Grimm unleashed a roar that was no longer human, no longer evehly – a feral bellow ripped from the throat of nightmare itself. Watters and Daniels remained frozen, statues carved from shock, their faces bleached white as they stared with eyes wide and unblinking, at the abomination Grimm had bee. Perched atop his ptform, a malevolent gargoyle surveying his dominion, Mikkelson smiled with curved lips that promised only suffering, while the dimensional rift beside him seemed to pulse with unholy light, its three vertical eyes like abyssal voids drinking in the se with cold, iger.
From the portal, a cacophony of impossible soued, not of this world, not meant for mortal ears. Dimensional static crackled like bone splinters, interwoven with tohat resonated deep within the marrow, twisting instind reason. The effect was immediate aating. A frenzy seized the Lys, their disciplined ranks colpsing into a writhing mass of fur ah. Howls ripped from their throats, no longer calls of the pack, but fractured cries of pure, agonizing disorientation. And above the esg pandemonium, Grimm threw back his monstrous head and howled at the moon, a primal ulution torn from him as if by an unseen hand, a puppet master’s and eg in the abyssal frequencies from the rift.
Abruptly, the two Lys fnking Watters and Daniels erupted into motion, a blur of fur and muscle charging trimm. “Move, damn it!” Daniels roared, shoving Watters aside as the monstrous forms hurtled forward. Twin engines of snarling fury, they uhemselves into the air, their growls ripping through the already fractured air with palpable waves of predatory dread. But Grimm reacted with impossible speed. His head snapped around, trag their assault with eyes that bzed with cold fire. One arm shot out like a whip of iron, g around a Ly’s throat with crushing force before it even nded. Simultaneously, his other hand became a blur, a dark streak sshing across the sed Ly's face. The creature howled in pain and surprise, its body flung sideways by the sheer force of Grimm’s terattading with a siing ch across the stone. A horrendous gash split its skull, leaking blood onto the arena floor, its limbs twitg in its death throes.
Grimm's gaze remained fixed on the Ly trapped within his massive cws. Then, with inhuman deliberation, his cws ched. A siing ch of bone and cartige reverberated through the arena, a sound that spoke of finality. The Ly's body went limp, a sudden sess in its once powerful frame. Blood oozed between Grimm's fingers, slid viscous, firming the creature's gruesome end. He erupted with a roar of primal victory, a challenge hurled into the eg space, asserting his newfound alpha status with brutal crity. The spectating Lys responded instantly, their earlier agitation nolified into a simmering chorus of restless snarls and uneasy growls, their predatory fervor momentarily tempered by a tremor of instinctive caution.
“God almighty…” Watters breathed, his voice a hushed tremor, his hand gripping Daniels' shoulder with ued force, knuckles white. “He’s… gone feral, utterly feral,” Daniels rasped, his voice barely a whisper above the Ly frenzy. They remained motionless, transfixed, their gazes locked on the monstrous Grimm, lost in the raw spectacle of his primal power, a terrifying glimpse into something a and untamed.
Mikkelson threw back his head and bellowed with ughter, a sound of pure, sadistic glee that echoed through the chamber, his monstrous creations proving even more… resourceful than anticipated. But then, the unbearable frequencies returned from the rift, a sonisught that seared the very air with its wrongness. The two vanquished Lys erupted in fresh agony, their corpses spasming with renewed ferocity, like puppets yanked by invisible, cruel strings. Howls of mortal anguish, not feral snarls, now tore from their throats, a horrifyi of vioted flesh. The air thied with the sounds of bone grinding against bone, siearing like vas, flesh liquefying and ref in grotesque permutations, a cacophony of biological abomination that assaulted Watters' and Daniels' senses with ing force.
“No… NO, again?!” Watters shrieked, his voice crag, as Daniels stid, his face a mask of petrified horror, eyes locked on the grotesque spectacle, refusing to blink in the face of suyielding nightmare.
One Ly’s body rebelled against its own structure, arg impossibly backwards until its spine seemed on the verge of snapping. A horrifying crack echoed as its ribcage split asunder, a brutal blossoming of bone and torn flesh. From the ruptured cavity, four ioid legs, jointed and impossibly slender yet brutally strong, puhrough the ravaged muscle, propelling the maorso upwards. The creature's upper half became a dangling appendage, a gruesome trophy swingih the burgeoning i-form. And from the newly created orifice, a siing, wet maw, a vast, throbbing tohe color of gealed blood, extruded itself, writhing blindly, a frantic, fleshy whip shing against the jagged remnants of its own ribs.
The remaining Ly crashed face-first onto the stos limbs spying outwards in a final, desperate attempt to resist the encroag transformation. But it was in vain. The real horror was just beginning, blooming across its back. Six needle-thin i legs, chitinous and segmented like a monstrous cockroach, burst from its flesh in a spray of gore, their sharp points clig and scraping oone as they unfolded. From the widening cavity, a terrifying parody of a spine, a thick, scorpion-like tail, armored and ridged with bone, cwed its way free. Dark fluids dripped from the freshly torn flesh as the tail unfurled, its venomous stinger gleaming ominously, a nightmarish hybrid born from Ly and iile abomination.
