The desert southwest of Primm was already baking.

  September heat pressed down hard and dry, the kind that pulled moisture from skin and left dust clinging to everything it touched. The ground was cracked and pale, sun-bleached gravel giving way to packed dirt and scrub brush that hadn’t seen rain in weeks. Heat shimmered above the asphalt near Interstate 15, bending the horizon into something unstable and wavering.

  Engines idled in uneven rhythms.

  Off-road trucks and buggies sat clustered near the edge of town, just beyond the Primm Valley Resort complex and the long-dead outlet mall. The area had been marked off informally for race prep—no banners yet, no crowds pressed in close, just crews, vehicles, and the unspoken understanding that the Primm 300 was coming.

  Elena Cruz stood at the front of her truck, helmet resting on the hood. She wore a sleeveless shirt darkened with sweat, gloves hooked into her belt. Her eyes moved constantly, taking in her team, the vehicles, the terrain. She looked calm, but it was the calm of someone who lived comfortably on the edge of risk.

  “Run the suspension check again,” she said. “I want eyes on it.”

  Derrick Thompson leaned against the passenger side, arms crossed, gaze drifting toward the casinos rising to the northeast. Buffalo Bill’s tower loomed against the sky, its roller coaster tracks silent and motionless in the heat.

  “It already passed,” he said. “Twice.”

  Elena didn’t look at him. “Run it again.”

  Derrick sighed, pushed off the truck, and climbed into position. “You ever get the feeling you’re tempting fate?”

  Raj Patel was half under the chassis, tablet balanced on his knee, cables trailing into the truck’s internals. “Statistically?” he said. “Yes. Constantly.”

  Jamal Harris hauled a crate of spare parts closer, grunting as he set it down. “That’s racing. Fate’s part of the package.”

  Lucas Meyer crouched near the edge of the dirt lot, eyes narrowed as he studied the desert beyond the highway. “Wind’s wrong,” he said quietly.

  Elena finally turned her head. “Wrong how?”

  Lucas shrugged. “Can’t explain it. Just… off.”

  The sky was clear. No clouds. No weather system rolling in. And yet—

  A low vibration rippled through the ground.

  Not enough to rattle equipment. Just enough to be felt. Like a distant engine far too large to belong anywhere near Primm.

  Raj frowned at his screen. “I just got a spike.”

  Derrick looked up. “From what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s gone now.”

  The vibration came again. Stronger.

  Elena straightened, eyes snapping toward the skyline.

  The first streak of light tore across the sky above the casinos.

  It wasn’t lightning. There was no thunder, no storm front. The light lingered too long, branching and crawling across open air like a wound that refused to close.

  Another followed.

  Then another.

  They spread outward, racing across the sky in jagged paths, visible from miles away. From Interstate 15. From the desert hills. From anywhere with a clear view of the horizon.

  “What the fuck…” Jamal breathed.

  Engines nearby sputtered. One stalled outright.

  Raj stared at his tablet, fingers frozen above the screen. “Nothing explains this.”

  A pressure rolled through the air, sudden and heavy, like altitude sickness without the climb. Elena felt it in her chest, a weight that made breathing just a little harder.

  From the direction of Primm Valley Resort, a sound rose.

  Not a scream.

  Not a siren.

  Something deeper.

  Something wrong.

  Elena grabbed her helmet.

  “We’re not running,” Derrick said quickly. “We’re not equipped for—whatever that is.”

  Elena’s jaw tightened. She looked toward the casinos, where figures were beginning to spill into the streets, tiny at this distance but unmistakably human in their panic.

  “These people came out here for us,” she said. “For this race. For our pride.”

  She swung the helmet up, locking eyes with each of them in turn.

  “If we can move,” she continued, voice steady, “we help. If we can carry someone, we do it. If we can drive, we drive.”

  No one spoke.

  The light in the sky flared again, brighter this time, and the ground shook hard enough to knock loose stones rolling.

