The rifle cracked. Trenn threw his hands to shield his face.

  "NO!"

  The shout rattled his spine and vibrated against the metal plates of his tail. The lead slug flattened against the scream, deflecting into the mud.

  The shockwave pushed against the spearman’s shield, cracking its edge and knocking him back. The gunner behind him staggered, her hands flying to her ears as the rifle slipped from her grasp.

  Trenn collapsed, clutching his throat. His ears were ringing; ichor filled his mouth.

  His vision doubled. The golden tail behind him lashed, throwing him off balance.

  The nearby spearman shook his head, blood leaking from his fuzzy ears.

  "A caster," he spat, wiping blood from his snout.

  Behind him, the gunner worked the lever of her rifle. With a mechanical clacking, she seated a fresh round.

  The spearman closed the distance and lunged at Trenn.

  He was still choking on his Command spell when the massive golden appendage whipped over him like a wrecking ball.

  Hundreds of pounds of muscle and metallic scale struck. The tail sheared through the spearman’s leg, jagged gemstones shredding muscle and bone. The limb ripped free in a spray of red mist.

  The warrior collapsed sideways, eyes wide and unblinking. He hit the mud, mouth open in a silent scream, shock erasing his voice before the pain arrived.

  The momentum of the swing dragged Trenn sideways. His boots slipped in the slick mud, the heavy tail pulling him off the ground as he fought to regain balance.

  A rifle cracked—a punch of heat through his stomach.

  Trenn stumbled back a step. He looked down at his wound. Thick, luminous fluid oozed over his skin, glowing with an internal amber light.

  That sweet, electric smell…

  The riverbank dissolved. Green reeds became grey mist. The Wolf Kin’s scream morphed into the grinding of stone on stone.

  He stood in a field of golden blood, surrounded by Goat Kin statues of Red Metal and stone.

  “BREAK!” The command screamed in his mind. His voice.

  And the statues broke.

  There were no aftershocks, no pain. His Gem-Croc armor absorbed all of it.

  I remember…

  The hum in his spine spiked into a quake. Metal scales burst from the stomach wound, spreading outward like a living tide that churned his flesh.

  Heavy footsteps thundered. The Grey-Fur brute from the town square burst through the reeds, flanked by four others.

  Two carried heavy, weighted nets studded with iron balls; another wielded a trident with barbed tines, while a fourth primed a heavy-bore scattergun.

  They shot on sight.

  The lead slugs slammed into Trenn’s chest and shoulder as the golden tide reached his neck.

  They rang like hammers on an anvil, flattening against ridges of rapidly forming scale. The gold crawled up his throat, enveloping his jaw and forcing his mouth open.

  A stylized crocodile head snapped closed over his skull—the helmet’s jaws locked into place with the finality of a prison door.

  Deep inside the helm, Trenn’s eyes rolled back. In the darkness of the mask, twin flames ignited—a sickly, black-green fire that spilled from the eye slits.

  There was no pain. No confusion.

  He felt heavy. He felt indestructible.

  He looked at the Grey-Fur.

  He opened his maw. Steam vented from the golden nostrils.

  “DIE.”

  Trenn shouted the word, but the impulse was ancient and reptilian.

  The Wolf Kin's life ended. No blood, no wound. His heart stopped mid-beat; his synapses went dark. He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

  The Gem-Croc Kin staggered and fell to a knee. The light in its eyes momentarily dimmed.

  "Overwhelm him!" the trident-wielder roared. "Bring the beast down!"

  The Wolf Kin fanned out with the disciplined precision of a pack taking down a bear.

  The two net-handlers lunged, casting their weighted meshes in sync. The iron balls spun, wrapping the thick ropes around Trenn’s torso and arms. The heavy weave snagged on his jutting gemstones and armor plates, cinching tight.

  "Pull!"

  The handlers dug their boots into the mud, heaving backward to topple the golden giant.

  Trenn staggered, arms pinned. He tried to step forward, but the net fouled his legs. He tipped.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  His massive golden tail pushed into the earth, driving deep into the mud. It acted as a third leg, stabilizing his weight against the combined pull of the Wolf Kin.

  The net ropes groaned, pulled taut as steel cables, but Trenn stood immovable, a tripod of gold and rage.

  "He won't tip!" one handler screamed, his boots sliding through the muck.

  The trident-wielder saw his opening. He dashed in low, aiming for the weak spot in the armor at the elbow joint.

  The barbed tines pierced the soft mesh of the joint with a metallic scream. Pain shot up Trenn’s arm.

  Two shots rang out. The rifle woman and the scattergunner fired in unison.

  The slugs hammered the side of Trenn’s helmet. The concussion was a thunderclap inside the helm. Trenn’s vision swam with static; he stumbled, the ringing in his skull making the world tilt.

  "Now! Hamstring it!"

  A spearman rushed, aiming for the back of Trenn’s knee, causing him to buckle forward.

  “BACK OFF!”

  A sonic pulse shredded the nets, launching the closest Wolf Kin into the air.

  One crashed into the exposed machinery of the settlement’s main drive shaft. Gears chewed through armor and bone; shrieks tore the air before the machinery seized—acrid smoke billowed from the deadlock.

  Pressure buckled metal and cracked stone. A ten-foot iron gear sheared off its axle. It spun through the air, slicing a support beam in half before burying itself in the mud.

  Trenn dropped into a low crouch and surged, propelled by his tail.

  The scattergunner tried to dive away, but got pinned between the charging Gem-Croc Kin and the stone foundation of the water tower.

