"Damn it..."

Ceylon growled under his breath. He clenched his fist around the blood and viscera he had torn from the soldier's gut, gripping it as though it were solid clay. With a swift motion, he wiped the gore along the jagged edge of his serrated blade. Under the guidance of an unseen force, the bloody mass fused to the weapon's teeth, drenching the entire blade in a scarlet, feral aura.

This was his potential, Bloodhunt. An evolution of the power to rend flesh and bone, it had multiple applications, one of which Ceylon now invoked: the power to pull and tear living tissue from within an enemy's body. It was this power that had allowed him to drag out an opponent's innards in a single thrust, as if gutting his prey.

By coating his weapon in the blood and meat of the fallen, Bloodhunt amplified his killing edge. Every swing and every slice would wrench the enemy's life essence outward in a violent surge of flesh and gore.

With a roar, Ceylon lunged forward. His serrated blade cleaved toward the soldier whose entrails had already been half torn away—yet who still, impossibly, remained on his feet. The crimson blade swept across his neck in a blinding arc. Its teeth ground through bone. The next instant, his head flew free of his body.

The others, those whose minds had been corrupted by the ruins' psychic surge, screamed and rushed him all at once, bestial and blind to reason.

"These bastards... how can they tell the difference between us and them?"

Even as Ceylon focused on the three charging soldiers before him, his peripheral senses tracked Johnson's position. The man was beset by several of the maddened troops himself—but his fury, fueled by his berserk frenzy, outstripped even theirs.

Johnson seized one attacker by the face and roared, veins bulging across his arms and neck. With brutal force, he slammed the man's skull into another soldier's helm.

Metal warped under the impact. Two helmets crumpled. Though they weren't outright shattered, both soldiers' necks snapped from the tremendous shock.

Johnson released the corpse he was holding, snarled, and clawed at his own neck. A third soldier had leapt onto his back, biting into his flesh like a rabid beast.

The berserk soldiers seemed to have lost all sense of self-preservation. Pain meant nothing to them.

Even as their teeth shattered and blood streamed down their jaws, they gnawed and tore with abandon. Even Johnson's iron flesh was beginning to give way under such madness.

Ceylon's hands moved before he could think. He snapped the mechanism on his serrated blade. The weapon extended, locking into its full polearm form with a metallic click. Crimson light flickered along its edge as he swept it through the snow in a savage, half-circular arc.

The first of the charging soldiers was sliced clean in two, entrails and blood fountaining into the air before being greedily drawn toward the blade's teeth. The weapon pulsed, feeding on the gore as Ceylon pivoted into the next strike.

The blade bit deep into the second soldier's armor, lodging itself in meat and steel. The force wasn't enough to cleave through completely, but it was enough for his potential to flare again. Blood and flesh tore free from the wound, sucked violently into the weapon's edge, transmuted into a strange, shimmering red light.

The third attacker was already upon him. He snarled as he bit at Ceylon's neck. None of these rampaging soldiers were slow; their physical attributes seemed even to be enhanced. Ceylon and Johnson were simply experts at combat.

Ceylon yanked the long-handled blade back toward himself, letting the its teeth shred more of the second man's body as he drew out its essence. The combined lifeblood of both victims surged toward him, threads of red light streaming into his own flesh.

His eyes burned crimson. Power welled from deep within his frame. With his free hand, he drew a knife from his belt and drove it toward the third rampaging soldier.

The dagger plunged into the third man's eye socket, piercing straight through his skull. Ceylon's potential flared once more, crushing the brain within to pulp before he ripped the blade free and absorbed the strength that spilled from the dying body.

He didn't pause. Releasing the knife, letting corpse and weapon alike tumble into the snow, he gripped the long-handled blade with both hands and thrust it forward with all his might.

The serrated edge chewed through armor and bone. The gaping wound from before burst wide open, splitting the second soldier clean in half.

Meanwhile, Johnson sank both hands deep into the shoulders of the soldier who'd been biting his neck. His fingers dug through flesh and sinew as blood sprayed over his chest. Then, with a thunderous roar, he ripped the man in two.

Even freed of his assailant, Johnson didn't stop. He planted a foot in the snow and hurled himself forward with a headlong charge.

His bald head collided with the chestplate of the last berserk soldier in his path. The impact was monstrous.

The soldier's armor caved inward, his ribs shattering. The man himself flew backward, tumbling through the snow in a limp sprawl before, somehow, twitching and trying to rise again.