  Derrick swallowed. “Elena…”

  She met his gaze, unflinching. “We don’t leave people to die if we don’t have to.”

  A long beat passed.

  Then Jamal nodded. “I’m in.”

  Raj exhaled shakily. “Same.”

  Lucas was already climbing into his seat. “Desert’s about to get real crowded.”

  Elena slammed the helmet on, visor snapping down.

  “Mount up.”

  Engines roared to life as the sky above Primm continued to tear itself apart.

  Eric tore sideways through the air as lightning screamed past where his head had been a heartbeat earlier.

  Void snapped into shape beneath his boots, thin and fleeting, just enough to give him purchase as he vaulted upward and spun. Another bolt followed, then another, the Angaria spellcasters clinging to the sides of nearby buildings like grotesque silhouettes, their limbs crackling with gathered energy.

  Eric landed hard against the side of a hotel fa?ade, kicked off, and launched himself back into the street in a blur of black motion.

  “GET OUT OF HERE!” he roared.

  His voice carried—raw, furious, loud enough to cut through the screams and chaos below. Heads turned. People ran.

  A blade of void lashed out from his arm, splitting a fire spell in half and swallowing it whole. Pain detonated through his chest as the energy flooded inward, sharp and nauseating, but he forced himself to move through it, using the momentum to hurl himself higher.

  Another lightning strike tore through the air.

  Eric twisted away at the last second.

  The bolt missed him by inches.

  It didn’t miss the building behind him.

  Lightning punched straight through the structure’s upper floors, shearing through concrete and steel alike. Windows exploded outward in a spray of glass, and the building groaned—a deep, awful sound—as its integrity failed.

  Below, Monica Serrano skidded to a halt, breath tearing in and out of her chest as she dragged Gabriel along the sidewalk.

  “Mom, what—” Gabriel started.

  The building shifted.

  Concrete cracked overhead. Dust billowed outward as the upper section began to collapse.

  Monica didn’t think.

  She shoved him.

  Hard.

  “RUN!”

  Gabriel stumbled forward, arms flailing, as the sound behind them became unbearable—a cascading roar of stone and steel giving way all at once. Monica turned back just in time to see the wall fall.

  Dust swallowed everything.

  Her scream was lost in the collapse.

  Eric saw it happen from the corner of his eye.

  The moment hit him like a blade between the ribs—but he didn’t slow. He couldn’t. The Naga Brute surged forward, coils smashing into the street with enough force to crater asphalt, its massive body cutting off any path back toward the civilians.

  Eric met it head-on.

  The brute slammed into him, sheer mass and strength overwhelming finesse, and drove him backward through a row of parked cars as if they were made of tin. Eric twisted, stabbed a void blade into the ground, and ripped himself free, flipping over the Naga’s coiled body as a fireball detonated where he had been a second earlier.

  Spiders crawled along walls and signage, spellwork building again.

  Eric grinned.

  It was small. Tight.

  But it was there.

  He flung himself upward, void snapping and retracting in sharp bursts, drawing spells after him like bait. Every bolt that chased him was one less tearing through the fleeing crowds. Every strike he devoured burned like acid—but fed him all the same.

  Another lightning blast hit nearby, collapsing more of the street.

  The Naga roared and struck again.

  This time, it caught him.

  Its coils wrapped around his torso, crushing the air from his lungs as it ran him forward, smashing him bodily through the remaining fa?ade of the building and out the other side in an explosion of debris.

  People hiding inside screamed as stone and glass rained down around them.

  Eric felt himself dragged, slammed, and driven forward again and again, the Naga using his body like a battering ram as they tore through the structure and burst into the open air beyond.

  They emerged near the edge of the Primm Valley Resort.

  Eric hit the pavement hard, skidding across shattered concrete before the brute reared back, ready to strike again.

  Across the street, people stared in frozen horror.

  Above them, Celeste saw everything.

  She saw Eric smashed through the building.

