A thunderclap rolled through the valley, louder than any storm. The ground buckled, splitting open in crooked lines that glowed red beneath the smoke. The air stank of ozone and burnt stone.

  Hiro ran through the haze, the lightning around his feet flashing weak and uneven. Every step hit soft rock that shifted like sand. Somewhere ahead, Elysia’s voice broke through the roar.

  “Hiro! Are you there?!”

  He pushed forward until her outline appeared in the gray light. Varin and Lyessa were pulling villagers away from a collapsing wall while Kaen’s glyphs flared faintly, holding the roof of a broken shelter in place. Then the ground gave out between them.

  A fissure opened in a straight line across the square, magma lighting their faces from below. The blast of heat forced everyone back.

  “Stay away from the edge!” Hiro shouted.

  Another crack tore across the far side of the field. Out of the smoke, Chiron appeared, half covered in soot, Theseus limp across his back. The centaur’s armor was split and his breathing ragged, but he kept moving.

  “He’s alive, just unconscious,” Chiron said, voice hoarse. “He defeated Tuskbane. Barely.”

  “Great, we have to get to Elysia and the others,” Hiro said. “Phinx will be here soon—he can heal him up.”

  Chiron shook his head once. “No. I’ll find a way around. You focus on the beast.”

  He turned into the smoke with Theseus still slumped across his back. The molten light swallowed him whole. The fissure deepened until only the glow remained between both sides.

  Elysia stepped closer, heat rippling across her skin. “We’ll find the others and check for survivors,” she called, raising a clenched fist. “Make him pay.”

  Hiro gave her a slight smile, and then the ground split again. The ledge she stood on fell away into the molten trench, the flames swallowing her figure. Her voice carried across the gap one last time.

  “I’m fine! Give him hell, Phoenix King!”

  The sound of chains faded into the rumble of the earth. The tremors steadied, quiet but constant. Somewhere in the distance, a roar rolled through the smoke, shaking dust from the ruins.

  Hiro turned toward it, his hair blowing in the wind before settling. The storm had gone silent; only the hum of heat remained. Far off, Phinx’s flames flickered through the haze, then vanished.

  He could feel Tharok moving underground. Every shift of weight sent a pulse through the ground, faint but deliberate. The beast was circling him, using the broken terrain to stay hidden.

  He drew his blade. Lightning crawled along the edge before fading out in the heavy air.

  The hunt had begun.

  The Hunt Beneath Ash

  The smoke closed around him until it felt like a wall. It wasn’t wind or weather anymore; it was smoke and ash, pushed and shaped by the tremors rumbling underfoot. Every step Hiro took sent ripples through the ground, and every ripple came back heavier, as if something beneath was listening.

  The last of the villagers’ cries had faded. The world was quiet now—too quiet for a battlefield that had just been split in half. Somewhere beyond the haze, the others were moving—Elysia, Varin, Lyessa, Kaen—but their voices were buried beneath the groaning earth. He couldn’t tell if the silence meant safety or danger.

  The air shimmered with heat. Every breath stung his lungs. The fissures lined with magma glowed like veins across the ground, pulsing with light that shifted with each quake. Hiro crouched low beside a wall of broken stone and rested his palm against the dirt. The ground pulsed, faint but rhythmic, like a heartbeat.

  It wasn’t random. It was controlled. He was certain Tharok was moving underground now.

  He whispered to himself, “You’re gonna hide, aren’t you?”

  A deep rumble answered, low and rolling. Dust jumped from the surface in tiny arcs. The pulse spread again, traveling outward before returning in a smaller wave. It was like sonar, but earthborn and deadly.

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  Hiro stayed still, holding his breath. He wasn’t sure how Tharok was moving through the molten rock, but one thing was certain—the beast didn’t need eyes. It didn’t even need air. The ground itself was Tharok’s vision. The heat pressed against Hiro’s skin until it burned. He could hear faint cracks forming inside the stone beside him, like knuckles flexing before a punch.

  Then the ground twitched.

  He dove aside just as a tusk split the rock where he had been hiding. The force sent chunks of molten stone flying past his head. The boar’s breath followed, a sound halfway between a roar and a furnace venting steam, before it vanished again into the smoke as if nothing had happened.

  Hiro landed hard, sliding down the slope of a crater. He winced, rolling to a stop. The air was thick with ash and smoke. He spat blood into the dirt and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Fine,” he said under his breath. “You want to hunt me? Let’s see if you can catch me.”

  He crouched again, keeping his movements shallow and light. He picked up a shard of broken stone and tossed it across the fissure. It hit the ground with a sharp clack. Instantly, a tremor answered, splitting the earth apart. Magma hissed and spilled through the new crack.

