The Psychopathic Beast Emperor-Chapter 65: When Death Learned How to Hunt

The viewing space was no longer rowdy.

It was dead silent.

Golden lamps still hummed. Shadows still crawled across the circular dais. But the air, once filled with argument, ambition, and amusement, had gone brittle, like glass stretched too thin.

Elder Derek was the first to break.

He did not speak.

His blue eyes, usually burning with confidence, widened as the image on the scrying screen sharpened, Bahamut standing upright, blindfold discarded, red eyes glowing against a shroud of death-dark aura.

Derek’s fingers twitched.

"...Caron," he said quietly.

Caron didn’t answer immediately. His obsidian eyes were locked on the screen, pupils constricted. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse.

"I see it."

They didn’t need to clarify what.

Derek swallowed. "My disciple..."

Ren.

The memory surfaced unbidden: a blind boy, feral pressure, aura that didn’t behave like aura should. Something ancient peeking through a young body.

Caron nodded slowly. "That wasn’t growth," he murmured. "It was... alignment."

Around them, elders began reacting one by one.

Sylna’s silver brows knit together, her earlier boredom erased. "That pressure, he’s not circulating power. He’s exuding it."

Baset’s claws scraped stone as he leaned forward. "That’s not a cultivator’s stance. That’s a predator that forgot what speech is."

Frugo’s single good eye gleamed. "Fascinating," he whispered, then stopped himself when several elders glared at him.

Even Silvia, cool, composed Silvia, had gone pale. Her fingers trembled against the armrest of her chair. "He died," she said, as if saying it again might make sense of what followed. "He died. And came back..."

Then...

A chair scraped.

Everyone froze.

Chief Elder Sekhem had risen.

Slowly.

The onyx-and-gold robes fell straight as a blade at his sides. His ancient eyes were no longer calm. They were sharp and focused, watching something that even he did not fully understand.

His gaze shifted.

It landed on Elder Iset.

She was still smiling.

Not manic.

Not delighted.

...Soft.

There was something like pride there. And beneath it, something quieter. Something old.

Sekhem exhaled.

"Sorry for your loss," he said under his breath.

Iset’s smile did not falter, but her fingers tightened. Because she understood. She knew what was going to happen.

...

The Eliminator struck first.

Space folded.

The Dark Phantom Scorpio vanished and reappeared behind Bahamut in the same instant, its stinger already descending, shadow and venom entwined.

Bahamut did not turn.

His body bent at an angle no human spine should tolerate, dropping backward and sideways as the stinger carved through the space where his head had been. The ground behind him detonated as the strike landed, earth turning inside out.

Before the beast could retract...

Bahamut lunged on all fours.

His hands hit the ground with a wet crack, fingers digging deep into soil and stone as he launched himself upward like a feral thing escaping a pit.

He collided with the Eliminator’s thorax.

Not with technique... There was no technique in brutality.

He collided with the full weight of something that had already died more than once and found the experience offensive.

CRUNCH!

Chitin shattered. Black blood sprayed in an arc across the field.

The Eliminator screeched, sound warping as shadow flared defensively, forcing Bahamut off.

But Bahamut twisted midair, grabbing onto one of the scorpion’s legs.

The limb tore free... not cleanly.

It ripped, strands of shadow and flesh stretching before snapping, spraying viscous darkness across Bahamut’s chest.

He hit the ground rolling and came up laughing.

It wasn’t madness in the theatrical sense.

It was the sound of a body that no longer recognized fear. It was the sound of a killer, a predator, a mad predator who was one with death.

The Eliminator backed away.

Its aura surged, shadow intertwining as broken chitin regenerated, roots knitting into armor, shadow hardening into plates.

Bahamut tilted his head.

Then he screamed.

A raw, wordless howl ripped from his throat, carrying Death Intent so thick it pressed against reality; the air bent, and colors dulled. Even the light recoiled.

He charged straight through a wall of shadow-spikes.

They impaled him through the shoulder, the thigh, and the side.

But he did not slow.

The spikes snapped as he moved, torn free by momentum and muscle, wounds sealing behind them with sickening speed. Blood steamed off his skin as regeneration devoured damage like fuel.

He leapt.

The Eliminator flashed again, but Bahamut anticipated it.

He had sensed and felt it.

He slammed his foot down, shattering the ground and sending a shockwave through the shadow-space itself. The flash staggered, distorted.

The scorpion reappeared wrong, half a body-length off, just long enough for Bahamut to reach it.

He grabbed the stinger with both hands.

His veins bulged, and his muscles screamed.

The Eliminator thrashed, its venom dripping, and its aura flaring violently.

But...

Bahamut roared back and pulled.

The stinger tore loose.

The beast shrieked as black blood erupted like a ruptured vein, collapsing inward.

Bahamut didn’t stop.

He stabbed the broken stinger back into the Eliminator’s own body.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Each strike was sloppy. Inefficient. Brutal.

A beast’s answer to a beast.

The Eliminator slammed him away with a full-body surge, sending Bahamut crashing through trees, stone, and earth until he skidded to a halt in a crater of his own making.

For a heartbeat...

There was silence.

Then Bahamut stood.

Slowly.

His bones popped back into place. His flesh reknit as his chest rose and fell, breath fogging the air.

His red eyes locked onto the Eliminator.

There was no strategy left, no plan.

Only hunger.

He smiled sickeningly, blood dripping from his mouth. His hands stretched and bulged as he activated Beast Trait Manifestation on instinct.

His hair started floating, as the dark aura became denser that it was possible to touch it. His eyes glowed more omniously, as his height seemed to increase. His legs transformed into claws, and scales formed around them, making them glint in the dark presence.

His hands also transformed to claws, bulky, sharp, and deadly: the Treant Bear’s claws.

"I hate dying... but I love KILLING!"

Bahamut exclaimed as his aura exploded outwards, pushing the Eliminator back. As for Ren and Exildra, they had managed to move far away, but even then, they felt the shockwave and a bit of the Death Intent, causing Exildra to shiver uncontrollably.

It felt like the hand of the Grim Reaper was around her neck, squeezing it slowly as it enjoyed her suffering. She was suffocating!

BOOM! CRACK!

SCREEEEEE!

Bahamut had attacked...

A/N:

Hola there, my lovely readers. I hope you are all good.

Well, I’m here to remind you to support me as you always do. For some reason, I dropped off Rising Fictions, but it’s no biggie.

I’m still grateful for your support. I also got a serious fan who’s giving me free fan art for characters of the book, but I want to monopoli... make her stay. Ahem!

Continue to support me to make it happen. And as for the fan arts, I will be uploading it in my server. You can find the link in my author biography or in the synopsis of Ancestral Lineage.

Thank you, and have a great day.