  She saw the way he rolled to his feet.

  She saw the expression on his face.

  That grin.

  And through the link, Mike and Michelle felt it.

  Not fear.

  Not desperation.

  A surge of exhilaration—quick, dangerous, immediately buried beneath layers of immediate guilt.

  Eric raised his void blades, black light bleeding outward as he squared up against the Naga Brute once more.

  The crowd screamed and ran.

  The battle moved deeper into Primm.

  Celeste hit the side of the building feet-first and didn’t stop.

  Wind wrapped around her calves and spine as she ran across the vertical surface, boots striking concrete in rapid succession before she pushed off hard and flung herself back into open air. The gust caught her mid-arc, twisting her trajectory just enough to carry her above the street rather than into it.

  From up here, Primm was coming apart.

  The streets near Buffalo Bill’s were choked with debris and bodies—some moving, some not. Cars lay abandoned at odd angles, doors flung open, alarms screaming uselessly into the chaos. Fire burned in scattered pockets where spells had struck fuel lines or ignited interior spaces. Dust and smoke blurred everything into shifting layers of gray and orange.

  Stolen story; please report.

  And through it all, civilians ran.

  Too many.

  Too scattered.

  Celeste’s jaw tightened as she took it all in.

  She reached outward again—not speaking, not shouting, but pushing intent through the link.

  Southwest. Keep them moving southwest.

  Ignore the cluster by the side street. Too small. Too exposed.

  Parking structure—now.

  Mike flinched as the impulse hit him, hands tightening on the steering wheel as the idea took hold fully formed, unquestionable. He turned the van hard, tires screeching as they tore down a side road littered with debris.

  Michelle leaned half out the window, screaming herself hoarse. “MOVE! THIS WAY! GO—GO!”

  A man tried to argue with her, red-faced and furious. “You don’t get to tell us where to go!”

  A shockwave rolled through the street as something exploded behind them.

  Michelle grabbed the man by the collar and shoved him forward. “RUN OR DIE—YOUR CHOICE!”

  He ran.

  Above them, Celeste landed atop a damaged hotel sign, knees bending as she absorbed the impact. Goblins swarmed below, shrieking as they clambered over wreckage and abandoned vehicles.

  She raised one hand.

  Wind collapsed inward.

  The pressure wave hit the goblins like a wall, shredding bodies and flinging the remains across the street in a storm of limbs and debris. A pair of Nagas surged forward through the carnage, coils crushing what little remained.

  Celeste dropped.

  She landed between them, fists already moving. The first blow cracked into scaled flesh with a concussive boom, driving the Naga’s upper body sideways into a storefront. The second strike followed immediately, smashing into the other’s jaw and sending it sprawling across the pavement.

  Her lungs burned.

  Her mana screamed.

  She ignored it.

  Across the street, the rumble of engines cut through the chaos.

  Elena Cruz’s truck burst into view, followed closely by the rest of the race team. They didn’t slow. They couldn’t.

  Elena leaned out the window, shouting. “ANYONE WHO CAN MOVE—GET IN OR GET ON!”

  Jamal jumped from the back of the truck even before it fully stopped, grabbing a stunned couple and hauling them upright. Raj flung open a rear compartment, pulling out emergency water and first-aid kits. Derrick guided people toward the open beds of the vehicles, shouting over the noise.

  Lucas pointed down the road. “Southwest’s still clear—barely!”

  Celeste observed their presence from her vantage point, small but undeniable—new actors on the board. Capable. Mobile.

  Useful.

  Good, she thought grimly.

  Then she made another choice.

  A cluster of civilians huddled near a side alley, frozen in indecision. Celeste saw them clearly. Five. Maybe six.

  She redirected Mike and Michelle away from them.

  Michelle felt it immediately—and recoiled.

  “No,” she whispered. “No, they’re right there—”

  The impulse didn’t change.

