The sky tore itself open.

  Not loudly.

  Not violently.

  It was worse than that—

  a quiet rupture, a pressure implosion so deep it made eardrums throb and vision swim before anyone consciously understood what was happening. A wrongness that rolled outward through the air like the world itself had forgotten how to hold its shape.

  Dust spiraled upward in unnatural columns.

  Car windows trembled in their frames.

  Birds across the basin went dead-silent.

  Then light—

  geometry—

  latticework—

  a ripple of pale gold snapping outward like a banner stretched across the morning sky.

  Every fracture overhead pulsed once.

  Then bent.

  Then folded inward.

  And the wound in the sky opened fully.

  A circle of pure darkness—darker than shadow, darker than ink, darker than the absence of light—bloomed over State Line, rimmed in molten-violet arc lines. It was a gate not meant for mortal eyes, not shaped for mortal comprehension. Humans on the street gasped as their vision refused to track its edges properly, the contrast too sharp, too deep, too impossible to belong to their reality.

  Phones lifted.

  Voices trembled.

  Somebody whispered, “What is that…?”

  Somebody else screamed.

  Then the second wave came through.

  They fell like stones kicked into gravity.

  Three naga emerged first—armor gleaming wet, scales rippling in cobalt and deep emerald. They hit the asphalt hard enough to crater it, their long tails coiling and uncoiling in fluid arcs as they reoriented. Spears gripped loosely. Postures relaxed. Eyes predatory. They didn’t land so much as arrive, already confident, already commanding the field.

  Behind them, goblins poured through.

  Six of them—each broad-shouldered, thick-armed, snarling with anticipation. Their boots cracked pavement. Their weapons—axes, jagged blades, reinforced maces—left shallow trails of heat through the air from runic charge as they hit the ground. They immediately fanned out to encircle, herding civilians like panicked cattle.

  Then the Angaria descended.

  Silent.

  Precise.

  Wrong.

  Four of them crawled down the warped streetlight beside the gate like living shadows—eight spiked legs bending with horrifying grace, their low, armored bodies pulsing with faint bioluminescent streaks. Their humanoid torsos rose from the foremost segment, mandibles opening like blades clicking apart.

  State Line erupted into chaos.

  Cars swerved.

  A mother grabbed her child and tripped.

  Two teenagers sprinted into a convenience store and slammed the door.

  A man in a leather jacket froze mid-run, staring at an Angaria with an expression halfway between awe and stroke-inducing fear.

  People screamed because their brains couldn’t do anything else.

  Some ran.

  Some collapsed.

  Some just stared upward, as if the gate might make more sense if they looked long enough.

  It didn’t.

  Inaria didn’t run.

  She stood alone on the cracked pavement, ribs screaming where Akreon’s tail had struck her, dust clinging to her clothing, mouth dry as bone. Two days on scraps and stolen water had hollowed her out, but training ran deeper than exhaustion. Her pulse kicked, sharp and clear.

  These weren’t scouts.

  These weren’t surveyors.

  These were enforcers—

  shock units sent when a realm was meant to be brought under heel quickly.

  The realization punched through her hunger-fog like cold water.

  This was no longer reconnaissance.

  This was invasion.

  Gate stabilization cycles weren’t supposed to escalate this quickly. Malachius should’ve been preparing defensive anchoring protocols, environmental manipulation threads, stabilization braces. Instead he’d…

  He’d lied about her.

  Lied about Celeste.

  Lied about what happened in the Veil.

  And he’d done it fast enough to weaponize the lie before she even reached the ground.

  Her throat tightened, half fury, half grief.

  A goblin spotted her.

  “There! The traitor!” he barked, voice cracking like gravel in a grinder. “Take her!”

  Three others turned at once.

  Inaria forced her shaking body into motion.

  The first goblin came in swinging a runic axe.

  She slipped under it by instinct—her body remembering motions drilled into her long before her stomach forgot what fullness felt like—and flicked her wrist. Her short sword sprang out in a precise line, catching him beneath the arm, sliding across muscle. He hissed and staggered back.

