"This is one hell of a morning, isn't it?" Rei said, forcing a small laugh as he tried to lighten the weight of the moment. His gaze dropped to the blood-slicked floor between him and Naomi, where the lifeless body of a werewolf lay without a head connected to its body.
Naomi stood silently, her long black hair tousled, strands clinging to her cheeks as the wind seeped through the cracked window. She didn't turn. Her sharp jawline remained tilted toward the glass, eyes narrowed. With a subtle motion, she raised her right hand and pointed toward the room's door. A sphere of dark pink aura swirled to life above the door, crackling with energy before shifting form, condensing into a sleek blade of condensed aura.
"Stop making jokes," she said coldly, her voice smooth like velvet but edged with something far more dangerous.
Rei gave a half-nod, taking her tone as a warning. A flicker of energy stirred at the edge of his senses. Without hesitation, he lifted his hand and conjured a flame of pure azure. The cold air amplified its intensity. He hurled it through the shattered window. A werewolf, caught mid-leap, burst into flames. It howled violently before the cold air and fire combined, reducing it to ash before it could land in the snow.
Suddenly, another beast crashed into the room. The door shattered into splinters, wooden pieces flying across the floor as the werewolf lunged forward with a thunderous howl.
The aura blade Naomi had set above the frame dropped like a guillotine. It sliced clean through the beast's skull and chest, splitting it down the middle. The creature collapsed with a sickening crunch.
[You have gained a Resonance Fragment 'Werewolf'.]
Naomi's eyes widened for a brief moment. She hadn't expected that. But there was no time to speak.
Two more werewolves crashed down through the ceiling. Snow, splinters, and dust exploded into the air as they descended with claws outstretched, falling like meteors aimed to crush everything below.
Her instincts flared to life. In that instant, she took on her pureblood half.
Naomi's eyes bled into a deep, unholy crimson. Her right arm snapped upward. She caught one of the werewolves by the throat mid-air, her grip tight enough to choke the creature instantly. Claws extended from her fingertips, thin and elegant but terrifyingly sharp, then sank into the beast's neck and injected her blood.
The effect was immediate. The werewolf writhed and screamed. Its feet kicking in the air, trying to break free as her blood cooked its insides from the throat downward. She flung the convulsing body into the second werewolf with terrifying ease.
Naomi's lips parted, a thin trail of drool slipping from the corner of her mouth. There was something haunting in the way she watched the two beasts writhing on the ground—part hunger, part euphoria.
She approached with a slow, deliberate stride, her hips swaying slightly, her silhouette framed by the fractured light spilling through the window. An aura blade bloomed once more in her hand, dark pink and pulsing like a heartbeat. She plunged it downward into the first creature's chest, piercing its heart. Without missing a beat, she forced the blade through and into the second, killing both in a single, fluid motion.
Her crimson eyes locked onto Rei, and for a moment, he froze. The blood around her claws dripped steadily, joining the mess that soaked the floor. Her mouth was slightly open, breath heavy, her expression unreadable but intense. The glint in her eyes made it hard to tell if she was going to speak or strike.
Another howl erupted, louder, closer. A different presence entered the hall.
Naomi's ears twitched. Her focus shifted, and she stepped out of the room, her form swallowed by the corridor's shadows. In the hallway, she stopped.
The creature that stood before her wasn't like the others. It was no ordinary werewolf. Its fur shimmered with deep amethyst hues, eyes like molten gold, and its fangs looked more like crafted daggers than wild teeth. It didn't charge her like the others did, the werewolf began to study the way she did everything.
Shadows began to curl at Naomi's feet, whispering into reality. They crept along the walls, growling in distorted tones. Some shadows dropped to all fours. Others ran along the ceiling. Lantern light extinguished one by one, plunging the hallway into darkness where her conjured beasts became invisible.
The werewolf's eyes narrowed. Its aura flared—a brilliant red explosion of energy that lit the entire corridor. Every shadow Naomi summoned was revealed in that moment, and then scorched into smoke by the creature's aura alone.
Rei peeked out of the doorway and froze.
Two small, black wings began to sprout from Naomi's back. Her claws stretched longer, now nearly eleven inches, and dripped fresh blood onto the wooden floor. Her wings unfurled slowly, crackling with a strange and unstable dark pink aura.
'W-what th-the hell is she? It? What... do I even call this?'
Rei stumbled back into the room, heart pounding, as if the mere sight of her transformation had pierced something deep in his soul. Instinct begged him to close the door, though there was nothing left to close.
From the hallway came another howl—closer, angrier.
The air shifted.
Then, the sound of heavy running. Wings flapped like thunder, and Rei turned just in time to sense movement behind the window.
His grip tightened around his katana. Flames surged along the blade once more. He rushed forward, weapon drawn, and swung as the creature leapt into the room.
Rei swung his katana with flames surging along its length, but before the blade could land, a hand made of dark mist materialized from the air and caught the attack with ease. The grip was solid, unnaturally strong. With a sudden twist, the mist-formed hand wrenched the sword from Rei's grasp and slammed it into the floor. The impact sent cracks through the boards beneath them, the fire sputtering out on contact.
The creature stood still, silent.
