Chapter 38: The Lion Bleeds

I remained on the ceiling, arms crossed, and lungs still. My body was stuck I the cramped space in between the ceiling, just above the bloodstained room, hidden by the layered shadows and my wood. The scent of Royal's demise had already thickened into something metallic and primal, but the walls did their part. The room was built like a tomb… no windows, only a single narrow ventilation shaft, which I had promptly stuffed with linen and plaster the moment Onyx left. Not perfect, but enough. No smell would drift out, and no alarm would be raised.

The silence was absolute.

I clutched my phone, its cold screen casting the faintest light under my palm. I kept checking for a response, mentally mapping each passing second with measured breaths. Time moved slower when you were hunting, slower still when you knew the prey had claws.

Finally, a ping. A message lit the screen.

[Who are you? I arrived at Royal’s room, knocked twice over, but no one is answering.]

Good. He was here.

[Are you at the door?] I wrote back quickly.

His reply came almost immediately.

[Yes.]

That was all I needed.

I let myself drop from the ceiling like a phantom, warping into intangibility as I fell. The door was open. The room stretched for only a second… blood, busted furniture, the shattered bust of the naked woman… and then my boots hit the floor soundlessly. Lion King stood at the threshold, a broad-shouldered silhouette framed by opulent hallway light. He was dressed in a tailored navy-blue suit, pinstripes subtle against his dark fur as his transformation began.

His nostrils flared. His pupils narrowed into predatory slits. "Blood," he growled. "What the hell is—"

I surged forward.

It seemed him waiting for me to open the door had been wishful thinking.

The moment my hand touched his chest, I phased him. His body blinked into intangibility before his brain caught up. I saw the telltale shimmer of claws as he slashed at my face, his reflexes sharper than I expected. The blow passed through me harmlessly… I'd phased just in time… and he stumbled further into the room, confused.

That was when I let the effect end.

He solidified mid-motion, chest half-merged with theedge of the heavy wooden door. There was a crack… no, a crackling… as splinters ruptured around him and the wood buckled like paper under his shifting mass. He roared, pain blossoming in the sound, and his body contorted, flesh pulsing as his transformation continued. Muscles rippled beneath his skin as he forced himself into his beast form, trying to brute-force his way out of the pain, the trap, and the confusion.

The door shattered into pieces, shards flying through the air, some digging into the nearby wallpaper, others clattering to the blood-soaked floor.

Lion King gasped, staggered, then coughed violently. Blood spattered from his mouth like wine from a broken cask. I didn’t even need to guess… some of those wooden fragments had gone deep. His breathing was ragged, like air passing through broken reeds. Still, he didn’t fall. The beast within him clung stubbornly to life.

He turned to me, golden eyes blazing with fury and confusion.

"You... Eclipse. Why the fuck—"

I lunged again.

My hand drove into his chest.

It was like reaching into thick, wet clay: hot, shifting, and alive. I pushed through muscle and sinew, bones phasing harmlessly around my arm, ignoring the wet crunch of tissue. He snarled and struck, but his claws passed clean through my shoulder. I was still intangible. Still untouchable.

I passed through him, and stopped just inside the room where I slaughtered Royal.

Then I solidified.

Lion King staggered forward, his back deflating for a second.

There was a moment… a twitch, a stutter in his motion… like his body realized too late what had happened. His eyes widened. His breath caught. He tried to roar again, to fight through the pain like before, but it came out garbled, half-blood and half-growl. He staggered, legs giving way, and collapsed face-first onto the floor with a sound like dropped meat.

I stood over him.

Blood poured from his mouth, thick and fast, pooling beneath his chin. His arms flailed once, uselessly, his claws carving shallow grooves into the tiles. He rolled halfway onto his side, chest heaving, golden eyes locking onto mine. They were still burning, still full of hatred, even as the fire began to dim.

He looked at me. At what I was holding.

His heart.

It thudded once, weakly, twitching in my grip like it hadn’t realized it was no longer inside him. I dropped it beside his face.

He tried to speak. No words came. Just a wet, rasping sound, like a laugh swallowed by blood.

I knelt beside him.

“Shush now,” I said quietly. “No need to be angry, in the end, Royal is dead… and in a way, you got your revenge. So rest in peace, okay?”

His eyes fluttered. His lips twitched into something like a sneer. Even dying, he wouldn’t give me the satisfaction of fear. Only fury. Defiance.

Then nothing.

His body went still.

The body was still warm.

I crouched beside it, wiping blood off my gloves. The shattered remains of the door crunched beneath my boots. The room smelled like rot and metal now, like old pennies and raw meat left in the sun. I didn’t feel triumphant. Not exactly. Just focused and aware.

Onyx stepped through the ruined doorway a second later. Her presence hit the room like a shifting gust of madness. She was soaked in gore, more than usual. The pristine half of her white mask was now streaked with crimson, and worse, there were actual chunks stuck to it. I wasn’t sure if they were from a person or something else, and I didn’t ask.

“What the hell happened to you?” I asked instead, standing.

She twirled a knife between her fingers like she was skipping into a tea party. “The brainwashed mundane slaves were being feisty, Master,” she said, the words honeyed and manic. “I tried to save them. I did. But you know how it is.” She gestured vaguely at her mask, smiling under it. “Had to make an example out of one. Or five. It got messy.”

Of course it did.

