The office was a battlefield waiting to happen.
Walls cracked with strain from the explosions above, dust raining from the ceiling with every distant roar of released beasts.
The fluorescent lights flickered, turning the room into a strobe-lit nightmare, half-real, half-nightmare.
The desk at the center was shattered, its wood splintered by claws that had never belonged to a man.
And standing there, chest bare and grotesque, was Sulaiman.
His body had once been human, but no longer.
Muscles bulged like steel cables knotted beneath his skin, veins glowing faintly with an unnatural light.
His claws shimmered under the sickly glow, jagged and hooked like weapons forged in hell.
His grin was too wide, too sharp.
“So…” Sulaiman’s voice was a guttural rumble, echoing through the office like the growl of some ancient predator.
“…Interpol sends children to do a man’s work.” His eyes glowed red, his gaze sweeping over the four cadets.
“Do you truly believe you can drag me back in chains?”
The cadets stood their ground.
One wielded serrated knives, twirling them between bloodied fingers.
Another wound a heavy chain tight around his fist, the steel links rattling like a serpent’s warning.
A third rested the weight of a short axe on his shoulder, breathing hard but steady.
The last cracked his knuckles, gauntlets strapped to bruised hands, a brawler with nothing but grit in his eyes.
They were young.
Outmatched.
And they knew it.
But none of them moved back.
Touya’s eyes weren’t even on Sulaiman anymore.
Something else had caught him.
At the edge of the office, behind a mountain of scattered paperwork and broken filing cabinets, was a door.
Narrow.
Steel-reinforced.
The faint outline of a staircase beneath.
And then memory hit him—Kyle’s words during the briefing.
> “The basement… that’s where the blue creature is.
If anything worse than the beasts above exists, it’s down there.”
Touya’s lips curved into a smirk.
Mischievous.
Dangerous.
The smirk of a boy who lived for chaos.
“That’s where you’re hiding it…” he muttered.
“Oi, Touya, what are you—” one cadet began, but Touya was already sprinting.
He dashed for the door, coat snapping behind him, steps light and sure.
“I’m leaving Sulaiman to you!” His voice rang like a command as he vanished down the stairs.
“Don’t die before I get back!”
And just like that, he was gone.
The four cadets turned back toward Sulaiman, whose expression hadn’t changed.
If anything, the twisted grin widened.
“…So the child king runs away,” he sneered.
His claws flexed, scraping sparks against the ground.
“That leaves only lambs before the wolf.”
“Lambs?” The fist-fighter spat blood, his grin unshaken.
“Nah.
More like hunters.”
The knife-user tilted his blades toward the light, steel glinting.
“And you’re the prey.”
Sulaiman laughed, the sound deep and monstrous, reverberating through their bones.
“Brave words… for men already marked for the grave.”
Then the floor shattered beneath his first step.
Sulaiman was faster than a beast his size had any right to be.
His first lunge was a blur, claws tearing through the air with the force of a hurricane.
The axe-user barely rolled aside in time.
The claw dug into the concrete, cracking the floor into a spiderweb of fissures.
Dust exploded upward.
“Move, MOVE!”
The chain-wielder lashed out, the steel whistling as it wrapped around Sulaiman’s arm.
For a heartbeat, the room froze—then with a flick, Sulaiman yanked him off his feet and hurled him across the chamber.
His body slammed into the wall with bone-snapping force.
But he rose again.
Staggering.
Spitting red.
Eyes blazing.
“That all you got, monster?”
Sulaiman’s grin widened, his jaw unhinging too far, too sharp.
The knife-user darted in, slashing high for the eyes, low for the throat.
His blades sang, sparks flying as they struck hide as tough as steel.
He didn’t let up, moving like a phantom, weaving through claw strikes that split the air.
The axe-user joined him, timing his swings with precision.
Blades and steel hammered against flesh, ringing like war drums.
The fist-fighter charged low, ducking under a swipe, driving gauntleted fists into Sulaiman’s gut.
The impacts cracked like thunder, shockwaves rippling through the room.