With a guttural curse, Ceylon seized the last of his flying knives and sent it spinning through the blizzard. The blade buried itself in the neck of a berserk soldier. Johnson, staggering from the daze of the headbutt, stumbled back and snapped the neck of the soldier whom Ceylon had attacked. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"You all right? We need to move. This place is too dangerous. The ruins are too unstable. Who knows what's going to happen next? I'll help calm your berserk state."

Ceylon strode over to where Johnson stood, shaking his head to clear the dizziness. Placing a hand against the man's back, Ceylon called upon his latent ability. The blood coursing through Johnson's veins began to slow, as did his heart's violent rhythm, its hammering eased by Ceylon's control.

Ceylon exhaled heavily. He could feel the remnants of the his prey's flesh and blood still coursing through him—the violent essence he had absorbed moments ago.

They granted him strength and speed, yes, but they also brought confusion, bloodlust, and the creeping urge to tear and devour. Too much of that power, and he would become no different from the beasts he hunted.

"Done. Let's go."

Johnson grunted in reply, his voice deep and rough. With Silen's help, his body had slipped free from his berserk state, and his mind had regained a sliver of clarity. He hefted Ceylon onto his back, stepped over the sprawled corpses of fallen soldiers, and began trudging away from the ruins.

Silen's latent ability might resemble Wang Yu's Blood Tempest when combined with the Chariot's might, but in truth the two were fundamentally different.

Wang Yu could manipulate only his own blood. The destruction of another's flesh came indirectly, when his blood invaded their body and ruptured it from within. He could never directly influence another lifeform. Hunters like Ceylon and other knights trained in this path faced no such limits.

As if sensing their retreat, the ruins roared in protest. A thunderous rumble came from behind them, and the ground began to quake violently.

Ceylon turned his head. Through the veil of snow, a colossal silhouette took shape: a humanoid figure, vast and glacial, its form growing clearer and larger by the second. Whatever it was, it had awoken—and it was coming straight for them.

"Damn it..."

Ceylon cursed. The blizzard was too fierce for them to move swiftly. Each step was a struggle. Johnson might be able to move faster in the second level of his berserk state, but that was a double-edged sword—there was a chance that he would rip Ceylon apart.

"O mighty Lady of the Night, I beseech thee..."

He began to whisper a prayer, invoking the dark goddess he served. The Tree of the Night answered his call. Shadow flowed like liquid around them, enveloping both men. Their figures dimmed as their presence melted away, sight, sound, and scent swallowed by the storm.

"The power of eternal night? Has the God of Eternal Night in this era become an enemy? No matter. I'll crush the little vermin all the same."

The voice rumbled through the storm. From the whirling snow broke forth the giant, a towering being of solid ice, ten meters tall, shaped like a man clad in armor wrought from frozen steel. No life dwelled within, and yet it moved with dreadful autonomy.

Words in an ancient language rumbled from its unseen mouth as it drew a massive greatsword of glacial crystal. With a thunderous strike, it plunged the blade into the earth. Ice and storm fused together; the wind howled higher, sharper, and colder. The temperature plummeted with incredible speed.

"Damn it. Johnson, get ready to fight for your life!"

The shadows cloaking them might have hidden the two men, but it hardly made them invincible. The frigid storm engulfed everything.

The cold was absolute, seeping into their bodies through every pore and wound, freezing blood, muscle, and bone. Frost crept silently across their limbs. Within seconds, the chill of death would claim them.

Their only path left was forward—toward the ice-armored giant that had summoned this elemental tide. It was madness, a suicide charge, a gamble that the berserk Johnson and the hunter Ceylon might slay the monster before the cold killed them. The odds were near zero.

"Three, two, ..."

Ceylon's voice was calm despite the numbness creeping through him. He counted down, ready to charge on one, only to be interrupted by another sudden disturbance.

A deafening crack split the air. From the heart of the storm, a black sun rose, burning unnaturally. Its radiance spilled outward, a light of dark crimson that devoured the cold. The howling frost faltered; the lethal chill gripping their bodies loosened, and their frozen blood began to move again.

Ceylon stared, stunned. The intensity of that aura was a legend's. Could it be a potential? A potential that manifested as a black sun—but how could that be? How could a legendary knight of Selwyn have appeared here?!

"I owe Fang Stuart a favor," came a man's voice beside him, low and even. "He barely needs anything, but I figured helping out Aleisterre would make us even."

Ceylon turned to see a bestial knight beside him. He had claws, fangs, a mane of wild hair, and eyes that gleamed like molten gold. The legendary chimera knight Gallier had arrived.