  Cold logic pressed in, alien and relentless. The alley was boxed in. No cover. No clean exit. Sending the van there would cost time—and likely lives.

  Michelle’s hands shook on the steering wheel.

  She followed the path anyway.

  Above, Celeste turned away from the alley and launched herself back into the air, forcing herself not to look again.

  Below, the ground shook as something huge impacted nearby.

  Eric.

  Celeste caught sight of him just as he rose from the rubble near the Primm Valley Resort, void blades flaring as the Naga Brute surged forward once more. The brute struck again, smashing him through the resort’s outer structure in a thunderous cascade of concrete and steel.

  People hiding inside screamed and scattered.

  And Eric—

  Eric laughed.

  Not loudly.

  But the sound was there, buried beneath exertion and pain.

  Celeste’s stomach twisted.

  The battle was spreading.

  They were running out of room.

  And the gate was still open.

  The Primm Valley Resort was coming apart from the inside.

  Eric hit the floor in a spray of concrete dust and shattered tile, skidding across what had once been a polished casino entrance. Slot machines lay on their sides like dead insects, lights flickering uselessly as alarms screamed into the smoke. Somewhere deeper inside, sprinklers had kicked on, water hissing down onto fire and debris in a futile attempt to reclaim order.

  The Naga Brute followed him through the wall.

  It didn’t squeeze or slither delicately—it forced its way in, coils crushing support columns and tearing open the ceiling as it surged forward. Each movement was deliberate, powerful, confident. It knew it was winning the contest of strength.

  Eric rolled to his feet just in time to bring his blades up as the Brute struck again.

  The impact lifted him off the ground.

  He smashed into a bank of machines hard enough to crumple steel housings and send sparks spraying into the air. Pain flared bright and immediate—ribs, shoulder, something deeper—but the sensation barely registered before instinct took over.

  Void snapped outward.

  Black tendrils lashed from his blades, anchoring into the floor, the walls, the ceiling. He yanked himself sideways just as the Brute’s coils slammed down where he had been, pulverizing tile into powder.

  A fire spell detonated near the entrance.

  Eric twisted, void flaring again as the heat washed over him. He devoured the spell mid-burst, swallowing the energy whole—and this time, the pain didn’t just sting.

  It burned.

  His vision swam as the power flooded inward faster than his body wanted to process it. His muscles spasmed, teeth grinding as nausea clawed up his throat.

  Somewhere far away, Mike doubled over in the driver’s seat, gasping as the phantom agony slammed into his chest.

  “What—what is he doing?” Michelle shouted, panic rising in her voice.

  Celeste felt it too.

  Not the pain itself—but the hunger beneath it. The raw, aching pull that drove Eric forward, that demanded he keep fighting, keep feeding, keep pushing past limits that should have broken him already.

  She leapt from her perch, wind snapping around her as she descended toward the street, eyes never leaving the shattered entrance where Eric and the Brute clashed like living siege engines.

  The building groaned again.

  Inside the resort, civilians who had tried to hide now ran screaming through smoke-filled corridors, tripping over debris, slipping on wet tile. Some made it out. Others didn’t.

  Eric vaulted upward, planting a foot against a collapsing column and launching himself at the Brute’s upper torso. His blades carved deep, black energy tearing through scale and flesh alike.

  The Brute barely flinched.

  It caught him midair.

  Coils wrapped around his waist and chest, crushing down as the Naga lifted him bodily and ran. They burst through the far side of the lobby in an explosion of concrete and daylight, tumbling out into the open street beyond.

  The Brute slammed Eric down again and again, dragging him across the asphalt toward the southwest edge of town, toward the thinning line of buildings and the dead space beyond.

  Each impact sent shockwaves rippling outward.

  Windows shattered. Cars flipped. A streetlight collapsed, sparks raining down like dying stars.

  Eric laughed again.

  It tore out of him this time, sharp and breathless, before he could stop it. He bit it back hard, jaw clenching as shame and exhilaration tangled in his chest.

