After the howl—after the answering rush of bodies and claws and hunger—the woods should have been alive with motion. Branches snapping. Snow scattering. Predators converging.
Instead, everything went quiet.
Too quiet.
The wendigo stood amid the wreckage of splintered trees and shattered ice, its elongated body half-crouched, head tilted slightly to one side. Its breath fogged the air in slow, uneven pulses. Pale veins of frost crawled across its skin, knitting torn muscle back together where bark and stone had ripped it open moments ago.
It listened.
Nothing.
No footfalls.
No heartbeats rushing toward it.
No frenzy of lesser kin answering its call.
Confusion crept across its malformed features—not fear, not yet, but irritation. Its lips peeled back from jagged teeth as it turned in a slow circle, eyes scanning the darkness between the trees.
"They were coming," it muttered simply. "I heard them."
Its claws flexed. Frost crackled along the talons.
Behind it, Kael struggled to his feet.
Every movement sent fire through his ribs.
His arms trembled from exhaustion, his hands slick with blood—his own and the wendigo's. He staggered toward the fallen Alpha hunter, dropping to a knee beside him.
The man was still alive. Barely.
His breathing was shallow and wet, each inhale a fight. Blood soaked through his coat, dark against the snow. One eye was swollen shut, the other unfocused but conscious.
Kael slid an arm beneath his shoulders, gritting his teeth as he lifted him slightly.
"We're moving," Kael whispered, though he wasn't sure if the man could hear him. "Stay with me."
A presence shifted in front of them.
Kael froze.
The figure who had slammed the wendigo away stood several paces ahead, partially obscured by shadow.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
His coat was darker than the night, swallowing what little light filtered through the trees. No insignia caught the eye—no unnecessary markings.
An Aegis.
Kael felt it instinctively, the way prey knows when something far worse than a predator has entered the clearing.
The hunter did not speak.
He looked at Kael first.
Not with urgency. Not with concern.
With assessment.
Then his gaze shifted to the Alpha hunter bleeding out in Kael's arms. The slightest tightening of his jaw was the only reaction he allowed himself. He inclined his head once, sharp and deliberate.
Take him.
The meaning was unmistakable.
The hunter's eyes returned to Kael. They held there for a fraction of a second longer, steady and unyielding.
Leave this to me.
Kael swallowed.
Every instinct screamed at him to argue, to protest, to stay. But the air around the Aegis felt heavy, pressurized—like standing too close to a drawn blade.
He nodded once in return.
Carefully, Kael hauled the Alpha hunter upright, looping the man's arm over his shoulder.
The weight nearly buckled his knees, but he forced himself forward, step by agonizing step, dragging them both away from the center of the clearing.
The wendigo noticed.
Its head snapped toward them, eyes flaring with annoyance.
"Leaving already?" it called out, voice low and amused. "I wasn't finished."
Ice rippled along its spine as it stepped forward—
—and stopped.
The Aegis moved.
Not fast.
Not slow.
He simply shifted his stance, boots crunching softly into the snow, and placed himself squarely between the wendigo and its retreating prey.
The wendigo's grin widened.
"Oh," it said. "So you're the reason they stopped coming."
It straightened, bones popping and reforming as its body continued to regenerate. Torn flesh flowed like wax under heat, knitting seamlessly, reinforcing itself. Frost bloomed across its limbs, thicker now, denser—armor forming where skin had once been.
"I was promised a feast," it continued, licking its lips with a long, pale tongue. "Appetizers were… entertaining."
Its gaze flicked briefly toward Kael and the Alpha hunter disappearing into the trees.
"But you," it said, eyes locking onto the Aegis. "You feel like the main course."
The Aegis did not respond.
He drew his sword.
The blade was dark—not black, but something deeper, like obsidian that had swallowed starlight. No frost clung to it. No steam rose from its edge.
The wendigo's amusement faded, replaced by focus.
It dropped lower, limbs spreading wider as it shifted fully into its combat posture. All fours now. Its spine arched unnaturally, tail-blades unfurling behind it, each edged with glimmering ice.
The ground beneath its claws froze solid.
"I'll peel you slow," it said simply.
The Aegis slid one foot back, cloak settling around him like a living shadow. His presence seemed to dim the space itself, light bending away, sound muffling.
At last, he spoke.
His voice was calm. Flat. Unimpressed.
"Riven Drayke commencing dispatch."
The wendigo's grin returned, sharp and eager.
"Cryo Sovereign Art," it intoned, frost surging violently around its limbs. "Pale Glacier Claws."
Ice exploded outward as it launched forward, the world blurring into motion—
—and the shadows answered.
Riven's blade vanished into darkness as he stepped into it, his form dissolving at the edges like smoke caught in a gale.
"Umbra Style," he said, voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.
The clearing plunged into unnatural dusk.
"Fifth Form."
The wendigo struck.
Claws carved through empty air as Riven's afterimage shattered like glass. Shadows folded inward, wrapping around the hunter's body, swallowing him whole.
The wendigo skidded to a halt, snarling, frost spiraling violently as it searched.
"Show yourself."
Silence.
Then—
"Obsidian Veil."
The darkness moved.
Not rushed.
Not explosive.
It flowed.
And the wendigo realized—too late—that it was no longer the hunter.
It was the hunted.