Chapter 27

  There was no time to think. The first parent snapped forward, its armored head smashing through a tree where he had stood a heartbeat before. Raime hurled himself sideways, low gravity catching him and letting him twist midair. He hit the trunk of another tree, boots breaking the bark, and launched upward before the impact of the beast’s lunge tore the ground apart.

  The forest became a blur of branches and pale chitin. Raime’s heart hammered, but the world around him seemed to stretch thin, every moment dragging like it was tethered. His perception sharpened until he could count the flicker of insect wings, the ripple of muscles under armored plates, the exact moment when fangs would snap shut.

  A shadow streaked across him—one of the parents swooping low, its armored body cutting through the trees. Splinters of wood and white flames marring the forest floor. Raime flung himself higher, branches snapping as he swung his weapon around to hit the beast passing less than a meter from him. Thunk—the brutal lever of steel—clashed against the carapace with a sharp metallic shriek. The blow didn’t break the chitin, it barely even moved the creature.

  The second parent surged from below him, mouth splitting wide. He kicked off a branch and moved the Tetra Unum down, bracing himself against its counterforce like a springboard. He pushed with all his strength and at the same time commanded the weapon to fly toward the open mouth, the weapon flew down like a bullet, propelling him backward into the canopy while the creature’s jaws clamped shut on empty air. The shockwave of its bite shredded the tree he was just standing on in half, showering the clearing in splinters.

  But he managed to hurt it, he commanded the Tetra Unum to open like a flower from inside the beast and spin. The giant centipede screeched and thrashed around the forest, breaking trees and spitting ichor all around.

  Raime landed hard, lungs heaving. That took a lot of mental energy.

  He waited until the other one swooped low again, branches exploding as its body plowed through. Raime timed his jump perfectly, gravity granting him a floating heartbeat as he swung Thunk in both hands. The weapon crashed against the seam between two chitin plates, the weakest part he could see. The strike hit true. A crack was left behind, no deeper than a scratch on such a large beast.

  The beast screeched, a sound like tearing metal mixed with thunder, a cry of anger.

  It turned in the air, impossibly nimble for its bulk, and came at him with killing intent. Raime stood still, like a matador in a corrida he waited until the last moment, then he leaned on the left but jumped to the right. The creature slammed into the spot he had been, its momentum snapping the trees like kindling. Its own bulk betrayed it—its body coiled, twisted, and smashed against another trunk with a resounding crack. Bark and splinters rained down, but it was hardly slowed.

  The second parent was not in good condition, but it was furious and in pain. Together, they pinned him, one from above and one from below, one in the front and the other from the back, forcing him into a shrinking pocket of space. His chest tightened. His thread of psionic energy thrummed in his skull, urging him to push outward, to grasp at their minds.

  No. Not again.

  He instead focused on the weapon still inside the centipede, he withdrew his energy form the blades while putting everything he had on the spear part of the weapon, he made it spin and angled it upwards toward what he felt was the direction of the creature’s brain. Another lunge—another desperate leap. His muscles strained, his body twisting through gaps that should have been too small, using every scrap of strenght to stay one heartbeat ahead of death. He slammed Thunk again and again, aiming at seams, joints, softer spots along the underbelly. Each strike chipped, dented, or sparked, but never more. In the meantime the Tetra Unum was drilling through the hard bone to reach the brain. It was sapping his energy and taking away part of his concentration from the fight, but it was working, the beast was not coordinating with his partner anymore. It was screaming now and twitching erratically, that gave Raime the space to survive the other one.

  So, he kept them moving, kept them colliding with trees, branches, and even with each other when his timing was perfect. Once, he sprang off a branch into a high arc and watched the two parents crash together beneath him, their armored coils thrashing in fury. The ground shook like an earthquake.

  Sweat stung his eyes, his arms ached, and his lungs screamed for air. Every moment stretched taut, his slowed perception making the fight seem endless, an eternity of dodges, leaps, and glancing strikes.

  His armor saved him more than once. The cloak, he discovered, was pulling him out of danger when his speed alone wasn’t enough, and when even that didn’t prevent from a hit, it turned what was a direct hit to a glancing blow, while simultaneously adapting to the hit and harden to absorb the force, redistributing it all along the metal cloth and preventing serious harm. Raime would probably be dead already without this protection, but he was starting to understand how to actively use it in combat, sometimes it was better to receive a glancing blow to inflict an attack of his own.

  Finally, after what felt like an hour but was probably less than two minutes, he felt the skull bone give from inside the centipede and the Tetra Unum pierce the brain. The forest fell silent for a heartbeat as the first parent collapsed, its armored bulk smashing through half a dozen trees before coming to rest in a twitching ruin. The Tetra Unum slid free at Raime’s command, tearing back through bone and brain matter, exiting the beast’s mouth with a grotesque wetness. It spun back into formation at his side, dripping ichor, shreds of pale flesh and brain matter clinging to its blades. The stench was sharp, metallic.

  Raime barely had time to breathe.

  The second parent shrieked. The sound was piercing, a screech that shook the canopy and made his teeth ache. Its wings snapped wide, spraying bark and leaves, and in the next instant it lunged, fury incarnate.

