Previously..

"There's one thing I guarantee you, Tyrell is a really powerful fighter. Prove to me that you're really Tyrell's only son."

"Prove to me that I have a powerful grandson."

Kaiyn comes into a bigger shock at the sudden revelation. His own grandfather standing before him as a demicorpse and challenging him into a duel. This unique apex which has nearly perfected symbiosis with its host.

The buster blade tail changes color from light blue to bright yellow as he grinds it against the ground, increasing in heat and sharpness just like a real blade prevented from being dull. He attacks using his own fists, grappling techniques and medium to long range sweeps to control the space between his opponent. The perfect maneuver of a bio-organic weapon was overwhelming to face off against especially for Kaiyn who doesn't even know what his apex was yet.

...

Lorenzo arrives in the commotion only to notice a one on one brawl of Kaiyn and an old man happening where even Nyx's henchmen and Lorenzo's were invested in watching.

"This brat.. always picking fights bigger than him. Gimme a break..", Lorenzo sighs in disappointment. He approaches one of his most loyal and trusted henchmen, Caspian Nikolaj. A Nordic specifically a Dane similar to Kaiyn's Icelandic heritage. He has been part of Lorenzo's gang since day one and has never shown signs of betrayal. He was considered to be the big brother of the group due to his protective nature and matters to solve conflicts using his fists.

"You're not gonna believe this, but that old guy is the kid's old man. Ain't that bizarre?"

"Spare me the drama.. where's the prince?", asked Lorenzo as he sighs in relief.

"Sleeping inside the tent. Surprised he's not waking up from all the noise here."

"Eh... I'll check on him later. God knows what will happen to this brat if I leave him by himself any longer."

Meanwhile, while the fight rages on outside the walls, Samantha reveals what must be revealed to Benedict and Renji. To summarize once more, during the early ages there was a mysterious phenomena called the Hollow Moon where it was a night where multiple demicorpses had been born within once normal humans. This had changed the human society forever. Flesh-eating monsters that looked human and commit acts of cannibalism, like vampires blending in. The media had concealed these predations as an act of murders to keep the masses in line. The criminal underworld had changed as well with demicorpses dominating almost everything. This is when the notorious black market had been established where they sell human meat from cemeteries, morgues or hospitals and sometimes the rare but worst case scenario of humans desperate for money sell their own body parts.

A group of four friends attending the same high school: the heartthrob and prideful Tyrell, the loud but intelligent Gunsche, the airhead but reserved Orpheus, and the nervous shortstack Franklin.

These four friends might be almost impossible to separate but that did not mean that they were good on their own. Tyrell and Gunsche both had excellent grades and extracurricular activities while Orpheus finds peace with herbivores in the art club and Gunsche was the student council president. Franklin mostly spends his extra time in the arcade or internet cafes.

Orpheus and Tyrell had been the unlucky individuals to be affected by the Hollow Moon. Did that stop and ruin the bond of the friendship of the four though? It only made them stronger, promising to help contain them in case a desire for predation happens.

"Did you hear the news? There was an increase in predation crime activity going around the city. Maybe we should lay our heads low for a while don't you think?", Franklin says in a nervous tone.

"Don't worry, there's no way that they'd attack a prestigious high school like this one. Not to mention the security system's pretty tight as well. So yeah just relax and focus on your studies and of course, think positive as always. Yeah, that's right I'm gonna keep saying that until I'm blue in the face. What're you gonna do about it?", Tyrell says as he pats Franklin's head with a smile to which Gunsche's eyes immediately turn towards.

"Dammit, Tyrell if you don't stop being positive I'm gonna stomp on innocent kittens and puppies just to make you sad.", Gunsche says as he points his finger on Tyrell's neck at the same time.

While Tyrell and Gunsche were arguing over little things, as usual. Franklin notices Orpheus staring at the window with his mouth open and almost drooling.