  A second goblin lunged.

  Inaria exhaled—

  and chaos bloomed.

  A thin wisp of black mist curled from her palm, drifting lazily across the face of the goblin’s weapon. The metal reacted instantly—pitting, flaking, rusting in fast-forward. The edge crumbled, the entire structure sagging as if centuries of decay had chewed through it in a heartbeat.

  The goblin recoiled in shock, staring at the dissolving axe head.

  Inaria didn’t give him time to recover.

  She pivoted, slipping past a third incoming strike as a club smashed where she’d been standing. Asphalt split. The club’s metal studs fractured at the edges where her dissipating chaos mist brushed them, corrosion eating outward like ink in water.

  The third goblin cursed and pulled back his hand as the studs flaked away into powder.

  But they weren’t her only threat.

  Akreon’s voice cut through the battlefield:

  “Do not kill her! Cripple only!”

  Inaria’s stomach sank.

  She wasn’t being targeted as an enemy of war.

  She was being targeted as property.

  A bellow came from her left. One of the naga—a broad-shouldered male with gleaming obsidian armor—charged with a spear crackling in red-orange firelight. A spellcaster. High-tier.

  Inaria moved, but not quickly enough.

  The spear lashed outward—

  a whip of fire snapping through the air—

  and she threw up her arm on instinct.

  Chaos answered.

  A burst of black mist erupted from her palm, colliding with the fiery lash. Fire didn’t extinguish—it ruptured, splintering into sputtering fragments that shot off in random directions. One chunk ignited a mailbox. Another scorched a parked car. Another spiraled upward and fizzled like a dying star.

  The naga stumbled in surprise.

  Chaos didn’t block magic.

  It ruined magic—

  made it fail incorrectly, unpredictably.

  Inaria used the opening to dart past him, shoulder brushing his scales as she slid through the gap between him and a goblin.

  Her lungs burned.

  Her ribs throbbed.

  Her vision blurred at the edges.

  She needed water. Food. Rest.

  She had none of them.

  A goblin rushed her again—this one bigger, heavier, swinging a mace that glowed faintly with heat.

  Inaria ducked under the swing, rolled across the pavement, came up behind him, and dragged her blade along the back of his knee. He collapsed with a grunt.

  A human—a teenager with a backpack—stumbled into view behind the goblin, eyes huge.

  He stared at Inaria.

  At her ears.

  Her posture.

  Her speed.

  Her sword.

  And for a moment, he forgot fear.

  “You’re… you’re not one of them, are you?”

  Inaria didn’t answer.

  She didn’t have the breath.

  She didn’t have the time.

  But the hesitation cost her.

  Something cold scraped her shoulder.

  Inaria twisted—

  too slow.

  An Angaria had flanked her, its claw slicing across her upper arm in a quick, surgical motion. The cut was shallow—

  but shallow didn’t matter.

  Her arm went numb instantly.

  Venom.

  Paralytic.

  Her breath hitched, and she stumbled backward as the spiderlike creature clicked, mandibles spreading in a grotesque approximation of a smile.

  A second Angaria crawled down a storefront awning overhead, skittering down the vertical surface with unreal ease, aiming to flank her again.

  Her fingers tingled.

  Her shoulder throbbed.

  Her breath shortened.

  Poison onset.

  Not severe yet—

  but fast.

  She needed to move.

  Inaria pushed off the ground, darting backward as the first Angaria lunged. Her sword flicked up and carved a line across its foreleg. Black ichor splattered. The creature shrieked—a grating, metallic sound—and recoiled.

  Behind her, humans continued to flee or cower behind cars and dumpsters.

  One—a middle-aged man in a construction vest—froze when he saw the Angaria charging her again.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  He didn’t scream.

  He ran toward Inaria.

  “Look out!” he shouted, voice cracking.

  He shoved her—

  hard—

  out of the Angaria’s path.

  Inaria stumbled sideways, shocked.

  The Angaria didn’t miss its true target.

  The man didn’t even get a second cry out.