  Raime staggered backward, chest heaving. He had won against one and had a weapon that could pierce them, but his body was running on fumes. His vision blurred at the edges, every psionic thread stretched thin by the drilling assault he had forced inside the first beast’s skull.

  The living centipede slammed into the corpse of its fallen mate, tearing it apart as if to reach Raime more quickly. Segments of chitin cracked, ichor spraying in sheets. Raime grimaced.

  He hurled himself upward into the trees, pushing off branches, cloak snapping around him as it hardened against the slipstream. The creature followed, smashing trunks apart as though they were reeds. Raime twisted midair, let the low gravity carry him, and flung the Tetra Unum down in a spiraling arc.

  It struck the centipede’s back, biting deep where plates overlapped. The beast howled, spinning, but Raime’s mental grip on the weapon held—it tethered him like a hook as the monster’s furious thrashing yanked him sideways through the air. His cloak stiffened instinctively, dispersing the worst of the impacts as branches battered him.

  He yanked the weapon free and kicked off the beast’s armored flank, using its own momentum to propel him higher. For a moment, Raime soared, almost weightless, before plunging back into chaos.

  The centipede wheeled. It came at him again, jaws splitting open. Raime’s slowed perception stretched the moment thin—he could see the ripple of its inner maw, each twitch of the mandibles. He hurled the Tetra Unum, and the weapon drove straight into the open mouth.

  It might have been a beast, but it wasn’t unintelligent, it knew now the weapon to be a threat so it closed its jaw and the Tetra Unum slammed on the side of its mouth. The impact staggered it, but not enough. Raime pulled with everything he had, psionic threads flaring, and the weapon tore sideways, splitting a shallow gash along its jaw. Ichor sprayed, hot and acrid.

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  It shrieked again, now maddened, redoubling its assault. The creature no longer cared about trees or terrain—it smashed everything in its path, turning the forest into ruin just to kill him. Raime ran along a fallen trunk, cloak protecting him against the spray of debris, then leapt wide as the beast’s massive head crashed down where he had been.

  He rolled, came up to one knee, and recalled the Tetra Unum. It whirled back to him, grotesquely slick. The ichor still dripped, black and purple against the dark steel, and for the first time Raime thought that he wouldn’t make it.

  But the centipede was not done. Its movements grew faster, more erratic. It wanted to bury him with sheer speed and fury before he could land a fatal strike.

  Raime braced himself, tightening his grip on Thunk in his hands and the Tetra Unum with his mind. His body screamed for rest, for breath. But there wasn’t time.

  The centipede was relentless, faster now, more vicious than before. Every time he thought he had an opening, it shifted, feinted, or slammed its armored bulk against him with such ferocity that the very forest bent around its wrath. Raime’s arms shook, his chest burned, and despair finally crept into him.

  I can’t hurt it enough. Not like this. One mistake… and I’m done.

  The beast dived, jaws yawning wide to crush him whole. With no other choice, Raime threw everything into his mind. A desperate gambit. He lashed outward, threads of psionic power snapping into the creature’s consciousness like barbed wire. The world shivered, his skull splitting with the effort.

  The centipede shrieked mid-flight. Its flight faltered, and the colossal body crashed through the canopy, shattering trees as it slammed into the ground with an impact that made the earth tremble.

  But it wasn’t over. The beast writhed in agony, screeching, its mind a storm of rage and pain. Raime stumbled back, teeth clenched, forcing his will like daggers into its thrashing consciousness. It resisted with all its strength, its will raw, furious and alive. He tried to push deeper, to plant the same anchor he had forced into the juvenile. But the parent’s mind was too strong—older, hardened by a lifetime of fights and survival. Raime’s power cracked against it like waves against shore.

  Blood trickled from his nose. His vision blurred. He was too tired, too drained from the battle. Control was impossible.

  But control wasn’t what he needed.

  The mental assault, even if temporary, was enough to hold it down, to stall the killing frenzy. Every second it fought against his mind was a second it wasn’t crushing him under its coils.

  Raime recalled the Tetra Unum, dragging it through the air to hover before him. His thoughts split in two—one half clawing at the beast’s mind in a furious psychic struggle, the other pouring the last of his strength into the spear part of the weapon. The weapon spun, faster and faster, until the air itself began to shudder around it. The hum rose to a scream, a vibration so sharp it made his bones ache.

  Wind whipped his hair and cloak. The gore still clinging to the blades was flung away in wet streaks by the centrifugal force. Sparks of psionic energy crackled along its edge and purple runes lit up on the weapon.

  The beast thrashed, enraged, its maw opening in a screech of pure hatred as Raime’s mental jabs stabbed into the raw flesh of its mind. Its mandibles spread wide, a cavern of darkness lined with rows of fangs.

  Now!

  He seized the moment, and with every last shred of willpower he hurled the Tetra Unum forward.

  The spear sang through the air, a blur of steel and psionic force. It slammed into the centipede’s open maw, tore through soft flesh, and drilled upward. The beast convulsed, a scream ripping the air as the weapon bored into its skull. Bone cracked, ichor sprayed everywhere, and then the spear punched clean through, bursting from the crown of its head in a rain of splinters and brain matter.