"H-Hey Orpheus.. your fangs our going out. Orpheus? Orpheus!", it took Franklin to do a full snap of a finger to wake up the daydreaming Orpheus.

"Oh.. my bad. I uhh I guess I lacked sleep again."

"Also, I never get you Orpheus. You're literally more powerful than humans so why are you always acting so timid? Keeping yourself restrained at all times.", Gunsche asks as he places his legs on top of the table.

"Restrained..? What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Oh, c'mon are you seriously that dense? The adjustment of your teeth, your posture, the way you slouch, keeping your fur nice and fluffy and cutting your nails below the average sharpness."

"I'm getting what you mean here but just because an animal here in this world is in one species doesn't mean that we have to follow a specific role of personality right? I just.. feel okay this way."

"Well, that's not exactly what I meant. I was leaning more towards the be yourself kinda stuff, you get me?"

"But.. this is me. I think.."

"Man, you really are a weirdo!", Tyrell laughs and pats Orpheus's head, an attempt to prevent the argument from being intense, which was a quick success in his part.

It was always like this. Tyrell's optimism encourages the group to move forward through life's hardships while Gunsche's complaints and pessimism were there to balance things up. It was like a housewife and a hardworking dad always stressed from work with two children being an absent-minded dog and a hyena more anxious than an herbivore itself.

Going back to the present and recollecting all the fragments, in summary, Orpheus for some reason has betrayed this circle of friendship by revealing Tyrell and his wife's location to an individual named Maddox Houston. The reason why Maddox wanted Tyrell dead remains a mystery and Franklin who was desperately trying to defend the couple also died in the process.

Renji's instincts kicked in, trying to solve the mystery. He was skeptical of why and how would someone very close to Tyrell like Orpheus betray the group, when as Samantha stated Orpheus was treated as the airhead of them unless he was just pretending to be one all along.

"I demand to know more. I want to unravel the truth. Why my father was murdered in cold blood, and who was the real culprit behind it all. Samantha is it okay to bring Duskwalker or should I say... Orpheus to you alive? I would like to ask him several questions.", Renji's face was not showing signs of regret of sorrow because of his parents, just pure determination to solve this conflict and seek the truth.

"Very well. Unfortunately, I won't be able to join you. My sister demands my presence inside the throne room of the princess. Instead, I will assemble some of my soldiers to accompany you. Make sure to minimize the number of casualties.", Samantha's voice in that last statement sounded a little worried despite clearly having powerful authority at all times.

...

The battle between the grandfather and the grandson rages on as Kaiyn barely endures the blows given to him by the old man, either side gives any signs of forfeit nor holding back.

"Hey, kid. Why is it that outside of battles that aren't that important, you're smart but when it comes to fights like these and even our own you become a goddamn nutcase?", Lorenzo mockingly teases Kaiyn.

Lorenzo's right-hand man Caspian nudges him a little, "Won't that just worsen the brat's temper though?", he asks Lorenzo with a confused face. The boss just smiles and seemed that he has found a solution to this brutal match-up.

"Aw don't tell me you didn't notice? That tail of his functions similarly like a real blade. He ignites and sparks it making the color on it go yellow then into the bright red when it is ready for a major attack. After the red attack charge, it becomes dull eventually and becomes blue. It's like a pattern or a traffic light."

Kaiyn dashes back and scoffs at Lorenzo's tip despite agreeing to it. Right now, the tail was shining yellow like the sun. Kaiyn runs in and goes low, using the height difference to his advantage, tumbling to the side into the blindspot and attempts a slash directly into the face but was rejected by a brutal punch down to the ground. The old man picks him up again and throws him into a nearby building.

"Tell me, Kaiyn. What are you fighting for? The greater good? Expecting a reward? The loved ones you have lost? Do you know what you are right now? You're EMPTY! You have no purpose to exist!", the old man grows angrier as he runs toward the collapsed building and picks Kaiyn up by the neck.

"Sometimes, we just have to give family members some.. tough love."

