A frigid wind shed Grimm's coat; the stink of charred flesh sharp in his nose as he rode into town. Ly shadows prowled the rooftops, teeth glinting in the fmes. The screams were quieting, repced by a silence more terrifying than any cry.

  The town square y before him, a wastend of shattered stone and timber. Grimm slowed his horse, his gaze drawn to the ruined courthouse at the square's ter. Corpses littered the ground, torn by Ly cws.

  Firelight bled red over the ruins, swallowing buildings in a stark gre. A shadow lingered he courthouse, still as death. Grimm slid off his horse, boots g rubble in the quiet. He uhed his bat khe steel gleaming in the firelight. Then, a howl ripped through the air, a primal scream e and power. A Ly stepped from the courthouse shadows, its massive frame lit by fmes, green eyes burning with malibsp;

  His fiightened on the hilt, the knife a steady extension of his will. Then, a voice, sharp and ued, pierced the heat-hazed air. "You there," it hissed, crisp and cold. "You stand no ce against them." He hesitated, his resolve faltering. Who was this voice? Grimm squihrough the heat, spotting a cloaked figure step from the courthouse shadows, face lost to dark.

  "I know your he figure announced, asding into the air, the Ly a restless shadow beh him. "Grimm—the immortal monster hunter my master craves," he sneered, voice edged with theatrical glee.

  Grimm scoffed, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features. His eyes fred, a deep sigh esg his lips. "A warlock…" he scoffed, tightening his grip on the knife.

  The figure drifted closer, an unnatural stillness in his movements. "My, my," he purred, his voice ced with a dangerous amusement. "What an honor to have awakehe great and powerful Grimm. I'm truly honored." The words were a silken caress, but the grin that stretched across his shrouded face was anything but weling. It redatory baring of teeth, a promise of pain.

  "e no further, Warlock," Grimm's voice was a low growl.

  A swirling fog erupted around the Warlock, a sudden, unnatural cealment. One moment he was there, the , impossibly close, his warm breath a disturbing intimacy against Grimm's skin. "How's th—" he began, befrimm's hand cmped around his throat.

  "U-urk," the Warlock choked, his eyes widening in surprise. "You shouldn't have—gasp—e here."

  Grimm's eyes bzed. "You shouldn't have brought me here, Warlock," he snarled, his hand a vise around the Warlock's throat. "The Lys—why have yht them back? Talk, or I'll break every bone in your body!" His grip tightehe Warlock's face turning crimson.

  A strangled chuckle escaped the Warlock, his eyes fixating on Grimm's shadowy face. Grimm hoisted him into the air, poised to crush his rynx with his massive hands. Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, the Warlock vanished in a swirl of fog, appearing ba the air gasping for air.

  "You wield magic, Warlock," Grimm snarled, his eyes locked on the Warlock's face, "but you're still flesh and blood!" He screamed, pointing firmly at the vilin.

  The Warlock's lips curled in a sneer. "For now, fool, for now!" He raised his hand, and an unnatural emerald light radiated from his palm, cloaking him in an uling aura. "My master will feast on this world's souls, with yours as the prize!"

  Master? Grimm thought to himself. What has this fool done?

  The Warlock ted—"Flihnma hgmjizegam, webpjhmh sejdpjh vegg-mhr. Pjpa nj jnvgpa essndlgl!"—words that distorted reality, thick with power.

  The Ly's eyes burned with the same malevolent green fire, mirr the Warlock's primm raised his knife, preparing to ehe beast.

  The Ly's body torted, bones snapping with siing cracks. A bloodcurdling shriek tore through the air as gore oozed from its wounds. Its back swelled grotesquely, a massive, pulsating sac erupting from its spihen, with a wet, tearing rip, four massive, i-like legs, alien and terrifying, burst from the sac. They unfurled with sharp clicks, extending impossibly high into the air before crashing down onto the earth with a force that seemed to shake the very foundations of the ruiown. The legs lengthened, lifting the limp corpse of the Ly high above, a swaying puppet dangling from its gnarled jaws, blood dripping onto the ravaged ground. Then, in a macabre cresdo of grotesque evolution, a giant tendril exploded from the apex of its back, shing wildly in the air. At the tip of the tendril, a rge, pulsating orb, posed of tless smaller yellow sacs, ed the abomination.