  The Angaria’s forelegs split open into saw-edged scythes, and with a single swift motion, it bisected him—from shoulder to opposite hip.

  Blood hit the pavement in a wide arc.

  Half his body crumpled one way.

  Half fell the other.

  His hardhat bounced once, then rolled into the gutter.

  Inaria stared.

  Her ears rang.

  Why did he…?

  Why would a species she’d been trained to see as livestock—

  a realm marked for subjugation—

  why would a human risk his life to protect her?

  Her breath stuttered.

  That wasn’t strategy.

  That wasn’t survival.

  That wasn’t self-interest.

  That was sacrifice.

  Something in her chest cracked open at the edges.

  Before she could understand it—

  before she could even move—

  two naga stepped into her path, cutting off her escape.

  One of them was Akreon.

  The other was larger, older, with darker scales and a sneer carved into his face like it was the only expression he’d ever practiced.

  “Inaria Fen,” the older naga said, voice smooth as poison. “Malachius’s golden child. The favorite little blade.”

  She tightened her grip on her sword.

  He chuckled.

  “Oh, don’t look so fierce. You were always a slave, girl. You thought obedience made you special? You thought proximity to command elevated you?” He leaned forward. “You’re excrement under a boot. A tool he meant to discard. A little pet that confused its master’s patience for affection.”

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  She felt the shame and anger curdle together.

  Her legs weakened.

  Her poisoned arm trembled.

  Her breath trembled.

  “Did you really think you mattered?” the naga murmured, drawing his spear back for a killing thrust. “You’re nothing. And you always were.”

  He raised the spear—

  light vanished behind him.

  Not gone—

  blocked.

  Something enormous, dark, and wrong eclipsed the sun for half a heartbeat.

  Then—

  a void-forged greatsword erupted through the naga’s chest.

  It tore through scale, armor, bone—

  hissing like a starved predator tasting its first meat in ages.

  The naga’s eyes widened.

  Black tendrils spiraled outward from the blade’s point of entry, crawling through his flesh, fracturing him from the inside. His skin blackened. His veins burst. His ribs cracked open like brittle wood.

  He didn’t fall.

  He disintegrated, collapsing into ash that blew away on a breath of wind.

  The void-sword grew—just slightly—along its edge.

  Behind the falling ash stood Eric.

  Breathing hard.

  Eyes glowing faint silver-violet.

  Void bleeding off him like a second atmosphere.

  Inaria’s heart lurched.

  Her voice rose on instinct in her own language, the words sharp and terrified:

  “Ash’ta vel’kor… what in the abyss is that?”

  The translation magic caught it—

  and for every human within earshot, it became:

  “What the fuck is that thing?”

  The late-morning heat was already rising, even though the sun hadn’t fully breached the eastern ridge. Nevada in September didn’t wait for noon to start cooking the earth; it began well before that. The air outside the van shimmered, waves of heat rolling off the baked sand and bleached asphalt in trembling currents.

  Inside, the van rattled like an overworked furnace.

  A constant hum vibrated through the metal frame — engine strain, loose paneling, the annoyed clatter of a decades-old AC unit fighting for its life and losing. Dust leaked through the vents in stubborn threads, clinging to skin and tongues.

  Eric sat rigid in the back seat, sweat already trickling down from his hairline.

  He wasn’t hot.

  Not exactly.

  The sensation was wrong — too layered to be normal heat. The temperature outside pressed down on him, sure, but underneath that, beneath the skin, there was something colder, deeper, coiling like a submerged predator pacing the length of its cage.

  He rubbed his fingers against his palms, as if grounding himself.

  It didn’t help.

  Up front, Mike tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

  Michelle held a pair of walkie-talkies in her lap.

  Celeste stared forward, jaw set, shoulders angled like a blade waiting to be drawn.

  They hadn’t spoken in several minutes. The tension inside the van felt like humidity before a monsoon — heavy, waiting, ready to break open the moment lightning touched ground.

  Finally Michelle cleared her throat.

