The Anomaly didn't charge. It spilled.
Like a cup of black ink tipped over a map, the darkness rushed across the bridge. It moved faster than any beast Kael had ever fought. There were no footfalls, only the sound of wet tearing.
"Kael, brace!" Voss shouted from behind. The machine-man dropped to one knee, his rifle leveled.
Kael raised his iron sword. "I'm ready."
He wasn't.
The shadow slammed into him. It didn't hit like a hammer; it hit like a cold wave. Kael's sword passed straight through the black mist, finding nothing to cut.
But the Anomaly found him.
Tendrils of darkness lashed out, solidifying instantly into claws. They raked across Kael's chest plate.
Steel screamed and sparked. Kael was thrown backward, skidding dangerously close to the edge of the infinite drop.
Too slow, the Anomaly hissed. Its voice vibrated in Kael's teeth. Too heavy.
Kael scrambled up. His chest hurt. The claws hadn't cut deep, but the cold was spreading. It felt like frostbite moving through his veins.
"It's not solid!" Kael yelled. "I can't cut it!"
"It shifts density!" Voss fired three shots. The white beams punched holes in the darkness, but the Anomaly just flowed around them, knitting itself back together. "It is adapting to kinetic impacts!"
The Anomaly reared up. It tower over Kael, a hydra of smoke and hate. One of its heads snapped forward, jaws wide.
Kael dove. The bite snapped on empty air, but the shockwave dizzied him.
He rolled to his feet, panting. He couldn't fight this. It was like trying to sword-fight a storm.
Give up, the Anomaly whispered. Join the pile.
Kael looked at the First Sword, sitting chained on the Throne. The old warrior was watching him with dull, tired eyes. He wasn't helping. He was waiting to see if Kael would die.
"Not today," Kael growled.
He looked at his left hand. The obsidian arm.
It was pulsing. A slow, heavy throb that matched the pain in his chest.
You want to be the weapon?
Kael dropped his iron sword. It clangored uselessly on the metal bridge.
He raised his black hand. He didn't try to punch. He tried to pull.
He remembered the feeling of the Spire taking his memories. The suction. The hunger. He pushed that feeling into the arm. He gave it everything he had—his anger, his fear, his very blood.
Eat, he thought.
The obsidian arm flared.
It didn't just glow; it ignited. Black fire, outlined in white, erupted from his fist. It extended outward, shaping itself into a long, jagged blade of pure energy.
Kael gasped. The pain was blinding. The arm was drinking his vitality to fuel the fire. He could feel his vision blurring at the edges.
But the Anomaly recoiled.
For the first time, the shadow looked afraid.
Void-fire, it shrieked. Heretic!
"I prefer Knight," Kael gritted out.
He swung.
The blade of black fire didn't pass through the Anomaly. It cleaved it.
Where the sword struck, the darkness boiled away. The Anomaly screamed—a sound that cracked the glass nearby—and retreated, its form destabilizing.
"Voss!" Kael shouted, his voice raw. "Cover me! I'm going in!"
"Acknowledged," Voss replied. The machine-man was firing rapidly now, not at the Anomaly, but at the edges of the bridge where smaller Scavengers were trying to climb up. "Do not die, Kael. My data collection is incomplete."
Kael stepped forward, the Void-blade heavy in his hand. Every second he held it, he felt weaker. He was burning his own candle to make the flame.
But it was working.
The Anomaly hissed and solidified into a wall of spikes.
Kael didn't stop. He ran.
He smashed through the spikes, the Void-blade shattering them like glass. He was inside the guard.
He drove the blade into the center of the shadow's mass.
The Anomaly convulsed.
And then it laughed.
Good, it whispered, wrapping its tendrils around Kael's burning arm. The more you burn, the tastier you are.