Chapter 6

“Marvelous,” he said to himself.

He watched as the creatures that had spawned from him grabbed humans captured off the street and chomped their flesh and bones with their wide jaws. After swallowing whole chunks from the victims, they then regurgitated it into a bloody paste similar to clay. The malleable material made of skin, bone and blood was very good for acting as a mushy substance that hardened the more one squeezed and pressed it.

Nathan had eaten nearly half the entire town. Hundreds of thousands had been digested in his stomach before he spat out more of his new species. And for every one human he ate he spat out two to three new monstrosities. Nathan had been careful to issue the command to be both obedient to him and serve his desires above all else, lest something that happened with Iris transpire again.

The creatures that ranged from multi-limbed monstrosities to angelic looking women with fair skin to winged creatures with thick leather covering from head to toe then molded that paste to form the structure Nathan had instructed them to make. He was proud of the weird mutants he had formed from regurgitated humans he feasted upon. Nathan was careful to make a menagerie of creatures but made sure they all had strong jaws on which to chew human bodies before turning it into mush.

With every passing glance he made at the tower and the creatures he fell more in love with himself. He was proud he had made them in the same way a sculpture artist would admire the craft of their hands. It made Nathan proud of himself in a way he knew he never could have attained as a normal human.

I suppose it’s the highest compliment to oneself…He thought. To be proud of your creations to have taken a life of their own. Beautiful. I am truly the most amazing being that the work of my hands has the work of their own hands…I truly am the greatest creature on Earth.

And what a work it was. The tower had reached far beyond the scope of any building in the surrounding city. Nathan could not help but admire it.

It was almost marble in appearance, colored by human flesh that looked light brown in color but also mixed with red blood and white bone. So the tower looked like a swirl of coffee, scarlet red and pale white but as smooth as a newborn's skin. Whenever Nathan felt it he could feel unblemished, featureless perfection. It was almost sensual in how it electrified his tactile senses with wondrous affection.

The tower was already ten times taller than the building in the city with the greatest length and nearly twice as wide as the widest. It rose up into the air so far he could not see the end of it, dwarfing all other surroundings. There were triangular entrances to rooms beyond counting that filled the outer surface. The creatures either crawled up the tower by scaling the flat surface, entered the rooms at the base of the tower to ascend the stairs within or flew there on leathery, bat-like wings.

After applying pressure they could mold the mixture of human flesh, blood and bone to fill in the gaps of the tower or build on top of it. Any blemishes or empty cavities in the surface or interior of the grand structure were quickly filled or made to conform with the rest of the building. Those with wings quickly took to filling more layers on the very top, adding to the already impressive creation.

Excellent. He thought. Excellent, excellent! I-I’m brilliant! I am truly the greatest living creature alive!

A manic smile broke out on Nathan’s face. He could not suppress his joy and pride anymore than a hammer to the knee could keep him from screaming in pain. It was so overwhelming that he had the capabilities of doing such. Nathan began relishing in his own accomplishment.

I am different from all other men. He thought. Different…different and better. Different…different and superior. I have ascended. Somehow…somehow I have soared above all other men. All others are dust beneath me. Is this…is this what it feels like to be a king?

He chuckled.

“There is no king like me,” he laughed. “A king is beholden to his subjects. And I have soared past any who could subject me. That is why I built this tower…to…to…to make myself a king…?”

But then a question was raised to himself.

But why? He thought. Why did I set out to construct this in the first place?

For that, he had no answer. Or at least, no solid answer. Nathan associated a structure larger than any other made by his new species to be a way of supplanting his new reign as king over all other governments. However, why a tower of all things rather than just invaded and conquering other peoples was odd to him. Most other nations did that when they wanted to become great.

Why a tower specifically? He thought. Is it…is it a leftover from before I arose from the dead.

Nathan became a little cross with himself. He began trying to recall why he wanted to make this tower in the first place. He harkened back to the inception of the idea. But nothing came to him.

He had grown so mad and drunk with power at the idea of murdering people and then spitting out better ones that were more in line with his idea of a perfect being. He had no conscious reason for doing it anymore than a predator consciously decides to stalk prey. Nathan just did it because it felt natural. Because the idea of forming his own race made him feel especially powerful.

But the tower idea now felt so strange. It was so specific and unrelated to his ability to create new creatures from old that it felt…tacked on? Like…a dream or wish that he once had but had forgotten about, only now arising.

