The jungle grew darker as they pushed deeper, the bioluminescent fungi sputtering and dying as if poisoned by something in the air. The team moved in tight formation, weapons ready, but the usual sounds of the gate, the clicks, the hisses, the ambient noise of an alien ecosystem, had vanished completely.
Silence pressed down on them like a physical weight.
Morale hung heavy after the previous night's losses. Two hunters were dead, three more were injured badly enough that Sarah had exhausted most of her healing reserves keeping them stable. Jake still led from the front, but his usual banter had died. Even his grin felt forced.
Then they saw the runes.
Purple symbols carved into tree trunks, pulsing with a nauseating light that hurt to look at directly. Not static carvings but living things, throbbing like exposed hearts. The patterns seemed to writhe when observed, changing configuration in ways that made Ash's eyes water.
Ash's mark burned. Not the gentle pulse from before, but an insistent, throbbing heat that matched the rhythm of the runes. Like a heartbeat. Like recognition.
"Something's ahead," Thomas called out, his enhanced sight piercing the gloom.
They found it in a clearing where the trees had been torn down to create an arena. The ground was scorched black, and more of those purple runes covered every surface trees, rocks, even carved into the earth itself.
At the center stood the Corrupted Lizard Warlord.
It had been a lizardman once, maybe even one of the knights. But the dark magic had transformed it into something monstrous.
Twelve feet tall, its body warped by corruption extra spines jutted from its back at irregular angles, some still growing, piercing through flesh. One arm was grotesquely oversized, muscles bulging with unnatural mass, while the other ended in claws so sharp they seemed to cut the air itself.
Its jaw had split and reformed, now holding three rows of teeth like a shark's maw.
Purple energy leaked from every orifice, eyes, mouth, the gaps in its scales, pooling at its feet and spreading across the ground in toxic veins.
And it was aware. Its eyes, burning with that same purple light, tracked them with calculating intelligence.
"Fall back," Jake said quietly. "Everyone except Angela and Helen. Ash, you stay close enough to call targets but behind our line. Everyone else, defensive perimeter. If we fall, you run."
Helen stepped forward, her tablet abandoned. Magic crackled around her hands, raw mana manifesting as white light.
Angela's time manipulation flickered around her.
The Warlord moved first.
Its speed was impossible for something that size. One moment it stood in the center, the next it was on them, oversized arm swinging in an arc that could split a person in half.
Jake met it head-on, enhancement pushed to maximum. His fist connected with the Warlord's arm, and the impact shook the clearing. But the creature barely flinched.
"Hit it together!" Angela blurred through time, appearing at the Warlord's flank. Her daggers, aged to impossible sharpness, struck at the creature's side. They bit deep, purple blood spraying, but the wounds closed almost immediately, dark magic knitting flesh back together.
Helen's hands blazed with electricity. "On my mark—now!"
Lightning arced across the clearing, striking the Warlord's back. The creature convulsed, paralyzed for a crucial second.
Jake capitalized immediately, enhanced fist driving into the Warlord's chest. The impact cracked scales, driving the creature backward.
"Again!" Jake called. "We chain attacks, don't give it time to regenerate!"
They fell into a desperate rhythm. Jake would stagger it with raw power, Helen would paralyze with lightning, Angela would exploit the opening with time-accelerated strikes.
Combo after combo, building intensity.
But the Warlord was learning.
It caught Jake's next punch with its oversized arm and squeezed. Bones cracked audibly.
"Ash!" Angela shouted. "Weak points!"
Ash's eyes flared black and green. The Warlord's structure appeared in his vision—and what he saw made his blood run cold.
The dark magic had restructured everything. Normal weak points didn't exist anymore. But there a concentration of purple energy at the base of the spine, feeding corruption through the entire body.
"Spine, lower back! Where the purple energy concentrates!"
Angela blurred behind the Warlord, daggers striking for the nexus point. Her blades connected, and the creature screamed not pain, but rage. Purple energy exploded outward, throwing her back.
The Warlord spun, faster than before, learning their pattern. Its clawed hand swept toward Jake—
And took his hand off at the wrist.