He then stabs his fully heated tail into Kaiyn's stomach. The crowd gasps in fear as they notice the heat and smoke emerging from Kaiyn's body, melting his flesh.

"KID!", Lorenzo shouts out, but Caspian stops him, noticing something odd about the sight.

Kaiyn grasps the tail still glowing a bright color of red inside his stomach. He grows bull-shaped horns and his skin begins to shed. The soft and once stretchable tissue was now hardened armor with spikes on his joints. Smoke pours out of his nose as he exhales deeply and stands on his own two feet, still grabbing the tail with his bare hands.

"What am I fighting for? You already answered your question. I'm fighting for loved ones that I have lost.. and to reunite with the ones that are still. I'm far from being empty... I... am..."

"Indestructible."

Kaiyn then roars and headbutts the old man, extracting the tail inside his stomach. The hole around his abdomen rapidly heals and steams from heat like no damage was even done in the first place.

The men began to rage on Kaiyn as they witness their leader struggling on a fight for the first time. They were about to attack Kaiyn but the old man himself stopped them.

"No. Things just started becoming more interesting.", he says as he cracks his fists and stretches his muscles.

"No goddamn way.. after all that amount of damage.. guess now I know where the brat's stubborn nature came from.", Lorenzo states in shock with his eyes wide open.

...

"Renji. We've found clues and tracked down Duskwalker. He seems to be heading towards a location outside the wall where two demicorpses are fighting. One B class and one S class. There's a whole crowd watching them as well.", one of Samantha's men immediately salute and report to Renji.

"Excellent. Keep the tracker on him. We follow him within the shadows and wait for the right moment to show ourselves. Benedict, I'm gonna need you to stay with your sister.", Renji says as he begins to gear up.

"Wait, you're putting me at the bench now? No way, I'm going with you."

"Listen to me. Your sister needs you and the kingdom that protects us is having political issues. No matter what happens, promise me that you'll protect her and stay alive, both of you.", Renji places his hands on Benedict's shoulders with a worried look, tightening with each word coming out of his mouth.

"No! This is exactly what Kaiyn doesn't want to happen! Us becoming separated again!", Benedict struggles to speak clearly as his voice begins to shake and lose his composure.

"This one is MY fight. About MY family. I don't want other people especially my closest friends to shed blood for our own mistakes. So I'm begging you.. stay with what you have left and wait until I return.", Renji calms Benedict down and pats his shoulders but at the same time maintaining the serious aura. Benedict eventually agrees and before Renji lets go of his shoulders, Benedict embraces him tightly and pats each other's backs.

"You'll come back alive, right? You promise."

"No matter what it takes."

...

His name is Orpheus. Humans and locals gave him the name duskwalker due to his mysterious origins and multiple sightings around the midnight. The real motives of this traitor/murderer are unknown, and the council continues to debate whether or not to punish him for his acts of clear treason and rebellion. He is now headed for a site where two demicorpses seemed to be fighting in a pit with a crowd of lowlives and criminals watching and gambling on them. Renji assembles his men and wears the oni mask he crafted in the walls. With guns fully loaded and sword sharpened, they set out to arrest and retrieve Duskwalker alive for answers.

The Weeping Rose. With its unknown leader and tyrant of a general, Maddox has found a new possible recruit for the cause.

"What exactly can you do and why do you want to join us again? I wasn't listening to the first time."

"I'm Friedrich. My goal is this irresistible lust for power I have within me to be quenched. That, and because I want to eat my sister~"

This young individual had dull colors of his eyes, grey hair devoid of any color and a blank stare with a smile that of a psychopath. His gaze barely had any emotion but at the same time is showing plenty of sadistic intentions within his heart. From the looks of it, he is a demicorpse cannibal who eats his own kind of power.

"You are creepy as shit. That's saying a lot coming from a person like me, but you're free to join our ranks. I guess.."