  “Okay—listen. I brought these.” She lifted the walkies. “They’re long-range, high-band. They should still function if—”

  “They won’t.”

  Celeste didn’t raise her voice, but the instant shut-down froze Michelle mid-sentence.

  “I mean, they should,” Michelle insisted. “These are the same type the sheriff’s office uses for mountain search. They can cut through—”

  “They won’t.” Celeste repeated. She turned slightly, enough to reveal the sliver of soft glow forming in her irises. “Not when the air saturates with power. When that happens, nothing human-built will transmit cleanly. Not wireless. Not digital. Not analog. They die the moment the pressure spikes.”

  Michelle’s fingers clenched around the plastic casing. “Then how are we supposed to keep track of each other? We can’t just shout across a battlefield—”

  Celeste twisted in her seat and looked directly at Eric.

  “We use him.”

  Eric looked up sharply.

  His chest tightened.

  “No.” The word came out automatically. “Celeste, absolutely not. Not like—”

  “You can,” she said, voice steady as steel. “You’ve done it before.”

  “That was a lifetime ago,” he muttered.

  Mike kept glancing at them in the mirror. His knuckles whitened on the wheel. “Someone want to catch me up? What are we even talking about?”

  Celeste didn’t answer him.

  She kept her eyes on Eric.

  Waiting.

  Demanding.

  He exhaled through his teeth and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “Hunger’s Passing,” he said quietly.

  Michelle blinked. “Come again?”

  “It’s… a link,” Eric said, searching for words that wouldn’t terrify the people whose lives he owed. “It’s not speaking. Not exactly. It’s impulses. If I intend something with enough force, you’ll feel it. Not as a voice — as an instinct. As if the thought formed naturally in your mind.”

  “That sounds like a bad dream,” Mike said.

  “Sometimes it is,” Eric admitted.

  The van hit a dip in the road; everyone jostled.

  Eric didn’t look away from the floor.

  “There’s more,” he said softly. “You’ll feel some of my emotional state. Echoes. If I’m afraid, you’ll feel unease. If I’m angry, you might feel a spike of adrenaline. It’s not overwhelming, but… it’s not pleasant.”

  Michelle frowned deeply. “So—like cross-wired nerves?”

  “Closer to cross-wired instinct,” Eric corrected. “And there’s a chance of… flashes. Fragments of what I’m thinking, or remembering, might slip. Not literally — not like pictures — more like impulses. Leanings. I won’t be able to control which ones.”

  “And what about us?” Mike asked. “What if something from us bleeds into you?”

  Eric hesitated.

  Celeste watched him.

  Unblinking.

  Silent.

  “…same deal,” Eric said. “It can go both ways.”

  Michelle exchanged a look with Mike. “So you’re telling me we’ll be able to feel each other’s emotions?”

  “No,” Eric said sharply. “You’ll feel mine. I’ll feel yours. But you two won’t be linked to each other. The link centers on me.”

  “And Celeste?” Mike asked.

  Eric didn’t answer.

  Celeste did.

  “I’m already attuned to him,” she said quietly. “You won’t feel me. Not directly.”

  Something electric passed between her and Eric — a thread pulled taut, shimmering with unspoken warnings.

  Mike leaned back. “So what's the downside besides the obvious psychic—whatever the hell this is?”

  “The downside?” Eric said, voice tightening.

  Everything inside him wanted to look at Celeste.

  He forced himself not to.

  “Secrets,” he said. “Things we don’t want others to know… there’s a risk some of it might leak through. Not directly. Not cleanly. But impulses don’t need clarity to cause problems.”

  Michelle swallowed.

  Celeste watched him in perfect silence.

  It wasn’t fear in her expression.

  It wasn’t hesitation.

  It was a question.

  Are you sure you want to risk mine?

  His answer was another look.

  Are you sure you want to risk mine?

  Celeste held his gaze.

  Then, almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

  “We do it,” she said.

  Michelle exhaled shakily. “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  Eric reached his hands toward the three of them.

  The air seemed to dim in color.

  Pressure built in their ears.

