Drake remained at the edge of the Dead Ruins long after the cold night wind brushed against his monstrous body.
The city lights glimmered far in the distance, faint and golden beneath the dark sky.
Somewhere beyond those lights, Luna slept inside a hospital chamber, still waiting for him.
That thought should have pulled him forward immediately.
Instead, Drake stood still.
His claws dug into the earth.
His tail moved slowly behind him.
His breathing came deep and steady from a chest that was no longer human.
The Bonefang Ravager’s body felt powerful.
Too powerful.
Every muscle seemed ready to explode into motion.
Every scent carried meaning.
Every sound drew his attention.
The wind no longer smelled like wind.
It smelled of damp soil, old blood, dead vines, stone dust, distant beasts, and the faint traces of humans who had passed through the ruins days ago.
It was overwhelming.
Drake lowered his head slightly without realizing it.
His ears twitched.
Something small moved beneath a broken slab several meters away.
A heartbeat.
Tiny.
Fast.
Afraid.
His body reacted before his mind could.
Drake pounced.
The movement was perfect.
Silent.
Efficient.
His claws struck the ground on both sides of the slab, and his jaws snapped downward with terrifying precision.
A small cave rat squealed between his teeth, its body trembling helplessly.
For one breath, Drake felt satisfaction.
Then horror struck him.
He opened his jaws instantly.
The rat dropped to the ground and vanished into a crack.
Drake staggered back, his crimson eyes wide.
“…I didn’t decide to do that.” The words came out as a low, distorted growl.
His heart pounded.
He had not hunted because he was hungry.
He had hunted because prey had moved.
The beast had noticed.
And the beast had acted.
A cold voice echoed inside his mind.
Host Behavioral Drift detected.
Drake froze.
“Behavioral…
drift?” Evolutionary instinct influencing higher cognition.
Drake’s claws slowly curled into the earth.
“Say that in a way that doesn’t sound like a corpse reading a medical report.” A brief silence followed.
Then the relic answered.
The beast’s instincts are affecting your thoughts.
Drake did not move.
The ruins suddenly felt colder.
“…So the longer I stay transformed, the more I act like it?” Correct.
“And if I stay like this too long?” Another pause.
Host identity stability may decline.
Drake’s stomach tightened.
That was not a warning.
It was a diagnosis.
He looked down at his clawed limbs, at the pale armor covering his body, at the tail that moved naturally behind him.
This form was not a costume.
It was not a spell wrapped around his body.
It was real flesh, real bone, real instinct.
And every second inside it brought him closer to the creature it came from.
Drake closed his eyes.
“Luna.” The name anchored him.
His sister’s face appeared in his mind, fragile and sleeping beneath blue hospital light.
Human memories.
Human pain.
Human purpose.
The savage pressure inside him receded slightly.
Drake exhaled.
“How do I turn back?” For once, the relic answered immediately.
Recall original morphology.
Knowledge unfolded inside him again, not as instructions but as instinct.
His human body existed within the relic’s archive too, not as a monster form, but as the host’s default structure.
Drake focused on himself.
Not the claws.
Not the fangs.
Not the hunger.
Himself.
Human hands.
Human breath.
Human skin.
Human heartbeat.
The transformation began.
It hurt.
Not as violently as becoming the Bonefang Ravager, but enough to force a strangled cry from his throat.
His bones compressed.
His jaw cracked back into place.
Armor plates sank beneath his skin and dissolved.
His tail withdrew with a sickening pull that made him nearly collapse.
Within moments, Drake fell onto his hands and knees as a human once more.
Naked, trembling, and drenched in cold sweat.
He stared at his hands.
Human hands.
Thin fingers.
Short nails.
Scarred knuckles.
For several seconds, he simply breathed.
Then he laughed.
It was quiet at first, almost broken.
Then it grew stronger, not from joy, but from relief so overwhelming it bordered on madness.
“I’m still me…” He pressed his forehead against the ground.
“I’m still me.” The relic remained silent.
Drake did not care.
For now, that was enough.
— The relief did not last.
His stomach twisted painfully.
Hunger returned with vicious force, sharper than before.
Drake searched his torn pockets and found half a piece of dry bread wrapped in cloth.
It was crushed, stale, and covered in dust, but he ate it anyway.
It tasted like sand.
He swallowed with difficulty.
His stomach remained painfully empty.
The relic spoke.
Host energy reserves insufficient.
“I’m eating.” Human food insufficient for Morph Pattern maintenance.
Drake stared at nothing.
“…Of course.” He leaned back against a broken stone wall and rubbed his face.
“So I need monster meat now?” Biomass recommended.
Mana-bearing organisms preferred.
Drake’s expression darkened.
That meant hunting.
Real hunting.
Not accidental instinct.
Not self-defense.
If he wanted to use the Bonefang form, he needed energy.
If he needed energy, he had to feed the body that form created.
Power had a cost.
Drake looked toward the darkness of the Dead Ruins.
Somewhere inside, monsters moved through ancient tunnels and broken battlefields.
Smaller ones, hopefully.
Things he could kill without losing himself.
He hated the thought.
But he hated the image of Luna’s life-support chamber shutting down even more.
Slowly, Drake stood.
“Fine.” The crimson symbol flickered beneath the skin of his right hand.
“But I decide what we hunt.” The relic answered without hesitation.
Host decision accepted.
Drake frowned.
“That was too easy.” No response.
Somehow, that annoyed him more.
— By the time Drake transformed again, he was prepared for the pain.
It still nearly drove him to his knees.
When the Bonefang Ravager form settled over him, the world sharpened once more.
