Wilhelm's first victim didn't even see it coming.

  The massive hand closed around a soldier like a child grabbing a toy. The man screamed for half a second before Wilhelm squeezed. Bones crunched. Blood sprayed between the fingers. When Wilhelm opened his hand, only pulp remained.

  He brought the remains to one of his many mouths and consumed.

  "FALL BACK!" Axel screamed. "RETREAT! NOW!"

  But Wilhelm was faster than his size suggested.

  He moved with predatory grace, closing the distance to a group of soldiers in two massive strides. His tentacles lashed out, each one grabbing a victim. Seven soldiers lifted into the air, pulled toward the mouths on Wilhelm's back.

  "NO! PLEASE! SOMEONE—"

  The screaming stopped as the mouths closed.

  Wilhelm's body pulsed, growing slightly larger. The bioluminescent veins brightened.

  "He's absorbing them," Daniel said, his voice hollow with horror. "Every person he eats makes him stronger."

  "SCATTER!" Axel commanded. "Don't group up! Make yourselves harder targets!"

  The soldiers broke formation, running in all directions. But Wilhelm was methodical. Patient. He stalked them one by one, his seven eyes tracking multiple targets simultaneously.

  A B-rank hunter tried to fight back, launching a fire spell directly at Wilhelm's face. The flames washed over the goat skull harmlessly. Wilhelm's hand shot out, grabbed the hunter, and lifted him to eye level.

  "YOU DARE," Wilhelm's chorus voice rumbled. "STRIKE THE MOTHER'S CHOSEN?"

  He brought the hunter to his main mouth. The jaw unhinged. The teeth closed.

  The hunter's screams echoed for three seconds before being cut off.

  Another soldier down. Wilhelm grew larger still.

  "How many has he eaten now?" Steven asked, his voice shaking. The frost around him had completely melted. His blue skull eye seemed dim compared to Wilhelm's radiance.

  "I don't know," Axel admitted. "Twenty? Thirty? "

  As if on cue, Wilhelm turned toward a cluster of cultists who had survived by playing dead among the corpses. They tried to scatter, but his tentacles were too fast. Six cultists lifted into the air, screaming prayers to the Mother even as they were pulled into the mouths.

  "MOTHER! ACCEPT US! WE ARE YOUR GARDEN!"

  Wilhelm consumed them all.

  His body swelled again. The horns on his head grew longer. A seventh tentacle sprouted from his back, this one ending in a mouth that looked disturbingly like Sister Helena's—filed teeth and split tongue.

  Soldier count: 214.

  Wilhelm had killed or consumed 84 people in less than five minutes.

  "We can't win this," someone said. The voice was flat, defeated. "We can't even scratch him."

  "KEEP FIGHTING!" Axel roared, but even his voice had lost its edge. His Dominion of Wrath was guttering like a dying flame. How could rage sustain itself against hopelessness?

  Wilhelm's laughter boomed across the battlefield. All of his mouths laughed in harmony. Wilhelm's, the Pope's, and underneath it all, something that sounded like a thousand goats bleating in unison.

  "THIS IS THE MOTHER'S WILL!" he proclaimed. "THIS IS EVOLUTION! THIS IS THE FUTURE OF ALL FLESH!"

  He grabbed two more soldiers, one in each massive hand, and brought them together with crushing force. Their bodies pulped between his palms. He licked the blood from his fingers with a tongue that split into seven forks.

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  "More," Wilhelm said. "I need MORE. To become Her perfect vessel, I must consume EVERYTHING."

  His gaze swept across the remaining soldiers. His seven eyes in each socket cataloging them, prioritizing targets, calculating the most efficient path to total annihilation.

  Axel's hands were shaking. His cleaver, the weapon that had carved through Klaus like he was nothing, felt heavy as lead.

  "Shit," he muttered. "Shit, shit, SHIT!"

  He grabbed his radio with trembling fingers. "This is Major General Axel Krane to Central Command. We have a Code Apocalypse situation. Mythical rank entity has evolved beyond combat parameters. Requesting immediate deployment of General Malvick. Repeat, we need the General NOW!"

  Static crackled.