  A faint metallic tang collected on the back of the tongue.

  Then something cold and weightless brushed each of their minds — not a voice, not a word, but a presence.

  Michelle gasped.

  Mike stiffened.

  Celeste breathed out like slipping into home.

  Eric clenched his teeth.

  And then—

  His head snapped toward the window.

  “…they’re dying,” he whispered.

  Michelle turned sharply. “Eric, what—?”

  “I can feel them.” His voice was shaking. “Up ahead — civilians. They’re dying. I have to go.”

  “We’re almost—” Mike started.

  Eric didn’t wait.

  He ripped the door open, hit the ground running, and sprinted directly into the heat-shimmering desert.

  “ERIC!” Michelle shouted.

  But he was already gone.

  The desert heat enveloped him immediately — dry, blistering, metallic. Sweat evaporated before it had a chance to bead. The sun, though not yet overhead, radiated off the sand like a forge plate. His boots kicked up powder-fine dust that coated his throat with each breath.

  Eric didn’t care.

  He could feel it now — death, panic, the sharp metallic sting of spilled mana, the tension in the air as the pressure near the gate thickened and partially folded.

  His pulse quickened.

  Not with fear.

  Not entirely.

  Something else stirred beneath the anxiety.

  Something old.

  Something cold.

  A flicker of exhilaration—like the first inhalation before a plunge into battle.

  He hated how familiar it felt.

  His legs pushed harder.

  A void spike formed in his hand — shaky, imperfect, flickering — he flung out his arm, firing off the dart like spike with a single wire thin strand keeping him connected to his mini-missile as it stabbed it into the base of a leaning streetlight. The construct snapped taut and flung him skyward, momentum carrying him across the side of a half-collapsed storage building.

  His breath hitched.

  Images cracked through the back of his skull:

  A battlefield lit in violet flame.

  A dragon’s shadow spanning an entire ridge.

  Steel-tipped screams.

  Wind howling against void.

  He shook it off.

  Not now.

  A second whip construct lashed out — hooking onto a twisted billboard frame. He pulled hard, launching himself across a sun-bleached rooftop where tar stuck and softened under the heat.

  He pushed off again.

  Another memory flared.

  A tower crumbling under his claws.

  A girl with silver hair screaming his name.

  Blood.

  Ash.

  Stars collapsing inward.

  “Stop,” he hissed to himself.

  But his muscles were remembering things his mind didn’t want to see.

  And the faint thrill in his veins…

  that was the worst part.

  Because part of him — the part he was terrified to touch — wanted this.

  Wanted to hunt again.

  Celeste waited five seconds after Eric hit the ground running.

  Just long enough to confirm he wasn’t hesitating.

  Just long enough to feel the faint reverberation through the link — fear, resolve, the beginnings of something darker.

  “…finally,” she murmured.

  She opened the door and stepped into the sweltering desert heat.

  Mike stared at her. “What about us? What do we do?”

  “Drive straight until you see the gate,” she said, voice clear and firm. “When you get there, start pulling civilians away. Do not engage the enemy unless you have no choice. And whatever happens—do not stop moving.”

  Michelle nodded shakily. “And you?”

  Celeste smiled faintly.

  “Dancing.”

  Wind coiled around her legs.

  The dust at her feet rose in spirals.

  The temperature seemed to shift — less hot, more electric — as she crouched and launched herself skyward.

  The air bent around her.

  She didn’t fall.

  She flowed.

  Bounding across the tops of buildings, she left shimmering contrails of displaced air behind each landing. Her hair flared silver, catching sunlight as if woven from metallic thread. Every leap was clean, precise, beautiful — a stark contrast to Eric’s violent, tearing momentum.

  She felt him ahead of her.

  Not physically.

  Through the link.

  He was unraveling inside — equal parts urgency, fear, and something sharp beneath it, something feral.

  Her smile deepened.

  There you are.

  As both of them moved, the temperature climbed.

  Sweat slicked Eric’s skin despite the wind he generated by sheer speed. Celeste felt the pressure in the atmosphere spike — an invisible dome forming around the gate’s location, thickening the air like molasses.

