The thing shambling through the forest barely resembled a human anymore.
Koda stared at the torn flesh and exposed bone as the massive figure dragged itself between the trees, each step accompanied by the sickening sound of tendons snapping and reforming beneath skin that looked ready to peel from his body entirely.
What remained of Bram’s left arm was gone from the shoulder downward, leaving behind only a nest of black tendrils that writhed and twisted through the air like starving worms searching for something to feed on.
They continuously wrapped around one another, forming crude shapes that almost resembled fingers before collapsing and reforming again.
His leg was somehow worse.
There was no flesh left below the knee.
No muscle, no skin, just bone.
A white, exposed skeletal leg coated in blood and dirt, held together entirely by thick cords of black tissue that pulsed like living veins.
Every step should have shattered it completely, yet those tendrils tightened and contracted whenever the limb moved, forcing the ruined leg to function despite the damage.
Half of Bram’s face no longer existed.
The entire left side had been torn away.
Fragments of exposed jaw glistened beneath torn strips of flesh.
Part of his cheek was missing entirely, leaving rows of sharp yellow teeth permanently visible through a hole that stretched from his mouth almost to his ear.
One eye was gone, thanks to Riley.
The socket had become a writhing pit of black growths that continuously pushed outward from within his skull.
And his stomach— Koda immediately wished he hadn’t looked.
The butcher’s abdomen hung open.
There was no other way to describe it.
The flesh covering his belly had been ripped apart so thoroughly that his organs were visible beneath layers of blood and ruined muscle.
Loops of intestines continuously slid free from the wound every few steps, only for dozens of tendrils to emerge from inside his body and shove everything back where it belonged before the process repeated itself again moments later.
He looked like a corpse.
Not a man who had survived impossible injuries.
This THING was a corpse that was refusing to stay dead.
A corpse being puppeteered by something that didn’t understand how human bodies were supposed to work!
And somehow… Somehow… He was still grinning.
The sight made Koda’s skin crawl.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
The nearly flattened forest stood silent around them.
Filled with the remains of countless Nightmare Creatures that Bram had slaughtered during his rampage through the wilderness.
Some lay in pieces.
Others had been torn apart so violently that Koda couldn’t even identify what they had originally been.
The butcher stopped several yards away.
His remaining eye settled on Koda.
“You… look like you’ve got bigger.
It even seems like you copied my flow with that brand new disgusting maw of yours.” His voice sounded so wrong.
Koda slowly flexed his claws.
“And you are still so damn ugly.” For a second, Bram simply stared at him.
Then the butcher laughed.
The sound echoed through the forest like broken machinery grinding against rusted metal.
“That’s fair, I guess.” Blood spilled from the hole in his cheek as he spoke.
One of the tendrils emerging from his face immediately shoved a fragment of flesh back into place.
The movement made Koda’s stomach turn.
Bram noticed.
That only made him laugh harder.
“You should’ve seen the other guy.” Against his better judgement, Koda laughed too.
The sound escaped before he could stop it.
For a brief moment, the absurdity of the situation overwhelmed everything else.
They looked ridiculous.
One was a starving boy who had traits of a nightmare creature.
The other was a walking pile of organs held together by hatred.
The laughter died quickly.
The silence that followed felt heavier than before.
Bram’s expression softened slightly.
Not kindly, almost nostalgically.
“Thank you for surviving.” Koda frowned.
The statement caught him off guard.
Of all the things he expected Bram to say, that wasn’t one of them.
“You are hellbent on killing me.” The butcher shrugged.
“I gave you a chance, you didn’t take it.
You ruined my plan with that other stupid boy.” One of his intestines slid free again.
Several tendrils immediately grabbed it and stuffed it back into the cavity.
Neither acknowledged what had just happened.
“Thank you for surviving, too.” Koda stared at him.
Bram slowly raised his cleaver.
“Whys that?” The weapon looked almost as ruined as its owner.
Cracks covered the blade from top to bottom, while dark energy leaked from fractures running through the metal like black smoke.
