The creature lunges. Claws gouge the asphalt, sparks flying, sirens screaming a wail that seems to warp the air itself until the sound feels physical, like it’s trying to crawl down Aster’s throat and nest there.

  This is it, he thinks distantly. Killed by my own subconscious. Very on brand.

  The street suddenly detonates.

  No warning, no countdown—one blink and he’s staring into the bloodhound’s light, waiting for the end credits, then the next, the world detonates into gold.

  Heat slams outward, a furnace exhaling in all directions. Air compresses, then explodes. Dust, paper, the scream in Aster’s lungs—flattened, erased. The Bloodhound hits an invisible wall of force and comes apart mid-lunge. Not shattered. Sliced. Perfect molten-white lines carve through its body, separating metal plates from meat, hydraulics from bone. The pieces hang for half a heartbeat, steaming—

  Then gravity remembers itself.

  Spare car parts and wet flesh rain onto the street.

  Something steps out of the glare.

  Robed. Solid. Real in a way nothing else has been today.

  Aster has never been happier to see the robed figure again. Finally. Some continuity in the collapse of his sanity.

  Moving like the world owes him space. The robed man’s every breath seems to bend the air around him.

  The second Bloodhound doesn’t hesitate.

  It hits him at full speed.

  The robed man flicks his wrist.

  That’s it. No windup. No effort. Just a gesture.

  The Bloodhound slams face-first into an invisible plane. Claws screech against concrete for half a second before time snaps back into motion. A shockwave erupts. The creature is hurled sideways through a storefront.

  Spectral glass freezes midair, blooming, then falls like molten rain. Aster smells burning metal and ozone; his stomach twists.

  Another comes in low, muscles whining like overworked turbines.

  The man pivots. His boot catches its chest mid-air.

  The impact folds metal ribs inward with a wet, metallic crunch. The sound echoes. The Bloodhound pinwheels, limbs flailing, sparks vomiting from ruptured joints. It smashes into a streetlight, bends the pole nearly double, and collapses in a shrieking heap—its siren warping into a dying animal’s protest.

  The man doesn’t even look at it.

  A fourth attacks from behind.

  Kick. Jaw. Cartwheel.

  The creature’s spine twists in a way spines should not. Rolling right through the echo of a parked sedan. Astral glass shattering as streetlights flickers and die. The robed man’s hands move now—fast, precise—carving sigils into the air. Invisible planes slam down in sequence, compressing the Bloodhound like it’s being folded by an angry god with a grudge against symmetry.

  It collapses into itself. Metal creases. Meat bursts.

  He is sculpting destruction like it’s clay.

  For a heartbeat, the street holds still.

  The man’s chest rises and falls once. Golden symbols sputter along his arms, forming and burning out faster than Aster can track. He turns, hood angling, cyan eyes cutting through the chaos—and locks onto Aster swaying at the edge of the street.

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  “What the fuck are you doing out of the house?”

  The words crack like a whip through the sirens.

  “Didn’t you read the envelope I left you?”

  More sirens pierce the air. Aster’s ears bleed in the rising chorus.

  Through flashes of gold, they pour from mist, alleys, rooftops—metal faces, claws, searchlights slicing haze, dozens of them. A tide of screaming machinery and meat.

  “The Wyrm Eaters have your scent now!” the man bellows, almost drowned by the shuddering roar of engines and sirens. “They won’t stop until they finish the job and consume the thing inside of you!”

  He swings a hand, launching the nearest three Bloodhounds into the air, molten metal and shattered glass exploding in arcs around him. A golden field blossoms around him—flexing, rippling—then stretches like a drawn bowstring.

  “I’ll keep them busy!” he screams.

  Another swing. Bodies scatter.

  “You—you’ll need to defend yourself against whatever gets in between you and the safety of 7 Heart Lane. NOW RUN!”

  Aster stumbles. Mind half-racing, half-frozen.

  Yeah. Sure. Run. Fantastic plan. Ten out of ten. No notes.

  Then the main body of the swarm arrives.

  Dozens, then dozens more, pouring from mist, alleys, rooftops. A living wall of sirens and claws surging from the fog. The street disappears beneath them.

