The stream of carnage gushed forth...

The head of a Dog snapped toward Obed.

Its nose holes flared wide, drawing in his scent with wet, rasping sounds. The creature's lips peeled back from its teeth, and that terrible growling-screaming noise erupted from its throat.

Then it lunged.

The chain went slack as the Templar holding it stumbled forward, caught off guard by the sudden violence of the movement. The Dog's body uncoiled like a spring, launching itself through the air toward Obed's throat.

Obed's good hand went to his sword, but he was too slow. The creature was already airborne, already closing the distance, its jaws opening wide enough to swallow a man's head whole.

Nero moved without thinking.

Gungnir materialized in his hand through the Soul Bond, and he threw himself between Obed and the Dog. The spear came up in a brutal upward thrust, catching the creature mid-flight.

The point punched through the bottom of its jaw and erupted out the top of its skull in a spray of black ichor and bone fragments. The Dog's momentum carried it forward onto the spear, driving the shaft deeper until the creature's thrashing body was impaled completely.

Nero twisted the spear violently and ripped it free.

The Dog dropped to the ground in a heap of twitching limbs and leaking fluids. Its mouth still worked soundlessly, teeth clacking together even as the soul faded from the wretched thing's body.

The first White Dog was dead.

For a moment, everything was still. The crowd stared at the corpse. The Templars stared at Nero. Even the other Dogs seemed to pause, their heads swiveling toward their fallen kin.

Then Nero turned to face the crowd, his chest heaving, blood and gore dripping from Gungnir's point.

"What the hell are you fools doing?!" His voice cut through the silence like a whip crack. "Are you just going to stand there and die?! Pick up your weapons and fight, damn it!"

The crowd remained frozen for a heartbeat longer.

Then someone screamed.

A man near the edge of the crowd, pressed beneath the weight of a Dog that was sniffing at his chest, grabbed a rock the size of his fist. He brought it down on the creature's head with a wet crunch.

The Dog snarled and snapped at him, but the man didn't stop. He brought the rock down again. And again. And again.

Blood sprayed with each impact. The Dog's skull cracked, then caved inward. Still the man kept hitting it, kept smashing the rock down until there was nothing left but pulped flesh and shattered bone and brain matter coating his hands.

That broke the dam.

The entire refugee camp erupted into chaos.

People surged forward, no longer content to die quietly. They grabbed whatever they could—rocks, branches, broken pieces of wood, rusted tools. They threw themselves at the Dogs with desperate fury, beating and stabbing and tearing at the creatures with their bare hands.

A woman drove a sharpened stick through a Dog's eye socket. A man wrapped a chain around another's neck and pulled until its neck snapped.

The Dogs, caught off guard by the sudden resistance, faltered. Some tried to retreat as they truly were cowardly creatures, but the crowd pressed forward, surrounding them, dragging them down through sheer numbers.

The Templars holding the chains struggled to maintain control as their charges went wild, thrashing and snapping in every direction.

Blood splattered across the ground. Human and Dog alike fell and didn't rise. But for every person who dropped, two more took their place, driven by rage and terror and a deep stubbornness in the face of certain demise.

Captain Orpheus stood at the center of the chaos, his helmeted head tilting slightly as he observed the scene.

"How interesting..."

Then his gaze sharpened.

Through the mass of bodies, through the smoke and screaming, his enhanced vision picked out a single figure cutting through the Dogs like they were nothing.

A young man wielding a silver spear, moving with a grace that shouldn't have been possible for someone untrained. He'd already killed a dozen of the creatures, maybe more, and showed no signs of slowing.

The Dogs lunged at him in waves, and he cut them down one after another, his weapon a blur of silver light in the darkness.

Captain Orpheus felt something stir in his chest. Curiosity, perhaps.

The White Dogs weren't regular Abominations. Each one was as strong as a grade E creature, bred and enhanced through methods the Verdant Ash Sea Order kept closely guarded. While they couldn't tear through a squad of armed soldiers, they were rather effective for culling large numbers of unwitting heathens.

And yet this boy in rags was slaughtering them like cattle.

Orpheus raised his hand and signaled to the Templars behind him. They moved forward immediately, releasing more Dogs into the fray. Hundreds more of the creatures poured into the crowd, their chains clattering as they lunged and snapped.

"Kill as many of the corrupted as possible," Orpheus commanded, his voice carrying over the din. "Show no mercy."

The Templars drew their blades and waded into the chaos.

Then Orpheus took a single step forward.

And vanished.

***

Nero drove Gungnir through another Dog's throat and kicked the corpse away.

His arms burned with exertion. His breath came in ragged gasps. Blood, both his own and the Dogs', soaked his clothes and dripped from his hands.

But he couldn't stop.

Around him, people were dying. He could hear their screams and he could see them falling beneath the weight of the creatures.

He pulled Gungnir free from another corpse and turned to find his next target.

That's when his vision filled with crimson.

The armor was enormous, towering over him like a mountain. The horned helmet caught what little light remained, giving the figure an unmistakably demonic appearance.

The feeling that washed over Nero was unlike anything he'd ever experienced.

Pure, primal danger. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to run, to get away, that he was staring at death itself.

His hands moved without conscious thought, raising Gungnir into a guard position. He poured every ounce of strength he had into bracing himself, muscles coiling, feet digging into the mud.

The impact came a fraction of a second later.

Nero's world exploded.

The force transferred through Gungnir was tremendous, far beyond anything he'd felt before. It rattled his bones and compressed his organs and sent shockwaves through every nerve in his body.

He was knocked off his feet and sent flying backward, his body tumbling through the air like a discarded doll.

Nero managed to land on his feet somehow, but his legs immediately buckled. He dropped to one knee, coughing up a mouthful of blood that splattered across the ground in front of him.

His vision swam and his ears rang.

Through the haze, he heard a voice. Thick and metallic, distorted by the helmet but carrying an undeniable pride and ego.

"What house are you from, boy?"

Nero slowly lifted his gaze.

The Templar stood a few yards away, utterly still. The massive broadsword in his hand gleamed even in the darkness, silver steel with crimson and black accents on the hilt and guard. The blade itself seemed to drink in the darkness.

An enchanted weapon. Or worse, a Relic.

Nero's chest heaved as he struggled to breathe. The rage building inside him was almost overwhelming, burning away the fear and replacing it with something raw and violent.

This was it. This was the end.

Even if he survived this battle, there was no going back. No normal life. No quiet existence in the city. He'd crossed swords with a Templar of the Church, and that made him their enemy.

They wouldn't just kill him. They'd make an example of him, torturing him for days, weeks, until there was nothing left but a broken shell.

But fuck it.

He was going to die anyway. Might as well die fighting.

Nero spat blood and snarled up at the armored figure.

"Fuck you!"

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