  The massive body spasmed once, twice—then collapsed with an earthshaking crash. Its clawed legs snapped against the ground, shattering trees, before falling still.

  Raime fell to one knee, gasping, the connection to the beast’s mind snapping like a broken cord. His vision pulsed with black spots, his arms trembled, and his skull felt like it was splitting in two. Thunk fell from his hand while the Tetra Unum hovered back to him, blades and spear slick with gore, humming softly as though satisfied.

  He looked at the ruined carcass, chest heaving. Two of the great parents lay dead in the forest, their armored hulks darkening the canopy.

  And he was still alive.

  Raime let the spear fall at his side, resting against it like a crutch. Every part of him ached. His cloak hung heavy around him, his armor was still in good condition, merely dirtied by the forest and streaked with ichor. But in the silence that followed, he knew this was a victory that would be spoken of—if only to himself—for a long time.

  In his contemplation of the fight just finished, he didn’t notice the silence behind him, didn’t sense the shifting of leaves until it was already too late.

  The impact hit him like a thrown boulder. Claws scraped against his armor, screeching on the metal plates, and a heavy body slammed him down into the soil. The world whirled into a blur of snapping twigs and crushed undergrowth as he was driven flat on his back.

  He recognized the shape even before his eyes adjusted—the smaller centipede. The juvenile. Its weight alone was crushing, thicker and longer than his own body, muscles writhing beneath its segmented carapace as it pinned him down. Its legs stabbed frantically at him, trying to pierce the armor and finding no purchase. But the jaws—that split maw lined with rows of daggered teeth—lunged straight for his face.

  Raime jerked his head aside just in time. Teeth snapped shut inches from his eye, the sound like stone cracking under pressure. Hot spit flecked across his cheek.

  The Tetra Unum floated nearby, but the juvenile had him pressed so tight he couldn’t bring it around without skewering himself. All he had were his arms, trembling with fatigue, his hands raw and blistered from the fighting.

  The centipede lunged again.

  He caught its jaws mid-snap.

  Bone-deep pain tore through his wrists as the teeth grazed him, but he forced his hands wider, gripping the mandibles and shoving back with everything he had left. His arms shook under the pressure, veins burning as the beast thrashed, trying to wrench free. Its muscles coiled like steel cables, relentless and crushing.

  He could feel the beast’s hot breath against his face, hear the grinding rasp of teeth straining against each other. Every instinct screamed that his grip would fail, that his arms would buckle and the jaws would close.

  His teeth clenched, a guttural sound tearing from his throat. The juvenile’s head writhed above him, its glassy white eyes boring into his own with an animal madness. Dirt pressed into his back, the weight of the creature threatening to suffocate him, but Raime’s grip held—barely.

  Running on fumes and despair, he pushed his mind through the opening he created before. The creature mind was already marred by the experience and the door to control it was still wide open.

  STOP!

  The best stilled suddenly. Eyes glassed over once again. Move aside. He commanded.

  The centipede dragged itself back, body twisting unnaturally as it yielded to his will. Raime staggered to his feet, gasping for air, the sharp tang of blood and dirt on his tongue. His arms trembled from the strain of holding its jaws apart, his muscles still thrumming with the aftershock of desperation. Too close. That was too damn close.

  The beast stood before him like a puppet dangling from invisible strings. Its legs twitched, scraping against the ground, but its eyes—those pale, haunting orbs—were vacant, stripped of any spark of self. Raime clenched his jaw, refusing to meet its gaze for more than a heartbeat. He didn’t want to see what he had done.

  I said I wouldn’t do this again… and yet here I am.

  The fight had drained him to the marrow. His Psionic Thread quivered like an overdrawn wire, stretched thin against the weight of another mind pressed into its weave. Every second he held onto it, the pressure built, threatening to unravel him as much as the creature. He could feel it bucking beneath the surface, a trapped storm of instinct begging to be free.

  But letting it go meant it would come for him again. And this time, he doubted he had the strength to stand.

  Raime’s hand brushed against the haft of Thunk, and for a long moment he thought about ending keeping the connection. It wasn’t a really powerful beast, but it will grow, his parents were massive. Still he couldn’t bear to look into those empty eyes, the feedback he was receiving from it was sickening: rage and pain and terror and hurt.

  So he decided to end the beast, he considered let it go for a moment, but he nearly died already because of his mercy. With a trembling arm Raime lifted Thunk and brought it down on the beast’s head. It died instantly.

  The recoil of the broken connection nearly brought him to his knees. He dropped Thunk into the dirt, lungs heaving, vision swimming. His body shook with exhaustion, his thoughts clouded with shame. He felt the creature die, even if for just a moment.

  The forest around him was silent again, as if even Ithural itself was holding its breath.

  Raime didn’t feel like a victor. He felt hollow. A survivor by inches. An intruder in a world that was already pressing its weight against him.

  He turned his back on the silence and stumbled toward the temple, every step an effort, knowing he would have to face more dangers in the future, more beasts, more unknowns. He thought he was getting his feet under him, and maybe he was, but this world had a brutal way of reminding him that he was far from the top of the food chain.