The incessant buzz of a million flies was drowned out by the inhuman roar that rose over it, the sound unnatural and unholy as it spilled out of the beast’s body.

  It bounded forwards on twisted limbs, lunging towards the oncoming swarm undaunted, animalistic instinct alone driving the predator, the slit of flesh it had for a mouth peeling open once more as it bared its fangs.

  Both the wolf and the flies struck into one another at once, both sides wasting not even a second as they dug into one another.

  The flies burrowed through the soft, wet meat of the beast effortlessly, eating away at it as its head swung wildly about, taking massive mouthfuls of the insects as it ate away through them with blind voracity, hunger made manifest ripping through the swarm.

  Beelze forced her horde past and off of the creature as it made a meal of her precious flies, the cloud significantly smaller as it escaped the feral hound and looped back and around overtop of it.

  The beast itself had been fatally wounded though, fist size chunks ripped out of its carcass, multiple of its eyes popped like wet balloons as exposed bone was lit by sunlight leaking through the holes perforating the entire length of it. Injuries severe enough that no living thing, no matter how massive, could keep standing after sustaining.

  Unfortunately, this wolf had stopped being alive a long time ago.

  A low growl that sounded both mechanical and alien rumbled out from inside of it, white-hot steam pouring out from its wounds as they refilled themselves with fresh meat, every destroyed eye being pushed out of the crowded socket as twice as many more bloomed out to take their pce, the beast wholly unaffected by the half-hearted attempt at putting it down.

  “W-What the hell are you…?!”

  The trained and experienced woman took a half step backwards as it simply shrugged off her attack, her voice barely more than a whisper as the unfamiliar sensation of fear bubbled up through her throat, her practiced motions sluggish as she forced herself to keep moving despite her own unhealing wounds.

  Just the faint murmuring of her trembling voice was enough to cause the wolf’s ears to perk up, head snapping over to face her once more as it recalled its original prey.

  Her heart skipped a beat as it turned its attention back to her, forcing herself to focus as she stepped forwards again, not allowing uselessly base emotions like fear to interrupt her Mistress’s blessed mission.

  Hands wove through the air as she spun once more, guiding her swarm back towards her as the hound lunged with renewed bloodlust.

  The sound of wet meat spping against damp pavement was louder than anything else could have been, the beast already almost upon her as she still tried to recall what remained of her unflinchingly loyal insects, its twisting limbs cracking and snapping as it forced itself to sprint faster than something so rge should have been able to.

  It howled, the hauntingly unnatural sound warbling out from deep within it, its massive, fang-den maw once more peeling open to expose the teeth spinning out from inside of it, mouth wide open and broken arms outstretched as it leapt towards its prey.

  Her arms shot down and to the side, abandoning all pretense of composure as she forced her horde to move, yanking it downwards from above her like a knife.

  A limb extended out towards her throat, ichor-soaked cws stabbing up out of every inch of its flesh, sharpened and jagged like old rusty nails, capping the ends of a paw rge enough to effortlessly crush her entire body underneath.

  And a hair’s breadth before it could rip her asunder, her bugs reached it once more, divebombing through the outstretched limb in tight-knit unison, tearing through exposed muscles and sinew, slicing the thing’s entire arm off milliseconds before it could decapitate their frantically scrambling host.

  Beelze frantically scrambled off to the left, the severed limb sailing past her as the wolf itself was thrown off bance, tumbling across the asphalt as it screeched, the sound far more angry than pained.

  She rushed forward across the ground on all fours a short distance before she manged to right herself once more, pushing herself back to her feet, back pressed against the still-smoking wreckage of a car as she panted loudly, eyes wide as she watched the writhing corpse before her already attempting to stand once more.

  It let out an ear-splittingly high-pitched sound, like an air raid siren that had gone unused for decades, the messy stump her flies had left where its arm had been trembling as the loose flesh around it twitched and writhed.

  The shivering motion only grew more violent as the sound grew louder, windows around it trembling in fear just as she was until they finally shattered into millions of tiny shards, the beast’s entire body unduting violently.

  It aimed its stump up into the cloudless sky, blood still pouring from it and dribbling down the rest of its broken body, and with a final, echoing howl, the exposed muscles composing it all tightened in unison, an entire new arm sprouting from within, ripping the entirety of that side of its body open to make way for the malformed bloom.