After that, it was a business meeting with a masked serial killer. His methods of killing consisted of modified arrows from a crossbow that always had a sense of "beauty" in these victims. For example, if someone is shot with this arrow bolt, roses would bloom from the decaying corpse of the victim. His principle was...

"Death is quick, gruesome and cold but it doesn't have to be ugly."

True beauty shows itself at the moment where the fine line between life and death is near from snapping, and that is what this criminal yearns for.

"Well aren't you the most poetic serial killer out there hun.", Maddox says sarcastically before sitting down.

"What, you think I'd fail my goals and require your assistance? Nonsense. If I'd need you for anything, it would just be for props."

"Do you have any plans of stopping your uhh.. career?"

"Heh... I promise myself every time it's the last performance. But I lie every time.."

"Uh-huh aaand how do you feel about it?"

"I get nervous before every performance... but I NEED that feeling~"

"Are you really certain that what you're doing hurts people?"

"You are clearly a foolish and blind brute, just like the rest of them. Hehe... I've never hurt anyone. It is the performance that kills. Before you even say anything, no. I am misunderstood because beauty is never evil."

After the interview, they eventually follow agreement but this mysterious artist seemed to have his personal agenda, unlike other species, this artist was only a human and had his own reasons and secrets. All we had was him talking to himself in the mirror while wearing his mask.

"I wonder.. which one is the truth? The mask? Or my face? Costume.. check. Mask.. check. Makeup.. check. Now, all we need is for the stage to be set, the canvas.. and.. the spray of blood."

Kaiyn has finally awakened fully to his true apex, the bull. His once human skin has been shed into this fleshy metallic armor with horns and incredible brute strength. Even his grandfather was shocked surprisingly at the sight. His hair losing the way of how it was fixed going down, while he himself is slouched down acting more like a wild animal out of control

"So you're finally being more honest with yourself. But I'm telling ya, that type of pride won't get you anywhere.", the old man says as he continues the assault and fights back after recovering from Kaiyn's devastating haymaker then quickly fighting back with a tail swipe, using dust from the ground to hinder Kaiyn's vision.

This was followed up by the two running into each other with a headbutt at the same time, neither side showing any signs of struggle. The old man dashes a few steps back and runs into the side and drags his tail on the ground, sharpening it once again into the red. This time, he doesn't go into point-blank range with Kaiyn. Instead, he drags his tail forward then a sudden projectile wave of vertical fire propels forward from the tail. Kaiyn rolls to the side while suffering a scratch mark to the side of his shoulder.

The old man proceeds to rush in, bashing his shoulder on Kaiyn and then hitting the sharp side of his tail to Kaiyn before he barely manages to defend it by blocking with his arms. After the hit, he pushes the tail away and lands a right uppercut to the chin but at the same time, the old man has already punched Kaiyn's cheek. The two make their distance once again.

"You haven't told me what your name is yet. I can't keep calling you an old geezer forever, you know.", Kaiyn says as he wipes the blood off of his skin.

"It's Fafnir. Heh... I don't even remember why I gave Tyrell the name... Tyrell."

The two continue their battle. This time, they were stuck in an even match, until Kaiyn began to intensify his blows and attacks. The balance was breaking, Fafnir's slowly losing due to his energy depleting more rapidly because of his age. All this time, Kaiyn has been slowly awakening to his true unique power. Unfortunately, he became carried away and lost his footing to which Fafnir saw as a perfect opening to finish the fight. He grabs Kaiyn by his neck and jumps high then violently pummels him to the ground. He huffs and puffs, breathing loudly as he pushes himself to the limit.

"That... should be enough... right?"

Kaiyn's veins suddenly begin to show clearly glowing a bright crimson red. He gets back and lets out an almighty deafening roar, causing other men to lose their balance and cover their ears. Fafnir quickly tries to stab Kaiyn from the blindside with his tail but it was stopped by Kaiyn by grasping on the tail itself. While still holding the tail, Kaiyn winds up for a powerful haymaker straight to Fafnir's face.