Did I have it in my old life as a normal human? Nathan thought. And only now I’m remembering it? Could that be the case.

As the creatures continued to build, Nathan drew his mental attention more and more onto the source of his desire to construct this monstrous building. He had no recollection of it being in his mind when he first awoke inside the container he now knew to be called a coffin. It did not even show up when he first learned he could feast upon humans. The desire arose within Nathan between now and some time when he discovered he could create new creatures. And upon careful inspection, he discovered the source of the urge.

It was an…He thought. Order?

It was so strange to acknowledge that odd, almost sad truth. No one gave Nathan orders. He was the one to give orders. He was the king.

There’s no one who gave me orders. Nathan thought. I’m…I’m totally independent of all influences.

His eyes widened in reality.

Aren’t I? He thought.

He began recognizing that he had been given life by a source outside of himself. Nathan remembered that he did not dig the hole that led him out of the grave. He did not even make the cavity in his coffin. In fact…Nathan didn’t even have the drive or desire to climb out of the coffin. It was more like something inside him was driving it.

No…He thought. There was no one…no one brought me back…I brought myself back! I hungered and ate before becoming the creature I was. No one told me to do it! I just acted.

But that wasn’t true. He knew it. At least, it didn’t feel true. Not entirely. Nathan could remember a certain…a certain something issued him to devour humans and make his new species. He didn’t recall what that thing was but…but he could actually remember but it was so fogged over he could only vaguely recall it. What had caused him to create his own race?

A voice. Nathan said. Whispering in the darkness. Silently speaking to me in a tone as smooth as water. As wise as a…a serpent?

Nathan could not in reality remember the source of the voice. It was so foggy. It was covered in shadow. It felt as if the source had crawled out of the darkness to reveal its true form, only to slither back into the recesses of his mind or the shadows. Nathan was not even sure if the source of this command was his own subconscious giving him orders from the depths of his heart to convey his truest desires…or a tempter of the night and come along to plant the idea in his mind. And the closer he looked…the more he found evidence it gave him the desire to build this tower.

Then which is it?! He screamed inside his own mind. Whose will am I doing?! My own or the desires of another man!

He curled his hands tightly into fist, wishing to snap someone’s bone in half in anger. The snakes sprouting from his body hissed in defiance at the idea of trickery. There was a feeling of hurt pride in Nathan’s mind.

I did this on my own! He shouted at himself. On my own! For myself! And no one else! I was the one who resurrected myself! No one assisted me! Through my own sheer willpower I climbed the border between life and death and conquered! No one has ever done what I have merely because they are not as great as me.

He looked up at the stars above him and glared.

“Do you hear me, oh heavens?!” Nathan shouted at the top of his voice. “I am my own master! My own creator! I created myself and knit the sinews of my own skin! The clay that fashioned my body is the work of my own hands! And no more!”

His entire body lurched forward and hissed with his fangs, his eyes never leaving the star.

“You hear me?!” Nathan shouted. “I created myself in my second birth! Therefore I am subservient to no one except myself since I owe no one any life debt! I owe it to the greatness of myself to build a monument in my honor! A monument that shall stand forever and dwarf the mud pies humans make for themselves!”

He roared like a tiger's growl mixed with the hissing of a serpent.

“Do you hear me?!” He shouted. “Do you hear me?! I am my own creator!”

“Master,” someone said.

He turned to find that behind him was one of his subjects. He looked similar to that of a centaur with the lower half of his body quadrupedal, like a horse, with round, black hooves and even darker black fur. However, his upper body was not a man’s torso but a face as wide and tall as a man’s chest.

The red face had a yellow mustache devoid of arms but a wide mouth with teeth the size of human hands. The smile was somewhat unnervingly shaped into that of a permanent frown. Nathan had named him Frowner as he had been imbued with Nathan’s frustration of not yet completing his tower.

“Our tower is being built at an unprecedented rate,” he said. “It has already surpassed the entirety of the city’s buildings.”

“Excellent,” he said.

“But we found something…” Frowner said. “A bit odd.”

Nathan narrowed his eyes.

“Odd?” he asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Apparently…apparently the tower has reached a place in the sky where it…it now has reached into another world. It is tall enough to have reached a new plane of existence.”

