"You saw what I did to El'ran. You know what I'm capable of when I stop holding back. This—" he gestured in the direction of the camp, "—this is going to be worse. Much worse. Because they've hurt my family, and I'm going to make them understand what that costs."

[Bloodborne Rage: 84% activation threshold]

[Recommendation: Full combat manifestation advised]

[Warning: Rapid conversion of Mana is imminent.]

[Do you wish to proceed—Y/N?]

He authorized the progression without hesitation.

Scarlett and Swana were the only people who will come alive out of the base.

"Jorghan," Sarhita moved to stand directly in front of him, forcing eye contact.

"I understand you're angry. I understand they've hurt people you care about. But going in alone, especially if you're planning to unleash the Berserk Lord—you might not come back from that. You might lose yourself to the rage."

"Then pull me back after," Jorghan said simply, looking up at her face.

"Once Swana and Scarlett are safe. But right now, those people in that camp need to learn what happens when you torture members of my family. And the lesson is going to be written in their blood."

He touched her face gently, a gesture of affection that contrasted sharply with the violence promised in his words.

"Stay with Sik'ra. If I'm not back in an hour, or if you see anything that looks like the forest is on fire, get to safety. Don't try to find me. Just run."

"Jorghan—"

"Sarhita," he said, and that single word carried more vulnerability than anything else he'd said. "Please just trust me on this. Let me protect our family the only way I know how."

Sarhita looked at him for a long moment, then stepped back.

"One hour. Then we're coming in whether you like it or not."

"Fair enough," Jorghan agreed.

He turned and began walking toward the IPMF base, his pace steady and unhurried. With each step, he pulled more deeply on his bloodline, felt the power rising through him like a tide that had been held back too long.

His skin began to take on that pale red hue. His eyes blazed brighter, crimson light that left afterimages in the shadows. The air around him started to distort with heat that came from within rather than without.

Behind him, Sik'ra and Sarhita watched him go with expressions that mixed pride, fear, and grief for what was about to happen.

"He's going to kill them all, isn't he?" Sarhita said quietly.

"Probably," Sik'ra confirmed.

"Every single one who had anything to do with hurting Swana. That's what the Berserk Lords did—they protected their own with absolute, overwhelming violence. No mercy, no quarter, no consideration of proportional response."

"Ever since he had transformed, he had changed completely. Maybe it's in his blood, the complete mercilessness, and he is like a bloodthirsty beast."

Sik'ra nodded.

"The Empire is going to notice this," Sarhita said.

"Another massacre, more evidence that the Berserk Lord bloodline has returned. They'll escalate."

"Let them," Sik'ra replied.

"Right now, my cousin is about to remind this world why his bloodline was the most feared clan on the continent. And I, for one, want to see what that looks like."

They found positions with good sightlines to the IPMF base, settling in to watch what was about to unfold.

And Jorghan continued his steady approach, alone, walking toward a military encampment that had no idea the predator they'd thought to trap was already inside their perimeter, already planning their deaths, already manifesting the power that would reduce their technological superiority to meaningless scrap metal and burned flesh.

The forest whispered its final warnings.

But it was far, far too late for anyone to heed them.

IPMF Forward Operating Base - Main Perimeter

Jorghan walked through the tree line and into the clearing where the IPMF had established their forward base with the calm certainty of someone who knew exactly what was about to happen. No stealth, no reconnaissance, no tactical approach.

Just a direct line toward the perimeter fence, his footsteps leaving slight depressions in the ground that began to glow with faint red light. The air around him swirled with a transparent, flame-like aura, and it burned everything surrounding him.

[Activating the Bloodline Abilities]

[Host entering into the Rage Mode]

[Carnage Requiem: Advanced Protocols]

The first guard to spot him, he alerted the fellow soldiers. He raised his rifle at Jorghan, the targeting laser painting a red dot on Jorghan's chest.

"Halt! Identify yourself! This is a restricted military zone!"

Jorghan didn't slow down.

"I said halt!"

The guard's finger moved to the trigger, following protocol, following training that said unidentified hostiles approaching a secure perimeter were to be engaged with lethal force.

