The soldier lunged at the creature once more.
As it roared, blood kept pouring from its mouth, flooding the armor and spattering in small droplets across Bakunin, heavily weakened by the massive shockwave of the roar. Still, the creature tried to counter the advance of its opponent, who was already pressing hard against it, trying to push it back.
Almost immediately, Hansen began biting into the creature's head, throwing himself onto the skull with his rotted teeth, sinking deep into the cranium and shattering the bone with terrifying ease. Beneath Bakunin's agonized screams, the man began tearing flesh away piece by piece. Some chunks were hurled into the air, landing near the soldiers taking cover. Others were swallowed almost immediately. From the soldier's mouth spilled fragments of brain, wedged between his teeth, filthy and soaked in blood—visible not only because it faintly caught the sunlight, but far more so because of the macabre smile carved into his face. Haunting. Arched and curved in a way that was terribly, impossibly perfect. Every tooth was exposed through those thick, withered gums. Each one looked more dead than the last. And yet together they formed a harmony few things in this world could match. The same was true of the drops of blood falling from his jaw. Tin… tin. Each one seemed perfectly synchronized. They fell one after another at roughly 2.7-second intervals, all at the same speed, all producing the same sound—that tin that rang through the ears like a trombone, even though in reality it was nearly imperceptible.
Yet it felt enormous. Because of its presence.
The blood was far darker than it should have been. It was red—but even that was dead. Opaque. Denaturated. The liquid carried dark, blurred, almost rippling patches floating on its surface, carried along by the current. It was like watching garbage drift on water. Like that oily, foul-smelling slick that collects near a harbor—whose only redeeming quality is its ability to catch color. You can see the full spectrum of the rainbow in it, with heavy purples, blues, and greens bleeding against the white of crystal-clear light on calm water.
In that blood, there was nothing.
It was just viscous. No image existed that could break that macabre beauty. The black oil embraced the blood—nearly subdued it—as though the blood had resigned itself to being changed and destroyed by something it now recognized as its own complement. From the man's mouth, that blood poured freely, clinging to his jaw, completing the picture of a smile that was as terrifyingly beautiful as it was impossible.
In that moment, it was as though Bakunin itself was questioning whether such a creature could actually exist. Whether life could have strayed so far as to give birth to something like this—this harmonious destruction.
That, however, was what the terrified soldiers were thinking. They no longer knew who to shoot first, let alone who to call for help.
Bakunin, on the other hand, was satisfied. More than satisfied—in full ecstasy. The creature screamed in pain as its flesh was torn away like nothing. But at first, it did nothing to stop it. It stayed there, motionless, shifting only in rhythm with Hansen's advance.
Bakunin was watching. Its experiment was still underway. It knew exactly what was happening. It always had. It had seen its own blood mingle with Hansen's. It had felt connection. It had seen that smile—a symbol of threat and pure madness. It was not frightened. It was almost exhilarated. It saw itself. Whether Hansen felt the same remained unknown.
Bakunin snapped its jaws into Hansen's clavicle, sending the man crashing to his knees. The beast wasted no time wrenching it free with a single clean bite, clamping its teeth hard into both armor and the flesh beneath.
Hansen screamed in agony. It wasn't enough to stop him.
Both of them kept tearing into each other—violent, macabre, relentless. Flesh and blood flew like confetti. The grey, dead concrete floor was slowly brought back to color by the blood raining down onto its surface, seeping into the cracks, sliding toward the darkest corners. Alongside the blood fell entrails and strips of shredded meat that, upon hitting the ground, produced a wet, wrong sound—almost spongy, saturated with blood and other fluids that seeped slowly out of them once they landed.
Bakunin seized the soldier by the throat. The grip was iron.
The creature's cold teeth were the only thing Hansen could physically feel anymore. He nearly went limp. He tried everything to break free—striking Bakunin's head harder and harder, with kicks, punches, clawing hands.
The creature disfigured. Its resilience—unbroken.
With every blow Hansen landed, he found himself with less and less air. The fangs were the bars of a cage. The air was the prisoner. It grew thinner and thinner, replaced once again by blood that flooded Hansen's ruined, passive body—filling his throat first, then drowning his lungs entirely.
Everything had been baptized now.
A martyr needed nothing more than to die in the name of God.
"Hey… is that…?"
One soldier spotted it first. The frantic sound of armored vehicles and tanks was so distant that hearing it again felt like a miracle too perfect to be real. Soldiers began descending one by one—armed to the teeth, loaded with hatred, rage, every feeling that wasn't fear, ready to unleash it all against the enemy.
Just before the carnage resumed, a metallic sound rang out—something descending from one of the transport vehicles, landing in an almost off-balance way at first, unsteady but fiercely determined. The Kariudo, slightly blacker than the others, steadied itself a moment later.
It leaned forward as it hit the concrete ground, cracking the surface the instant its metal foot made contact. Whoever was inside was breathing hard. They didn't know if they could do this. Crouching lower, they pressed their right hand—closed into a fist—against the ground. The knuckles bent the surface. Faint cracks followed. Whoever was in there was carrying a rage that needed somewhere to go.
To fantasize is to cage the soul. To act is to set it free.
"My hands in me. My soul in Christ. My life in both."
Those were Nikita's last words—before the man let himself fall into a quiet, gentle dream, while his body launched forward in a massive surge, obliterating everything in its path, dragging debris and dust along with it, roaring—loud, dark, and far more unsettling than before—straight at the creature that had once looked at him as nothing more than a weak victim.
The lamb had learned to bite.
And it loved the taste of fresh meat.