When he said that, Nathan felt a bit of familiarity arise within him, as if he knew what Frowner spoke of before he said. He considered it, finding a small sense of pain poke him along with a foggy memory of screams of torture. For a reason he couldn’t quite discern, it gave Nathan a bit of optimism. However, he was still unconvinced.

“Frowner,” Nathan said. “That is impossible. You can make any structure as tall as you want and it cannot enter into another plane. The humans have built airplanes that soared the skies and skyscrapers that stand as mountains. A building’s height is not able to enter a new dimension.”

“No my lord!” Frowner said. “There is no mistake about it! We have entered a new world! A world that the humans before us could not hope to enter!”

“And how?” Nathan asked. “How could the length of an object enter a new realm by mere height?”

“The principle of life for life,” a crisp, cool voice said. “Destruction for rebirth.”

Nathan looked around, to find nothing. He whirled around only to see out of the corner of his something quickly retreat back into the shadows. He turned to face that portion of the street only to see out of the corner of his eye something slither back out.

“This building is no ordinary tower, made from such common elements as stone and brick,” the being that slithered out said. “It is made of death itself. Constructed purely from the demise of human beings. Such a creation has the power to pierce the boundary between the Heavens and Earth itself known as death. Wherever sacrifice of the living is made, a rend between the world of the living and the dead, the mortal and the supernatural, is sure to follow.”

The being shrouded in shadow quickly retreated back into the darkness to disappear. As soon as he did, Nathan almost forgot he was there to begin with. With the being that seemed to slither away, he was not sure where the answer had come from. However, Nathan now seemed to know that the tower being constructed from dead humans had pierced the realm of the living and the dead.

It had gone past the boundary between mortal and immortal planes that separated normal humans from the supernatural. No other structure could have done that. Nathan shook his head in confusion before feeling a surge of optimism and satisfaction reach him.

“Another world?” Nathan asked. “Wh-What do you mean?”

“The top of the tower has transcended a certain…” Frowner said. “Boundary it was never meant to reach…or was meant to reach all along. It has grown so tall it has reached the very heavens and a world that separates Earth from the stars above.”

New world? He thought. That separates the heavens…from the Earth? Stars…

A vague memory filled his head as though what Frowner said was jogging his memory.

“Tell me of this new world,” Nathan said. “Does…does it have a beach of flesh…with a river of blood?”

“Yes!” Frowner shouted. “How did you know?”

Because I’ve been there before. He thought. When I was dead. I swam in a vast ocean of crimson, boiling in pain, each wrong deed I committed stabbing my fragile and vulnerable flesh. Others screamed in misery as they too suffered for their horrible deeds.

The memory brought up horrible realizations Nathan had never thought before in his life.

Every person who has existed has done something wrong. He thought. Something they knew they were not supposed to do, hurting their conscience. And it is only justified in our minds that they are punished for their evil. But we ourselves do not want to be punished. We only want others to be indicted for their crimes against their fellow men while escaping judgment as an anomaly. It is the primary instinct of human beings to escape punishment while punishing others.

His body tensed and constrained against itself with the memory of fear.

And is a truth that pressed down on me to the point of suffocation when I was dead. Nathan thought. I finally realized I was no better than anyone else and deserved my pain just as they did.

“I am wise,” he lied. “And know all the secrets of the universe. That is how I knew.”

“So do you wish to stand atop the tower so as to reach the heavens?” Frowner asked. “To supplant yourself as ruler of all creation?”

“What?” Nathan asked.

“My lord,” Frowner said. “Do you not wish to stand atop it? To enter into the new world? Isn’t that what you created us for?”

“Wh-Why-” Nathan said. “Yes. Yes I would. It is in fact what I made you for. How did you know?”

“Because, my lord,” Frowner said. “I just know. You set out to prove your greatness and wish to stand atop it, not only to dwarf all other peoples and rulers, but to ascend to new heights. I have always known that, sire. You set out to complete a tower for your honor’s sake and I merely am an extension of that desire.”

“Hmm,” Nathan thought. “Yes. I suppose beings carry the will of their creators.”

And then it hit him. That was where the desire for the tower had come from. Nathan had inherited the will of the being who had created him in his present state.

But which being brought me into this world? He thought. Whose will did I inherit?! If I only inherited my own will because I created myself…then why do I have the desire to eat humans and create this monument, something I don’t have any recollection of wishing in my previous life?