  The Warlock's maniacal cackle echoed through the ruined square as the emerald aura faded from his form. " your immortality defy my master's grip?" he rasped, fading into smoke.

  The monster unleashed a guttural roar that reverberated through the ravaged town, shaking the very air. At the square's edge, a figure froze, pulse rag. Grimm gripped his knife, eyes narrowing—"Too big," he muttered.

  Watters' chest thumped like war drums, Barrowham crumbling around him. The once charming cottages and sturdy buildings, now choked with the stench of ash and smoke. Lys—extinct by Order steel, yet g back from some dark grave. Silver bur—but the Order taught wolfsbane was their doom. Were we wrong? Nothing aligned. His mind, a whirlwind of questions, propelled him towards the tower.

  Then, a series of deafening crashes ripped through the night, each impact shaking the very grouh the cobblestones. What now? Watters' mind screamed. The tower – just ahead.

  He crept forward, slowing as he neared an alley mouth that spilled into the square. Then he saw it. His breath hitched, vision blurring.

  The mutated Ly domihe square. T almost as high as the courthouse itself, it was a living nightmare sculpted from muscle ah. And at its base, a figure in bck, the rider from earlier! Was he challenging this abomination?

  A bloodcurdling screech tore from the creature's maw as its leg, a grotesque pilr of flesh, arced high. Grimm's eyes spiked with arm. He dodged, a grunt esg as brick cracked against his spine. IMPACT! The monstrous limb smashed into the cobblestones, unleashing a shockwave that rippled outwards across the ruined square. Grimm was flung, tumbling through the air like a kite dang in a hurrie.

  "AARGH!" Grimm's scream tore from his lungs as his spine impacted brick. The air exploded from his chest, his dah death crashing to a bone-jarring halt. He smmed onto the rubble-strewn ground.

  Stars burst behind his blurring vision. Arms screaming, muscles seizing, Grimm wrenched himself upright. The creature shrieked again, a hellish sound that cwed at his sanity. White fire ignited in Grimm's eyes. "RRAAAARRRGHHH!" he bellowed, a primal roar of defiance. Rage seized Grimm, a red haze clouding his vision. He exploded towards the monstrosity, a flicker of shadow against the inferno. Laung himself skyward, Grimm drove the silver knife down, a blinding fsh of metal before impact. SHRIEK! The bde tore through flesh and bone of its leg.

  The creature growled, a sound ripped from the depths of hell, as Grimm wrehe bde sideways, carving a ravine of raw meat and pulsing arteries.

  Watters, transfixed, could only gape. Grimm's speed was superhuman, his savagery breathtaking. Who was this whirlwind of death? How could mortal flesh move with such lethal grabsp;

  Monstrous footfalls pouhe cobblestoremors rattling Grimm's teeth. Grimm moved like quicksilver, a blur evading each pulverizing dest. The silver bde bit into the flesh, and the creature howled – but this wound, uhe others, did not smoke, did not cauterize. Something is profoundly wrong.

  To break free of the onsught, to assess the impossible, Grimm backpedaled, widening the gap. The monster's sheer immensity dwarfed even the burning buildings. Those titanic legs ed the earth, a seismigine of destruidst the inferno.

  Watters' eyes remained fixed on the abomination. Grimm's silver bit deep, yet the monster raged on, uerred. Branded onto his vision, the creature's grotesque form pulsed, a living scar seared into his mind. The endless assault… the relentless horror… Silver… it seethed against exposed muscle. Then, his gaze snagged – the writhing tendril, ing the beast's back, pulsing like a diseased heart. "There!" he croaked, voice raw with desperation.

  Watters edged closer, breath hitg as the tendril pulsed. "THE TENDRIL!" he shrieked, bursting from the alley, hands waving like mad. "HIT THE TENDRIL ON ITS BACK!"

  The desperate sound cut through the roar of battle, snagging Grimm's attention. He whirled, eyes seeking the source of the frantic cries. Watters – a frantic figure emerging from the gloom. Then, his gaze snapped back to the monstrous foe.

