Chapter 39 The Original Must Bleed

• Before you can kill the monster… you have to admit it was once you. The ruins of Varkas stood quiet under a cracked moon. What once was a training camp, a sanctuary, a massacre site—was now a skeleton of steel and ash. Eron Rane stepped onto the gravel path with no armor, no squad, no weapons. Just an old coat he hadn’t worn since the war began, still blood-stained at the hem.
• Layla’s voice buzzed in his comm one last time: “Eron… please don’t go alone.”
• He clicked the channel off. This was the kind of battle no one could help him win. The Screamborn was already there. It crouched in the center of the old barracks courtyard—right where the first child had died all those years ago. Its breathing was uneven. Its hands dug into the soil. Its eyes—black voids—tracked Eron’s approach without blinking. It didn’t growl. It didn’t speak. It simply opened its mouth— And screamed.