A pale aura sheathed my whole body like armor. Every gust of wind slid off it; every splintered branch shattered to dust. I tore straight through the hurricane.
Light stabbed my eyes, the roar drowned my ears, and still the scream ripped free.
"RUDY! ROXY! GODDAMN IT, ANSWER ME!"
My throat burned raw, but I kept shouting, crashing through thickets, vaulting fallen trunks.
"RUDY! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!"
The aura whistled in my ears; every burst of speed came with force—but I didn't slow. They had to answer.
My hearing was cranked to the limit—every crackle punched straight through my skull. Even in this din I heard everything.
For dozens of meters around—every rustle, every branch slapping a trunk, every stone slipping under a root. I hunted for any breath, any heartbeat, the slightest flicker of life.
But beyond the wind, the lightning, and the snapping trees—nothing.
"RUDY! ROXY!"
The words broke into a rasp, but I forced them out until my aura shuddered with the next burst.
"Shit!"
Blink.
Space clapped. In one motion I landed on a thick trunk, drove my boot into the bark, and launched off again.
Second leap. Harder. The air bucked; the aura cinched tight around me, juicing the push, and I shot above the canopy.
Midair my gaze snapped down and farther—toward where the sky was turning inside out. A colossal hurricane, black with flickering veins, was swallowing everything. A vortex eating the world, leaving nothing behind.
My eyes swept lower. Enhanced sight drew out every line. But there was nothing. No trail. No movement.
And then—a snag. An ice field. A ragged white plane in all that black chaos.
My heart hit once, and I fell faster. The ground rushed up, and an instant later my boots punched into the mud.
I snapped upright and headed that way.
At the edge I braked hard, boots skidding over muck like glass.
Before me stretched a forest frozen solid. Hundreds of meters across—trunks, branches, ground, everything sheathed in ice.
I reached out and touched the nearest tree. Cold bit into my palm that very second, and ice crept across my skin, eating it like a living thing.
I ripped my hand back, hard.
Definitely Roxy.
Even my aura couldn't hold it. The magic went straight through, sank its teeth into flesh. Skin was flayed off my fingers.
Skrrr.
A hit cracked behind me. I lunged aside.
Where I'd been standing a heartbeat ago—
Boom!
Red lines carved through the tree, and each slit erupted, ripping bark and splinters to rags.
My eyes snapped toward the attack. More were already incoming. Several at once.
I jumped, twisting midair to slip between them, felt the lines shear the air by my cheek. I slammed into the ground, heels burying in mud, aura flaring tighter to keep my balance.
"And what the hell are you supposed to be..?" I breathed at the grotesque thing.
It loomed taller than an average man, as if stitched from scraps of a body. Muscles overbound, skin stripped and stretched over bony plates. Its back swelled with rows of spines like the fins of some abyssal beast.
A long, eyeless head. A mouth torn to the ears, rictus-bared as if made for nothing but rending flesh and bone.
Its right arm ended in a blade—elongated, hardened, a mutilated limb turned weapon. The left looked closer to human, but the claws were long and crooked, clearly not meant for copping a feel.
It moved low, half-crouched, each step a coiled spring. It didn't seem blind. No eyes—but I felt it: it saw everything. Scent, vibration, sound—every trifle was a signal.
And all of it fixed on me.
"Wait… don't tell me…"
Rudy…
Rage surged up so fast my chest went tight. I stared at the frozen forest—at trunks cracked under ice, at the gray waves of rime smeared across the ground. Everything screamed of Roxy's magic. Which meant…
The realization crashed down.
"Roxy… you fought this thing..?"
The beast lunged. Earth burst in clods beneath it; the blade shrieked through the air.
Monstrous speed. Space crumpled. Two moves—and it was on me.
Even with the aura, with perception stretched to the edge, my gaze slipped, couldn't keep up. Its silhouette jerked in ragged bursts, leaving torn shadows behind.
Strike.
The right arm swept up, that flesh-blade raised over my head.
Clang!
Divine Reversal.
The blow met my sword—and in the same split moment the steel flared. Everything the creature had poured into its cut rebounded straight back.
Joints cracked, the body snapped backward, staggered under its own force.
Then, instantly—
Sundering Flash.
The blade whipped down in an arc; the air popped from the speed. The cut slammed into the creature's shoulder—but the edge rang off with a growl. The bony plates fractured, but didn't give.
