Everything became a blur of red—spilt blood and soaked claws. Amkai could no longer tell if her vision had turned into rose-colored glasses or if she had turned the whole world into her canvas.

A snarl of pure ferity was followed by a howl after her kill. The scent of blood in the air invigorated her, making her feel stronger than she had seconds ago.

Bullets continued to pelt her meaty, furry sides from the two sub-dragons in front of her. They could not stop her anymore, her new power in full swing like the phase of the moon.

On all fours, she bounded off her previous victim and tackled the next sub-dragon. Her arms came down in a spate, creating a continuous spray of blood. Amkai's front became covered in it, especially her face. Her open mouth rejoiced in the spatters that graced her tongue.

At last! Delicious….

Even while bullets continually embedded into her flesh, she felt stronger from the consumed blood than that she lost. Some sort of bloodlust effect must be helping her regenerate. Amkai bowed her head to feast.

Her jaws snapped apart portions of the neck that had been exposed through a chink in the armor. The bits of flesh lit a fire in her belly while the blood lapped by her tongue served to slack her thirst.

I'm definitely healing, but I've never felt this hungry before in my life!

Another snack stumbled forward and received a swipe from Amkai's claws. She had barely seen the sub-dragon out from the top of her vision. The attack was an involuntary reaction like a kneejerk's response to a little hammer. Her instincts beckoned her to kill without thought or remorse.

In fact, a rush of happiness swarmed her mind. The reptilian screech—music to her ears—was brought to a caesura with a squelch of blood.

The fresh victim distracted her for a moment. She took a large bite out of his tail where armor did not encase him.

Who knew dragon tastes like chicken?

From the corner of her eyes, she noticed the movement of another lizard dash in front of her. The sub-dragon escaped out the door, much to Amkai's ire. An incomprehensible whine curled from her lips as she thought one thing.

No! Amkai needed food, and she wanted to keep it corralled in one location as much as possible. In this case, she had chosen the police station for feeding.

The disobedient victim, she would have to drag back inside. Amkai did not have a second to waste, so she bolted after him on all fours.

Glass shattered as she lunged out of the pretty, useless door. One paw was flung in front of her nose to shield it from the razor shards. Likewise, the metal frame caved beneath her bulging muscle.

In the middle of the open street, the sub-dragon tried to flee. Amkai dove for him, but his reaction came in the knick of time.

The sub-dragon twisted around and flapped his wings inward, carrying him backwards. She went hurtling by him, a near miss to his trunk. The tips of her claws grazed across the tips of his wings as they passed each other by.

Though he had evaded the first attack, Amkai would not let him get lucky next time.

"Ah!" The sub-dragon let out his pathetic attempt at a growl, more like a lizard's gurgling whine. Amkai drowned him out with a true roar and charged.

He dropped the human woman which he had stolen from her. It only amused her more, especially as she tried to run away.

Briefly, Amkai thought she had friends which included a woman like her. Was this person somebody that she knew? Her reddened vision, seemingly blurry and too sharp all at once, did not let her identify anybody.

Similarly, a bad feeling wrenched in her gut surrounding the sub-dragon. She felt as though there was one sub-dragon who she did not want to attack. Impossible to distinguish between the identical guards, she opened her jaws to crush him.

A sharp, fleeting pain struck her nose. Naturally, she reeled back with a yelp. It took some seconds for her to process that she was not actually hurt.

A harmless ball of ice rolled across the ground. Not even a full-on spell, just [Manifest Ice], had stopped a berserker werewolf in her tracks.

Next, the bullets came for her nose and created tears in the sensitive tissue.

Regular bullets can't hurt me, though! Yet each gunshot caused excruciating pain.

Amkai wanted to charge against the stream of fire, but she could endure the pain no longer. A clawed paw stuck up to shield herself, desperate to escape. A howl ripped from her belly as she received the bullets in her palm instead.

There would be easier food for her to obtain elsewhere. Ultimately, she turned heel and ran away.

Amkai huffed hard as she ran on all fours, feeling the blood drip from her nose down to her mouth. Even her own blood tasted good; she felt that she needed more of it.

A colorful street burst into view with a few hovercraft vehicles. Amkai pounced onto the first one and began swiping at the roof.

"Ah!" The screams inside became louder as the metal encasing them was smashed apart.

One of her claws came down on the windshield and smashed it. A different claw landed against the hood. At first, nothing happened. Subsequent strikes caused a high-pitched whining to emit from the engine.

Instinctually, Amkai jumped off the vehicle and ran away. Similarly, her victims got out and tried to flee.

The self-driving car pummeled into the traffic ahead and exploded like a bomb. Many of the other hovercraft vehicles were rendered useless and powered down. As broken hunks of metal clattered across the ground, most people made the choice to jump out and run.

The humans scattered from the pile-up like ants from a kicked nest. Amkai bounded between the specks, naturally attracted to the largest groups of humans over the individuals. She swatted at them, turning them into still carcasses.

Her claws made a gushing sound against their bodies, always followed by a muted thump along the group. Once Amkai had killed as many as possible, she selected her first one to dine on. These cuts of meat were much easier to eat the sub-dragons, not having any armor or scales to get in the way.

Happily gorging herself, Amkai hoped her buffet would never end. In her berserker form, everything passed in a fugue.

