CHAPTER 31: JOHNQUIS VS. REX PART 2 – THE PRE GLUTTON.

Rex’s mid-transformation was horrifying. His body no longer resembled anything human. The sawblade had melted completely into his right arm, stretching into jagged, bone-like teeth from wrist to elbow. Twitching like muscle and metal fused with rage.

Red-violet veins webbed across his swollen frame, his back so wide it looked ready to split his spine open. His jaw hung unnaturally, unhinged, dripping blood and bile onto the casino floor.

As he changed, the entire casino seemed to warp around him. Lights glitched and flickered faster... then died, leaving sections pulsing in eerie red shadows. The spinning roulette wheels froze mid-spin. Cards, chips, and blood pooled together on the broken marble.

For a heartbeat, the entire room glitched, flickering into a grim reality where the casino was nothing but a gutted, soulless ruin.

Johnquis stood his ground, chain coiled tight in his grip. But inside, a cold tremor of hopelessness crawled up his spine. He tightened his hold.

Rex’s voice distorted now, half-mad, half-monster.

"She said I was the strong one... She said I’d protect her... So why... why did she SMILE at HIM?"

The casino lights burst above them. Red sparks rained down like falling embers. Rex’s jaw stretched, voice twisting as he mocked Lex’s words in a broken childlike tone:

"Big brother, big brother... wait for me, okay? Big brother, you’ll always protect me, right? Big brother... you’ll never let them take me..."

His grin split wider,

"LIES! ALL LIES!"

His eyes burning blood-red.

"I should’ve cut that bastard Mars’s head off the moment she touched Lex— THEN THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED! LEX IS ALIVE! LEX IS WITH ME! ARGHHH!!!"

Rex roared. The mutation was halfway through. His saw arm elongated, blade edges jagged like torn bone.

Then he charged.

BOOM!

His footfalls thundered across the casino floor.

He swung the sawblade at the Runner, it dodged, catching a close-up glimpse of the blade now fused completely to Rex’s arm, twitching like a living thing.

But before the Runner could counter, Rex’s other fist slammed forward. A brutal punch to its chest. Blood sprayed as the Runner flew across the casino, crashing through a golden poker table that split and crumpled under the impact.

Johnquis tried to intercept. The chain lashed out.

CLANG!

Rex caught it mid-air.

His eyes twitched. "You still believe this chain can save you?"

He pulled it.

Johnquis flew forward and Rex headbutted him mid-air.

CRACK!

Johnquis hit the ground hard, coughing blood.

Rex stood over him.

"You never had the strength to protect her. You don’t even have the strength to protect yourself."

Johnquis raised the chain again, but his fingers were shaking.

"I don’t have strength like you... but I won’t let you become what killed her."

Rex lifted his fused blade.

"It’s too late. I AM what killed her. I AM the monster she loved."

He brought it down—

SLASH!

The Runner tackled him at the last second.

The blow missed Johnquis by inches.

The Runner bit into Rex’s shoulder. Clawed down his chest. Flesh tore.

Rex roared and punched the Runner’s face—

CRACK!

A tooth flew from the Runner’s mouth. Its jaw hung crooked. But it didn’t let go. Rex screamed.

"Why won’t you die!"

He grabbed the Runner and slammed it into the floor again and again.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Johnquis crawled to his knees, vision blurry.

[??? - Health Status: CRITICAL]

He reached out. The chain responded sluggishly. His blood was nearly spent.

Rex screamed, voice warping.

"Lex said she’d wait for me! She PROMISED!"

The Runner weakly kicked upward, hitting Rex’s chin. It broke his rhythm but not his rage.

He grabbed the Runner’s leg and twisted.

SNAP!

A silent scream echoed from the Eater slave as its limb bent wrong.

Johnquis threw the chain one more time, desperate.

WRAP!

It coiled around Rex’s neck.

"STOP!"

Rex turned and for a heartbeat, his face was hers. Lex’s. Soft, pleading.

"Lex...?" The voice trembled, fragile.

Johnquis and the Runner froze. The world seemed to hold its breath.

Then Rex blinked and the illusion shattered.

"...No. You’re not her."

BOOM!

He ripped the chain apart. Pain exploded through Johnquis’s arm as the chain cracked.

[WARNING: Eater Blade Damaged]

[PASSIVE SKILL: Flesh Memory Lvl 1]

Activating...

Johnquis crumpled to the ground, breath ragged, vision swimming.

The Runner stood weakly, breathing ragged. One leg useless. Its claws shaking.

Rex turned to it, twitching, his saw-arm stretching into a long blade.

"One more. Just one more... and then I can rest."

He lunged.

CLANG!

Johnquis tackled him off course.

"You won’t take him. Not again."

Rex grabbed him by the throat.

"Why not? Why protect the thing that devoured your people?"

Johnquis choked.