  Armor and bone flattened against the masonry, pulverizing the warrior. Above them, timber supports splintered. The massive tank groaned and tilted dangerously.

  “Run!” a Wolf Kin screamed.

  A bullet bounced off the joints of his neck.

  Trenn looked up.

  The gunner stood at the edge of the tree line, backing away toward a supply warehouse. She was reloading. Her hands were shaking. She was staring at the slaughter, at the golden demon rising from the muck.

  She leveled the rifle at his eye slit—the only open point on the helm.

  Trenn charged.

  He plowed through a stack of crates filled with winter grain, scattering the precious food into the mud. He smashed through a wooden fence.

  The ground shook. Mud sprayed in wide arcs. He was a locomotive of gilded rage, tearing through a settlement to get to his prey.

  Her shot went wide, sparking off his shoulder pauldron. The bullet ricocheted and punctured the steam tank of a nearby engine, sending a scalding jet of vapor hissing into the air.

  She dropped the rifle and drew a hunting knife, wide-eyed, backing away until she hit the wall of the warehouse.

  Trenn’s path of destruction led straight to her. She slashed; the steel blade sparked uselessly against his armored palms.

  He seized her cuirass and drove her body through the warehouse wall. Armor flattened. Bone shattered. The wall exploded inward. Using the Wolf Kin as a battering ram, he snapped internal supports and burst out the other side.

  He tossed the remains aside as the warehouse groaned and the roof collapsed inward.

  Dust billowed out, a grey shroud covering the tomb of the Wolf Kin warrior.

  Steam hissed between the golden teeth of his helm. The black-green fire in his eye slits scanned the debris, hungry for movement.

  The "DIE!" command still echoed in his blood, a narcotic rush of absolute authority. The Gem-Croc demanded blood.

  A scuffling sound cut through the settling dust.

  Trenn whipped his head around.

  A small figure was scrambling backward through the mud near the collapsed water tower. It was the Ratling boy. Kip. His wide eyes reflected the crocodilian monster looming ahead.

  The golden tail lashed, tearing a furrow in the earth as Trenn lunged. The ground shook with his weight. He closed the distance in two strides, his shadow falling over the cowering boy.

  Kip threw his paws up, a futile shield against a god. He squeezed his eyes shut and screamed.

  Trenn raised a massive, armored fist. The golden scales flared, ready to deliver a blow that would turn the boy into paste.

  Crush it. Silence it.

  But as the boy cowered, the red haze of the Gem-Croc’s vision glitched.

  The grey fur wavered and turned white. The landscape shifted.

  Trenn wasn't looking at a stranger. He was looking at Mara, her amber eyes filled with shattering betrayal.

  I attacked her. He had lost control. I abandoned her…

  She could be broken, bleeding on the grass where he left her.

  The memory hit him harder than any bullet. It bypassed the armor to strike the raw, exposed nerve of his guilt.

  “STOP!” He turned the command against the beast inside of him.

  Muscles buckled. Tendons tore as his body was forced to stop.

  The wind of the blow ruffled the boy's fur.

  Trenn stood frozen, a statue of trembling gold. Inside the helm, his human eyes were wide, tears sizzling against the hot metal. He fought a war in his own mind, holding back the weight of a god with nothing but grief.

  "GET... OUT!" The voice was a grinding rasp of metal on stone.

  Kip scrambled back, sobbing, dragging himself through the mud until he hit the tree line.

  Trenn fell to his knees.

  His golden scales retracted with the violence of a bear trap snapping shut.

  They inverted. Scales tore their way back under his skin, grinding against ribs as they retreated into marrow. The crocodile helm split and slid under his scalp with a grating friction that made his teeth ache, and his eyes bleed.

  Trenn screamed, a raw, human sound of pure agony that ended in a gurgling choke.

  He collapsed face-first into the mud.

  The divine armor was gone. The immunity was gone.

  He was bleeding from the knee, gut, and arm.

  He gasped, tasting mud and his sweet blood. His vision tunneled.

  Then, darkness.

  Silence returned to the hamlet, broken only by the settling of debris and the ragged breathing of the unconscious man.

  Slowly, the reeds parted.

  Kip stepped out, shivering. Behind him, the girl and the lanky boy emerged, their faces masks of terror. Then came the adults—gaunt, soot-stained Ratlings holding makeshift clubs, hammers, and mining picks.

  They circled the fallen giant warily.

  "Is it dead?" the girl whispered.

  An older Ratling, his fur grey with coal dust, prodded Trenn’s shoulder with the handle of a shovel. Trenn didn't move.

  "It’s breathing," the elder muttered. He looked at the devastation—the collapsed warehouse, the ruined water tower, the smears of red paste that used to be Wolf Kin soldiers.

  He turned back to Trenn. There was no gratitude in his eyes, only fear.

  "It killed the Wolves," Kip squeaked.

  "And destroyed the grain stores," the elder spat. "Wrecked the forge. If it wakes up..." He shuddered. "We can't keep this monster here. When the patrols return, they'll burn the whole settlement if they find it here."

  "Kill it?" the lanky boy asked, lifting a heavy rock.

  The elder caught his wrist. "No. Did you see that armor? Who knows what will trigger its transformation?"

  He looked toward the river, then toward the dense wall of white fog that hugged the valley floor to the North. The Morning Mist had moved, but they were still nearby.

  "We take it to the Mist," the elder decided. "It’ll be lost forever."

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