  "The tendril… yes…" A sharp uanding fshed in Grimm's eyes, sharpening his focus to a razor's edge. He accelerated like a phantom breaking free, a dark streak against the firelight. The monster's legs smashed the ground with piston force, each blow a cussive bst. Yet Grimm moved like smoke, elusive and swift, darting past the desding behemoths towards the mountainous undercarriage. High above, the mutated Ly's carcass swayed, a grisly pendulum, leaking gore onto the obliterated square.

  Grimm's eyes sed upwards, desperate for purchase. Then, a flicker of insight – a seam in the armor, a massive joint gleamily high on the leg like a petrified knot in a tree. There! Instinct taking rimm snatched the knife by its spine, whipped his arm back, and hurled the silver projectile.

  SHIK! Silver smmed into the joint, a shock that jolted through the beast. The monster emitted a shriek that cracked bos immense form listing violently as the crippled leg gave way. It pluowards the rubble.

  "YES!" Watters' voice cracked with etion, fist pung the air in wild triumph.

  Grimm surged upwards, fingers digging into the creature's slick, pulsating flesh, asding the monstrous fnk. Revulsion struck—blood and rot clogging his throat. The severed leg revealed the horror beh – not aion, but a gaping wound, a living maw bristling with razor teeth. Fs, iile and alien, sprouted directly from this fleshy gullet, anchored to the tendril's base, a siing fusion of boendon, and rhythmic, obse throbbing.

  Grimm drew his sidearm, firing point-bnk into the tendril's core, emptying the der without a tremor. The air erupted with monstrous shrieks, a chorus of teari and pulverized bone. A geyser of gore exploded outwards, engulfing Grimm in a hot, slick deluge of crimson, pstering his bck coat with viscous red and clumps of raw tissue.

  Then, silence, save for the spent click of the empty pistol. The tendril core thrashed, pulped and bleeding, but still writhing.

  "No, damn it, no!" Watters' thought ighe memory of the silver bde a sudden, burning crity. Silver! He needs silver! His fingers cwed into his pocket, wreng free the silver letter opener – salvation, however meager. "This is it!"

  Watters fumbled the opehen steadied—"Silver!" he shouted, hurling it through the smoke.

  Grimm's head snapped up, eyes finding Watters – and the glint of silver hurtling towards him.

  SNAP! Grimm's fingers cmped around the silver. Rage hardening his gaze, he zeroed in oendril's obse pulse. He roared, a guttural challenge, and unleashed a savage storm of stabs into the core. Each thrust, a white-hot bloom igniting within the monstrous flesh. A frenzied dance of blood and fire erupted around him, Grimm a whirlwind of lethal forbsp;

  The core burst into green fmes, scorg the beast's back. Heat smmed the air, sharp and fierce. Sensing the iing backsh, Grimm catapulted himself from the burning horror, crashing onto the ravaged earth. He spun, watg the monster vulse in a firestorm. Its agonized howls tore through the ruined square, esg to a deafening pitch, then abruptly, chillingly, ceased.

  The creature y vanquished, a sm ruin on the cobblestones, its stench the true testament to the warlock's malice. Grimm's shadow fell over Watters, who stumbled towards him, eyes wide and blood-streaked.

  "What was that…" Watters rasped, wiping sweat from his brow.

  Grimm's gaze pinned Watters, unwavering. "Ly," he stated, the word heavy, final.

  "The Order burhem out—I read the tomes," Watters insisted, voice crag.

  "Yet they live—as if someone has dug them up," Grimm cut him off, voice ft, devoid of fort.

  "How?" Watters swayed, his fine suit ruined, sstering his hair to his brow.

  "I do not know," Grimm replied, the sileretg, thick with unspoken dread.

  Watters' gaze faltered from the monster's pyre, drawn io the figure before him. Stark, dangerous. "Who are you?" he breathed, the question more exhaled than spoken.

  Grimm's eyes sharpened, holding the daze in a vise.

  A trembling hand reached out. "Doctor Theodore Watters," he offered, the introdu thin, ie.

  Grimm's cold stare bored into Watters. "Grimm," he replied.