  Focus.

  He twisted within the Brute’s grip, void snapping into existence along his forearms as he drove both blades downward into the coil constricting him. The tendrils spread instantly, blackening the flesh, draining strength.

  The Brute hissed—more in irritation than pain—and flung him.

  Eric flew end over end, smashing through the outer wall of a low-rise building and crashing through an interior office space in a storm of desks and drywall before skidding to a halt near the back exit.

  He pushed himself up on shaking arms.

  Outside, the world was chaos.

  To the southwest, the race team had turned the open desert edge into an impromptu evacuation corridor. Trucks and buggies ferried people away from the collapsing town, engines screaming as they tore across dirt and gravel. Elena stood in the back of her truck, shouting directions, pointing, coordinating with the others as they loaded terrified civilians.

  A goblin leapt onto the hood of one vehicle, shrieking.

  Jamal tackled it midair, slamming it into the ground and crushing its skull under his boot before dragging another civilian upright.

  “We can’t keep this up!” Derrick yelled over the noise. “They’re coming faster than we can move people!”

  Elena scanned the horizon, jaw tight. “We keep going until we can’t.”

  Back in the street, Celeste landed hard beside Eric, wind coiling around her as she turned to face the oncoming Brute.

  “Still breathing?” she asked, voice sharp.

  Eric wiped blood from his mouth and smirked. “Barely.”

  She didn’t smile.

  The Brute surged forward again, coils tearing up asphalt as it closed the distance. Behind it, more Nagas slithered into view, flanked by goblins and Angaria crawling over ruined storefronts and signage.

  Too many.

  Celeste felt the weight of it settle in her bones.

  She reached out through the link once more, directing the last of the evacuation traffic farther into the desert, away from the collapsing perimeter. Mike followed without question now, his movements guided more by impulse than conscious thought.

  Michelle felt something crack inside her as she drove past streets she knew still had people hiding in them.

  This was war.

  And it didn’t care how much that truth hurt.

  Celeste lifted into the air again, wind screaming as she gathered it into a focused torrent and hurled herself at the incoming line, fists and pressure striking in tandem. Goblins vanished under the assault. Nagas reeled back, scales cracking under the force of her blows.

  Her mana burned dangerously low.

  Eric watched her from the ground, chest heaving, void blades trembling in his hands.

  The Brute loomed closer.

  Eric straightened.

  “Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s finish this part.”

  The Brute roared and charged.

  And the battle dragged itself farther southwest, away from the heart of Primm, leaving ruin and fire in its wake.

  The southwest edge of Primm looked less like a town and more like a breach line.

  Buildings thinned into parking lots, service roads, and open desert margins where dirt and gravel swallowed the last traces of pavement. Beyond that, the Mojave stretched flat and harsh, shimmering under noon-sun glare that made distance lie. Heat rolled off the ground in visible waves. The air tasted like dust, smoke, and scorched wiring.

  It should’ve felt like escape.

  Instead, it felt like the edge of a cliff.

  Elena Cruz had turned that cliff into a conveyor belt.

  Her truck and the other race rigs were moving in loops—short, brutal laps between the collapsing perimeter and a widening staging area deeper in the desert. They weren’t doing it cleanly. They were doing it fast. People clung to bed rails and roll cages, faces streaked with soot, eyes wide and unfocused. Some were crying without sound. Some stared blankly, as if their minds refused to accept what their bodies had already survived.

  “MOVE!” Jamal barked, dragging a man by the arm when his legs wouldn’t cooperate. “Come on—come on—keep your feet!”

  Raj shoved a bottle of water into a trembling woman’s hands. “Sip. Don’t chug. Sip—yeah—good, like that.”

  Derrick was trying to count—trying to keep track of how many they’d loaded and how many they’d left behind—but the numbers wouldn’t hold still. Every time he thought they’d cleared a pocket, more people appeared from the wreckage, stumbling out of broken doors and blown-out windows like they’d been birthed from the dust.

