Astreya

ANYA

A slow, guttural sound, almost thoughtful, rumbled from deep within its chest. Steam curled from its mouth in thick, wet ropes. Its nostrils flared as it turned its head, taking in the two humans standing alone amid shattered pavement and flickering fires.

The ogre moved.

One step. Just one. The pavement fractured beneath its weight. Slabs of concrete buckled, dust curling around its ankles like ash. Its head lowered. Not in confusion. Not in fear. In focus. That slow exhale hadn't been thoughtfulness.

It had been anticipation.

Anya swallowed hard. Her muscles tensed, and her bandaged arm ached. The thing was massive. Easily three meters tall, hunched forward with weighty, brutish grace. Its skin looked like volcanic stone, veined with faint, sickly green light. When it stepped forward, the ground cracked beneath its heel.

That's when Somchai took a half-step forward.

No stance. No flourish. Just a quiet, grounded shift in weight

"Don't run," he murmured.

Anya didn't need to ask why. She felt it too. The pressure. Like a wall of heat bearing down, suffocating the alley. The ogre wasn't mindless. It wanted them to move. To scatter. To make it interesting.

It had hunted before.

"Get to the others," Somchai said quietly, his eyes never leaving the ogre. "Victory Monument. Follow the main road."

Anya's jaw tightened. "What about—"

"Go."

Another step. Another low grunt. The ogre's breath steamed against the night, thick as smoke. Muscles rolled under stone-skin, cords of unnatural mass shifting.

The ogre exhaled.

A thick rope of steam poured from its mouth, curling around its tusks like smoke from a kiln. Its eyes burned dim green. Not dull. Not stupid.

Focused.

Anya could feel it. Its hunger. Not for food. For the fight.

Then it moved.

No warning. No roar.

It charged.

Anya tensed, heart hammering. The thing was fast. Too fast for something that size. It came forward like a battering ram, each step a thunderclap.

Somchai didn't flinch.

Didn't dodge.

He stepped in.

His body dropped low in a blur of motion. One foot planted, the other coiled, then struck. A low, brutal kick angled straight at the ogre's leading knee.

A crack rang out. Not bone. Not yet. But something shifted.

The ogre stumbled. Its charge faltered, weight pitching forward.

Somchai moved again. Lower still.

He angled his body, pivoted on the ball of one foot, and snapped a roundhouse into the ogre's outer thigh, just above the knee.

A wet, meaty sound cracked through the air.

The impact didn't drop it, but it staggered.

The leg jolted inward, awkward under its own weight. Muscles buckled. Not from pain. From mechanical failure. That kick hadn't been meant to hurt.

It was meant to cripple.

Somchai was already moving. Low. Tight. Compact.

The ogre howled. A low, bone-shaking roar. It swung a backfist the size of a car door. Somchai ducked just under it. Concrete sprayed as the blow shattered a chunk of wall behind him.

He came up close, inside the monster's reach now, and slammed an elbow into the same leg. Then a short, vicious upward knee into the groin. Not to drop it, just to break its rhythm.

It worked.

The ogre reeled.

That's when Anya moved.

"Anya!" Somchai shouted, not looking back.

"I'm not leaving!"

And in that instant, he knew she meant it. The steel in her voice cut through the chaos. no fear, no hesitation. Just resolve.

He couldn't stop her. Not with words. Not with force.

So he didn't try.

He just moved.

She was already moving, darting toward a fallen length of metal rebar. It scraped free of the rubble with a metallic scream as she yanked it loose with her good hand. Circling around the ogre, fast and low, angling wide. The rebar dragged behind her like a spear half her size.

Somchai caught the blur in his periphery. Adjusted. Timed his next step with hers.

The ogre swung again, wide and brutal. A horizontal arc meant to sweep them both away.

Somchai vaulted over it, rolled across the monster's back, and dropped behind its wounded leg.

Then struck.

A vicious stomp to the back of the knee. Something snapped.

The leg folded with a crack like a gunshot, and the ogre collapsed with a thunderous, bellowing crash.

