Kaelen's own transformation was nearing a new stage. The bog-iron body was complete, but it lacked a core, a source of power beyond the ambient death-energy he scavenged. He needed a focus, a new lodestone.
He remembered a legend of the "Sky-Fallen Star," a meteorite of pure magnetic iron that had crashed into the northern mountains centuries ago, said to be a conduit for chaotic, raw power. His journey north was a solitary pilgrimage of horror. He was a dead thing walking through living lands, a bringer of blight. Animals fled, plants withered in his wake.
He fought off a pack of wolves not with skill, but by simply standing still, letting their teeth shatter on his iron-plated limbs until they fled in animal terror.
He was no longer a man, but a force of nature—a cold, calculating force.