"Don't push. Compress." "Imagine pushing blood to your fingertips. All your focus. All your energy. Into one point. Don't release it. Just build it. Make it dense."
Silence. Then:
"It's... it's getting hot. Really hot."
"Good. Keep going."
"My hand is burning."
"That's the point. Compress it tighter. Smaller. Hotter."
For the first time since Awakening, Darius felt real heat. Not the easy warmth of uncontrolled wildfire. True, searing, concentrated heat that made his fingertips glow white.
It felt different, not pain more like pins and needles on his finger.
Darius released it!
A compressed spear of white-hot flame erupted from his fingertip. Small. Dense. Fast.
It punched through the mist like a bullet.
Hit an Ironfang Wolf square in the chest.
The Beast's metallic fur offered no protection against concentrated heat. The sphere burned through hide, muscle, bone. Emerged from the other side.
The wolf collapsed. Dead before it hit the ground.
The flame had been so bright, so concentrated, that for one second the mist burned away in a perfect sphere of visibility.
Darius stared at his hand.
He'd done that.
Actually killed something efficiently. Cleanly.
He smiled.
Then reality crashed back.
Corren taught me that. Not my brother. Not my training. A powerless boy with a broken Veil showed me how to use my own power.
I'm a failure.
The smile died.
But his hand still burned white-hot. The technique worked even if his pride was shattered.
"Again!" Corren's voice. "The Mistcats! In the trees!"
Darius looked up. Saw movement through thinning mist. Large cats. Bigger than housecats. Faster. Eyes gleaming.
He compressed. Released. Another white sphere.
Hit a Mistcat square. It screeched. Fell. Dead.
The mist wavered. Thinned.
Another compression. Another sphere. Another cat down.
The mist cleared completely.
Visibility returned.
Lyra stood twenty feet away, breathing hard. Her blade was different. Looser. Dripping.
She'd been overusing her Veil. Pushing too hard. The metal had become more liquid than solid. With each swing, she was losing mass. Drops of metal falling away, uncontrolled.
She reformed it quickly. Pulled the liquid back. Solidified it properly.
But she'd learned the limit. The edge where control failed.
3 wolves left. Two Mistcats. Scattered snake pieces on the ground, some cut by Lyra's blade, some charred by Darius's fire.
Manageable numbers.
Then Corren's sense pulsed.
Different sensation. Not immediate. Not close.
But wrong.
Reality felt... odd. Bent. Thin.
"Something's wrong," he said quietly.
"What now?" Darius was exhausted, running on fumes.
"The Beasts. They're too strong for normal E-rank. Too coordinated. Too intelligent." Corren turned slowly, trying to feel the wrongness. "Veiled Beasts are just animals exposed to Veil energy. They mutate slowly. Naturally. But this? This is accelerated. Unnatural."
"What causes that?" Lyra asked.
"Rift energy. High concentrations." He pointed east. "There's a Rift nearby. Has to be. Probably underground. Not fully formed. But leaking. Enhancing everything around it."
Silence.
Darius's face went pale. "Rifts are C-rank threats minimum. We need to leave. NOW."
"Do you know a way out?" Lyra asked Corren.
He closed his eyes. Tried to sense. "No. We're too deep. Too turned around. If someone could just look from above, it would be obvious. We could see where the energy is thinnest. Navigate away from the Rift."
"Can't climb these trees," Darius said. "Not with the snakes. Not in our condition."
"Then we pick a direction and hope," Lyra said.
But before they could move, the alpha appeared.
Twice the size of normal wolves. Metallic fur darker, denser. Eyes that burned with more than animal intelligence.
Probably C-rank.
And behind it, two more wolves. Nearly as large. D-rank elites.
The pack's leadership. The real threat.
They spread out. Professional. Coordinated.
Corren's mind raced. Factory calculations applied to death odds.
Three E-rank humans. Exhausted. Low on stamina.
Versus one C-rank alpha and two D-rank elites.
Math said they died.
But math didn't account for desperation.
"Do you know that wolves go after the weakest?" Corren said quietly.
"What?" Lyra turned to look at him.
"I have a plan."
***
He ran.
No warning. No explanation. Just pure sprint away from them.
Into the forest. Into danger.
The wolves' heads turned as one. Tracked the fleeing prey.
The weakest. The slowest. The most vulnerable.
Easy kill.
The alpha snarled. A command.
All three wolves charged after Corren.
He ran in bursts. Fast as his factory-worker legs could manage. Weaving between trees. Taking paths too narrow for large wolves to follow easily.
His lungs screamed. His legs burned. His sense pulsed with every footfall, guiding him away from immediate death.
He ran deeper. Further from Lyra and Darius. Further from help.
The wolves crashed through undergrowth behind him. Closing distance. Patient. They had time.
Prey always tired eventually.
Then Corren saw it.
He turned hard. Changed direction. Ran back the way he'd come.
Back toward Lyra and Darius.
The wolves turned with him. Faster. Closing in.
Ten feet behind. Eight. Six.
Corren's boot hit a stone.
His foot slipped on wet leaves.
He fell. A piece of his hair cut and charred .
The wolves pounced. All three. Airborne. Mouths open. Victory certain.
Then they died.
Mid-air. No warning. Just sudden resistance
The alpha's head separated from its body. The two D-ranks were sliced into pieces. All three corpses crashed into the ground in a tangle of meat and bones
The smell of charred flesh filled the clearing.
Corren lay on his back. Gasping. Alive.
Lyra and Darius came running.
"It worked," Corren gasped.
Lyra smiled. Small. Proud.
Between three trees, invisible unless you knew to look, metal wires stretched. Impossibly thin. Almost invisible. Positioned at throat-height for charging wolves.
And glowing white-hot from Darius's compressed heat.
"Wire trap," Corren said, sitting up slowly. "Lyra created them while you compressed heat into them. The stone marked the safe path. I ran the wolves into the killing zone."
Darius stared at the bisected alpha. At the superheated wires. At Corren, who'd used himself as bait.
"That's..." He didn't finish. Couldn't find words.
"Effective," Lyra finished. She offered Corren her hand. Pulled him up. "Very effective."
They stood in the clearing. Breathing hard. Alive. Victorious.
But exhausted.
Corren's sense pulsed weakly. His stamina was nearly gone. Couldn't maintain focus much longer.
Lyra's metal was almost depleted. She'd lost too much mass during the earlier fighting.
Darius's flames were barely embers. His Veil drained from compression techniques he wasn't trained for.
"We need to find the exit," Lyra said. "Before something else finds us."
"I don't know which way," Corren admitted.
They looked at each other. Three exhausted teenagers. Surrounded by mist and corpses and deepening darkness.
"Pick a direction," Darius said finally. "Any direction. We'll figure it out."
They chose west. Random. Desperate. Hopeful.
Started walking.
The mist followed them. Always three feet behind. Never closer. Never further.
After twenty minutes, Corren stopped.
His sense pulsed.
Different again.
Not wolves. Not cats. Not snakes.
Something else.
Something bigger.
Moving through the mist. Silent. Graceful. Predatory.
"Run," he whispered.
"What?"
"RUN!"
They ran.
Behind them, golden eyes opened in the darkness.
Watching.
Hungry.
Patient.
The real hunt had just begun.