[System Notification]

  Infernal Beast Captured

  Classification: Alpha-Class Hellhound

  Type: Dark / Fire

  Binding Method: Collar of Submission

  As a Soulbinder, you may deepen your control over the beast through interaction, guidance, and fulfilled instinctual needs. Taming is possible. Bonding is not currently supported.

  Warning: Infernal beasts originate from hostile dimensional planes. Needs and behaviors may differ from natural creatures. Unusual complications may occur.

  Alistair exhaled slowly, wiping blood and soot from his face with the back of his hand. His palm came away slick.

  "Great. So he’s not just a demon dog, he’s a high-maintenance demon dog."

  Around him, the sounds of carnage finally began to fade. The ground no longer buckled. The endless roar of hoof and claw and fang gave way to... silence.

  Not peace. Just the kind of silence that came after something awful.

  His new pet stood frozen at the eye of the storm.

  Alistair wheezed, clutching the scruff of a beast that smelled like burnt coal and apocalypse. Smoke curled around him, hot enough to sting his nose.

  His cloak had scorch marks. His gloves were smoking. His eyebrows... were probably gone.

  [Status Effect: Scorched Flesh]

  You are taking 2 HP damage every 5 seconds from direct contact with an infernal creature.

  "Ow. Ow. Ow. Totally worth it."

  The beast beneath him was still. Frozen like a statue. One breath at a time, smoke rising in thin streams from its fur.

  Alistair sat there, legs draped over its flanks, like he was riding the world's angriest, fire-licked horse.

  "You are magnificent."

  He patted its side. His hand came away slightly singed.

  "Also a walking bonfire. I respect that."

  He leaned forward slightly and whispered, "We're gonna be best friends, you and me. Just wait till the others see you. Brimma’s going to throw a fit. Kael’s going to wet himself. Gods, I can't wait."

  The hellhound didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t even breathe in a way that seemed natural.

  A faint chime echoed in his vision. A small icon now floated in his periphery, a jagged black pawprint, glowing ember-red. Below Kael and Brimma’s markers.

  He focused.

  [Companion Entry: Infernal Hellhound - Alpha Class]

  Name: [Unassigned]

  Level: 26

  Type: Companion Beast (Controlled)

  Origin: Plane of Cinders (Pocket Realm)

  Disposition: Wild

  Description: Hellhounds are apex predators native to the infernal realm known as the Plane of Cinders. Bred in fire, shaped by cruelty, and tempered by centuries of blood rites, these creatures are said to be forged from the ash of fallen demons. Most hellhounds operate in packs, but alphas are solitary tyrants known to kill lesser packmates to assert dominance.

  Known Traits:

  ? Firebody (Passive) – Radiates intense heat. Melee attackers take minor fire damage. Extended contact will burn flesh and armor.

  ? Alpha’s Will (Passive) – Nearby beast-class creatures must pass a Willpower check or submit. Grants +10% damage and resistance when fighting alone.

  ? Blazefang (Active) – A feral bite ignited with internal fire. Heavy physical and fire damage. Chance to ignite target. Cooldown: Moderate.

  Health: 427 / 438

  Status: Controlled – Awaiting Commands

  Alistair read it all in silence.

  Then blinked.

  Then reread it.

  "Okay," he said aloud, crouching beside the creature. "First of all, you’re terrifying. Second of all, I think I love you."

  The hellhound didn’t respond.

  Didn’t even turn.

  He slid off slowly, boots crunching into scorched dirt. His knees wobbled. Every inch of him ached, and he was pretty sure his ribs were more bruise than bone.

  But he was grinning like a madman.

  [HP: 43/190]

  [Ongoing Scorched Flesh Ceased]

  He turned to face the creature, hand on his hip.

  "Alright, Buddy. Let's see what you really look like."

  The hellhound towered over him, tall as a warhorse, its obsidian hide shimmering with molten seams. Its eyes tracked him, barely. Just enough to show it was aware. Watching.

  Its snout curled slightly. Not a snarl. Not a smile. Just a low, bubbling growl like magma boiling in a kettle.

  Smoke hissed from its jaws.

  Alistair reached out again, completely undeterred.

  "Who's a good boy? Is it you? It better be you because you could literally tear me in half, and I’m way too pretty to die."

  He gave it a firm pat on the flank. The heat was immediate. Not scalding but just this side of painful. Like resting your hand too close to a bonfire.

  The heat singed through his glove.

  He winced. Smiled anyway.