"Now!" Somchai shouted.

Anya leapt.

The rebar came down in a savage arc, plunging into the ogre's exposed side just under the ribcage, where the stone-skin cracked around a swollen, glowing vein.

Green light flared.

The ogre screamed.

It thrashed wildly, backhanding Anya mid-turn. She was flung backward, hit the pavement with a gasp, and rolled, coughing.

Somchai didn't hesitate.

He jumped onto the ogre's chest. Slammed both elbows down into its face, then again. And again. Not clean strikes. Just raw, brutal bludgeoning.

The ogre's head jerked with each strike. Its tusks cracked. Green ichor sprayed from its broken nose. The flickering veins across its chest began to pulse faster, brighter.

Then—

A burst of heat.

Somchai felt it. Just beneath him. A low vibration, like something ancient waking beneath the skin. The veins weren't just glowing anymore.

They were burning.

His eyes narrowed, too late.

The ogre roared.

Not in pain. In release.

Green fire erupted from its mouth, an unfocused, blinding geyser of flame. The breath scorched the night sky, igniting a row of shattered cars like matchsticks.

Somchai jumped back as the flame shot straight up. The heat still licked across his chest and cheek, blistering skin in an instant. He hit the ground and rolled, shoulder-first, smothering the sparks clinging to his skin and hair before they could ignite.

Anya coughed through the smoke, trying to rise. Her arm shook. The rebar was gone, snapped off inside the ogre's body. A line of glowing blood oozed from the wound like molten wax.

It clawed at the ground and pushed up.

Its leg barely worked. Bent and crooked beneath its weight. But it didn't seem to care. The broken joint popped. Bone twisted into new alignment. Sinew writhed beneath its skin like something alive.

Somchai gritted his teeth. "It's regenerating," he spat.

The ogre lurched forward.

Its gait was wrong, hobbled, lopsided. But each step still shook the earth. Its breath came in short, rapid bursts now. Green fire leaked from its tusks with each exhale. The glow beneath its skin brightened. Lines of pulsing light formed crude sigils along its arms and chest.

Anya wiped soot from her lips. Her mouth tasted like copper and smoke. "Okay," she muttered. "Big guy's got fire blood now. That's fine. That's normal."

Somchai didn't answer. His eyes tracked the veins of fire crawling across the ogre's chest. Like glowing leeches pulsing with too much life. Whatever that power was, it wasn't natural. It wasn't just strength. It was something else. Something wrong.

The creature heaved in a broken breath. Then exhaled another gust of green heat. Not a full blast. Just pressure. A flex. A warning.

The ogre roared and charged again. Lumbering. Crooked. But fast.

Somchai met it halfway.

He ducked the first swipe. Spun past the second. Slid under the third, a clumsy hammer-fist that cratered the road in a spray of broken asphalt. He surged up under the ogre's guard and drove both knees into its midsection. It was like striking a furnace. Heat radiated off the creature's body, blistering the air between them.

Somchai recoiled, grimacing. Even without contact, it felt like standing too close to a bonfire.

The ogre didn't stop. It pivoted, not wild this time, but calculated. It had been watching. Learning. 

The realization hit Somchai the same moment the creature's arm did. 

He flew. 

Not far, but far enough. He hit a burnt-out truck and dented the side panel with a grunt. His ribs cracked. Something inside moved wrong. 

The game had changed. The beast wasn't just stronger now, it was smarter.

Anya screamed his name.

It barely registered. The sound came distant. Hollow. Muffled beneath the roar in Somchai's ears and the rising hum of the ogre's blood-fire, now surging in tempo with its heartbeat.

He slid down the side of the truck and caught himself on one knee. His breath hitched. Pain lanced through his ribs like broken glass. But he didn't collapse. Didn't cry out. He looked up.

The ogre loomed above him. Its chest heaving. Trails of flame flickering from its nostrils with each ragged breath.

