The trek into the deep desert was a silent, grueling march. Black sand gave way to jagged obsidian outcroppings that rose from the earth like the teeth of a buried giant. Here, the air grew thin and bitingly cold, smelling of ancient dust and the sharp, acidic tang of the Void.
Jasper moved with a relentless, rhythmic pace, his silhouette cutting a sharp line against the pale moonlight. Behind him, Daniella struggled, her breath coming in shallow, ragged plumes of mist. Every time she lagged, Jasper's shadow—a ribbon of ink—would lash out from his heels, snapping at her ankles like a whip to urge her forward.
Hissing in pain, Daniella reached down to touch her calves, which had been bruised by Jasper's relentless prodding for hours. "I'm tired! We never go out this far!" she complained, her exhausted body pushing forward on sheer annoyance alone.
"Pick up your feet," Jasper remarked, never deigning to turn around. "The 'Blessing' is a parasite if you don't use it. It's eating your stamina because you're letting it sit stagnant in your chest. I have taught you how to circulate the blessing in your body. Did you think it was just for fun?"
He finally glanced at her over his shoulder, his expression making it clear he thought she was an idiot. He expected her to have figured this out by now. It was the reason he never allowed them to teleport back to the castle after training; this walk was the time for her to apply her powers organically. In his eyes, she was failing.
Daniella didn't have the breath to curse him. She focused on the emerald spark inside her, trying to shove the heat of it into her calf muscles as she scrambled over a waist-high ridge of volcanic glass. As she crested the ridge, she froze.
Below them lay the Veil-Sinks.
The ground didn't just drop off; it swirled inward like a frozen whirlpool of stone. In the center of the depression stood a cluster of monoliths, and darting between them were shapes so fast they were little more than blurs of silver and grey.
"Void-Rippers," Jasper whispered, finally coming to a halt at the edge of the descent. He crouched low, his muscles coiling beneath his clothes. "They don't have the bulk of the Stalkers. They have the speed of vampires. They don't hunt with strength; they hunt by finding the gaps in your perception."
Before Daniella could process the danger, Jasper reached out and shoved her.
She tumbled down the steep slope, crying out as the sharp glass sand scraped her palms. She rolled to a stop at the base of the sinkhole, landing right in the shadow of a towering monolith. The silence was deafening—until it wasn't.
Zip.
A blade-like claw whistled past her ear, severing a lock of her hair. Daniella scrambled up, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She saw it then: a Ripper. It was lean, built like a greyhound made of silver, with six spindly legs that ended in metallic talons. It didn't run; it flickered.
"Externalize!" Jasper's voice drifted down from the ridge above, echoing off the stone. "Don't try to hit it. Create a zone! Own the space around you!"
Daniella knew how to make barriers; she wasn't helpless if she had a shield. A shield would give her time. Up on the ridge, Jasper watched the movements of the Ripper and Daniella with a predator's focus. He was also keenly aware of something else: the six figures who had been tailing them for hours.
He smirked to himself. He hadn't just chosen this pit for Daniella's training; the geography hid what was happening from the outside world. If the spies wanted a closer look, they would need to reveal themselves. And when they did, Jasper would take all of their heads.
The Ripper lunged. Daniella didn't think; she reacted. She threw her arms out, screaming as she forced the green divinity to explode outward. But instead of a simple wave, she tried to manifest what Jasper had taught her at the fire—a controlled barrier.
A sphere of emerald energy expanded five feet in every direction. The Ripper, caught mid-leap, slammed into the barrier. But it didn't bounce off. The green light acted like thick, viscous honey. The beast's momentum died instantly as the "Blessing" began to sap the kinetic energy from its limbs.
The creature screeched, its silver skin dulling to a sickly leaden grey as Daniella's power began to drink its speed. It felt as though she were taking its very soul. The moment the beast touched her barrier, she could feel it.
This wasn't a shield like Jasper's; this was something else. Her body hummed with the intoxicating rush of control—of holding someone else's life in her hands. She hadn't done it on purpose; it was as if the magic inside her knew what it wanted. And it wanted life and death.
"I'm... I'm doing it!" she gasped, her hands trembling as she fought to maintain the sphere.
The Ripper, feeling its power being drained, slowly pulled away from the barrier as if moving through molasses. Once free of the killing grip, it fell to the obsidian ground, its chest rising and falling slowly. Its strength had been cut in half.
"Don't celebrate yet," Jasper's voice was suddenly right behind her. He hadn't climbed down; he had simply appeared, stepping out of a shadow cast by the monolith. He had left a shadow-clone of himself on the lip of the pit to deal with the spies. He looked past her, his eyes narrowing. "There are six more. And they've realized you're a buffet."
From the darkness between the stones, six pairs of silver eyes ignited. They began to circle, moving so fast they created a literal ring of whistling wind around Daniella's green dome.
Jasper didn't draw a weapon. He didn't even call his shadow-clone back. He simply placed a hand in the center of Daniella's back, his palm hot and steady.
"This barrier is your death zone. Anything that comes inside is yours. Do not allow anything to escape. You control everything inside of it. Everything that touches it," he whispered, his lips inches from her ear. "This isn't a shield. It's a weapon. Wait for them to strike at once. Then pulse out your energy and siphon off theirs. When the air turns cold, that's your signal. If you miss the timing, they'll shred you before I can blink."
"Jasper, I've never done it before," she hissed through clenched teeth. The weight of her power pressed back against her, and the green dome flickered as her strength wavered.
"You can," he growled, his hand tightening on her spine and forcing her to stand taller. "Stop being that girl terrified of her fate and start being the calamity this power wants you to be. Wait for the cold."
The whistling wind stopped. The temperature in the sinkhole plummeted. The Rippers vanished from sight, turning into six silver streaks converging on her from every angle.
"Now!" Jasper barked.
Author's note:
I hope you're liking the story and where it's going. Obviously we're in the demon realm right now. But they will soon go back.