  "We’ll work on boundaries."

  In the distance, the smoke began to clear.

  And for the first time since the chaos began, Alistair could actually see.

  The forest was gone.

  Flattened. Shredded. Torn apart like paper before a storm. Tree stumps were sheared clean, the earth ripped and clawed into a field of ash and broken roots. Massive trails crisscrossed where the stampede had rolled through.

  It looked like a god had lost its temper.

  He stared at the devastation, one hand still resting on the side of a beast that should have murdered him by now.

  And grinned.

  "Yup. Definitely naming you Buddy."

  The hellhound snorted, smoke puffing out in a hot, rhythmic burst. Still silent.

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  Still waiting.

  Alistair exhaled. The adrenaline finally started to fade. His wounds stung. His breath caught in his ribs.

  He was still alive.

  And he had a monster.

  His monster.

  “Oh, Kael’s gonna shit bricks.”

  He looked back up at the beast. “I really hope you like snacks and belly rubs. Or, y’know, at least not setting me on fire when I forget to feed you.”

  The hound made a deeper rumble in its throat. Not hostile. Not friendly. Just... waiting.

  Alistair clapped his hands together, still smiling.

  “Alright then, Buddy,” he said. “Let’s go traumatize the family.”

  Alistair stood beside the towering beast, arms crossed, chewing on the edge of a decision.

  "Alright, let’s weigh this out,” he muttered aloud. “On one hand, mounting you comes with a passive burn effect. Two HP every five seconds. Painful. Potentially lethal over time. Very unpleasant.”

  He tapped his chin, nodding.

  “On the other hand... I get to ride a giant hellhound like some kind of apocalypse horselord.”

  He grinned wide.

  “Yeah, no contest.”

  He climbed the beast.

  It wasn’t graceful. The hound didn’t kneel or bow like a trained war mount. It just stood there, heat radiating from its back like an open forge. Alistair grunted as he hauled himself up and straddled its shoulders, legs burning from the contact.

  [Status Effect – Scorched Flesh (Mounting)]

  -2 HP / 5 sec

  [HP: 41 / 190]

  “Ow. Ow. Okay. Worth it.”

  He glanced around the flattened clearing, then down at the hound's head. Its ears flicked at his voice. The constant low growl beneath him buzzed through his spine like a purring volcano.

  “You know,” he said, adjusting his grip on the rough, ember-hot fur, “this would be a lot scarier if I wasn’t so into it.”

  He leaned forward, eyes gleaming.

  “Alright, Buddy. Let’s go!”

  The hellhound didn’t move.

  It didn’t even blink.

  Alistair blinked for it.

  “...Seriously?”

  He tried again. “Yah! Mush! Fly, my murder puppy!”

  Nothing.

  Just the steady hiss of heat and the deep, unbothered growl.

  A notification appeared.

  [Verbal Command Required – Target: Hellhound Alpha]

  Infernal beasts must receive specific verbal orders to act. Ambiguous or metaphorical language will be ignored.

  Alistair sighed, dramatically.

  “Fine. Be like that.”

  He cleared his throat and said, more clearly, “Buddy, run forward. Go.”

  The hound moved.

  At speed.

  Wrong direction.

  “Wait, no...!”

  The beast bolted away from the others, straight into the smoking wreckage of a crushed glade. Trees, if you could call them trees anymore, blurred past. The wind slapped Alistair’s face like a vindictive god.

  He clung to the monster’s mane, swearing.

  “Okay! Okay! I get it! I’ll be more specific!”

  He reeled himself forward and shouted again, “Buddy! Turn left! Toward the others! Fast, but don’t kill anything that smells like me!”

  The beast pivoted so hard it nearly launched him off its back.

  “Good boy!” Alistair wheezed, still grinning. “I take back some of what I said about you being a lava-flavored demon horse.”

  The ride smoothed slightly. Buddy tore through the scorched forest like a living comet, leaving behind singed footprints and trails of smoke.

  Alistair held on, eyes narrowed against the ashwind.

  It hit him then, just how far he’d gone.

  He’d been surrounded by a divine barrier. Protected. Safe.

  And he’d willingly deactivated it to sprint through waves of monstrous beasts just to chase down this one hellhound. Just to leash the wildest thing in the Cleansing and call it his.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, “that tracks.”

  He felt it before he heard it.

  The earth lurched.

  Not a tremor.

  A heave.

  Buddy stumbled, paws skidding across the fractured dirt. Alistair tightened his legs around the beast’s sides as the ground split open in a wide crack behind them.

