted.

The thick woman broke next. The butler followed, his head splitting in half, one side splattering onto the floor in a grotesque spray of brain matter.

I could feel it.

This.

This was it.

I turned to Gunnar. His golden eyes had shrunk to pinpoints, the whites hemorrhaging into a deep, unnatural red.

I blinked—then drove my hand into his stomach.

His frozen body cracked. Then split. Then shattered. He fell apart in countless shards of ice and flesh, scattering across the blood-drenched floor. One of his golden eyes, fractured down the center, rolled to my feet, still locked onto me in silent, endless horror.

I crushed it beneath my heel.

Then the moonlight swelled.@@novelbin@@

It flooded the room, a silver tide that seeped into my skin, into my bones. The power surged, thick and pulsing, an electric hum in the marrow of my being.

I could feel it filling me, repairing me, binding me together. My organs—drained of essence—were replenished, drowning in luminous energy.

Then the bodies were still. The massacre was done.

The moonlight reached its peak, flaring in its highest intensity. A bubble of silver light coiled around me, encasing me in a cocoon of raw power.

Then—the pain struck.

A vein in my head ruptured. Blood trickled down my face before the moonlight rushed in, knitting it back together. Another burst in my hand, then my chest. The moonlight surged, repairing each wound the instant it was torn open.

Then my leg exploded.

I collapsed to my knees as blood painted the floor. But within moments, the moonlight gathered, the energy swirling through me, rebuilding the bone, the muscle, the sinew.

Again.

And again.

Each rupture was erased—only for another to explode somewhere else. My arms, my stomach, my chest—every part of me torn apart and reformed, caught in an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth. Even my clothes shredded under the relentless force, only to be restored moments later.

The fireflies swarmed, tiny orbs of silver light weaving into my skin, merging with my essence.

I stayed like that, suspended between agony and ecstasy.

A vein would repair. Another would rupture.

Then my body burst apart once more.

And I fell—plunging into the waiting embrace of darkness.