Additional courses were delivered too soon. Large airships whirred into the air with a spotlight bearing down on her.

Amkai squinted her eyes as she rumbled out a growl. From the edge of her vision, an unscathed body picked itself up from the ground.

A bold human had thought that he could trick a berserker werewolf by playing dead. Worse yet, the little ploy had worked and that left Amkai thoroughly engaged.

Nobody tricks me!

The man got into an intact hovercraft vehicle faster than she could rush him. Some fire was released from the military airships, but Amkai had already leaped onto the back of the civilian vehicle. Its operator initiated the manual driving mode, and the hovercraft zoomed into the air.

They weaved through the higher lanes of traffic. Amkai crouched down as low as she could, listening to the pings of bullets that missed her. The reinforcements were still trying to fire at her, even in a crowd. The city's lycan shifter containment squad was presumably armed with silver ammunition.

Grateful to this one human man, Amkai appreciated that he madly steered her to safety. The hovercraft vehicle was driven into a high-up level of a parking garage elsewhere in the city. Leaving the vehicle idle, the man jumped out and tried to run. Perhaps he never realized that she had hitched a ride on the back or he really thought that he could outrun her.

Either way, Amkai pounced on him and ended the pathetic struggle of his life. Blood splayed into her vision for the final time. At last, she had an uninterrupted opportunity to feast. Amkai ate through his flesh and crouched through his bones, happy that no one distrubed her.

All these memories ran together until Amkai could hardly differentiate one moment from the next. The lycan shifter remained in the parking garage until the sun rose the next morning. Daylight burned away her berserker form, leaving a human woman unconscious, exhausted, and covered in blood.

That was the state in which she found herself when she awoke.

***

The fog took some long seconds to clear from her mind. Amkai slowly stretched, finding her body stiff and sore. In addition to that, her skin crawled with an itchiness.

"Itchy," she murmured, kicking out a leg and sitting up. "Why am I so itchy?" Naturally, her body turned into partial wolf form so that she could better scratch herself with her claws.

Dried blood flaked away from her skin, and a gasp rushed down her throat. "Blood…!"

Is this mine…? Or somebody else's?

A brief examination of her body let Amkai determine that it was somebody else's blood. No injuries had been sustained across her body. Some flashes of last night came back to her, like blips from a rolling camera.

The protest.

An explosion in the central sector.

Live reports played. Then, the screens went blank as the newcast was censored. It had been exactly the sort of thing that would send environmentalists into a fervid, victorious frenzy.

A bomb had successfully gone off at the Reactor Central.

Naturally, the protest did turn violent. Amkai was caught up in that and treated like any other person lumped in with the eco-terrorists.

She was arrested.

Then, the escape.

"Ha," she laughed sourly. It was not funny at all, but Amkai could not help it. One crusty hand was cast over her eyes. How many different people's blood had she spilt last night?

Still, she did not regret anything. This was why she had not taken her medicine, just in case something would happen.

"I want to go home!" she cried out while staggering to her feet. Somehow, she needed to wash this blood off and figure out where she was. From the looks of it, she had ended up in some parking garage.

Hunkered over, Amkai lurched between the stationary hovercraft vehicles. She only paused briefly to look at her dim reflection in a window. The center of her face hurt most of all. The battered reflection of a woman, scared out of her mind, stared back at her.

Much to her dismay, her nose had turned into a swollen hunk of flesh.

"Ah!" she howled out and whimpered like a pup. "My nose…!" Someone had attacked the most sensitive part of a lycan's body last night.

Her face still ached even though the berserker form of werewolves was said to have some insanely high regeneration rates. The presence of the full moon last night had amplified her ability, even if tons of rock and metal divided them.

Berserker form…. I never knew I could achieve that phase.

Amkai figured that she had needed to be at death's door to unlock it. The last thing she remembered after busting out was the bullets assaulting her body, ripping through her until the wolf ripped out. Everything she did while in that form was lost to her memory.

I guess I blacked out.

That was probably for the best. Amaki shuttered, her imagination running wild to fill in the gaps of last night.

I guess I killed a lot of people.

Two hands patted her belly, a food baby residing there.

I guess I ate a lot of people.

As Amkai wandered through this level of the parking garage, she stumbled across a smear of blood-stained concrete. Only a man's head had been left behind; the facial expression was twisted up in horror. It was a dietary habit of lycan shifters, disliking the skull which they would have to crack through like an egg.

Flighty in the aftermath, she sprinted the other way. "What have I done?"

This was not her pack's territory anymore, but the City of Grandesia. Her identity in the city, Amaya Silver, would have been compromised after last night's ordeal.

"Oh no. What have I done? What have I done?" Amkai tore at her stringy, bloodstained hair as she descended into panic.

She was a grown woman but it was not like she had any sense of responsibility. Amkai was not the alpha. The leader of her pack had decided to move to the city. They had medicine here to reduce the involuntary shifting, so it was possible for them to take advantage of the economic opportunities. The lycan shifters had forged a better life in modernity.

"My family's going to be in danger because of me," Amkai whispered. "Everyone's gonna be in danger because of me."

Knowing that she had to alert the other lycans, she took off running to find a bathroom and get out of here.