  Fissures burst across the blackened field. Smoke poured from the gaps. The air pressure changed, sharper, heavier, charged like a storm trying to claw out of the earth.

  A sound rolled over the horizon.

  Not thunder.

  Not a roar.

  A rumble. Like something massive had just started running.

  Alistair didn’t need a notification to know what was happening.

  “The last wave,” he whispered.

  And then, louder: “Buddy! Pick up the pace! And this time, let’s try not to die, yeah?”

  The hellhound roared and ran.

  The rumble became a quake.

  The quake became a shudder in the marrow of the world.

  Alistair watched fissures split open like veins across the earth, smoke venting from them in hissing bursts. The forest, what was left of it, groaned as the last of the trees snapped like bones.

  Then they came.

  Not a horde. Not a swarm.

  Just six.

  But each one was the size of a fortress.

  A bull with armor made of granite plates, tusks churning molten earth with every step.

  A limbed serpent the width of a barn, slithering on clawed paws, its flesh glowing from within like stained glass filled with magma.

  A bear that walked upright, spine broken and twisted backward, obsidian eyes hollow and gleaming.

  And more.

  Alistair’s stomach turned. “That’s… not a normal problem.”

  Buddy growled beneath him. The sound vibrated through his hips, up his spine, until his teeth rattled. The hellhound’s stance shifted—low, braced, eager.

  "Yeah," Alistair said. "Go on. Get ‘em. I mean... ATTACK!"

  [Verbal Command: Engage Nearest Hostile]

  The hellhound leapt.

  Alistair didn't.

  The sheer force of acceleration blasted him straight off Buddy’s back.

  "OH SHI...!"

  He hit the dirt hard, bounced once, and rolled to a gasping stop behind a broken root.

  [HP: 33 / 190]

  [Fracture Avoided – Constitution Check Passed]

  [Status: Stunned (1 sec)]

  He blinked, coughed up soot, and wheezed, “Good talk.”

  Across the field, Buddy slammed into the granite bull like a meteor. Fire erupted. Claws tore through armor. The bull screamed, a sound like falling mountains and swung its head in retaliation.

  Buddy took the hit square in the ribs and kept going.

  [Hellhound Passive – Alpha’s Will Activated]

  Nearby Beasts: Will Check Failed

  One creature has submitted.

  Alistair forced himself up, ribs groaning.

  A new monster lumbered toward him, a quadruped with teeth on its shoulders and a tail like a wrecking ball.

  “Alright, my turn.”

  He inhaled deep, channeling everything left in him.

  [Light Breath – Activated]

  Motes of white light blasted from his mouth, catching the beast full in the chest. It staggered, smoking, but looked otherwise unharmed.

  He sprinted to the side, barely avoiding a tail swing that shattered a tree trunk into splinters.

  [MP: 3 / 132]

  [SP: 29 / 172]

  He ducked behind a rock then spun and cast again.

  [Summon Chittering Bats – Activated]

  The air erupted in shrieks and wings. A swarm of black fury descended on the creature’s face. It screamed and stumbled, claws flailing.

  But Alistair was panting now. Slow. Dizzy.

  One good hit and he was done.

  And the others were too far.

  He looked up.

  Buddy was still fighting, clamped onto the serpent’s side, flames licking through its ribs. The serpent shrieked and rolled, smashing into the shattered terrain.

  "Godsdamn badass," Alistair muttered, then winced. “But not helpful.”

  He raised a hand and shouted with everything he had:

  “BUDDY! DEFEND ME!”

  [Verbal Command – Priority Override Issued]

  Target: Soulbinder

  Status: Threatened

  The hellhound stopped mid-attack, turned, and roared.

  Then it ran.

  Ember-laced paws tore across the clearing. The burning wreckage blurred behind it. The monster charging Alistair turned too late.

  Buddy slammed into it, fangs flashing.

  [Companion Ability – Blazefang Activated]

  The hellhound’s jaws ignited. It tore into the beast’s side, fire cascading down its body. The creature shrieked and flailed as flames ignited along its back.

  Alistair dropped to one knee, chest heaving, heart hammering.

  Smoke swirled around them. Distantly, the world still shook.

  But in that moment, watching the infernal monster he'd leashed turn into his flaming, snarling, overgrown savior...

  He grinned.

  “Who's a good boy?” he whispered.

  The hellhound didn't answer.

  But it did rip off the monster’s leg and toss it aside like trash.

  Close enough.

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