He fired.

Three-round burst, center mass, textbook execution.

The bullets stopped three feet from Jorghan's body, suspended in midair by blood that had manifested from nothing, creating a barrier that caught the projectiles as easily as a hand catching thrown pebbles.

For a moment they hung there, visible proof that conventional weapons were meaningless.

Then Jorghan clenched his fist, and the blood barrier exploded outward in a wave of crystallized fragments that tore through the guard's body like shrapnel, reducing him to scattered meat in an instant.

Alarms blared.

Lights flooded the perimeter.

Soldiers emerged from barracks and command tents, weapons raised, forming defensive positions with the practiced efficiency of professional military personnel.

"Contact! Hostile at the main perimeter! Single target, displaying supernatural abilities! All units engage!"

They opened fire.

Dozens of rifles, machine guns and even a mounted heavy weapon that could have punched through armored vehicles. The volume of fire was immense, enough to reduce a normal person to vapor.

Jorghan raised both hands, and the blood came.

It erupted from his body in torrents, manifesting faster than the eye could track, spreading outward in a crimson wave that intercepted every incoming projectile.

But it didn't stop at defense.

The blood coalesced into forms—spears, blades—each one seeking a target with predatory intelligence.

The first rank of soldiers died screaming.

Blood spears punched through body armor and flesh with equal ease, impaling three or four men in a line before dissipating. Blood spiked tentacles wrapped around throats and limbs, contracting with force that crushed bone and severed arteries. Blood-blades swept through the air in horizontal arcs that bisected anyone unlucky enough to be in their path.

"Fall back! Fall back to secondary positions!"

An officer was shouting, trying to impose order on chaos, but his voice cut off mid-word as a blood-spear took him through the chest, lifting him off the ground before slamming him into the ground hard enough to crater the soil.

Jorghan advanced into the base proper, his pace still unhurried, still steady.

Behind him, the perimeter was a slaughterhouse—bodies in pieces, blood pooling so thickly it formed small streams that ran downhill, the stench of death thick enough to taste.

[Bloodborne Rage: Activation threshold]

[Sanguine Sovereignty: Full manifestation active]

[Combatants eliminated: 34]

[Warning: Transformation approaching critical threshold]

Jorghan then raised his hand, a red sigil appeared on his palm, all the blood on the ground flowed into Jorghan.

[Blood Assimilation Active]

[Bloodessence Extraction Triggered]

[Bloodline will progress by 1%]

Jorghan turned to the camp and continued walking.

A mecha unit rounded the corner of a supply depot, its pilot seeing the carnage and immediately engaging. The railgun fired a hypersonic projectile that should have been impossible to dodge at this range.

Jorghan caught it.

His hand shot out, blood manifesting into a dense barrier that absorbed the kinetic energy, dispersing it harmlessly.

For a moment, the pilot stared in disbelief through his cockpit displays.

Then Jorghan pushed back.

The blood barrier transformed into a lance, condensed and hardened until it was more solid than steel, and shot forward with force that exceeded what the railgun had generated. It punched through the mecha's chest armor, through the cockpit, through the pilot's body, and out the back in a spray of metal and meat.

The mecha toppled, systems failing, smoke rising from ruptured power cells.

"Target the hostile! All units, concentrate fire!"

Lieutenant Csakan's voice crackled across the comm network, trying to coordinate a response, trying to apply military doctrine to a threat that existed outside its parameters.

More soldiers converged, firing from elevated positions and from behind cover, trying to create crossfire that would overwhelm even supernatural defenses. Plasma rifles joined conventional weapons, superheated bolts that burned the air as they passed.

Jorghan manifested wings.

They erupted from his back in a spray of crystallized blood, each "feather" a blade sharp enough to cut through anything they touched. He didn't fly with them—didn't need to. Instead, he spun, the wings extending, becoming enough of a radius of death that it carved through soldiers, equipment, and defensive positions with equal brutality.

When the spin completed, thirty more men were dead or dying, and Jorghan stood in the center of a perfect circle of devastation.

[Bloodessence Extraction Active]

[Primordial Form Initiated]

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