The low, rhythmic pulsing of green light had stabilized. The sigils on its arms had grown clearer now. Etched like burn-scars across its stone-hide. Geometric and jagged. Ritual marks.

This wasn't just regeneration.

It was a transformation.

The thing had evolved mid-fight. Adapted. Sigils crawled across its skin like they were being written from the inside out. The glow sharpened with each pulse. Its steps grew heavier. More deliberate. Whatever it was becoming, it wasn't finished.

"Somchai!" Anya's voice cut in, closer now, panicked. "Get up!"

Rising wasn't quick. Wasn't smooth. But Somchai managed it. His right side throbbed with every breath. He shifted, checked his stance. Looser now. Lower.

Whatever came next wasn't going to be clean. Dodging everything was off the table.

Not anymore.

This had to end fast.

He'd have to end it fast.

The ogre snarled and charged.

But not straight.

This time it feinted. A low duck to the left. A lurching shift. Then a wide sweep with its massive arm. The glowing runes flickered brighter as it moved. It had learned his timing.

Somchai barely avoided the first swing. The second caught him across the thigh. Not a direct hit, but enough to spin him. Stumbling. Catching himself. But the ogre was already pivoting.

A headbutt followed.

Somchai ducked at the last second, but not far enough. The edge of the tusk caught him across the scalp. Blood flew.

He fell to one knee.

The ogre loomed again, closer this time. Towering. Its cracked leg dragged, but it still moved with violent intent. Breath steamed out in hard bursts, and the firelight under its skin pulsed faster, tighter.

The transformation was accelerating.

Forcing himself upright, one hand pressed to his bleeding scalp, the other loose at his side. He was slowing down. The ogre wasn't.

Anya's voice came again. Strained but clear. "Somchai—move!"

He couldn't. Not yet. He needed one clean opening.

The ogre snarled, then stepped in, raising both fists overhead like sledgehammers. It wasn't subtle. It was an execution.

But the motion was too big.

Somchai rolled.

The twin fists slammed into the ground where he'd knelt a second earlier, splitting the pavement in a spray of shrapnel. A crater opened in the street. Rubble launched upward in a wave of dust and sparks.

Somchai came out of the roll low, behind the ogre's right arm. No strike. Not yet. He darted around it, hands brushing rubble, mind calculating angles. Waiting for it to twist and overcommit again.

He wasn't trying to match its strength.

He was trying to break its rhythm.

The ogre pivoted with a roar. Runes glowed like branding irons across its chest. Its mouth steamed with flickers of fire. But Somchai was already moving. Turning its mass against it.

He darted behind the injured leg and kicked inward at the knee. Not hard. Just enough to make the joint bend wrong again. Enough to force it to turn.

The beast snarled. Its mouth snapped open. From deep within, a sudden blast of green flame erupted. Not aimed at Somchai's original position, but in the direction it had been forced to turn.

The scorching breath slammed into the cracked pavement, sending shattered stones and dirt spraying in a fiery wave.

Muscles tensed as the blast swept past. Smoke and sparks swirled in its wake. The air rippled. Heat pressed against his skin like a living thing. He pressed off the rubble-strewn ground, came up low, eyes locked on the beast.

The ogre growled. A deep, rolling sound that vibrated through the cracked concrete beneath them. Its glowing veins pulsed faster now, like a war drum beating in flesh and stone. It steadied, legs bracing. A fresh rush of green fire leaked from its nostrils with each ragged breath.

Ribs screamed with every movement, but Somchai forced the pain down.

This had to end before the creature's transformation finished. Before those jagged sigils finished branding its skin. Before it became something even deadlier. 

The ogre's eyes met his across the smoke and rubble. No longer the dull hunger of a beast. Something else looked back now. 

And it was smiling.

The Ogre

A lumbering brute of unknown origin. Though massive and nearly impervious to unblessed iron, ogres possess no magical ability of their own.

They fight with raw muscle, not intent.

A creature of flesh, not will.

"No spark behind the eyes. Just hunger, heat, and the sound of breaking things."