  The oversized limb stomped down into the road below, crushing the drenched asphalt underfoot as it once more turned to face Beelze, her heart stopping as dozens of emerald eyes fixed themselves on her, watching her like a caged animal staring at the raw steak thrown into their enclosure.

  Fear rising up like bile in her throat kept her limbs from responding as readily as she needed them to, her swarm reduced to a pathetic shade of its former size, the wispy cloud nonetheless returning to their host’s side protectively.

  Whatever this abomination was, nothing she could do to it did anything more than make it stronger and angrier.

  It’s body hitched forward, eliciting a gasp from Beelze, immediately taking half a step back instinctively as it rumbled at her.

  If it was going to rush her again, she could at least attempt to rip through its skull before it finished killing her. She had no idea at all if even that would be enough to meaningfully wound it but… devoid of options other than mutually assured death, she would at least go out in a way that would not besmirch her pride.

  She steeled herself, standing as tall as she could, preparing for it to move once more as it rumbled at her, the hound twitching impatiently as it watched for an opening.

  They both stared, waited, and bled slowly upon their battlefield.

  It was the first of them to move, muscles once more all tightening at once as it jerked forwards, Beelze readying her final line of defense as it…

  …as it lunged off to the side, fully perpendicur to where she stood waiting, circling about as ambled with none of the predator’s instinct it had moments earlier.

  She watched as it all but dragged itself around her, seemingly fighting itself to move at all as it restrained itself from rushing in for the mouthwatering kill it so clearly desired, bloodlust clear in each and every one of its eyes as it kept its gaze fixated on her.

  It shambled to a halt, the wolf’s misshapen body trembling as it once more emitted that low, rumbling growl, its stance wide as it forcibly held itself in pce even as bloody saliva dripped from its gaping, hungry maw.

  As it took its new position, it refused to move an inch further, merely watching her, seemingly awaiting any manner of pse in focus it could exploit, leaving her frozen in pce as she struggled to comprehend why it hadn’t simply come for her once more.

  It clearly understood she couldn’t harm it in any permanent way, and even if she had been able to, it didn’t strike her as a creature concerned with its own survival.

  From the manner in which it watched her, it clearly wanted more than to just kill her. It’s hunger was so overwhelmingly palpable that she could feel it starting to bleed into her own consciousness as well, stirring up base instincts as the sickly sweet stench of her own blood filled her nostrils.

  And yet it restrained itself, staying firmly pnted in front of her, unflinching and unyielding, refusing its overbearing desire to feed on her mouth-watering flesh.

  As she struggled to comprehend its contradictory actions, a single glimmer of light tickled against her eyes, recoiling in surprise and eliciting a screeching bark from the wolf in front of her, a single paw stepping forward as it otherwise refused to budge.

  She traced the source of the stray beam of sunlight as she cowered back, a dusting of gss shards spreading out below the hound’s feet twinkling in the light.

  Or… no. Not gss. Windows y broken all around them both in the debris littering the street they both occupied. But no windows were anywhere close to this particur spot, the twinkling fragments from something else entirely.

  She realized it wasn’t gss at all.

  It was crystal.

  Understanding burst into her mind all at once as she realized what y on the opposite side of the towering beast, and why it refused to budge from its perch by so much as a single inch.

  It was keeping her away from the wounded magical girl.

  Somehow, whatever consciousness that monster had was fighting itself as protective instinct overruled every other impulse it had, keeping itself motionless by sheer force of will as it forcibly asserted dominance over its own body.

  Beelze’s wide-eyed horror slowly shifted back into sickly smug composure, her stance adjusting itself as she drew her obedient swarm back into position once more, taking her sweet time, avoiding any sharp motions that would aggravate the hound staring her down.

  Even as resilient as it was, a beast was nothing more than a beast, and this one was stupid enough to merely sit back and wait for her to deliver the killing blow to it and its helpless charge both.

  “Rejoice, mutt. No worthless dog has never had the honor of sharing in one of my performances before, and today, you and that girl have the beloved privilege of dying for the satisfaction of my Mistress.”