  Lucas, local knowledge turned into a lifeline, was directing traffic with sharp gestures and shouted commands. “Not that way! That road’s choked—take the dirt cut, keep the towers on your left—GO!”

  A goblin darted out from behind a flipped sedan and launched itself at the nearest buggy, claws scraping along the roll cage. The driver screamed and swerved.

  Jamal sprinted after it without hesitation. He grabbed the goblin by the back of its neck and slammed it into the ground hard enough to crack the asphalt. It twitched once, then went still.

  He didn’t look at it again.

  “More coming!” someone shouted.

  Elena turned her head toward town, eyes narrowing.

  They were coming, yes—but not like the goblins. Not like scattered raiders.

  Something heavier was moving through the smoke.

  Something that made the ground shake even out here.

  Then the resort fa?ade across the distance erupted again, and a human body went flying through it like a projectile.

  Eric.

  He hit the street in a rolling skid that chewed up concrete and left a dark smear behind him. He didn’t stop until he slammed into the side of a bus-stop shelter, shattering it into glittering fragments.

  And he rose anyway.

  Celeste saw him the moment he stood.

  She was midair above the thinning streets, not floating—not sustained flight—but violent bursts of wind that redirected her in sharp, controlled arcs. She touched down only long enough to pivot, strike, and launch again. Her hair flashed silver in the sunlight where it wasn’t plastered to her face with sweat and dust.

  She tracked Eric with her eyes, nothing mystical about it—just ruthless attention.

  The Naga Brute burst through the smoke a heartbeat later.

  It came like a living battering ram, thick coils crushing a row of parked cars as it surged forward. Its upper body rose high, shadowing the street, and it didn’t roar this time.

  It didn’t need to.

  Its confidence was louder than any sound.

  Eric lifted his void blades.

  Black light bled outward around the edges, not bright like a flame but wrong like a shadow that had learned to cut. The constructs trembled slightly—not from fear, but from strain. He was feeding, yes, but he was forcing it. Pulling power too fast, skipping steps his body wanted to take.

  He could feel the cost stacking.

  He didn’t care.

  The Brute struck.

  Its coils whipped forward, not a simple lash but a full-body surge meant to crush him into the earth.

  Eric moved like a man trying to become smoke.

  Void snapped into a hook above him—an anchor into nothing—and he yanked himself upward, clearing the coil by inches. The tail smashed the pavement where he’d been, blowing a crater into the street.

  Eric came down on the Brute’s upper torso, blades carving deep—black tendrils spreading across scaled flesh, draining, eroding, destabilizing the creature’s strength.

  The Brute hissed and caught him mid-strike.

  It wrapped him again, tighter this time, and slammed him into the side of a building so hard the wall caved inward.

  The building wasn’t a generic structure to the people inside.

  It was a place with signage and memory—glass doors, a lobby, a gift shop someone had walked through that morning thinking about lunch and souvenir photos.

  Now it was a trap.

  Eric was driven through it in a cascade of drywall and shattered counters. Dust filled the air. A family hiding behind an overturned desk screamed as the Naga’s coils tore through the space like a wrecking ball.

  Eric twisted, forced a blade outward, and cut the coil constricting his ribs.

  Void bit deep.

  The Brute recoiled half a step.

  Eric ripped free, coughing blood, and vaulted out through a blown-out window into sunlight again.

  And there it was—

  That grin.

  Celeste saw it cleanly this time. Not a flinch. Not a desperate smile. A flash of something sharp and hungry, an expression that didn’t belong on a man surrounded by dying civilians and collapsing buildings.

  Mike felt it through the link and nearly missed a turn.

  Michelle felt it too and went cold inside.

  Not because she understood it. Not fully.

  Because she recognized what it meant to enjoy something you hated yourself for enjoying.

  “Keep driving,” Celeste’s intent pressed through the link, not words, just a hard directive shaped like certainty.