The old man is now down on the ground completely unconscious. Fafnir's men went ballistic to the sight of their leader losing to a kid, so they all charge at Kaiyn at once.

"YOU IDIOTS! DON'T MOVE A MUSCLE!", Lorenzo shouts at Fafnir's men. He explained that Kaiyn's unique power is that he can convert the pain of his injuries into adrenaline, pumping that hormone all around his body at the time of his choice. However, the payoff is that Kaiyn will be extremely weakened after this state and will need time to compensate for going beyond his limit. As of the moment, his veins were still glowing so the men stood back and watched as Kaiyn roars once more and slams his fists into the ground until eventually, he kneels down as his nose and mouth exhales a large amount of steam like an engine cooling off.

Lyrah arrives at the scene, protecting Kaiyn from the men trying to hurt him. Nyx notices Lyrah's red eyes and laughs, mocking Lorenzo because of the fact that he tried to protect such a rare prize that he actually betrayed his own gang.

"You don't understand, Nyx. I AM Espada itself, you're the one who's been blinded by wealth.", Nyx was about to attack Lorenzo because of his insulting statement but Fafnir slowly gets up with a very furious facial expression.

"Cowards... ALL OF YOU! HOW DARE YOU TAINT OUR DUEL WITH THOSE SCUMMY MINDSETS OF YOURS! YOU DISGUST ME!", Fafnir yells pointing his finger at Nyx.

Since Lyrah was mute, she simply aids Kaiyn back up on his feet and slowly walked together back into the camp. The other men trying to stop them were barricaded by Lorenzo and Nikolaj.

"Nikolaj. You can forget about me. Find the prince and make sure he's safe."

Nikolaj has never objected to Lorenzo's decision making, so he nods and runs off into the hideout. Here, he finds the prince mourning beside his butler's dead body who was murdered by Lorenzo earlier to let the prince be independent and grow up.

"He's not coming back. We have to keep moving before-"

Two thugs from the Weeping Rose emerge from the shadows of the dead trees. The prince Apollo shrivels back and hides behind Nikolaj.

"And just when I thought things wouldn't get worse... fine then. I'll take both of you on."

Nikolaj unzips his luggage. Inside was only one object- a lethal one. One of which even Demicorpses struggle to carry. This was a weapon, the giant buster sword. Slow, clunky, but devastating. A cut from the sharp edge can even that of a katana's but a hit from the blunt side is also guaranteed to give someone permanent bone injuries. A perfect weapon for the person who is treated as everyone's big brother in Espada.

...

No one has noticed that one of Fafnir's men flee the scene and follow Lyrah and Kaiyn into their camps. This man was about to attack Lyrah, but she immediately releases her Apex to block his pistol equipped with a silencer. She notices that the bullet this time was painful, it is then revealed that this pistol has been equipped with modified bronze bullets- the weakness of Demicorpses. As he was preparing to fire once more, a giant red dog attacks this mysterious man and then drags him away. Lyrah made sure Kaiyn has been secured before following the attacker.

All that while Renji was already spectating from the shadows with his stealth group. He notices all the clues which were it was a dog, red color and a Siberian Husky. At the briefing, they mentioned that Orpheus was able to shift into his animal form at will because of a drug that he has designed for himself, but that was just a theory now turned into a fact after a clear witness.

Renji has formed the hypothesis of Orpheus being a dog also affected by the Hollow Moon. A dog being affected could be possible because of the freak accident and desires of Samantha's father as a greedy and almost insane scientist. A dog assuming the form of a human and also having a demicorpse diet, and whenever his hunger kicks in more of his dog parts begin to show, like a reverse werewolf.

The attacker and Orpheus seemed to be arguing, now Orpheus being in his human form. He was wearing a messy prison uniform, grubby body, and a savage facial expression yet maintaining human features. His claws extend as he chokes the attacker all the while his head shakes with anger. Renji has had enough and decides to show himself.

"WAIT!"