“I’ll take it from here.”

  The brute turned towards us, more by instinct than awareness. Its eyes were ruined, its footing uncertain. I didn’t rush it. I took my time.

  I hexed it.

  Once.

  Then again.

  And again.

  I layered the magic deliberately, stacking different afflictions like weights added to a scale. Strength drained from its limbs. Its movements slowed. Its already poor coordination degraded into clumsiness. I dulled its defences, gnawed at its vitality, then went further, impairing its hearing to complement the blindness Melissa had inflicted.

  With every new hex, I felt its resistance crumble.

  Hexer’s Touch was working.

  Each condition made the next easier to anchor, like my magic was finding cracks already carved into its being. The trait description hadn’t lied. The more afflicted it became, the more receptive it was to my magic.

  The gorg staggered, confused, utterly lost, thrashing at shadows and ghosts that no longer existed.

  I decided to test something.

  I formed the most basic Arcane Dart I could manage. No empowerment. No infusion. Just raw, simple spellcraft.

  I flicked it towards the brute’s thigh, and the dart struck exactly where I aimed.

  Instead of a neat puncture, the magic tore through flesh and bone as if they were wet paper. The limb separated completely, spinning away in a spray of dark blood before hitting the ground with a heavy thud.

  I blinked. As the gorg fell screaming too.

  That was… far more than expected.

  The disparity in levels and stats mattered, clearly, but this was something else. The layered hexes had amplified the effect enormously. Useful information. Very useful.

  Curious, I dispelled the hexes entirely.

  The brute thrashed on the ground, roaring in agony, blood soaking into the soil. I formed another unempowered dart and fired it into the other thigh.

  This time, the dart punched straight through, leaving a clean, gruesome hole. No dismemberment nor catastrophic damage.

  I frowned.

  So that was the difference.

  I reapplied a single, focused weakening hex, pouring my intent into it, then reinforced it with Malign Intensification. The effect was immediate. The creature’s struggles weakened to pitiful spasms, its prodigious strength stripped away until it could barely move.

  I approached calmly and planted my boot on its left arm, pinning it to the ground.

  “Stay.”

  I activated Drain the Accursed. The spell fought me again; the less than ideal direct contact was hard to maintain, but I was doing it intentionally, and I was improving.

  Life force surged into me, warm and intoxicating, washing away fatigue and sharpening my senses. The gorg wheezed beneath my foot, its vitality unravelling into threads I could feel and grasp.

  It tried to reach for me with its remaining arm.

  I didn’t bother stepping back.

  I syphoned a fraction of the stolen energy and shaped a compact Arcane Blast, directing it point-blank with a finger. The spell detonated harder than I intended, blasting the hand and sending fingers tumbling across the ground. The stump flopped uselessly, bleeding slowly as the creature’s life faded.

  Less than ten seconds later, it was dead.

  I released the spell and exhaled slowly.

  I was starting to understand it. The understanding was not complete, not even close, but it was enough to sketch the outline of what could be. Extracting life energy. Redirecting it. The implications made my fingers itch.

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  But Marco was still fighting.

  So I turned my attention back to him just in time to see the exchange worsen. The gorg mage and Marco were both wounded now, but the balance was shifting, and not in Marco’s favour. His breathing laboured. His mana was probably nearly gone; I could tell it just by looking at him.

  Alya noticed too.

  She started forward, sword already rising. “I’m killing it before that thing gets a lucky shot.”

  “No!” Marco screamed after hearing her.

  He broke from cover before anyone could stop him.

  He ran straight at the gorg mage, firing mana arrows wildly from behind the shield. A few struck home, drawing roars of pain, but then the mage retaliated. Stones exploded from the ground to the air, slamming into Marco’s body. Fragments lodged into his legs and his abdomen.

  He screamed, but he didn’t stop.

  A blade of pale blue mana formed around his hand, jagged and unstable. He lowered the shield and threw himself at the gorg mage, driving the blade forward as they crashed to the ground together.

  They rolled once.

  Twice.

  Then stopped.

  The gorg mage lay still, the mana blade having punched through its chest in a brutal, uneven wound. The sword was still lodged in its heart when it dissipated light particles.

  Marco laughed.

  “I did it! I did it! I killed the bastard!” His laughter turned into a wheezing gasp. “Oh my god, everything hurts… call a doctor…”

  Mary was already running there.

  She dropped to her knees besides him, hands glowing as she worked, extracting stone fragments one by one and sealing wounds as quickly as she could. Marco's colour returned gradually, though he kept panting and swearing through clenched teeth.

