CHPT 282: Burned By Magic...

"AAAARGHH!!"

Claude woke with a roar that shook the ground and blended with the snarls of the creature next to him.

It resembled a wolf-- only fuller muscles. Larger front legs and claws as if it was made more for combat instead of long distance running. The white-tipped hairs along it's back stood on end, giving a more imposing appearance to the creature as it's glowing blue eyes looked out at the forest beyond.

Frosty was agitated.

Claude knew the feeling. Freshly escaped from his all too real nightmare and currently being scorched by Lunar Magic. He too was agitated. Beyond agitated....and beyond reason.

In a matter of seconds. He fell to his knees as a secondary transformation took him over.

The steam of his bubbling skin clouded his vision as he rolled through the grass. His fingers bled with the increased growth and thickening of his claws and the hairs along his neck and back thickened-- bolstering his natural defenses.

The pain didn't end. Instead it dug deeper, dragged down into every fiber of his muscles. The steady pour of Lunar Magic puffed his muscles and stretched his leathery skin while the bones deeper within cracked and thickened.

CRKCRKCRACK!

"RAAAAAGHSH!!"

His roars and cracks continued for a matter of minutes before silence fell once again.

The steam finally settled. In a flash he emerged from the cloud standing at his full height of eight feet and howled.

The sound rattled the earth and sent flocks of birds fleeing into the night sky. The cold winds swept up the sound as quickly as it came, carrying it further off to remind more lifeforms that the touch of Luna had graced the flesh of the Last Lupine of Romulus.

As soon as the feral howl subsided, he was off. Moving purely on instinct towards Rollan's home which held a possible newly changed inside.

He approached the home in a flash and began scenting the area in a paranoid fashion before marking it with his scent.

As he rounded the building and faced the front where Frosty and the Phantom Wolves resided, he found them still watching the forest.

A growl escaped his lips before he bounded over to them. There was a threat somewhere near.

He slowed to a trot as he appeared beside Frosty with his nose to the floor. His mind was so rattled previously by the magic of the moon that he didn't notice it before.

The achy feeling in the pit of his stomach combined with the scents of something burning and rotting all at the same time. It was so close the scent felt like a physical miasma of putrid aromatic disgust.

A territorial growl rumbled from his stomach and rolled out of his jaws. He couldn't see it with his eyes, but his nose could. It could see them all.

The one's on the outside seemed to understand this.

Shadows moved from beside trees and bushes as they stepped out into the light.

There were at least twenty. Satyr's, Centaur's, Gnoll's, Kobolds, Goblins. All made different by the malicious hold of Hell.

Horns ripped from their skulls, distorting the air around them with their blazing heat. Their eyes scanned over him with the hellish burn of unnatural fire.

But they weren't the biggest problem. The biggest problem stood right in front of the SpellBloom Ward, staring at him with an eerie level of sentience.

Unlike the others, it didn't have horns. At least not demonic ones.

It still resembled a Satyr more or less. Only it looked more powerful. It stood at seven feet on cloven footed legs with visible muscle even beneath the dense collection of dark fur. The fur thinned as it climbed to it's upper torso where solid muscle shown clearly under the moonlight along with bulging black veins. They moved under its skin like leeches, climbing up it's chest to it's neck and horrifyingly wrong face.

Unlike the other Satyr's. This one's face was fully beastial. Complete with a full thick snout that resembled a goat and a horse-- only it had fangs. The creature shook in revulsion as the black veins beneath it's skin moved with a skittering intensity like bugs.

That's when he noticed it. It's lower left arm. It wasn't like the rest of it's body. It was sleek and jet black...almost like an oversized leech had taken over it's forearm, even moving on it's own. Except it pulsed with glowing red veins like an angry thundercloud.

As his eyes scaled up the appendage, he found the white of natural bone before seeing the Satyr's furry upper arm again. The leech-like limb was actively eating it's flesh and spreading up the bone like a living mass. He could hear it. Biting and tearing. Infecting. The black veins streaked from the source and continued to move throughout it's body gruesomely. He could feel it's wrongness seeping through the earth towards him.

Claude didn't care though. All he knew was that his left arm burned and the newly changed was in danger.

The Satyr equipped with an Armament of the Underworld whipped it's demonic appendage, causing the once soft looking substance to straighten and tense like a muscle. Only this muscle flexed into a hardened razors edge. The red veins beneath blinked with life, showing the shadows of the Satyr's bone beneath being molded and changed into something else. Something otherworldly.

It raised it's weapon and licked at the air with a slimy black tongue, as if Claude's bloodlust was tangible before backing away in preparation.

To there surprise it spoke. Only it's mouth didn't move. The sound emanated from the demonic weapon eating away at the Monster.

"Your....hatttreeed tastes delicious! Come fight! Allow us alllll to tassste more...."

Claude and his pack snarled at the horrifying weapon as it spoke for the Satyr. The HellBred creatures that flanked it stirred.

"Come fight!" It spoke again.

Claude stood up on two legs and roared. His sounds were swallowed up by the tornado of shadows that surrounded him as the Phantom Wolves morphed into the Phantom Legion.

In a flash, the shadow fell and left a massive hairless black wolf monster with six eyes standing behind him. A number of extra smokey black heads dispersed from the original, snapping and roaring at the surrounding creatures.

Frosty stood in front of them, sending out magical waves of PitWolven intimidation that wrapped the creatures in an irontight hold of fear.

Sometimes the best defense was offense.

The Satyr didn't need to speak again. In an instant they blasted through the SpellBloom Ward and prepared to give the legion of Demonically infected monsters the fight of their lives.

As he moved towards them, he could hear growls emanating from within Rollan's home. Pushing him to fight harder and erase everything that breathed within the forest.

The Full Moons madness had just begun....