Shards rained. The thing jerked, hissed, but held.
For a blink space lit red.
Blink.
I slipped aside, and a beam lanced through where I'd just been. Red aura scythed the forest, burning everything in its path. Trees detonated, earth went black.
The beast snapped its jaws—and the beam vanished. Only smoke and glowing gouges smoldered behind it.
A dash to the side—and in that same second the creature crashed down where I'd stood.
Explosion!
The ground heaved; mud and splinters geysered up; trunks cracked around us under the shockwave.
Its blade carved a red line behind me, the air whistling, tearing in its wake.
Blink—and I went straight at it. Three rapid cuts, sharp, stabbing into the gaps between plates. The monster lifted its blade and smashed down, but I was already gone from that spot.
Malgra's Fin.
I slipped behind it. My blade fell again—several quick strikes to the ribs, the neck, the joints.
It twitched, spun with a wild sweep, and chopped.
Again—
Divine Reversal.
The blow bounced in the same heartbeat, the force slamming back into its chest and rattling its whole frame.
Sundering Flash.
Right into the same crack where the plates had already split. The edge slid in like through soft flesh, punched bone, and drove deeper.
The thing howled. It slashed.
Flow.
Steel slid; the strike went wide; the force bled off. But at the instant of contact the blade flashed red. A line ripped outward along my arm. Skin opened; blood poured; but the technique held—the hit went into emptiness.
The beast didn't slow. A second swing, no pause.
Clang!
My sword beat it aside, flaring sparks.
And in that same instant the creature's other hand slammed its claws into my gut. My body whipped left, breath blasted out. The aura held, but the claws scored across my abs, leaving burning grooves.
Wham!
It slammed me with its shoulder, the rush inhuman. The impact knocked the air from my lungs, and its claws came down from above.
Screech.
I met them with my blade. Steel shrieked; sparks fountained. But the thing didn't stop.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A sword strike. Too fast. Its speed shredded the rhythm; techniques couldn't set. Only one thing remained.
Flow.
I drew the blade aside, shunting every hit, or it would tear me open. But each swing came with another right on its heels. Left hand. Claws. From below, from the side, from above.
I was forced purely on defense. Every motion—deflection, slip, slide. And still the blows rained one after another, no pause, no heartbeat left for a counter.
Red gouges peeled off its blade with every sweep, slicing the air. Another strike—
Flow.
I bled the cut aside—but poorly. The force skated, and the beast rolled the momentum low, straight for my legs.
I sprang, body flipping in the air. From above I hammered down a hail of blows.
Ting. Ting. Ting.
The bony plates on its head took all of it. Not a single strike bit.
Its arm shot up and grabbed my leg. An iron vise. The next instant my body was ripped down—and the ground caved.
Earth split; trees around us toppled, crushed by the shockwave. A crater yawned, full of dust and shards.
It held tight; its fingers dug into my leg.
"A—A—A!"
Its blade slammed into my shoulder—straight through.
Pain detonated at once, a sheet of fire flooding my body. And then worse: it was like my blood was being drawn out, every vein squeezed toward the wound. It all streamed to the blade and vanished into it.
The creature yawned its maw. Energy flared inside, gathering into a pulsing core.
"FUCK!"
Strike.
My sword drove straight into its mouth.
The beast's head snapped back. Its grip on my leg tore loose; the claws sprang open.
I twisted, caught the moment, and kicked with everything I had at my sword's hilt. The blade punched deeper, splitting its maw from within.
The blow tore it off its feet, flinging it into the air.
I blinked hard to the side.
And the red beams that had been coiling inside it burst loose—but inside it.
The flash blew through its torso, shredding it from within, blasting plates and bone to rags.
BOOM!
Flame and a shockfront washed the world. The forest bowed away. Trunks, roots, earth—everything was scoured out for hundreds of meters.
Fire climbed. Thunder rolled through the woods, ripping everything. The ground trembled while trees fell and roots tore into fissures.
I lay in the mud, chest heaving. My ears rang. Smoke and ash veiled everything around me.
Where the creature had stood—nothing now. Just a charred pit and smoldering debris.
I clenched the hilt, fingers cramping. Rose, dragging breath into my lungs.
"Rudy…" The name scraped out of my throat.
And I walked on, through cinder and crackling flame.