"Because he didn’t choose it. Just like you didn’t choose to become this."

Rex paused.

"I wanted to protect her..."

His grip weakened.

The Runner jumped even with one leg and smashed into Rex’s side, pushing him into the broken roulette table.

Rex roared and swung wildly, but his strength was draining. Too much blood spent. Too much mind lost.

The Runner kicked him once then twice.

Johnquis whipped the broken chain, wrapping it around the fused saw-arm.

"NOW!"

The Runner leapt, claws out. It drove its talons deep into the twisted flesh and metal, digging for the bone beneath.

Rex howled, thrashing like a beast pinned to the floor.

"ARGHH! DAMN YOU!!!"

"CUT IT—NOW!" Johnquis roared.

Rex’s bellow shook the walls. "YOU WON’T! YOU WON’T!"

He swung, but the chain held, the Runner’s claws sank deeper, tearing sinew, sparks and blood spraying.

Rex thrashed like a beast cornered in its own rage.

The chain tightened around his fused saw-arm, and the Runner’s claws plunged in deeper, grinding bone and blood-metal apart.

Rex screamed.

His voice echoed across the dark casino, warped and cracked like broken speakers. Glitched lights above stuttered between reality and system error, casting overlapping reflections of Rex—man, beast, child, all blinking in and out like haunted film frames.

"LET—GO—OF—MEEE!!"

CRACK!

Rex slammed his head forward. His skull crashed into the Runner’s face. Bone shattered.

The Runner was hurled backward, dragging a chunk of torn flesh with it but not enough to sever the saw-arm.

"YOU’RE NOT ENOUGH!"

Rex howled, then flexed his whole body.

BOOM!

A red-violet shockwave exploded outward, shattering the roulette table, sending Johnquis tumbling, his back slamming into the gold-plated wall with a crunch.

Johnquis’s hand broke from the backlash. Blood gushed down his wrist.

The Runner lay motionless on the floor, twitching, its single good leg struggling to lift it.

Rex stood tall again.

His fused arm pulsed, twitching violently. His back trembled like it couldn’t contain the Eater flesh writhing beneath.

Then, hallucinations.

They hit him like a spear to the mind.

"Big brother... help me... I’m scared..."

Rex gasped, stumbling.

Lex stood across from him. Not bloodied. Not dead. Just... smiling, the way she used to.

"Lex...?"

She held out her hand. "Come back to me. This isn’t who you are."

He staggered forward.

"We were going to see the ocean together, remember? You said you’d build me a house right by the shore."

"...I did. I said that..."

Behind her, flickers of Mars. Laughing. Lex hugging him. Lex walking away. Lex reaching for someone else’s hand.

His vision twisted.

His scream turned into a sob.

"DON’T SHOW ME THIS!!"

The hallucination shattered and Johnquis slammed into his side, bringing him down in a tackle.

"AGAIN!"

The Runner, crawling, launched itself again despite the snapped leg.

Claws and teeth sank deep into the fused saw-arm.

Johnquis wrapped what was left of his broken chain around Rex’s shoulder, pulling the other direction.

Veins burst under the strain. Rex howled.

The hallucinations returned, stronger.

"You failed me."

Lex again. But this time, dead. Hollow-eyed. A gaping wound in her stomach.

"You let me die, brother. You said you’d protect me."

Mars’s voice. Mocking.

"But you were too slow."

A vision of his mother screaming, arms torn off. A young Rex hiding, shaking, whispering to himself.

"I’ll be strong... I’ll be strong... I’ll protect her... I’ll kill them all..."

Rex screamed, clawing at his own face.

"SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!! I CAN STILL PROTECT HER! I CAN STILL—"

CRUNCH!

The Runner bit down hard on the fused joint. Johnquis pulled the chain with all he had left.

"DO IT!!!"

SNAP!!!

The saw-arm tore free. Blood sprayed like a geyser.

Rex’s scream shook the casino.

His arm was gone from the elbow down. The jagged, pulsing blade arm hit the floor, twitching like a severed parasite. The light inside it dimmed.

Rex staggered back, gasping, staring at the bloody stump.

"I... I was supposed to save her..."

His knees buckled.

The mutation receded. The red glow in his eyes dimmed but his body was wrecked. Barely human. Barely alive.

He looked up, and saw Johnquis.

Not weak. Not a leash boy.

Just a kid, trembling, bleeding from his broken hand, holding the last few feet of chain like it was all he had left.

Rex blinked.

"...Lex."

He fell.

THUMP.

Face down in the wreckage of the casino.

The Runner collapsed beside him, panting. Blood dripping. One leg bent wrong. Eyes still glowing faintly.

Johnquis dropped to his knees, coughing blood.

It was over.

For now.

Silence swept across the casino.

Only one sound remained.

The slot machine near the broken entrance kept spinning.

DING-DING-DING...

"You won! Claim your jackpot prize!"