  Hiro smiled faintly. “I think I figured you out.”

  He grabbed another piece and threw it to his right. Another quake. Then another. The pattern was clear. Tharok was reacting to sound, weight, and vibration. The beast was using the earth itself as a net.

  But now Hiro knew how it worked.

  He began to move, slow and deliberate. Each step matched the rhythm of the smaller tremors so his movement blended with the earth’s pulse. When Tharok stomped, Hiro stepped. When the ground settled, he stopped. The timing wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough to keep him hidden within the quake’s rhythm.

  The smoke shifted again. Something massive moved on the other side of the fissure, its presence bending the waves of heat. The glow from molten light flashed across a tusk, then disappeared.

  Hiro felt the next tremor seconds before it hit. He slid sideways, keeping low. The ground split just behind him, spraying shards of molten rock into the air. The shockwave rolled through his spine. He kept moving.

  He needed higher ground.

  He climbed a half-collapsed column, muscles straining against the weight of his exhaustion. The stone was hot enough to burn him, but he held on. From the top, the battlefield looked like a volcano had erupted—arteries of magma twisting beneath the broken city, smoke curling through the gaps like breath. He could see nothing but shadows and the faint shimmer of heat, but he could feel Tharok somewhere beneath it, massive and waiting.

  The ground below him flexed again.

  “Of course you’d find me,” Hiro muttered. “Try finding me when I’m actually hiding.”

  He leapt off the column just as it burst apart from below. The explosion of heat threw him forward. He hit the ground rolling, came up on one knee, and thrust his blade out as a blur of movement crossed in front of him. The edge met resistance—skin like molten iron. Sparks burst between them before Tharok’s hide shrugged the strike off.

  The boar’s tusk swung through the smoke, cutting clean through a broken arch. Hiro, shocked that the beast would reveal itself, barely ducked in time. The shockwave slammed into his back and sent him skidding across the stone. He coughed, forcing air back into his lungs, and looked up.

  The beast was gone again.

  He pushed himself up slowly, legs trembling. “So that’s how you want to play it.”

  The next few minutes were a game of ghosts. Hiro moved through the haze in silence, covered in soot that mixed with the city’s ash, feeling the quakes, reading the tremors, trying to predict the pattern and track Tharok. Every time he thought he had it, Tharok changed tempo. Sometimes the beast stayed still for a full minute, baiting him. Sometimes it struck twice in a row, sending multiple tremors his way. It was truly hunting him like a tiger stalking a deer.

  Hiro leaned against a shattered statue, chest rising and falling. The air burned with sulfur and dust. Every breath felt heavier than the last. He looked down at the faint tremors running through the rock and smiled tiredly.

  “He’s finding me faster,” he whispered. “I need to step it up.”

  He looked up at the circling Nyxan and thought to himself, finding him isn’t the problem. Keeping track of his movement after is.

  He picked up another chunk of stone and threw it high into the air. The quake came not from where it landed but from the side—Tharok had predicted the trick. The shockwave knocked Hiro back, slamming him into a wall. He hissed through his teeth and pushed himself upright again.

  “Alright,” he muttered. “You win this round.”

  The ground quieted. Only the sound of cooling magma filled the air. Ash drifted in slow waves across the ruins, turning everything gray again. He rested his hand on his knee and steadied his breathing.

  Nyxan landed on his shoulder and let out a soft coo. Her wings twitched, the tips glowing faintly from the heat. She stared through the smoke, head tilting slightly, pupils narrowing like a lens.

  Hiro followed her gaze, eyes narrowing too. The air rippled where she looked—heat distortion, subtle but steady.

  “It’s so hot you can see the heat waves too, huh,” he said quietly. The idea hit him like a spark. He looked around, the pieces falling together in his head. “That’s it.”

  He sank to one knee, closing his eyes. The sound of shifting stone faded into the background. He breathed in once, slow and deep, then began to build a picture in his mind. He imagined the air, the smoke, the fissures, the heat bleeding through the cracks. He sensed it all connected by tiny threads of static electricity, and he was going to connect them.

  The storm was still here. He just had to feel it differently.

  He opened his eyes. They flickered with faint light as he reached his hand out. Lightning crackled at his fingertips before crawling outward in thin arcs, spreading like roots through the air. The arcs thinned as they spread, crawling across stone, dust, and smoke. He let it go, widening it until it touched everything within reach. Every particle hummed faintly with static.

  He could feel Tharok somewhere in that field, a void moving through the current, bending it with every step.