Grimm stood immobile, a monolith of monstrous power, his roar a thundercp of absolute domihe scorpion mutant, a blur of chitin and fury, scuttled across the stoh terrifying speed, its segmeail arg high, a venomous stinger poised like a living nce. Simultaneously, the spider-Ly uself into the air, its ear-splitting screech tearing through the arena. The scorpion tail blurred forward, a lightning strike of bone and venom, whipping past Grimm's face by mere inches. With reflexes defying prehension, Grimm’s massive cws snapped shut, intercepting the lethal sti the st possible instant, even as his other hand shot upwards, seizing the airborne spider-Ly in a crushing grip mid-luhe bined momentum of the two mutated assaults smmed into Grimm with staggering force, threatening to buckle even his colossal frame, his monstrous legs digging deep into the stoo maintain his ground.
The spider-Ly’s razs became a whirlwind of chitinous bdes, tearing into Grimm’s monstrous arms, each strike a searing gouge. A frenzy of terrifying strikes hammered against his massive body, drawing blood in thick rivulets. Grimm’s eyes bzed with indest fury; the cold fire of the Abyss ignited within. With a titanic jolt that shook the ground, he ripped the spider-Ly from his flesh, the tearing sound of muscle and sinew eg through the arena, and hurled the screeg abomination like a living on directly into the scorpion-Ly. But the spider-creature was ging with unnatural tenacity, its legs embedded deep in his massive hairy arms. Fueled by pure, unadulterated rage; Grimm began to batter the struggling spider-Ly against the scorpion mutant with earth-shattering force. Again and again, he smmed the two creatures together, each impact a siing thud of bone and carapace colliding, each blow driving the mutated horrors deeper into ruin.
In a spectacle of savage primm wrenched free the scorpion mutant’s tail, tearing it from its base with a siing rip. The severed scorpion body went into a violent, involuntary spasm, limbs twitg and clig like a broken mae. With brutal efficy, Grimm reversed the trajectory, jamming the barbed stump of the tail deep into the spider-Ly’s body, a grotesque impalement that finally shattered its vise-like grip. Snatg the still-twitg scorpion torso by its remaining legs, Grimm became a whirlwind of destru, smming the limp body against the struggling spider-mutant again and again. Each impact was a siing thud and squelch, painting the stoh a spreading age of gore and ichor, redug the spider-creature beh him to a pulpy, unreizable ruin. The sheer fury of Grimm’s assault was a mastercss in brutal annihition, a terrifying ballet of destru leaving no doubt of his utter supremacy. He repeatedly smashed the mangled scorpion carcass into the spider-Ly until both mutated horrors y still, broken and lifeless, twin heaps of butchered flesh.
Grimm unleashed a roar of absolute dominance, a sound that reverberated through the amphitheater and visibly shattered Mikkelson’s posure. The warlock visibly shuddered, a tremor that ran through his velvet-, momentarily crag the veneer of his arrogant theatricality and revealing a flicker of something akin to… fear. Watters and Daniels remairansfixed, locked in a shared paralysis of shock. They were men acquainted with war's grim realities, veterans of violen its myriad forms, but never had they witnessed brutality on this scale, this raw, untamed, and utterly primal. It was a visceral spectacle that bypassed intelled logic, striking directly at the core of their being, a terrifying glimpse into the raw, untamed heart of existence.
But refle was a luxury they could ill afford. Mikkelson’s eyes ignited with emerald fire, his gaze log onto Grimm with predatory triumph. “Njhlgznsl lpa. Pjpa nj jnvgpa essndlgl!” he bellowed, his voice crag with manic fervor as he threw wide his hand, a ductor unleashing pandemonium. The portal responded instantly, its abyssal light intensifying to a blinding emerald gre that pulsed with malevolent energy, flooding the amphitheater in sickly, unnatural light. In the galleries, the Lys succumbed pletely to the encroag madness, a tidal wave e ing their minds and bodies. Every single creature erupted in a frenzy, overe by an unquenchable, bloodthirsty fury. Without hesitation, Lys began leaping from the tiered levels into the arena below, a cascade of monstrous forms raining down onto the stone, driven by an insatiable hunger for violence. Grimm answered the overwhelming assault with another earth-shattering roar, brag himself against the tidal wave of mutated flesh and fury as dozens upon dozens of Lys charged towards him, an inexhaustible horde desding to tear him apart.