  The first whispers of panic surge up Aster’s spine. The robed man’s silhouette is a storm of gold in the street’s centre, carving reality, throwing bodies, bending air.

  Gold erupts along his arms. Sigils spin, burn, vanish. Each one rewrites something small and essential—streets bend sideways, walls ripple, air folds into hard angles. Golden Fields manifest in layers, colliding Bloodhounds midair. Metal screams. Sparks rain endlessly. The sound is thunder fed through a meat grinder.

  Aster staggers backward. Pressure presses against him—skin, bone, teeth. The city trembles under the chaos.

  Then the energy coalesces.

  Golden seals erupt in spirals, stamping the street, the buildings, the sky itself. Air thickens. Light solidifies into the shape of a colossal construct of golden force, wings unfolding through space itself, each beat folding reality like cloth. Teeth gleam as psychic energy coils down its throat.

  A giant dragon, somehow formed from solid gold light. When it roars, it sounds like physics screaming.

  The Bloodhounds charge it anyway.

  They surge towards the dragon, dozens at a time.

  The dragon meets them midair. Golden talons rip through metal and sinew like cheap confetti. Sirens bend into harmonics impossible to survive, sounding more like a church organ beaten to death by baseball bats.

  The robed man handles what gets past it.

  Kick. Sweep. Launch.

  Each motion hurls Bloodhounds into the golden storm above, their forms unravelling into the psychic landfill in the sky, bodies disintegrating into loose springs and oily blood.

  Wave after wave slams in.

  The dragon is in the thick of it. Tearing through the front line, talons carving arcs of pure energy, wings reshaping space, tail smashing enemies together in showers of sparks.

  Bloodhounds collide midair, bodies spinning, metal screeching, sirens collapsing into distorted harmonics.

  The man spins beneath it, sigils crawling like fire ants along his arms, every strike feeding the field, feeding the storm.

  Wave by wave, the swarm presses. Each Bloodhound more desperate, more aggressive, screaming in unison.

  Aster’s chest heaves. Breath catches between awe and terror. Sparks and molten fragments rain down, igniting reflections in the puddles. The robed man spins, launching three more into the mist. Each strike feeds the dragon, feeds the golden field, feeds the storm.

  A Bloodhound slams into a streetlight only a few meters from where Aster stands. Sparks explode. The smell of burning metal claws at his nose. He stumbles. Goddammit, don’t trip now. Don’t trip. Just run. Just—why am I still here?

  The robed man is everywhere at once—kick, sweep, sigils flying, bodies hurled into molten arcs, disappearing.

  A Bloodhound collides with another midair. Sparks, blood, springs, metal fragments. They fall, tumble, shatter. Aster catches a reflection of his own terrified face in a puddle. Yep. Definitely dead. Also impressed.

  Everything bends, melts, folds, and reforms. He stumbles over a lump of metal and glass, barely registering it as a leg of one of the creatures.

  A Bloodhound leaps at him. Reflexes kick in. Duck. Roll. Kick? He barely remembers. Only remembers the word RUN thudding behind his eyes.

  The dragon sweeps its wings, folding space, catching the Bloodhound just before it can reach Aster. The impact tears the creature apart as it tumbles into nothingness. Sparks rain. His hair sticks to his forehead. Sweat burns his eyes.

  Another wave presses in. Aster’s stomach lurches. He tastes fear, burnt metal, ozone, adrenaline, something like regret, and the faint tang of awe. I shouldn’t be alive. Also, holy shit.

  The robed man pivots, golden sigils like fire ants scuttling along his arms, kicking three more into molten arcs. The golden field stretches, snaps, reforms. The dragon meets it midair, wings slicing the sky into impossible angles.

  Aster runs, trips, stumbles, and rolls. Every step feels like it might be his last. Sparks skate along the street like liquid knives. Heat burns his cheeks. The roar of engines, sirens, psychic dragons, and folding space hammers his ears.

  Run. Survive. Don’t stop.

  Behind him, the city is being rewritten in gold.

  Everything else is chaos. Everything else is fire and metal and screaming physics. Aster doesn’t think. He runs.