  The horizon shimmered.

  A low hum vibrated through the ground.

  Eric felt it before he heard it.

  Death.

  Close.

  Sharp.

  He pushed harder.

  Just ahead — beyond the last curve of abandoned buildings — someone screamed.

  And the sound cut off abruptly.

  His heart slammed.

  He rounded the corner—

  Inaria lay crumpled against a partially shattered brick wall, one hand pressed to her ribs, breath shallow and ragged. The heat made her vision swim. Poison burned through her veins. Dust clung to the sweat on her skin.

  A goblin shouted something guttural.

  A naga raised its spear-shaft.

  An Angaria skittered along the wall, its legs clicking against stone.

  Civilians screamed and ran in every direction.

  Eric didn’t think.

  He didn’t need to.

  A void blade formed in his grip, translucent and trembling like a newborn star. He hurled it. The air warped as it flew — a faint distortion, as if the world bent around the blade’s presence.

  It struck the naga square through the chest.

  Black tendrils erupted outward, threading through bone and scale. The creature convulsed once, twice—then collapsed in a husk of ash.

  Civilians stopped running.

  Some screamed.

  Some stared.

  Inaria’s mouth parted.

  “…what is that…”

  Her tongue flicked in her native language, translator picking it up just enough for a nearby human to hear—

  “…what the fuck is that thing…?”

  Eric caught the void blade as it reformed, breath shaking.

  Behind him —

  a thunderclap of wind.

  Celeste landed beside him, sending dust spiraling outward in a controlled burst. Shards of asphalt lifted from the ground as her arrival pressure-wave hit the street.

  She straightened.

  “Move.”

  Wind scythed outward.

  The goblins were the first to react — and the first to die. Their small bodies were flung backward like ragdolls. The Angaria hissed and retreated along the wall.

  But more were coming.

  Much more.

  Celeste’s expression shifted — sharpening, calculating.

  The real fight hadn’t even started.

  The van screeched around the far corner, tires skidding and kicking up a blinding wall of dust. Mike leaned out the window, shouting:

  “THIS WAY! MOVE! MOVE!”

  Michelle jumped out before the van stopped, sprinting toward a cluster of terrified tourists.

  Her voice ripped across the chaos:

  “GET AWAY FROM THE GATE! YOU NEED TO GO NOW!”

  People ran.

  Others froze.

  Some stared at Celeste as if witnessing a goddess step out of a dream.

  Mike threw the sliding door open—

  And saw her.

  Inaria.

  Collapsed.

  Shaking.

  Poison spreading through her veins.

  Eyes half-lidded and wild with panic.

  Something in him jolted.

  Not attraction.

  Not really.

  Something softer.

  Quieter.

  A flicker he didn’t understand.

  “Hey—hey, I got you,” he said, dropping to his knees beside her. “Come on. Up we go.”

  She didn’t fight him.

  Didn’t even look at him.

  As he lifted her, her hair brushed his shoulder.

  She smelled—

  …nice? Now? Seriously? What is wrong with me—

  He shoved the thought away, cheeks burning, and hauled her into the van along with two bleeding civilians.

  Michelle turned just in time to see—

  A massive Naga brute — taller, broader, heavier armored — slammed its tail into Eric with enough force to crack pavement.

  Eric went flying right through yet another brick storefront.

  Glass shattered inward.

  Stone exploded into a cloud of dust.

  His body vanished into the collapsing interior.

  Michelle froze, breath hitching.

  Celeste gasped—

  not from shock—

  but from the feedback.

  Pain.

  Not physical.

  Emotional.

  Instinctive.

  Hunger’s Passing rippled through her like a spear of ice.

  “Oryx…” she whispered.

  The fight had truly begun.

  The world hit him in three separate waves.

  Impact.

  Silence.

  Pain.

  Eric crashed through the storefront like a thrown cannonball, glass exploding outward in a glittering storm. The momentum carried him through a row of dusty shelves, then into a back wall already weakened by age and heat. Plaster fractured. The wall cracked like an eggshell.