But Sulaiman didn’t flinch.
He barely grunted, then slammed his knee into the fighter’s ribs.
The sound of bones breaking echoed.
The cadet flew across the room.
Still, they kept fighting.
They regrouped behind the wreck of a desk, panting, bruised, bloodied.
“He’s not human,” the axe-user rasped.
“Our blades can’t cut him.”
The chain-wielder coughed blood.
“We’re not here to cut.
We’re here to end it.”
He pulled a dart from his pocket—silver, gleaming with phantom-made tranquilizer.
The others touched their pockets.
All had them.
Their one chance.
“Four darts.
One monster,” the knife-user grinned through blood.
“Let’s make it count.”
The fist-fighter spat, cracking his neck.
“So we stab him together.
All or nothing.”
Sulaiman’s guttural growl rumbled.
“Finished whispering your last prayers?”
“Not prayers.” The knife-user stepped out, twirling his blades.
“Strategy.”
They attacked as one.
Knives flashed like lightning.
An axe came down like thunder.
Chains whipped through the air.
Fists hammered like meteors.
Sulaiman roared, his claws splitting walls and floor.
His body mutated further, veins bulging, skin darkening to armored hide.
Every movement bent steel and cracked stone.
“YES!” he roared.
“FIGHT HARDER!
Show me your fire before you DIE!”
The cadets screamed back, voices raw, unyielding.
Blood sprayed.
A rib cracked.
A shoulder split open.
Still they pushed in, reckless, desperate—until they were close enough.
“NOW!”
Four hands struck.
Four darts plunged into his flesh.
Sulaiman’s roar shook the office.
His eyes flared, then flickered. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
His claws lashed, gouging trenches into the walls, but his body slowed.
His muscles seized.
His monstrous frame shuddered, trembled—then toppled like a collapsing mountain.
The cadets fell with him, gasping, broken, blood pooling around them.
“Target… subdued,” the chain-wielder rasped into his comm.
“Repeat—Sulaiman is… down.”
Static answered.
Their victory was already drowned in exhaustion.
Meanwhile, Touya descended the staircase.
The air was colder here, damp, metallic.
His boots clanged against steel steps until he reached a cavernous basement chamber.
At its center stood a giant screen.
Static buzzed—then cleared.
Across its surface, bold letters burned in crimson light:
“PROJECT TALCON.”
Touya’s smirk faltered.
His eyes narrowed, breath catching.
“…What the hell is this?”
Up above, chaos consumed the base.
Explosions.
Shouts.
Interpol soldiers shouting coordinates into broken comms.
Animals flooding into transport trucks.
In the storm of escape, nobody noticed the small figure slipping through the smoke.
A girl.
Barely nine.
The one reported missing.
Her small hands trembled as she pushed past debris.
Her legs were weak, but she forced them to move.
“Where’s the exit…?” she whispered, eyes wide.
She had escaped her cell hours earlier, slipping out while guards were distracted by the assault.
She had run blindly, deeper into the base instead of outside.
And when panic consumed her, she had hidden… in the worst place possible.
Now she found herself back where it had all begun—the chamber of the bulls.
But the bulls were gone.
Empty cages yawned open around her, dark and hollow.
She froze, chest heaving.
Thump.
Thump.
A shadow moved at the far door.
Her blood turned to ice.
It was Nemeo.
The replica of the Nemean Lion.
Its golden mane shimmered in the dim light, its eyes glowing with savage hunger.
The beast padded in, massive paws silent on stone.
It sniffed the air.
Then it growled, deep and low, the sound vibrating in her bones.
The girl’s body moved before her mind did.
She scrambled into an empty cage, curling into a ball, hiding behind the iron bars.
Nemeo’s nose twitched.
Slowly, deliberately, it began to sniff the cages.
One by one.
Closer.
Closer.
The girl pressed her hands over her mouth, tears streaming silently down her face.
Please… please don’t find me…
Her whispered prayer was swallowed by the lion’s growl as it drew near.
The lights flickered.
The cage creaked.