Jake's scream cut through the clearing.
Blood sprayed as he stumbled back, clutching the stump where his right hand used to be. The hand hit the ground still clenched in a fist.
"Jake!" Helen redirected her lightning, striking the Warlord to give Jake space to retreat.
But Jake didn't retreat. His face twisted with pain and fury, he enhanced his left arm to maximum. "I'm not done yet!"
He charged one-handed, using his entire body as a weapon. His shoulder check staggered the Warlord, and his left fist found the creature's jaw with devastating force.
Helen's lightning struck again, and the Warlord convulsed. Angela accelerated time around herself, her daggers finding gaps in armor, targeting joints, trying to slow the creature down.
The combos evolved. Jake would tackle low, Helen would strike with lightning from above, Angela would time-reverse the Warlord's regeneration, aging its newly healed wounds back to open injuries.
But Helen was flagging. Sweat poured down her face, her hands shaking as she called forth more lightning. "Mana reserves at twenty percent," she gasped. "I can't maintain this pace."
The Warlord sensed the weakness. It ignored Jake's next strike, tanking the blow, and lunged at Helen with both arms.
Angela intercepted, time manipulation creating a barrier that slowed the attack to frozen motion. "Helen, fall back!"
"One more!" Helen's hands blazed with her last reserves of mana. Lightning, brighter and more concentrated than before, lanced into the Warlord's chest.
The creature staggered, smoke rising from charred flesh. The purple energy flickered, weakened.
"Now!" Jake shouted. "All together!"
But even as he moved, Ash saw it the Warlord wasn't weakened. It was baiting them.
"Wait, it's—"
Too late.
The Warlord's oversized arm swept out, catching Jake across the chest and sending him flying. He hit a tree with bone-breaking force and collapsed.
Angela rushed to his side while Helen collapsed to her knees, mana exhaustion hitting like a physical blow.
The Warlord advanced on them, purple energy pulsing stronger now, feeding on their desperation.
Ash felt his mark burning hotter than ever before. The same desperate feeling from the estate flooded through him people dying, powerless to stop it, needing something, anything.
He thrust out his marked hand. "Summon!"
The mark flared with red light.
But nothing happened.
No demon materialized. No reality-tearing circle. Just his hand outstretched, shaking, and the Warlord turning its attention to him.
"Summon!" Ash shouted again, pouring everything into the command. "Moros! Anyone! Please!"
Silence. The mark burned, but the connection wouldn't form. Whatever had triggered the summoning at the estate that perfect storm of desperation and mortal terror it wasn't there. Or maybe it was, but he didn't know how to control it.
The Warlord's jaw split into that terrible three-row grin. It had seen him try. Seen him fail.
And it knew he was helpless.
"Ash, run!" Angela screamed, trying to stand but her mana was depleted, her time manipulation sputtering uselessly.
Jake struggled to his feet despite the damage, his left arm hanging useless now, his right hand gone. Blood poured from a dozen wounds. But he put himself between Ash and the Warlord anyway.
"Get out of here," Jake said, his voice steady despite the pain. "All of you. That's an order."
"Jake, no—"
"Tell Kim..." Jake coughed, blood on his lips. "Tell her the training program works. These kids... they're ready."
The Warlord's clawed hand lashed out, faster than thought.
Jake tried to dodge, but his injuries had stolen his speed. The claws caught him across the throat, cutting so deeply they severed his spine.
Jake's head separated from his body.
Time seemed to stop. Jake Torres B-rank body enhancer, teacher, the man who made the apocalypse feel survivable, collapsed in two pieces.
Helen's scream was raw and broken. Angela stared in horror, her hands still glowing uselessly with depleted time magic.
And Ash stood frozen, his marked hand still outstretched, still trying to summon something that wouldn't come.
The Warlord turned toward them, purple energy flaring brighter, feeding on Jake's death. Its mutated jaw opened wide, and it took a step forward.
They had nothing left. No mana, no strength, no hope.
Just the taste of ash and the weight of another death Ash couldn't prevent.