Daniel's heart pounded, his burned hand throbbing as he raised his palms in a desperate, pleading gesture.

"Mr. Augustus, I swear, we didn't mean to trespass!"

His voice cracked, words spilling out in a frantic rush.

"It was an accident! Sam's drone crashed in your yard, and we had to retrieve it! We didn't want to bother you! You see we were just at the court, messing around, and then we saw Ms. Rita by her pool. She was… uh, doing something private, and then she changed, as tentacles sprouted from her...stomach and split open with sharp and uneven jagged teeth, like some kind of monster!"

Sam, clutching the mangled drone to his chest, nodded vigorously, his head nearly shaking loose. His dark eyes were wide, his voice trembling but urgent.

"Yeah, it was terrifying! We weren't trying to snoop, honest! We saw her through the drone's camera, and then she turned into… some kind of freakish creature! The drone got hit and fell over your wall. We had to come get it!"

Neil, his chubby cheeks glistening with sweat despite the cold, chimed in, his voice high and quivering as his eyes darted nervously toward the estate's shadowed oaks.

"It was like something out of a horror movie, Mr. Augustus! She is not human! We ran for our lives, and the drone just… landed here. We had no choice!"

Nier's expression darkened, his jaw tightening as he raised a hand, silencing them with a sharp gesture.

"I don’t want to hear your excuses you brats."

He snapped, his tone cold and final.

"This isn't the first time you've poked around where you don't belong. Now you're bringing some monster nonsense onto my land? I am done. I am visiting your parents, again, and this time, you won't talk your way out of it."

Before he could continue, a sharp, metallic voice crackled through Sam's phone, cutting through the tense silence like a knife. It was Lisa, Nier's AI assistant, her tone frantic and urgent.

"Master, wait...these kids are telling the truth! Forget the trespassing for now. They've drawn a skinwalker to our doorstep. You need to leave now! Run before that thing...

BOOOOOOM!!

Her words were interrupted by a deafening explosion that shattered the morning stillness. The ground shook violently, sending the boys stumbling as a massive force demolished a section of the brick wall fifty yards away. For more chapters visit novel⦿fire.net

Chunks of stone and tangled vines erupted in a storm of debris, the air thick with dust and the sharp crack of splintering masonry. From the wreckage, Ms. Rita emerged, her form a grotesque distortion of the alluring neighbor the boys had glimpsed through their drone.

She was still vaguely recognizable, 5'5, mid-forties, her tanned skin was now a charred ruin, blackened and cracked like scorched earth, peeling away in jagged strips to reveal raw, glistening muscle that pulsed unnaturally.

Steam hissed from her wounds, curling upward in sickly tendrils, carrying a stench of burnt flesh and dry mud, alongside sulfur and decay, like an unearthed grave. Her yellow eyes glowed with an otherworldly light, slitted pupils dilating with feral hunger, and her lip piercing hung from a mouth stretched into a grotesque grin, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth that seemed to shift and multiply.

The tattered remnants of her robe clung to her frame, exposing her blistered, black bile weeping from her burnt chest, and and a flower tattoos on her lower body, crawling across her skin like parasitic vines. Black, glistening tentacles slithered from gashes in her torso, each tipped with a barbed point that twitched with eager malice.

Her stomach gaped open, a monstrous maw lined with jagged, bone-like teeth that snapped hungrily, dripping with dark, viscous fluid.

Rita's head tilted at an unnatural angle, her neck cracking with a wet snap as she fixed her gaze on the drone in Sam's trembling hands. Her grin widened, splitting her burnt lips until blood trickled down her chin, and her voice slithered out, a chilling blend of multiple other people, male, and female, but Rita voice was the most prominent, layered with an unearthly echo.

"Well, well, well!!"

She intone, her words dripping with sadistic delight.

"It seems my little secrete is out, and the neighborhood's come to stare. Can't have that, can we? I'll have to kill you all, slowly, intimately, tearing you apart until there is nothing left but deep ingrained bloodstained."

Nier's mind reeled, a wave of confusion crashing through him. A skinwalker? What was that? He had only been reborn last night, pulled back from death by Kaly, an Outer God who had gifted him Unlimited and bound his soul to her will.

Lisa's panic didn't make sense, she didn't know about his powers, didn't know he was no longer just a mortal to be pushed around. His eldritch soul thrummed in his chest, a surge of raw, unfamiliar power coiling through his muscles, urging him to act.

He wasn't about to run from this charred nightmare, not when it was threatening him on his own estate. He didn't fully understand then, but he wouldn't stand idly by.

The boys were unraveling in terror. Daniel's eyes bulged, his voice a hoarse stammer as he backed away, nearly tripping over a vine.

"Oh no, she is here! We're going to die!"

Neil let out a high-pitched yelp, stumbling against the wall, his chubby frame shaking as he clutched the bricks for support.

"No, no, no, I don't want to be monster food!"

Sam's legs wobbled, his grip on the drone so tight his knuckles whitened, his voice barely a whisper.

"We have to run… we have to get out of here…

But Rita gave them no chance to escape. With a blood-curdling screech that pierced the air like a banshee's wail, she lunged, her burnt fingers elongating into writhing, claw-like tendrils dripping with black ichor.

Her tentacles lashed forward like spears, aiming for Sam's chest, her toothed maw snapping open as she zeroed in on the drone.

"You first, little pest."

She hissed.

"And that cursed toy of yours!"

Time seemed to slow as Nier's instincts took over, his body moving before his mind could catch up. He didn't fully grasp his powers, but the surge of eldritch energy in his veins was undeniable, a primal force demanding action. In a blur that left the boys stunned, he activated Body Modification Magic, channeling 150 unit of Negative to enhance his human form with supernatural speed and strength.