  “I got the achievement!” he shouted suddenly. “Fuck! It hurts! Can you be more gentle?”

  Alya and Marcus shook their heads in unison.

  Rhea knelt besides Melissa, praising her barrier work and steady thinking. Melissa looked dazed but proud, and rightly so.

  Overall, it wasn’t a bad outcome.

  Marco would be stronger for this if he survived his ego. Melissa had proven she could hold her ground. With a few more fights, they might close the gap between them and the rest of us.

  As for me…

  The fight left me restless. Hungry.

  I wanted something bigger. Smarter. Faster.

  I wanted one of the monsters that had made Quinn run.

  That would be a good test.

  The forest settled into an uneasy quiet once all the gorgs were dead.

  Steam rose from torn earth and cooling blood, the forest swallowing the echoes of the fight with uncomfortable speed. I was still scanning the treeline when Quinn reappeared, slipping out from between two trunks like he’d been part of the shadows all along.

  Alya rounded on him immediately, one brow lifting. “Where the hell did you go?”

  Quinn shrugged, unbothered. “You had it handled, so I checked the surroundings. Nothing’s sneaking up on us today.”

  He tilted his head, listening to something only he could hear. “We’re right on the border of the wendigo-thing territory, you know? This far out, stuff ambushes us, not the opposite.”

  That drew a collective grimace.

  Good. Awareness beats comfort.

  The conversation drifted back to the fight itself. Mary was still crouched over Marco, hands glowing faintly as she sealed the last of his wounds. Stone fragments clinked softly as she set them aside. Marco, for his part, was grinning like he’d just won the lottery.

  “I’m telling you,” he said, breath still a little uneven, “that was insane. I felt it when the blade went in. Like… like the system noticed.”

  Mary shot him a flat look. “You’re lucky the System didn’t notice you dying.”

  He laughed anyway. “Worth it.”

  Nearby, Alya was busy looting. She moved through the fallen gorgs with practiced efficiency, dragging weapons into a small pile. Alya gathered two oversized greatswords, her axe that she had reclaimed from earlier, and a massive sledgehammer that looked like it had been ripped from a siege line.

  She bundled most of it together with a grunt, then hefted one of the greatswords, testing its balance. “Ugly,” she muttered. “But it’ll do.”

  Rhea stood a little apart, hands clasped tightly in front of her. She hadn’t said much since the fight ended. I could feel it in her—the frustration and helplessness of being on the sidelines when things turned violent. She didn’t voice it, but she didn’t have to.

  I cleared my throat, drawing everyone’s attention.

  “That was a fantastic first fight,” I said. “Messy, but expected. Separating for achievements caused problems, yes, but that’s temporary. Once everyone achieves their initial significant milestones, we will begin to function as a cohesive team.

  I let my gaze linger on each of them. “Teamwork comes after survival. We’re still in the survival phase.”

  Melissa raised a hand hesitantly. “Elias… how am I supposed to kill a mage on my own like that? It felt impossible. I can stall, but I can’t finish.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not impossible. You’re closer than you think.”

  She frowned, listening intently.

  “Push your mana ray to level ten,” I continued. “Focus on output, not finesse. You already have the barriers. That’s your advantage. You stop the mage, force them to waste mana breaking through, and you burn them down while they flail.”

  Her eyes widened slightly as the idea clicked.

  “You don’t need to overpower them,” I added. “You just need to outlast them.”

  Melissa went quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly. “I’m at level nine with that spell already.”

  She looked up, determination settling in. “I can do that. I’ll improve it and then take on a mage.”

  Good.

  I smiled faintly. “That’s the spirit.”

  Quinn chuckled under his breath. “See? Already thinking like a killer.”

  Melissa shot him a look, then smirked. “It’s not that these things are human; if it’s not human, it doesn’t count.”

  Alya snorted as Quinn replied. “No, no, no, this is an act of premeditated murder. I told you yesterday what will happen, and you told me, 'Nooo, I'm not a killer... look at you now.'"

  Melissa pointed a finger at him and scrunched her eyes while muttering, "I'll remember this." And the tension eased, just a little.

  We gathered our things, weapons were redistributed, wounds were bound, and lessons were learned. Ahead of us lay darker woods and smarter monsters, but for now, we were still standing.

  Time to move.

  “Ah! It still hurt, dammit!”

  Alya looked at Marco. “Are you even a man?”

  We were going to be ambushed for sure.

  20 chapters ahead!