“Come my lord!” Frowner said. “There is no time to waste! You must ascend the tower immediately!”

Nathan nodded and followed Frowner to the tower. As he raced forward, he recognized there was an urgency in Frowner’s tone. An urgency that Nathan also shared.

He held the urgency for the same reason he wanted to build the tower. A reason Nathan couldn’t remember. The reason existed in his mind, he knew that much, but he could not for the life of him clear the fog that clouded the memory of such a wish.

I am my own person. Nathan assured himself. Aren’t I? I create my own desires…just as I did in my own life as a human. Did I not?

That, again, was a question he could not answer plainly. He had always strived for status. Nathan wanted to be strong and wanted others to know he was. He wanted to be looked up to and respected. He wanted to be remembered in his life as someone great and powerful, which was not so different from how Nathan was now. But why he wanted to be great was beyond him. He had no reason to describe the reason for his desire for power and flexing of his pride. He just did.

So I’m the same as when I was a human. He thought. Merely going off of instinct for my purpose in this world. Like an animal.

But just as he could dive further into introspection, two of his winged creations greeted him as they crawled forward. They stood in front of the tower Frowner had led him to. Their dark red, scaled bodies were like that of lizards with bodies as flat house floors and as wide across as a grown man in perfectly square shapes.

Their heads were perfectly round save a snout as cylindrical as an empty roll of toilet paper from which forked tongues slithered out. Teeth could be seen moving within those snouts as they had retractable jaws as big as an alligator that could fit through. Their six legs and circular heads that grew from the sides of their flat square made them look less like animals and more like decoration. Their wings sprouting from their backs made from what looked to be brown leather flapped expectantly.

“Ride us, master,” Eb, the one to the left said. “We are at your service.”

The two creatures folded their wings into an odd shape. The appendages became liquid flesh for a moment, like how the tower was constructed, before forming a chair he could sit in. With their wings hinged together in an odd fashion, the sides of their flat bodies glued together. Now they had hooked themselves to each other.

“Yes,” Flow, the other said. “We are your dominion as you have created us for such a role. Honor us by allowing the two of us to carry you to your rightful throne.”

Nathan remembered that he had created them specifically to give him an airborne throne. He did not want to have to dirty himself with climbing or walking when his servants could do that for him. Nathan pictured in his mind the most royal and self-aggrandizing way to do so. Flying on the backs of subordinates was the ultimate way to assert dominance over his realm.

Of course, they inherited my will to prop up myself. He thought. Just as I inherited the will of the one who–NO!

He grit his teeth in defiance at the thought.

I rose myself from my own grave! Nathan shouted. And no one else did so! My own willpower did it! That’s how great I am!

He then walked over and plopped himself in the chair the two creatures had fashioned for him. Their two free wings flapped with intense speed before ascending upward. Nathan gritted his teeth, glared on up and forced himself to smile.

I am the king of this world and all other worlds! He thought. My will is my own! I am my own creature and no other influence governs me!

With the surge of wind the flying creatures beneath him were kicking up, it almost felt like a hurricane beneath Nathan. He looked up to see that as he ascended he could see the top of the tower was obscured by something. When he looked up at it from the ground, Nathan could only see the dark filled sky.

Now that he climbed in altitude, there was something different surrounding the zenith of the tower’s height. A sea of dark red clouds swirled around the top of the tower. Many of his creatures that were scaling the large tower by quickly climbing up it disappeared into the dark red mist.

The crimson hue looked blood red and somehow familiar to Nathan as it grew closer and closer. Finally, the winged creatures flew into the dark red mist with all of Nathan’s sight being obscured in crimson. He whirled in every direction before they ascended out of the dark red clouds. Then Nathan was reminded of death once he saw the beach of flesh.

The tower’s head protruded out of the sea of blood in the middle of its flowing current. There was no more red mist, as it had been replaced with crimson liquid. Nathan figured the bloody mist must be beneath the sea of blood.

He not only figured that but imagined that any pilot that flew over this area had never seen this. It was not just a certain altitude one had to reach to see the realm of death, but a certain material that must be used to construct it. How fortunate he was to see what no other living man probably did. As he sat on his throne of flesh, he watched as the tides pushed blood on the beach of human flesh. The skeletal remains of humans littered it, just as he remembered, as were the figures of miserable humans swimming in their misery.