“Because I would’ve been dissatisfied for the rest of my life if I wasn’t the one to kill you.” Koda growled.
Old Bram chuckled, which really sounded like a gurgle before he spat.
“Ready?” Koda lowered his center of gravity.
His instincts sharpened as his brand new muscles tightened.
“I’m not going to be in a better state, it’s now or never.” The butcher grinned.
“Good answer.” Koda flew forward first.
Not because he was stronger.
Because he couldn’t afford to let Bram dictate the pace of a battle.
The distance vanished beneath his beast-like feet.
Snow exploded behind him as he surged forward and slipped inside the reach of the cleaver before the butcher could bring it into play.
Instead of targeting Bram’s torso, he immediately focused on the damaged areas.
His wolven claws tore across the ruined leg, ripping through tendrils and exposed tissue while forcing the butcher’s weight onto his remaining limb.
The response came instantly.
Bram swung.
Koda ducked beneath the cleaver and felt the weapon howl over his head.
The enchanted blade passed so close that the air pressure alone stung his face.
His claws opened another wound across Bram’s ribs.
Then another.
Then another.
Koda never stayed still.
That was the key.
Every movement flowed into the next.
Whenever Bram tried to retaliate, Koda was already somewhere else, constantly circling the larger man while targeting damaged joints and exposed flesh.
For the first time in their entire conflict, Bram looked slow.
Not weak.
This thing could never be weak.
But he could be slow.
The accumulated injuries were finally catching up with him.
A slash opened his shoulder.
A kick smashed into his ruined knee.
Claws ripped through tendrils emerging from his stomach before… BOOM!
Even in death, Riley was pitching in through the [Explosive Grasp].
Each strike forced the butcher further onto the defensive.
Koda felt it.
The momentum.
The growing pressure.
The sensation that victory might actually be possible!
Then his instincts screamed.
The warning came so violently that his entire body reacted before his thoughts did.
He threw himself backward.
The cleaver descended.
The attack missed him completely.
The forest behind him exploded.
Trees vanished.
Like… actually vanished.
They didn’t explode nor did they shatter, they literally disappeared.
A line of destruction carved through the wilderness where the blade had passed, reducing everything within its path to splinters and debris.
Koda’s eyes widened.
Bram smiled.
“There you are.” The butcher’s body began to convulse as it started to grow.
Tendrils erupted from every wound covering his body.
They poured from his missing eye.
From his ruined stomach.
From the empty socket where his arm had once been.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
The forest around him darkened beneath the sheer volume of living black flesh.
Koda immediately understood.
This was a desperate measure, not a calculated attack but an all or nothing attack.
Bram was reaching the end.
Which made him more dangerous than ever.
The tendrils wrapped themselves around the cleaver.
Layer after layer after layer.
Until the weapon resembled a massive cocoon of black flesh.
The ground trembled.
Trees shook.
The air itself seemed to recoil.
Every instinct inside Koda screamed the same thing.
Run.
Because staying would be suicide.
He turned immediately.
The moment he moved, Bram swung.
The world ended.
The cleaver carved through the air and unleashed something far beyond a simple shockwave.
A tidal wave of destruction erupted from the blade.
The forest disappeared.
Thousands of tons of snow, earth, stone, and wood were ripped from the ground and hurled forward in a wall of annihilation that stretched as far as Koda could see.
He dove behind a boulder.
The boulder exploded.
Fragments of stone tore through his flesh.
A tree slammed into his shoulder.
Another shattered against his back.
The force lifted him from the ground entirely and launched him through the air like a discarded rag.
Pain consumed everything.
His vision blurred.
Blood filled his mouth.
He crashed through the remains of a shattered tree before finally skidding to a halt hundreds of feet away.
For several seconds, he couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think.
The only thing he could feel was agony.
Slowly, painfully, Koda lifted his head.
The forest was gone.
An enormous scar stretched across the landscape, a wound carved directly into the wilderness itself.
And standing at the center of it all was Old Bram.
Somehow still standing.
And somehow more terrifying than he had ever been.