One of them gets its claws into his side. He growls—not pain, fury—and rips the creature’s arm off at the shoulder. It staggers back, already regenerating, god-given power knitting flesh and bone.
I watch the wound seal.
Then I move.
Power slamsinto the wounded hunter before conscious thought catches up.
The power sinks deep, bypassing the creature’s resistance through sheer desperate force. I feel the death—the ending the universe has been waiting for. My bloodline exists for this moment. To make things stick.
The hunter dies.
Dies and stays down. The regeneration stops. The flesh stays still. Permanent.
Fire lances through my skull. Blood runs from my nose in a hot rush. My knees want to buckle, but I lock them and reach for the next target.
Kaster is still fighting—three hunters converging on him, their coordination forcing him to divide his attention between offense and defense. He’s taking damage. More than before. These creatures are designed to endure dragon violence, to trade wounds until the dragon exhausts.
They’re wearing him down.
A hunter breaks from the pack, angling toward me instead of him. I’m the weaker target. The easier kill.
The Anchor catches it three feet from my throat.
The anchoring is messy—I don’t have time for precision. Power floods out of me in a ragged wave, overwhelming the creature’s resistance through volume rather than skill. It collapses, twitching, and then stops.
Dead.
My vision wavers. The ravine tilts sideways.
Kaster roars—not at the hunters, at me. “Stay up.”
Two words. Not concern. Command.
I stay up.
We findrhythm in the violence.
He breaks them. I anchor them. The pattern emerges without discussion—instinctive, immediate, like we’ve been fighting as one unit for years instead of minutes.
A hunter lunges at him. He catches its charge, redirects the momentum, and tears open its throat. The creature staggers back, stolen power already trying to heal the wound?—
The Anchor slams into it. The healing fails. The hunter drops.
Permanent.
Another comes from the left. He pivots, puts himself between the creature and me, and takes its claws across his shoulder rather than let it reach where I’m standing.
The sacrifice has to be strategic. He needs me anchoring kills, can’t afford to let them eliminate me mid-fight.
But the way he moved?—
I don’t have time to examine it.
Three hunters left. They’ve realized the pattern. Changed tactics. Now they’re targeting me directly, ignoring Kaster to close the distance before I can anchor another kill.
He intercepts the first. I anchor the kill.
The second gets past him.