She always sounded a little too delighted about carnage, like it was a favorite childhood memory. I didn’t respond. There wasn’t any point. I just turned away and said, “Let’s proceed to the next phase of the plan.”

Onyx skipped a step forward, then dropped to her knees beside the corpse. She leaned over it like a curious child marveling at a frog. “Wooooow,” she breathed, her fingers hovering reverently over the heart that still twitched faintly on the floor. “You did this, Master?”

“Mm.”

“So awesome.” She giggled. “So visceral. But like… how’re you gonna frame this, huh? It doesn’t look like a speedster did it. Not yet.”

I stared at the heart for a moment longer. “I’ll figure it out,” I murmured. “Lion King may be dead, but he’ll still take the blame for Royal.”

“Yesss,” she hissed like she was enjoying a fine wine. “Awesome.”

I reached into my coat and handed her the card. “You know what to do.”

She took it without hesitation. “Still loaded?”

“Royal was generous. Paid me up front… and paid me a lot more after the job.” I allowed myself a small, bitter smirk. “Poor bastard thought I could be used so easily.”

“Mmm. Irony.” She rose fluidly, licking her fingers. “Delicious.”

“We’re on a clock,” I said flatly, turning toward the hall. “Go.”

She gave a two-finger salute and disappeared down the corridor like a shadow on caffeine. I stood alone once again.

I took a deep breath.

The room still reeked of blood and wood splinters, like a massacre in a lumber mill. Lion King’s corpse lay awkwardly against the ruined threshold, half his chest caved in from the doorframe, the rest twitching in silent protest. His golden eyes, once so smug and sharp, were now dull marbles in a slackened face.

Killing people was becoming easier.

That was the part that bothered me. Not the gore. Not the screams. Just how casual it was all starting to feel. Like folding laundry or brushing my teeth.

I wondered, not for the first time, whether Onyx would betray me. She had the temperament for it. Chaos in a woman’s shape. And she certainly wasn’t loyal because of morals. She was more of a wild card than a teammate, a rabid thing dressed in civility. If she turned on me… well, that would almost be convenient. She’d make a better scapegoat than Lion King ever could. A story writes itself when someone like her is involved. Delighted sadist. Killed everyone. Oops. Case closed.

But no. She hadn’t. She wouldn’t. Not yet.

I figured it was because of her empathic and telepathic talents. She knew what I’d do to her if she betrayed me. Knew it in a bone-deep way most people only understand once it’s too late. That was probably the only leash I had on her… fear, not loyalty. Still, I found it strange how attached she seemed. Devoted, even. Like a pet that had chosen me as its owner and couldn’t remember why.

I sighed, walked over to Lion King’s body, and grabbed his ankle. His leg twitched reflexively. Nerve spasms. Nothing more.

“Come on, Your furry Highness,” I muttered. “Let’s get you off the damn carpet.”

I dragged him fully into the room. He was heavy… muscle and mass and beast-shape compressed into one body. His heart was still on the floor, twitching slightly. A clear indicator of what had happened. His wounds, the fragmented wood embedded in his flesh, the heart ripped out… it all painted a picture. A very specific picture. And not the one I wanted to leave behind.

If someone smart saw this, they’d guess the killer had phasing or intangibility. Not the kind of mess a speedster would leave behind. Not the profile I needed.

I thought about it. Thought hard. Then made the call.

“It will be risky, but better than getting found out.”

I crouched and embraced the bastard’s corpse, locking my arms around his chest like I was comforting an old friend. His blood soaked through my coat, still warm. Then, I phased.

My body—and his—slipped through the floor like water down a drain. The sensation hit instantly. Cold. Pressureless. Weightless. I hated it. Hated the feeling of falling without falling, hated the unnatural way the world turned transparent and distant.

I let gravity do the work. Let us drop.

The further we fell, the worse it got. My power wasn’t infinite… intangibility took effort, and this deep, it started to gnaw at my insides. My breathing felt shallow. My vision blurred. My heartbeat ticked like a bomb.

But I held on.

I didn’t know how far was enough. There was no ruler for this. Just instinct. Eventually, when we were well below the foundation, below bedrock, where the pressure should’ve crushed us, I let go of the corpse.

His body drifted in the murk of the Earth like a ghost.

Then I shifted… turned the intangibility into semi-intangibility.

That’s when the ground started pushing me up.

I’ve never understood how that part worked. Some called it Power-Limit, some called it survival instinct, sometimes I thougt to myself it was like being intangible to gravity itself… but whatever the truth was, I knew one thing: if I stayed down there, if I fought the rejection, I’d die. Probably in a way no one could fix.

So I let it happen. I let the Earth spit me out like bad meat.

The surface rushed up and through me, until finally I was above ground again, sprawled on the bloodstained carpet beside the ruin of the door. My limbs trembled. My skin buzzed with aftershock. My stomach flipped once, hard, like it wanted to vomit my bones.

But Lion King was gone.

That was what mattered.

With him missing, the others would draw the simplest conclusion: he killed Royal. He went rogue. Maybe fled. Maybe still prowling the estate. Let them run in circles. Let them waste time.

I glanced at Royal’s body. Loyal’s too. Both of them left behind.

Tempting, honestly, to bury them the same way. Quick. Clean. But no… I was already running on fumes. If something happened… if a new threat appeared… I wouldn’t have the strength left to respond.

No. I needed to conserve.

I sat against the wall, catching my breath, already planning my next move.

“This is just the first step… of many.”