"GUARDS… LESTER… ROWEN… IS ANYONE THERE?" Victor's voice cracked with a mixture of fury and a dawning, terrifying realization. The silence that answered him was more chilling than any scream. He couldn't believe it himself – his calls, usually met with immediate, groveling responses, were swallowed by an unnerving stillness.
Ignoring Ashutosh, Victor spun on his heel, his face a mask of apoplectic rage. He stormed towards the ornate, heavily guarded door of his office. "LESTER… WHERE ARE YOU? COME HERE AT ONCE!" He pounded on the thick wood, his knuckles white.
As he reached for the handle, a vise-like grip, impossibly strong, clamped down on his shoulder. "Muda…?" Victor hissed, whirling around. "What are you doing? GET your dirty… HANDS OFF ME!", victor try to get of his grip with his strength.
Ashutosh remained implacable, his ember eyes burning into Victor's. The silence was a suffocating blanket, amplifying Victor's growing panic. It was as if something fundamental had shifted.
Victor, his fear escalating into desperation, swung his arm wildly, attempting to dislodge Muda's grip, but his attack was like swatting at a mountain. Ashutosh's scaled fingers tightened, and Victor's breath hitched in his throat, a sharp, cracking sound echoing in the sudden stillness. "Aghhhaaaaaaaa!"
"ENOUGH…" Victor roared, his face contorted in pain and fury.
"BEAST WILL: SCORCHING FLESH!"
Ronny, lumbered into the ground floor of Victor's imposing building. A primal instinct screamed that something was terribly wrong. The usual boisterous guards were absent from their posts, and the feline demi-human receptionist lay sprawled on the floor, her eyes wide and unfocused. He knelt beside her, his thick fingers finding a faint but steady pulse. "What the…?"
The opulent lobby was plunged into darkness, the magical light sources inexplicably extinguished. It's terrifingly silent. Ronny took a cautious step forward, his heavy boot sinking into a sticky, slimy substance that coated the floor. Within seconds, a searing, agonizing burn shot through his foot. His heart plummeted. "What the hell…?"
He bolted towards The stairwell, his powerful legs carrying him upwards. Each floor presented a more gruesome scene than the last. Victor's elite guards, hulking figures of various demi-human species, lay scattered, unconscious, the same viscous slime oozing from their orifices. "Someone broke in here…" Ronny's jaw tightened, a cold dread gripping him.
He knelt beside one of the fallen dwarves, his massive hand checking for a breath, then a heartbeat. Nothing. The dwarf was dead. He repeated the grim ritual with each fallen guard, his fear solidifying into icy certainty. Everyone was dead. He took a shuddering breath and examined one of the corpses more closely. The sticky substance seemed to be actively decomposing the flesh.
A series of muffled sounds from the upper floors snagged his attention. "Victor!" Ronny roared, his eyes widening in alarm. He surged up the remaining flights of stairs, his immense stamina allowing him to ascend with speed. With each floor, the temperature climbed, an oppressive heat radiating from above, folding by what felt like ten degrees Celsius per level. By the time he reached the 25th floor, his thick hide and inherent magical resistance were working overtime to combat the escalating inferno. He could now clearly hear the source of the commotion – Victor's private chambers.
The blast door to Victor's office exploded outwards, a searing wave of heat and splintered metal washing over Ronny. With a guttural roar, he swung his massive arm, the flames licking at his hardened skin, creating a temporary barrier of fire that danced menacingly in the hallway.
He instinctively covered his face, the heat and pressure forcing him to his knees. He couldn't see through the raging inferno that now engulfed the hallway. Each passing second brought an astronomical rise in temperature, so intense that the stone-based armor adorning his body began to crack and melt. He glanced around frantically; the entire building seemed to be succumbing to the same terrifying heat. [This fucking building is going to fall…]
"I'm going to kill you… You fker!" Victor's enraged voice, though strained, pierced through the roaring flames, a sliver of hope in the terrifying chaos.
"Beast Will: Might of Monolith!" Ronny bellowed, channeling his immense power. His already thick skin hardened further, turning into a near-impenetrable carapace. The raging flames now felt like mere gusts of hot wind against his transformed hide. With heavy, determined steps, he trudged towards the melting doorframe.
He dug his massive fingers into the still-standing remnants of the wall for support and peered inside. The sight that greeted him was monstrous. Victor, in his full Beast Will transformation, resembled a colossal, writhing octopus, its tentacles spewing forth scorching flames that painted the room in hues of crimson and orange. And at the heart of this fiery behemoth, where the octopus's head should have been, was Victor's main body – a horribly burnt, agonizingly vulnerable torso, its neck held in a death grip by… someone Ronny couldn't clearly see through the intense heat.
"It's all over for you, Victor," a cold, reptilian voice echoed through the flames, a voice Ronny instinctively felt familiar but not something that sounds quite like it.
With a sickening thud, Ashutosh's fist, now wreathed in an unnatural, shimmering heat, slammed into Victor's exposed torso. The force of the blow sent the flaming octopus hurtling through the nearby wall, creating a gaping hole that revealed the night sky. "NOOOOOO!" Victor's agonizing scream was cut short by the impact.
Ashutosh turned, his ember eyes locking onto Ronny, who was now a blur of motion, launching himself forward with terrifying speed. Ronny, fueled by rage and a desperate need for answers, hurtled towards the gaping hole, intending to drag his quarry out of the burning building. But Ashutosh was quicker. With a powerful leap, he propelled himself towards the ceiling, narrowly avoiding Ronny's furious charge.
[Shit…I missed] Ronny cursed inwardly, quickly regaining his footing on the crumbling floor. He launched himself through the destroyed wall, towards Victor's still-falling form.
"Beast Will: Spiked Canon!" Ronny roared, his body undergoing another grotesque transformation. Giant, razor-sharp spikes erupted from his back, while his front became strangely soft and yielding. He plummeted towards Victor, grabbing the flailing, still-conscious torso. He curled his body around Victor, transforming into a living, spiked ball, and crashed onto the street below with earth-shattering force. The impact pulverized the cobblestones and crushed several unfortunate pedestrians who hadn't managed to flee the chaotic scene.
Ronny landed heavily on the street, the ground trembling beneath his immense weight. He watched as figure standing at the crack hole of building they fell from, on the other side revealing Victor's burnt, barely conscious torso, the remnants of his flaming octopus tentacles twitching erratically. Then, with a final, shuddering breath, the light faded from Victor's eyes. He… he was dead.
Ronny gently placed Victor's lifeless remains on the ground and looked up at the burning building, his gaze fixed on the 25th floor. He still couldn't clearly see the figure who had infiltrated Victor's heavily guarded fortress, who had single-handedly slaughtered 780 men and extinguished the life of the ruthless businessman. A cold, unsettling fear snaked its way into the Bull Champion Brawler's heart.