The twelve hours of incubation were twelve hours of anxious, teeth-grinding torture. Jonah couldn't focus. He tried to read, but the words blurred together. He tried to stay focused on the new plants in his Vivarium, but that furious, glowing cocoon in his Beast Space wouldn't leave his mind. It felt like waiting for a bomb to go off.
He was inside one of the Academy's reinforced training rooms – small, private, and secured by Seraph – when it all began.
His other creations broke gently. This one exploded apart. He felt it in his mind like a clap of thunder. The crimson cocoon exploded, unleashing a tidal wave of raw, violent energy that slammed into his consciousness.
In the void of his mental workshop, the new creature emerged.
And it was a monster.
It had the basic, two-legged shape of Rook, but it was a twisted, nightmarish version. It was huge, easily seven feet tall, and swollen with thick, corded muscle. Rook's stone-gray feathers were gone, replaced by thick, overlapping plates of dark, rock-like hide that looked as tough as a mountain. Its hands ended in thick, brutal talons, and its beak had been warped into a vicious snout, with two massive, yellowed tusks jutting out from the sides. Its eyes were not the intelligent, curious black of his other Progeny. They were two raging pools of molten crimson, burning with pure, unending rage.
The information flooded Jonah's mind, but it was almost drowned out by a deafening psychic roar.
`[Progeny Evolved: Rage-Hide Brute (Grade 3)]`
`[Skills: Tusken Gore, Stone-Hide Plating (Passive)]`
`[SYNERGY SKILL UNLOCKED: Unstoppable Fury (Passive)]`
He tried to parse the new skills. Tusken Gore, a powerful charging attack. Stone-Hide Plating, an incredibly tough natural armor. And the synergy skill… Unstoppable Fury: As the Progeny's health decreases, its physical power and aggression increase exponentially.
It was a perfect berserker. It was exactly what he had wanted. A living, breathing fist of a creature.
But there was a problem. A big one.
He reached out to it telepathically, trying to establish the calm, master-and-servant link he shared with his other creations. Be calm, he sent.
What he got back was not obedience. It was a hurricane of rage. An endless, psychic scream of pure, animalistic aggression. There was no curiosity, no loyalty. Just a burning desire to smash, to tear, to destroy. The Boar's essence hadn't just given the creature its strength; it had given it its soul.
Jonah grit his teeth. Creating this thing was one thing. Controlling it was going to be another. There was only one way to know for sure.
"Okay, big guy," he muttered to the empty room. "Let's see what you've got."
He took a deep breath and summoned his new creation into the real world.
The air in the training room crackled. The Rage-Hide Brute slammed into reality with a thunderous thud, shaking the ground beneath them. It was even more terrifying in person. It looked over him, its massive form casting a dark shadow across the floor. It let out a guttural roar, a sound that was half screech and half enraged squeal, and the entire stone room vibrated.
For a moment, it just stood there, its red eyes scanning the room, its chest heaving. It looked at a thick, wooden training dummy in the corner. Then, without a single command from Jonah, it charged.
It was impossibly fast for its size. It crossed the room in a blur of motion and slammed into the training dummy with its shoulder. There was a sound like a tree trunk snapping in half. The dummy, which was designed to withstand blows from advanced Warrior-class students, didn't just break. It exploded into a shower of splinters and sawdust.
The Brute roared again, turning its furious gaze on the stone walls, ready to smash something else.
Panic flared in Jonah's chest. This was bad, and things were getting out of control.
STOP! he screamed in his mind, pouring all of his mental into the command. He pushed with a psychic strength he didn't know he had, trying to wrestle the beast's fury into submission.
The Brute froze mid-rampage, its massive head twitching. It let out a low, frustrated growl. The psychic roar in Jonah's head lessened slightly, but it was still there, a constant, simmering rage threatening to boil over. He felt like he was holding back a flood with a piece of plywood. He could force it to obey, but it took an immense, constant effort. The moment he let his focus slip, it would go on a rampage.
He had succeeded. He had created the perfect weapon. But it was a weapon with its own mind, and that mind wanted only one thing: violence. It was a wild, untamed storm of power that he had to constantly fight to contain. This wasn't a partnership like he had with Nyx, or a simple command like with Shard. This was a battle of wills, a struggle for dominance that would happen every single second it was summoned.
Jonah let out a shaky breath, his forehead slick with sweat from the mental exertion. He stared at the monster he had made, at the raw power and the untamable fury contained within its stone-like hide. It was his greatest creation. It was his biggest mistake. It was the key to facing people like Draven, and it was the most dangerous thing he had ever encountered.
He needed a name for it. Not a pet name, like Rook, or a cool name, like Nyx. He needed a name that fit its purpose. A name that was simple, brutal, and honest.
You will be Maul, he projected into its raging mind.
The creature's growl was low and rough – like it was obeying, but only because it had to. It was a promise of the violence to come. Jonah had his fist, but he knew, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that the real fight was just beginning. And it wasn't a fight against Draven. It was a fight against the very beast he had so carefully and foolishly created.