How would you say a hunting dog is so fixated on chasing it's prey it ignores commands from it's trainer? I have a hellhound with a rider. Hellhounds, according to mythology, chase down lost souls. My demonic shadow wraith is a corrupted lost soul. Scene: Shadowwraith pops up in front of a hellhound, surprising it. Hellhound takes off, rider frantically trying to get it to obey commands, but it's too fixated. Context: (Garmr is the name of the hellhound) Liam hauled back on the reins. Garmr, stop! he projected to the big black dog-like beast. He was never sure exactly how much Garmr understood through their mental link, but apparently, this time it was not enough. The hellhound continued to barrel after the demon. Liam mentally reached for his beast’s mind, but only got a vague impression of “chase catch kill!” from him. Liam hauled on the reins again, with no response. “Jaymes, he won’t stop!” he shouted up to his fellow Beast Rider. “Cover me, because we’re going in!” Before the "Cover me, we're going in!" I want Liam to tell Jaymes "It's his bloodlust! I can't get through to him!" or something along those lines. I'm just not sure if bloodlust is the right word in this situation?
Another word that came to my mind was bloodthirst, but frankly, I feel that both of them should be applied to humans. They both include the desire for violence to me, a hound has no desire for it directly (unless yours does), it has instincts, it wants to feed, etc. Just googled a few articles about teaching hounds. One guy used the words "predatory sequence." That won't exactly fit into your existing sentence, but sounds interesting to me. Also that very instinct I was talking about has a name, the dog trainers call it prey drive. Sounds quite pleasing and unusual. Otherwise I think that in your case you could make up a word yourself. After all your hellhounds don't have to feel the same things as normal hounds do.
If I have it right you want something that communicates elegantly that the creature is so fixated on the scent that he won't give it up even if that's dangerous to him? Bloodlust isn't quite that; to me that's more indiscriminate while your hound is focused on this one specific target. In a human context we'd probably call this tunnel vision, perhaps bull headedness but that doesn't get it either. I think it's better to take a step back and think slightly differently. When a person is loosing sense of their surrounding in a violent context we might call that 'the red mist' which seems closer to what you're looking for. The hound has lost sight of everything except the target, the red mist comes down. But that doesn't quite get it either. If it was me I'd use the expression 'He's got the taste...'. As in, first the hound can get the scent, and then as he gets closer and closer he goes just a little beyond that and he gets the taste of the target, so close that he can taste them on the air (like a snake tastes) and he's slavering at the bit to sink his teeth into someone. It's nicely juicy as a word, and I think communicates what you're trying to get across, that the hound got this tantalizing taste and that leads to this drooling hunger foreshadowing imminent toothy demise. To me it also feels like it would naturally follow for people who knew normal hunting dogs and then saw this kind of turbo-charged behavior in hellhounds. And it's a nice idiom for the rest of the world too, it generalizes out for people who handle the hounds, so your guys might say that someone has the taste for the enemy too, to mean tunnel vision for a specific enemy.
@LostThePlot has given you the best advice in my opinion. You're over-thinking it by looking for clever 'fantasty' type terminology when it's not needed. Just state the facts clearly and simply, and leave the made-up words for when they're most appropriate. If needs be, pick the simplest of words to describe this state of mind, and then consult a thesaurus.
Conventional terminology would be that the dog has the 'scent' of it's prey. That might work with your soul hunting thing, as the demon dog has the scent of the target's soul.
