Return of the Legendary Runesmith

Warning: Mild gore.

….

Inside a dimly lit room, two people stood before a bed.

On the bed lay a man barely clinging to life, groaning as his body withered away in pain.

His eyes were sunken, a deep wound tore across his chest, and dried blood covered him. He looked only moments away from death's door.

But the two standing there weren't moved. They were busy talking.

"Are we sure about this?" asked the green-haired man—the same one Armodius had once brought to the Tower.

He was Nel, the new leader of Skulth. The new face of the faction.

The researcher beside him, the one who had been experimenting with the blood of the Greater One, nodded. "Diluting the blood gives only a temporary boost, but it works well."

They had just two vials of Nytharos's blood left. They couldn't waste them. Unlike the last time, they wouldn't pour everything into a single subject. That man had become powerful, yes, but he'd gained his own will. After he clashed with Annabelle, he escaped—and no one knew where he went.

They couldn't risk that again. Now they needed numbers, not one uncontrollable monster.

Nel gave a short nod. "Go ahead then. Show me what your creation can do."

The researcher grinned, but cautioned, "Commander, you may want to step back."

Nel stepped away and raised a barrier around himself.

The researcher lifted a vial filled with red liquid—not as thick as real blood—and tilted it over the subject's lips.

As the drops slid down his throat, the man began to shake.

The blood spread through his body, healing his wounds at a shocking pace. His mana, which had almost been extinguished, flared back to life. The sheer force of it made Nel's eyes narrow in surprise.

The researcher quickly dashed into a corner and raised his own barrier.

"KHRUOOK!" The dying man snarled—his voice now twisted, inhuman.

Strength rushed into his body. Thick red veins bulged under his skin. He snapped free of his restraints and crashed to the floor with a heavy thud.

His bloodshot eyes darted wildly.

Then the researcher snapped his fingers. In an instant, over twenty hostages appeared in the room. None of them was bound.

The subject jerked at the sight.

The hostages froze, trembling before the monster.

The man pushed himself up and began to move. At first his steps were slow… then they grew faster—until he was sprinting, like a beast chasing prey.

There was no way out. Desperation drove the first man to throw himself at the monster, his massive fist swinging down at its skull.

The monster caught him mid-strike. Its jaw split wider than human, and with a sickening crunch it clamped down on his hand.

"AHHHHHHH!" the man's scream ripped through the room as blood burst in a violent spray.

The beast chewed, the crunch of bone echoing, strings of flesh dangling from its mouth. For the first time, it tasted human meat — and its body quivered with dark pleasure. Power pulsed through its veins, glowing red, as if feeding on the agony itself.

But it wanted more.

"Ah… f-fuck… AHHHHHHH!" The man staggered back, clutching the stump where his hand had been, but he never got the chance to retreat.

The monster lunged, climbing onto his shoulder like a predator on prey. Its maw gaped again, and before nineteen frozen faces, it sank down on his skull.

CRUNCH

The man's scream cut off instantly. His head was ripped from his shoulders in a single gruesome bite. His body went stiff, then collapsed like a felled tree, blood gushing in rivers across the floor.

THUD

The monster stood over the corpse, chewing slowly, its eyes blazing as raw energy flared from its skin. The taste of life itself pushed it higher, stronger.

And then it began.

The experiment leapt into the crowd, unstoppable. Claws carved through flesh, snapping ribs, tearing arms from sockets. Skulls cracked under its hands like ripe fruit. One hostage tried to run, only to be ripped in half mid-sprint. Another swung a dagger, and the monster answered by shoving crimson thorns through his chest, lifting him off the ground before flinging him aside.

Screams overlapped. Panic spread like fire. But the beast didn't stop. It couldn't.

It hunted. It feasted. It tore.

At some point, the creature's body began to glow. Crimson veins bulged and twitched, swelling as if they would burst.

Nel's eyes narrowed. This was not a good sign.

And as he feared, on its twelfth kill the beast threw its head back, snarled, and—

BOOOOOOM!

Its body erupted. Flesh, bone, and blood shredded apart, fragments flung across the room.

HISSS

The splatter hit Nel's barrier and sizzled, burning into it like acid. His gaze shifted immediately to the others.

The hostages weren't as fortunate.

"AHHHH! HELP!! IT BURNS!!" A man screamed, clawing at his chest. Blood clung to him like fire. He hadn't yet realized there was already a hole in his stomach, the liquid eating through him inch by inch.

"MAAA! HELP ME!!! WAAAAH!" A little girl cried out, reaching for someone—anyone. Tears streamed down her face, but the burning blood vaporized them before they could even fall.

The air filled with shrieks and begging, hands tearing at melting skin, bodies collapsing in agony. There was no escape, no cure, no mercy. It was a far crueler death than a clean strike—the kind that forced its victims to feel every breath, every heartbeat, every shred of their being burn away until nothing was left.

One by one, their voices broke apart. The screams grew weaker. Then silence spread, thick and heavy, across the room.

In less than ten minutes, twenty hostages had been erased.

And no sacrifice had been made on Skulth's side. The test subject had been a captured Warden.

The experiment was complete.

Soon, two staff came to clean the mess, barely suppressing themselves from throwing up as they slowly collected the bodily matters into a bag.

Nel stepped out of the barrier as the researcher approached him, "So? How is it?"

Nel hummed, "Except for that self destructive part, everything felt perfect."

The man grinned, "Well, isn't it great? In closed spaces, even one of them could act like a bomb, taking down several people at once."

Nel hummed, before asking, "How many can you prepare with the given blood?"

The man didn't take time to answer, "Forty subjects could be prepared. That would be enough for the ambush on Aritveil, My lord."

Nel hummed before commanding him, "Prepare twenty by tomorrow and send them to Aeldoria."

The researcher was confused to hear the name of a town which was situated in Grimvale.

"But why there, My Lord?"

Nel narrowed his eyes, "We are getting rid of the Vermillion family."

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A/N:- Thanks for reading..