But there was another structure as well. One that Nathan had such a faint memory of he almost forgot it. The long, snow white road in the middle of the river that the dreadfully oppressed humans climbed onto. They walked down the white trail, some falling back into the blood sea to be washed up as skeletons, while others made it to the end of that path. The more they walked down the white path, the more their bodies shone like stars.

That path was to the stars themselves. The straight, narrow white line that was perfectly unstained by the tides of blood reached to the end of the horizon. And there something impossible happened.

The horizon met with that straight, white path. As in, the thin white line intersected perfectly with the thin of the black, starry sky. And those walking along it were climbing into the blackness of the sky.

Nathan was confused at first, thinking it was an illusion. The horizon as humans saw it was just a trick of the eyes. Under human perception, the hillside of the ground would meet the sky above to create a falsity they met. An optical illusion like that could not even fool a child, as evidenced by the fact that no matter how hard one chased after the horizon, they could never reach it. It was as impossible to grasp as catching light in one’s hand.

But it was happening nonetheless. The humans that had crawled from the sea of blood were now managing to transplant themselves into the night sky. Once they reached a certain point in the horizon, the sky seemed to be like nothing more than a black canvas dotted with shining yellow and white stars. They would dive into it as though jumping into tar.

However, rather than becoming trapped and in misery, their bodies would light up with a vibrant yellowish-white glow. The illumination cast from their forms would magnify by ten times until they were like miniature stars. Nathan was impressed as it was obvious the light that emanated from them was the joy radiating from their spirits. Walking the white path had not only allowed many to escape the misery of the blood sea but also gave them an intense jubilation that manifested in the form of physical light.

And above him was the full moon itself. Its brilliant, silver light bathed the entirety of this place in a wonderful luminescence. And for some reason he could feel the moon look down on them and judging them as dangerous.

This place…He thought. It is the realm of the dead. It is death itself! I was on my way to defeating death by creating a structure so tall it would ascend the mortal plane. But…but someone has beaten me to it!

He glared at the white road below him. The winged creatures he soared on flew him to the circular top of the tower. Many of Nathan’s creations were still adding onto the roof of the tower, undeterred as they continued to mold human flesh into solid shape. His winged servants landed him onto a half-finished, flat surface that looked like a crescent moon upheld by nearly completed stairs and poles. Nathan looked down at the creatures directly underneath him working to once again take pride in his new species.

How great you all are. He thought. Superior to humans as evidenced by your ability to not only butcher them like cattle but used their very beings to form something unprecedented.

He then turned to look up at the stars in the sky and glared.

As reflections of me, you are greater than them. Nathan thought. So much greater. I have ascended the mortal plane with my own two hands…

He then looked down to the figures squirming inside the sea of blood.

And you are all superior to them as well. He thought. Who can compete with my brilliance? Not any of you, for certain.

He then turned back to the stars.

What must I do now? Nathan thought. What must I do to assert my dominion over this creation? I have ascended such heights…should I…should I continue building…or is there any place left to continue adding onto?

“You must fight the stars themselves,” a voice said.

Nathan looked down to find a black serpent staring up at him. It’s head stared up at him, the eyes a strangely beautiful yellow. It was so long that its entire body wrapped around the entire circumference of the tower. Nathan could not even see all of its body since it was so long, some was hidden amongst the sea of blood red below.

“To claim your victory,” he said. “And establish yourself as the true king of all creation…you must defeat the stars that guard the heavens.”

Nathan leered at him quaintly before looking up at the stars. He saw within them human figures that emanated with a huge brightness no other light source could. Nathan was not even sure of the sentience of the stars, unsure if they could decide anything, whether they could fight or surrender.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“You want to be king of the heavens, do you not?” the snake asked. “Go…challenge those stars. Claim your prize.”

He then looked down at his soldiers building through the half-finished tower.

“And what of my tower?” Nathan asked. “If my soldiers die fighting, they cannot build my tower. Should I call them off adding more layers to the tower?”

“No!” the serpent said. “If you do…you shall not ascend to the highest level of the heavens!”

“And where would that be?” Nathan asked.

“The place where the grand star resides!” the serpent said. “That is where the one who resides who separated the heavens from the earth!”

“Really?” Nathan asked. “Is that correct?”