  Michelle swallowed. Her hands were shaking. She kept driving.

  The van lurched across dirt and gravel as Mike steered it toward the staging area Elena’s team was building. They weren’t able to see Eric clearly now—smoke and distance blocked them—but the sense of him was there in fragments: exertion, pain, that dangerous edge of exhilaration buried under control.

  They pulled up beside Elena’s truck.

  Elena ran to the van, visor up, sweat and soot streaking her face. “How many can you take?”

  “All of them,” Mike snapped, voice hoarse.

  “That’s not an answer,” Elena shot back. Then she saw Michelle’s face and her tone changed. “Okay. Okay—just—load who you can. We’re making runs.”

  Michelle flung the door open and jumped out. Her badge meant nothing out here. Her gun meant less. She used her voice instead, shouting and waving and physically hauling people toward the vehicles.

  A man grabbed her arm. “My wife—she’s inside—she won’t come out—”

  Michelle looked toward the smoke where the town used to be orderly.

  She felt Celeste’s cold calculus pressing at the edges of her thoughts—not control, not mind-reading, just the bleed of proximity, the weight of war mindset seeping through shared panic.

  Michelle tore her arm free. “If she’s alive, she’ll run,” she said, hating herself the moment the words left her mouth. “Get in the truck.”

  He stared at her like she’d slapped him.

  Then another shockwave rolled over them, and he stumbled backward, fear overriding grief. He climbed into the nearest rig without looking back.

  Elena turned, eyes scanning the chaos. She grabbed a handheld radio from her dash and clicked it on.

  Static.

  For a heartbeat, it gave her nothing.

  Then a thin, broken voice came through—another racer, somewhere closer to town. “—seeing—things—God—what the hell—”

  Elena pressed the button hard enough her thumb hurt. “Listen up,” she said, voice steady, commanding. “If you can drive, you can help. We have vehicles. We have cages. We have beds. You make runs. You get people out. Southwest staging. Follow the dust trails. Don’t be heroes—be hands.”

  Static hissed.

  Then more voices. Fear. Confusion. Agreement.

  One by one, engines roared to life farther down the line.

  A dozen teams that had been frozen by disbelief suddenly moved, momentum shifting as the human response clicked into place—imperfect, messy, courageous.

  Celeste watched it happen from above for one brief second, and something inside her loosened.

  Not hope.

  Not relief.

  Just… a recognition that these soft, fragile humans were not standing still.

  Then she snapped her focus back to Eric.

  Because the Brute was changing tactics.

  It stopped trying to smash him into dust and started trying to trap him.

  Two more Nagas slithered into the street behind it, cutting off Eric’s retreat. Goblins swarmed the flanks. Angaria clung to a broken sign above, their limbs crackling with gathered spells.

  Eric was in a funnel.

  Celeste landed on a rooftop edge and raised her hands.

  Wind collapsed inward, forming a dense, screaming wedge that slammed into the goblin swarm and scattered them like dry leaves. She followed with a second blast that hammered one of the supporting Nagas sideways, buying Eric a sliver of space.

  Eric used it instantly.

  Void snapped outward into a long tether, anchoring into a streetlight pole. He yanked himself sideways, out of the center line, just as lightning speared down from above.

  The bolt hit the pavement where he’d been, tearing a molten scar through asphalt.

  Eric didn’t devour that one.

  He couldn’t afford the pain spike right now.

  He dodged, rolled, and drove both blades upward into the Brute’s under-torso as it surged forward again. Black tendrils spread deeper this time, and for the first time, the Brute staggered.

  Eric felt the shift.

  He felt weakness.

  He felt the opening.

  And the thrill inside him flared so hot it almost drowned out everything else.

  He clamped down on it hard, breath sawing through his teeth, and stepped forward into the next exchange like a man walking willingly into fire.

  Behind him, the evacuation line continued to move.

  In front of him, the war continued to arrive.

  And above it all, the sky still looked torn.