Chapter 419: Monster!
The red walls of the domain began to thin, receding like smoke. The ground returned to its familiar texture, cold and hard. Varek’s men and women blinked repeatedly. Their faces were pale, and their hands were trembling. The control their chieftain had exerted over them vanished with his death, leaving them bewildered and exposed.
Then they saw him.
Kaiden. Not the man they had known. The Great Demon of Wrath still towered over them.
"Agh!"
"Monster!"
"Run!"
Their screams tore through the quiet that followed the end of the domain, and they bolted. Every instinct screamed for flight.
Despite the destruction around him, despite Varek’s death, Kaiden did not shift back to human form. His massive frame remained, the horns still curved like bone over his skull, shoulders braced with unnatural muscle.
[Until the object of your Wrath ceases to exist, this state cannot end.]
The meaning was clear. The condition had been fulfilled. Varek was gone. Yet Kaiden did not return. He should have, yet he remained, caught in the aftermath of his own rage. His body throbbed with exhaustion, every fiber of muscle burning from the toll of the transformation. His mind swirled, fragmented, caught between what he had been and what he had become.
He stood alone in a strange limbo. The anger that had fed the demon had no target now, but it did not fade. His eyes scanned the fleeing crowd, uncomprehending.
And then he saw them.