Watters peered at the glowing portal and Mikkelson, MIkkelsons eyes glowed as the light from the portal illumihe space. “Daniels,” Watters yelled, “Look!” he said pointing at the portal. “When Mikkelson’s voice rose in the infernal t, each sylble resonating with dark energy as the portal fred to life, bathing the ptform in an emerald bze. “He’s drawing power from it… somehow,” Watters breathed, his voice tight with dawning realization, his gaze fixed on the pulsating rift. Daniels narrowed his eyes, studying the se, pieg together Watters' fragmehoughts with grim efficy. “But how…? How you be sure?” he demanded, his voice sharper now, edged with mounting . “We ’t be certain, Daniels,” Watters retorted, his tone ced with desperation, his hauring wildly towards the arena, “but if Grimm keeps up this sughter… he’ll butcher every st one of them! This isn't trol, it's…” He trailed off, words failing him in the face of such overwhelming age. Daniels shifted his gaze back to the chaotic arena, his face hardening with grim acceptance. Lys swarmed Grimm, a releide of mutated flesh, but eaet a fate more horrific tha, ripped apart with brutal ease. Blood slicked the stoaining it crimson, as Grimm’s primal dominance became a suffog, undeniable presen the air.
“Damn it, fine!” Daniels gritted out, his voice raw with a desperate resolve, “We o get to Mikkelson. Maybe, just maybe, we stop this madness!” Watters ched his jaw, a sharp intake of breath his only answer, his agreemeched iaut lines of his face. Their eyes frantically sed the swirling chaos, searg for a route through the pandemonium, a desperate gamble in a near-hopeless situation. “Stairs! Up there!” Daniels yelled, his voice cutting through the din, urgency crag his tone, pointing towards a dark, spiraling staircase ging to the cliff face, their only ast to Mikkelson’s ominous perch. Watters snapped his gaze to the stairwell, then back to Daniels, a silent question in his widened eyes answered with a grim nod. “Okay,” he breathed, the word a mix of fear and forced ce, and they uhemselves forward, a desperate dash towards the daunting stairs, their movements urgent, reckless, a fragile hope against the overwhelming tide of despair.
Driven by desperate hope, the men sprinted up the stairwell, each step a frantic scramble against the releide of time, each breath a lungful of fear. Below, the cacophony of Grimm’s battle raged unabated. Dozens of Lys, mangled beynition, littered the blood-soaked arena flrotesque mos to his savage power, while still more surged forward, an endless wave of mutated flesh. The air vibrated with the siing symphony of bone shattering and flesh tearing, a chorus of age that assaulted their senses even as they climbed. Grimm’s unbridled rage, a tangible force, cwed at their very nerves, sending icy tendrils of dread down their spines. No wonder he’s like this… a berserker, Watters thought, his mind flickering with a grim uanding. His entire family… ed by fmes, by the Order. It’s no wonder he’s fueled by such a ing hatred. And Mikkelson… what game is he pying? He could have banished Grimm with a gesture, yet he chose transformation. Why? What twisted purpose y hidden within his grand design?
Watters and Daniels reached the ptform’s edge, the stairwell depositing them abruptly before Mikkelson’s ominous presence. He stood there, bathed in the sickly green glow of the portal, a demonic maestro dug an orchestra of chaos. “Mikkelson!” Daniels barked, his voice rough with anger, but also with a tremor of fear, his hand ched into a fist, trembling with suppressed violence. Mikkelson’s head rotated slowly, like a predator aowledging prey, his emerald eyes gleaming with cold amusement in the chaotic light. “Daniels,” he purred, a silken sretg his lips into a chillingly affable smile, “You persist. A endable stubbornness...well done. And Doctor,” his gaze shifted to Watters, a theatrical raise of an eyebrow adding to his mog tone, “you, too, have mao rejoin the performance. How charming.”
Watters’ eyes narrowed, his analytical mind finally cutting through the fog of horror, repced by a stark, furious crity. “What is yame, Mikkelson?” he demanded, his voice low and dangerous, trembling with tained fury. “You could have fihis, rimm to yod. But you transformed him. Why? For your exquisite amusement?” Mikkelson threw back his head and ughed, a booming, uling sound that echoed across the ptform, devoid of humor, filled only with chilling self-gratution. “Oh, Doctor, you wouh your simplistic view,” he chided, his voice ced with theatrical disappoi, a sweepiure enpassing the arena. “My master hungers for souls, good doctor! And what is a grand symphony without a delicate overture?!” He gestured grandly to the Ly age below. A cold dread washed over Watters, the horrifying puzzle pieces clig into pce, f a picture of unimaginable depravity. “The Lys… the people… their souls… you’re sacrifig them all!” Mikkelson unleashed a ugh that was a chilling, resonant bellow, a sound that seemed to vibrate in the very air, sending a shiver of pure terror through Watters’ soul. “Exquisite dedu, Doctor!” Desperate, Watters cupped his hands, shouting into the roar of the arena, his voice strained and crag with urgency. “GRIMM! Grimm, stop! You’re feeding it! STOP!” But his voice was swallowed by the overwhelming chaos, lost in the symphony of screams and howls, Grimm’s enraged roars drowning out all reason. Mikkelson’s ughter swelled, a triumphant, siing sound as his grand, horrifying design s terrible pletion.