“Most certainly!” the serpent answered. “He saw humans had grown too powerful and they challenged his rule as a result! Now you must do as your ancestors did and challenge him in order to regain what humanity has lost!”

“What humanity has lost?” Nathan asked. “But I am not fighting for humanity. I am fighting for myself.”

“Yes and you will never ascend to the heights of heaven unless you first challenge the grand star,” the serpent said. “Do your best and conquer him. Then…then you shall know true satisfaction. But first…you must defeat the stars he has placed in the sky. They are his guardians and will challenge you if you make your tower any taller.”

The serpent then slithered back into the blood sea, slithering in reverse down the circumference of the tower. After disappearing into the dark red liquid, Nathan forgot who he was talking to. He had the memory of talking to someone but he did not know who it was. The most he remembered was that he now just had to challenge the stars above him.

Yes. Nathan thought. They will interfere in my plans to conquer all of existence. The stars…

He looked closely at them, seeing a certain odd movement waver in their emanation of light.

I can see they grow restless. Nathan thought. As if they are readied to descend.

He looked up at them, feeling the defiance grow in him as he stared up.

They grow anxious at my presence. Nathan thought. I cannot hold back any longer.

He then looked down at the creatures he had spawned and loosened his mouth to shout.

“Hey!” Nathan screamed. “I need half of you up here!”

He let his voice carry downward and travel through the tower, the reverberations of his mighty voice causing the structure to shake.

“Any of you not immediately working get up here and fight these stars!” Nathan said. “They are an impediment to my work! Fly or scale the building in hordes and attack with all your might! Attack! But for those of you who remain below, whatever you do, do not stop working!”

Silence fell before a huge uproar took place. The crawling creatures scurried up the side of the tower in hordes while so many countless winged creatures soared to the starry sky. At first, Nathan was confused as to how they would fight inanimate objects until the stars themselves descended from their place in the heavens.

It was like watching animals trapped in black tar unglue themselves from the pitch black and jump out from it. When they unhinged from the sky of dark liquid, Nathan could see them more clearly. The shining light brimming from them so completely covered their forms their bodies were mere outlines in the sheer white flame of their emanation.

The first clash happened in midair between Nathan’s winged creatures using their claws, talons or strong arms to strike back. They drew what appeared to be blood, golden fluid flowing from their gashes and other wounds. However, when the star guardians struck them back, the brilliant light around them burned the creatures. They shrieked in pain before falling downward while the star guardians levitated in midair, panting from the wounds given to them by Nathan’s creations.

The crawling creatures formed the second wave. Those they chose to be Nathan’s soldiers turned some of their limbs into liquid and stretched it into the air above. The liquid then hardened into ladders for their comrades to climb up. The crawling creatures with more than four limbs wrapped their arms, legs, tentacles and other appendages around the star guardians to break or suffocate them. Many of Nathan’s soldiers were burned to cinders from retaliation but many of the star guardians plunged onto the beach of flesh below when their wounds became too much. He smiled at the sight.

I am winning. He thought.

A manic grin spread across his face before one of his creations climbed up to the unfinished roof. He was Tugger, a blue humanoid creature with three arms springing from both shoulders. He had no eyes in his head but had three eyes on each limb and one on his chest. Two wide jaws like that of an alligator grew from the sides of his head. Tugger was carrying a mushy mass of human flesh and saliva he had spit up.

“My master,” Tugger said. “I am glad to inform you we will continue adding layers to this roof. So you may want to find another place to reside.”

“Yes,” Nathan said with a manic joy. “I must. How goes the progress to the tower?”

“Well…” Tugger said. “Considering our workforce has been divided in half…it will take 2 hours to nearly double the length of the tower.”

“Only two hours?” Nathan said. “Splendid. You have my gratitude.”

“Yes,” Tugger said with a nod. “Yes. Thank you.”

“And in the meantime…” Nathan said.

He turned and stared up at the star guardians descending to fight his army.

“I shall protect my tower,” he said. “Eb, Flow, ascend!”

“Yes master!” Flow said.

“Fight proud, master!” Eb shouted.

They pumped their wings and flew into the sky with a force that could kick up tornadoes. Nathan set his sights on a star guardian that descended directly down to the tower, his fist clenched tight as he prepared to strike. Nathan braced himself as he jumped forward to claw at him.