  Then Daniel's voice came through, quiet and defeated. "Sir. General Malvick left the Empire three days ago. Diplomatic mission to the Eastern Kingdoms. Even if we called him back right now..." He paused, doing the math in his head. The math that everyone already knew. "By the time he gets here, we'll all be dead."

  The radio fell from Axel's hand.

  "We're finished," Axel said quietly. Not to anyone in particular. Just stating a fact. "We're actually fucking finished."

  Wilhelm took another step forward. Another soldier tried to run. The tentacle caught him mid-stride, lifting him screaming into the air.

  "PLEASE! I HAVE A FAMILY! I HAVE—"

  The mouth closed.

  Soldier count: 213.

  "He's going to kill us all," Steven said, his voice distant. His hand moved to his eyepatch, to the blue eye beneath. The eye that Nox had given him. The S-rank skill that had made him feel invincible.

  And now it meant nothing.

  "Every single one of us," Ash added, on his knees, unable to stand. "And there's nothing we can do to stop it."

  "The entire operation," Kai said, tears streaming down his face. "Everyone who died. Ralph. All the soldiers. It was all for nothing. We're going to lose anyway."

  "Not just us," Daniel said quietly, his analytical mind still working even in despair.

  "When he's done with us, he'll go into the city. He'll consume everyone. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Until he's strong enough to—"

  "I'll handle it."

  The voice was calm. Almost casual. Like someone offering to take out the trash.

  Every head turned.

  Nox stood there, his twenty tentacles still spread like a crown, CPR still growling in one appendage. The white mask embedded in his chest pulsed with dark light.

  He started walking toward Wilhelm.

  "Doctor, wait—" Axel started.

  "Doctor Nox, you can't—" Steven added.

  "It's not that we don't trust you," Daniel said quickly, his words tumbling over each other. "But that thing... it's close to Legendary rank now. It consumed the Black Pope. It ate hundreds of cultists. It's absorbed so much power that—"

  "How can you possibly win?" Axel finished. "Look at it. LOOK AT IT!"

  Wilhelm had grown to twelve meters tall now. His presence made the air feel thick. Reality itself seemed to bend around him, warping like heat shimmer. The ground cracked beneath his hooves just from standing still.

  "That's not a Mythical-rank entity anymore," Daniel said, his voice breaking. "That's something beyond. Something that shouldn't exist. Even if all of us attacked together, we couldn't—"

  Nox stopped walking. He turned his mass of tentacles toward the soldiers.

  When he spoke, his distorted voice carried a note of something that might have been amusement.

  "Nah."

  He turned back toward Wilhelm.

  "I'd win."

  The soldiers stared at him.

  "What?" Kai whispered.

  "Did he just—" Ash started.

  "He can't be serious," Jack finished.

  But Nox was already moving again, walking toward Wilhelm with steady, unhurried steps. The chainsaw's roar echoed across the battlefield. CPR was singing, eager, hungry.

  Wilhelm's multiple eyes focused on Nox. All fourteen of them, tracking the approaching figure with predatory interest.

  "YOU," Wilhelm's chorus voice rumbled. "THE BLASPHEMER. THE ONE WHO DARED DESECRATE THE MOTHER'S RITUAL."

  His tentacles writhed in anticipation.

  "I WILL CONSUME YOU LAST. I WILL MAKE YOUR SUFFERING ETERNAL. YOU WILL BEG FOR THE MERCY OF BECOMING HER GARDEN."

  Nox stopped twenty meters away from Wilhelm.

  For a moment, neither moved.

  The soldiers held their breath. Two hundred and thirteen pairs of eyes watching the confrontation. The twisted doctor versus the transformed shepherd. The horror of medicine versus the gospel of flesh.

  Then Nox raised one tentacle.

  The appendage bent, bringing itself close to where his head used to be.

  The tentacle's finger extended, pressing against the lip area of the white mask.

  When Nox spoke, his voice dropped to something that made the previous distortion sound human by comparison. This voice carried weight. Authority. The kind of power that didn't ask reality to bend.it commanded.

  The air itself stopped moving.

  "Dominion of the Crawling Madness."

  The world turned RED.