Though it didn't speak, Rei immediately felt an intelligence behind it—something impossible to read by the methods he knew. It resembled a human man in vague shape, tall and broad-shouldered, but its body was entirely formed of swirling black mist. No aura pulsed from it. Its face was featureless, partially dissolved into a slow, ever-shifting cloud of darkness. In its left hand, it held a long sword, also made of the same black mist, but shaped with perfect symmetry, its edges jagged like broken glass.
The mist figure turned its head toward Zay, who still lay unconscious on the bed. The being gave a small, deliberate bow, subtle but respectful, before turning its focus back to Rei. Then, with a motion as fluid as smoke drifting in the wind, it lifted its right hand into the air.
Zay's body began to emit a soft, unnatural mist. It poured out slowly at first, then surged, flooding the room with cold white fog. From the thick veil of white mist, a lion began to take shape. Its form was elegant and massive, made entirely of dense, glowing mist the color of moonlight. Its eyes were pools of silver.
The lion opened its mouth and roared, the sound tearing through the clinic like thunder. Windows cracked. Cabinets shook apart. The very walls trembled. A freezing wave of mist burst outward, blanketing the room and pouring into the hallway like an unstoppable tide.
The lion of white mist stepped forward alongside the dark mist figure. Together, they moved into the corridor where Naomi and the amethyst-colored werewolf clashed violently. Their battle was savage—blades of aura, flares of power, and streaks of blood arcing through the flickering lantern light. Their fists collided with thunderous weight. Claws met wings.
The mist man looked down at the lion and conveyed a message not through spoken words but through layered sounds that somehow translated directly into language.
"Do not harm her at all. She is important to the leader."
The lion dipped its head in acknowledgment, then released another wave of chilling mist.
The mist man, Nubilum, lowered the edge of his longsword to the ground. As it dragged along the floor, a screeching metallic sound echoed through the corridor, reverberating like a scream through stone.
Then he vanished.
The mist swallowed its form completely. A moment later, it reappeared behind the werewolf in the blink of an eye, without so much as a breeze. It grabbed the werewolf by the throat and lifted the beast off the ground, squeezing tightly. With a gruntless roar of effort, Nubilum slammed the creature into the floor. Once. Twice. A third time. Then again. Each blow harder than the last. The floorboards splintered with each impact, and dust rose from beneath them.
Nubilum projected its voice into the werewolf's mind. The tone was emotionless, chilling.
"Why do you attack when you know you should not? You foul, vile, disgusting beast. You do not deserve to live."
Nubilum lifted the creature once more as the lion charged forward. Its massive jaws opened and closed around the werewolf's skull with a single, decisive bite. A loud crunch echoed as the beast's head was severed. The lion dissolved into white mist once more and faded from existence.
Without hesitation, Nubilum raised his sword and drove it into the werewolf's chest. The body jerked and thrashed violently. Aura erupted from its limbs, wild and uncontrolled, but Nubilum pressed his misted hand into the creature's stomach. His fingers sank in as if the flesh offered no resistance. A moment later, he clenched the werewolf's internal organs and seared a glowing sigil—a Mark of Eternal Flames—into its body.
He withdrew his hand, then hurled the werewolf's corpse across the hall. The body ignited into a brilliant orange flame. It burned with no fuel, with no smoke, with no end. It was a fire meant for souls—a flame that would never die.
One of the alpha werewolves had been condemned to eternal suffering for all of existence.
Nubilum looked toward Naomi. She stood still, her right hand clenched into a fist. Her chest rose and fell slowly, eyes burning with heat and instinct. In that moment, she looked ethereal, beautiful in her own way, but also dangerous.
With a flick of his finger, Nubilum released a gentle wave of aura of crimson, silver, gold, and also a violet in color. Naomi's body slackened instantly. Her eyes changed back to dark pink and rolled back as she lost consciousness, her limbs collapsing in slow motion.
He caught her before she could fall.
Lifting her carefully by the waist, he carried her back into the room and placed her into a soft chair made of mist beside Zay's bed. He gently fixed her hair, brushing it behind her ears, then transferred a faint amount of his own aura into her, mending the fabric on her clothes where her wings had torn through.
Then he turned his gaze back to Rei.
Rei sat frozen, his breath shallow. Nubilum gave no words. He simply nodded, turned and walked toward the door. As he did, his form unraveled, dispersing into trails of mist that slithered out of sight, gone as quickly as he came.
Rei remained still for a long moment before finally collapsing to his knees. His katana lay nearby, scorched and wet. He picked it up, stared at the weapon, then let out a quiet, almost manic laugh.
He had no clue what the hell had just happened. His thoughts spiraled, and thoughts without answers.
'A werewolf attack... in the damn morning. Naomi… is whatever the hell she is. A goddamn lion made of white mist appeared, and that... what even was he? A man? A ghost? A mist-formed demon? Wait are demons real? Aren't they just made up to scare children? I don't have enough information for this.'
Rei exhaled hard and reached into his Arbiter: Vault, pulling free a worn leather journal. Its pages were filled with theories, diagrams, aura charts, notes on Sequence Beasts and Arbiters. Without hesitation, he flipped it open and began scribbling furiously, trying to make sense of the chaos—trying to understand what he saw, wanting to learn.