The massive body goes still. Segments separate as the divine power holding them together finally releases. What crashes to the corrupted earth is no longer a threat—it’s raw material. Components without purpose.
The gods’ ultimate weapon, built specifically to destroy us, lies dead at my feet.
Silence settlesacross the nesting grounds.
Not peaceful silence—the loaded quiet of a battlefield after the final combatant falls. Steam rises from the God-Beast’s remains where blood pools against corrupted soil. The smell of burnt flesh mingles with the omnipresent decay.
I stand over the corpse and wait for the instinctive tension to fade.
It doesn’t.
Instead, I find myself taking stock of what I feel. The wounds I absorbed during the fight—already healing, pain fading to memory. The expenditure of energy—significant, but sustainable. The time elapsed from first contact to final death.
Less than three minutes.
The Abomination took hours. Multiple engagements across days. Every kill temporary. Every victory meaningless.
This creature—larger, arguably more powerful, certainly more divine—died in under three minutes.
Everything I thought I knew about this war is obsolete.
Soreia approacheswhile I’m processing.
Her footsteps are deliberate, audible. She’s learned not to startle me after combat. Stops at my side close enough that her arm brushes mine.
“That was fast.” No tremor in her voice. No horror at the carnage.
“Faster than I anticipated.” I turn my head. Study the lines of her face in the haze of destruction. “Your anchor engaged immediately. No resistance.”
“The Abomination fought back. Tried to push through my magic and regenerate despite the anchoring.” Her gaze rests on the cooling remains. “This one didn’t. It accepted the ending like it was relieved.”
“It was destroying itself. The gods didn’t design it to survive—they designed it to eliminate me before it collapsed under its own instability.”
“And instead?”
“Instead, I tore it apart while it was still trying to understand why its advantages weren’t working.” My hand finds her jaw, tilting her face toward mine. “We tore it apart. My claws. Your magic. Neither functions without the other.”
She leans into my grip. A subtle shift of weight that presses her body closer to mine.
“What does this mean for the hunt?”
“It means the gods are running out of options.” I close the distance between us. Draw her into the space I’ve created. “Every weapon they send, we destroy. Every barrier they construct, we breach. They’ve been operating under the assumption that time was on their side—that eventually I’d tire,or you’d die, or the endless waves of endless monsters would wear us down.”
“And now?”
“Now they’re discovering that their monsters stay dead.” My mouth finds the curve of her throat. Teeth grazing skin that smells like her and sweat and the faint copper of distant blood. “Now they’re learning that consequence is no longer theoretical.”
Her breath catches. Not fear—I know what her fear sounds like. This is anticipation.
“The tables have turned.”
“Yes.” I bite down gently. Feel the shudder that runs through her at the contact. “We’re the hunters now.”
We clear threemore nests before sunset.
The creatures we face range from scout-class to what appears to be a hastily constructed imitation of the God-Beast we already killed—smaller, less stable, dying even as it attempts to engage us. The gods are throwing resources at us without strategy. Panicking.
Good.