  The wolf bared it’s fangs at her, leaning forwards a hairs-breadth, hissing at her like a rusting engine as she spoke with unflinching confidence she’d been unable to muster while it was actually pursuing her.

  Her fingers lightly extended outwards, taking her time as she lined up her shot, flies tickling against her skin as they waited for her command.

  Both her index fingers snapped forwards, and the swarm advanced, insects spiraling about one another as they danced towards the thing’s misshapen skull.

  It unched forwards in the same instant, having been waiting for any excuse to resume its hunt.

  The hound made no effort at all to avoid the oncoming attack, howling as it dove straight through the cloud of flies, having eyes only for the monster controlling them.

  Both sides reached one another in fractions of a second, trained flies brushing against the bloodied, skinless flesh of its face, burrowing deep into the meat as it unceasingly pushed through them, wholly undaunted.

  Beelze smirked, and with a flourish, moved her arms in a smooth, circur pattern, her victory against the mindless animal finally assured.

  Her bugs moved with the signal, ripping and eating through their target with terrifying speed, drilling into it from the head first as they blended every morsel of soft, warm meat they encountered, its own momentum only pushing them through its carcass faster, spraying viscera into the cold air as the wolf was cored like an overripe apple.

  Beelze smirked, seeing sunlight peeking through the other side of the monster as her swarm tore out the far end of it, a massive, gory hole left where its every organ should have been, leaving only stumbling, directionless limbs behind.

  She’d won.

  The wounded woman dropped her combat stance, rising back to her full height as she smiled victoriously, eyes closed as she prepared to gloat to empty air.

  “Move, idiot!”

  Her mouth opened and was never given the chance to utter the first word, immediately feeling a heavy, metallic impact against her side, hard enough to lift her from her feet entirely as she was scooped upwards, followed a half-second ter by a sensation like boiling heat coiling around her left ankle, an ear-splitting crunch following after it alongside her nerves wailing in pain all at once.

  Beelze’s eyes shot open once more, biting down hard on her tongue to stifle the pathetic, pained scream she felt rising out from her, eyes boiling over with fire as she took in the scene that had fully changed in just the millisecond she’d closed her eyes.

  A single metal tendril was wrapped around her torso, holding her aloft as countless others dug themselves into the side of the building they were scaling, Mari Prosmek having grabbed her as she raced past and away from the battlefield below, her own eyes wide as she stared backwards through her heavy goggles.

  Perhaps even more noticeable to her than her subordinate’s sudden appearance and forced retreat was her own situation, the pain in her leg almost unbearable.

  Or rather, the pain in what had previously been her leg, as upon finally ying eyes upon it, she found only a messy stump below her left knee, tatters of skin fluttering in the breeze as her blood trailed off behind them like dancing ribbons.

  And at the far end of that blood trail, a mortally wounded wolf crashed directly through the broken and abandoned car she’d stood in front of only a moment before, most of her leg ying crushed and perforated in its jaws, steam already pouring from within it as fresh matter stretched to fill its empty corpse, the total loss of its brain and internal organs still not enough to even deter it.

  As it rolled overtop of the crashed vehicle, its joints twisted and popped loudly, every limb reversing itself as it nded on what used to be it’s back, spine cracking as its head spun around to adjust to its new orientation, wasting no time with manually reorienting itself as dug its cws into the side of the building and chased after them both.

  “Persistent little… get off my ass already…!”

  Mari screeched back at the hound as it scaled the sheer vertical wall behind her, yanking the sleeve of her still-tattered coat back before firing round after round at it, aiming for its massive paws as they dug into the brick and mortar.

  Most of them struck the monster directly, only encouraging it to speed up its pursuit, quickly gaining distance on them both.

  But eventually a few stray bullets tore through its wrist, its weight throwing it off bance as it lurched to the side, unable to repce the missing appendage fast enough to catch itself as it skidded and tumbled down the side of the building behind them, leaving them both to cap over the rooftop and break its line of sight on them.

  There was a long, warbling, echoing howl, loud enough to fill the city itself, cutting through the peaceful silence all around it, the sound enough to send a shiver through both the hardened vilins’ hearts as they made their frantic escape, that sound the st thing Beelze heard before she bcked out entirely.