The night became bright.
The wind became language.
The ground became a map of scents and vibrations.
This time, he did not let the instincts pull him immediately.
He stood still.
Breathed.
Remembered Luna.
Remembered his own name.
Drake.
Not Alpha.
Not Ravager.
Drake.
Only then did he move.
He traveled deeper into the Dead Ruins, away from the city lights and back toward the broken battlefield.
If he returned to civilization like this, Hunters would kill him on sight.
If he returned as a human, Leon’s men might still be waiting.
He needed control first.
The ruins became his training ground.
He practiced walking without surrendering to instinct.
Then running.
Then stopping.
He forced himself to ignore small prey when it moved.
He forced himself not to bare his fangs at every distant scent.
Each success felt small, but necessary.
At an underground stream, he lowered his head and began drinking.
Halfway through, he froze.
“…Seriously?” He had not cupped water in his hands.
He had not knelt like a human.
He had lowered his head like an animal and lapped water directly with his tongue.
The relic spoke.
Hydration method efficient.
Drake lifted his wet jaws from the stream.
“I didn’t ask.” Statement unnecessary but accurate.
Drake stared at the water.
“…Are you learning sarcasm?” Silence.
Then— Searching.
“No.
Stop.” The relic went quiet.
Drake sighed, though in beast form it came out as a rumbling exhale.
The worst part was that the relic was right.
The method had been efficient.
Natural.
Comfortable.
That frightened him more than the pain.
— The first hunt happened near dawn.
A pack of small mana beasts moved through the ruins below an ancient bridge.
They resembled oversized lizards covered in dark moss, each about the size of a dog.
Their mana signatures were weak, but present.
Drake watched them from above.
His claws gripped the stone.
The Bonefang instincts arranged the battlefield without his permission.
Wind direction.
Distance.
Weakest target.
Escape routes.
Best angle of attack.
Drake swallowed, though his throat was monstrous.
“I only need one.” The relic did not respond.
The lizards scattered across the broken road, sniffing through rubble for insects.
One strayed too far from the pack.
Drake moved.
He dropped from the bridge in silence and landed behind the isolated beast.
It turned too late.
Drake’s jaws closed around its neck.
One bite.
A crack.
Stillness.
It was over before fear could fully register in the creature’s eyes.
Drake released the body immediately and stumbled back.
His breathing grew uneven.
He had killed before only in desperation, swatting insects, crushing rats, surviving filthy alleys where mercy was a luxury.
But this was different.
His body had known exactly how much pressure to apply.
Exactly where to bite.
Exactly how to end life efficiently.
The pack fled into the ruins.
Drake remained beside the corpse.
“I…” He closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” The relic spoke.
Prey neutralized.
Biomass available.
Drake hated how cold it sounded.
But his stomach twisted again.
The Bonefang body needed food.
He lowered his head.
The first bite nearly made his human mind recoil.
The second became easier.
The third awakened hunger.
Soon, warmth spread through his body as the mana-bearing flesh entered his system.
The ache in his muscles faded.
The weakness in his limbs disappeared.
Tiny wounds from the transformation sealed.
The relic spoke again.
Biomass absorbed.
Minor cellular repair complete.
Drake lifted his head slowly.
Blood dripped from his jaws.
He stared at the remains of the creature and felt both disgust and relief.
So this was another rule.
As a beast, he could heal by feeding.
That power could save him.
It could also destroy him.
— By evening, Drake found shelter.
It was not a cave exactly, but the remains of an old monster den beneath a collapsed watchtower.
Bones littered the entrance.
Most were ancient, cracked by time and drained of mana.
The scent of Bonefang Ravager lingered faintly inside, old but recognizable to his borrowed instincts.
The den was empty.
More importantly, it was hidden.
Drake entered carefully, circled the chamber twice without thinking, then stopped.
“…Why did I do that?” Territorial safety inspection.
“Of course.” He transformed back into human form before sleeping, partly to preserve energy and partly because he did not trust himself to dream as a monster.
The cold struck immediately.
His clothes were torn beyond saving, barely enough to cover him.
He curled near the back of the den, shivering against the stone, and tried not to think about the city, the hunters, or the thing living beneath his skin.
But sleep did not come easily.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the Bonefang Ravager’s memories.
Moonlit hunts.
Blood on stone.
Rival Alphas.
A den filled with bones.
And beneath all of it, a single truth carved into instinct.
Survive by becoming stronger.
Drake stared at his right hand in the darkness.
The mark was invisible.
Still, he knew it was there.
“What am I becoming?” The relic answered softly.
Unclear.
For some reason, that response frightened him more than any certainty could have.
— Drake finally slept.
For the first time since entering the Dead Ruins, he dreamed.
He stood in a vast field of black grass beneath a crimson moon.
Thousands of beasts surrounded him, their eyes glowing in the dark.
Dragons.
Wolves.
serpents.
winged things with too many limbs.
All of them bowed their heads toward a throne made of bone.
Something sat upon it.
A figure wrapped in shadow.
Its right hand was covered in the same living black substance that had fused with Drake.
The figure turned slightly.
Drake woke with a gasp.
His body was human.
The den was dark.
Silent.
Then his right hand twitched.
Not in warning.
In hunger.
Drake slowly sat up.
Outside the den, beyond the broken entrance, a pair of golden eyes watched him from the darkness.
They were enormous.
Unblinking.
Patient.
Drake did not move.
The relic spoke inside his mind.
Mana signature detected.
A pause.
Threat level unknown.
The golden eyes narrowed.
Deep in the ruined battlefield, something began to breathe.