  He hit the ground in a heap of splintered wood, powdered drywall, and drifting dust motes. The air tasted like chalk. Heat pressed in from every direction, the midday sun baking the building’s frame until it radiated like an oven.

  For a moment, he lay still.

  Not because of the pain—his body was already stitching itself back together—but because the echo of the blow surged through the link.

  Celeste felt it.

  A spike of his pain.

  A flare of his fear.

  And then something darker—

  a flicker of exhilaration he couldn’t suppress in time.

  That shame hit him harder than the Brute had.

  He forced himself upright, bracing a hand against a fractured beam. His lungs dragged in scorched air.

  His void sword was still in his hand—barely.

  Its edges flickered, unstable, vibrating with strain.

  “Hold together,” he muttered. “Just a little longer.”

  The blade pulsed once, as if acknowledging him.

  Then the ground shook.

  Dust rained down from the ceiling in shimmering sheets. Wood groaned. Somewhere outside, someone screamed. Somewhere closer, someone begged. Somewhere beneath all that—

  —something moved with the weight of a landslide.

  Eric pushed to his feet just as the front wall of the ruined building tore open.

  It forced its way through the hole like a bipedal avalanche.

  Thick scales the color of packed clay.

  Veins glowing faintly amber.

  Armor layered like sedimentary rock, heavy plates fused with mineral growths along its shoulders and spine.

  Every step it took cracked the ground.

  Chunks of asphalt floated around its fist—gravel, rebar, bits of metal—suspended as if gravity were a polite suggestion.

  An Earth-aligned warrior.

  A strong one.

  It locked eyes with him.

  Eric felt that old instinct stir again—

  deliverance through conflict,

  clarity through violence,

  the thrill of the hunt—

  and he crushed it down, forcing breath through clenched teeth.

  “Not now,” he whispered to himself.

  The Brute roared.

  It hurled the floating debris.

  Eric dove aside.

  Concrete spears shredded the floor where he’d been standing. A beam snapped in two. The ceiling buckled. Heat rushed in from the broken street outside, carrying the metallic smell of blood and the dust of pulverized stone.

  Eric dropped low, sliding across the grit.

  The void sword quivered but held.

  He braced, ready to strike—

  —and three Angaria skittered in through the shattered windows.

  Long limbs.

  Razor bristles.

  Eyes like wet obsidian stones.

  “Of course,” he muttered.

  One lunged.

  Eric caught it by the mandibles, twisted, and used its own lurching momentum to swing it into the Brute’s thrown debris. The creature shrieked, exoskeleton cracking. Eric flung its collapsing body into the second Angaria’s path.

  The third leaped, fangs bared.

  Eric rammed his void sword up through its abdomen.

  The creature spasmed—and Eric felt the familiar pull.

  Void drank.

  The Angaria’s body withered in seconds, collapsing inward as if every drop of essence had been siphoned out. The blade in Eric’s hand brightened—still small, still unstable, but more coherent. More defined.

  His pulse kicked.

  Not pleasure.

  Not exactly.

  More like recognition.

  This was how it used to be.

  No.

  No, he couldn’t go down that line of thinking.

  He tore his gaze from the dying corpse just as the Brute charged.

  The impact shook the entire building.

  Eric barely vaulted over its sweeping arm, landing in a roll that ripped open the sole of one boot. The Brute spun, slamming a foot into the ground hard enough to launch a ring of stone fragments like shrapnel.

  A chunk caught Eric in the shoulder and spun him sideways.

  The Brute followed—

  —but Eric was already airborne.

  He formed a void whip from the blade’s edge, lashing it around a hanging steel beam. The construct strained but held, swinging him upward in a burst of momentum.

  He flipped, released, and plunged downward with the void short sword in a two-handed grip.

  The Brute blocked with a forearm of stone-armored muscle.

  The void blade bit halfway in.

  The creature screamed—

  a grinding, tectonic shriek—

  and swung its free fist at Eric’s head.