The creature lunged again, faster now, tail snapping in a tight arc.
Riven ducked. Stone exploded behind him as the strike missed by inches.
His back scraped the wall.
Fabric tore.
Whatever still clung to his body finally gave up, reduced to ragged strips that caught on stone and peeled away.
He didn't slow.
Two arms moved as one.
His left arm shot out and caught a claw mid-swing, muscles locking as power surged through him to hold against the sheer weight.
His right—her arm—moved at the same time.
Slender fingers closed with surgical certainty, grey qi reinforcing the dagger sat in that hand.
The blade fell.
The cut passed cleanly through the joint.
But again, the scorpion chose where it bled.
Wind pressure imploded beneath the plate, violently redirecting the separation inward and outward at once. The leg tore free entirely as the creature wrenched itself backward, sacrificing the limb to keep the rest intact.
It hit the ground hard.
The scorpion vanished.
Stone ruptured as it burrowed, claws shredding the lair floor. The bioluminescent flowers shuddered, their glow flickering wildly as the chamber shook.
It knew far more moves than its Lesser Feral variants.
Riven leapt in instinct.
The scorpion erupted upward beneath him, stinger lancing straight for his chest.
He twisted midair.
Too slow.
The barb grazed his side.
Fire detonated through his ribs as poison surged inward, sharp and immediate. His breath broke loose in a raw gasp as his qi stuttered, muscles locking for a fraction of a heartbeat under the toxin's bite.
Riven hit the ground hard and rolled.
Pain flared—hot, invasive, spreading.
But it didn't stay long.
As if possessed by an overwhelming hatred, the grey qi around his right arm flared violently, racing inward through his meridians without command.
It reached the wound in a second and did not slow.
Riven screamed as sensation tore through him—not agony, but pressure, like something being ripped out through pathways that had never been meant for it. Dark fluid was forced back along ruptured channels, expelled from his flesh in a sharp burst that spattered against stone.
The burning vanished.
So did the numbness.
His breath snapped back into his lungs as if nothing had ever been there.
Riven froze for half a heartbeat.
Before he realized that the Dual Fate Seal seemed to have cleared him of the poison.
The second heartbeat surged again, weaker now, drowning out the echo of shock.
The transformation wouldn't last much longer.
He had to end this fast.
The scorpion was already moving again—but Riven was faster.
He landed in a low step, stone cracking beneath his foot as he drove forward instead of back. The lair felt smaller now. The angles clearer. Every line of motion resolved itself before it fully formed.
The second heartbeat was fading.
That meant no hesitation.
The scorpion reared, remaining legs digging into the floor as wind pressure surged wildly around its exposed side. The loss of a limb had unbalanced it. Not enough to cripple—but enough to force compensation.
Riven took advantage of that instant.
His left arm slammed into the creature's carapace, blue-green qi detonating outward to anchor his position. The impact rang through his bones, numbing his shoulder—but it held.
His right arm moved.
Her arm.
The dagger did not arc.
It drew a straight line.
Grey qi surged, thinner now, less brilliant—but no less absolute. The blade cut through overlapping plates, through compressed wind, through the frantic redirection of pressure as the scorpion tried to shed damage that no longer had anywhere to go.
The creature twisted, tail whipping around in a last, desperate sweep.
Riven stepped inside it.
Too close.
The stinger passed behind him, scraping stone where his head had been an instant earlier.
The dagger rose.
And fell.
The cut ran from the base of the neck straight through the reinforced ridge along its back, a clean division that split carapace and muscle in a single, uninterrupted motion.
It was her signature skill.
The kind of unbelievable sharpness that didn't stop in front of anything.
This time, the scorpion couldn't weasel its way out of the damage.
Its body locked.
The massive form shuddered once, legs spasming as control vanished all at once.
Riven didn't wait.
He stepped past the convulsing bulk, turned, and drove the dagger down again.
Straight through the head.
The Greater Feral Gale Scorpion went still.
No chitter.
No aftershock.
Just weight settling against stone.
Silence crashed down around him, heavy and final.
Riven stood there for a moment longer, chest rising and falling hard. White hair clung to his face, damp with sweat and blood. The dagger trembled faintly in his grip as the grey sheen along its edge thinned.
The second heartbeat stumbled.
Once.
Twice.
Then slipped out of rhythm.
The grey light around his right arm flickered violently, unraveling from the fingertips inward. The dagger fell to the ground as the energy withdrew, the familiar absence creeping back into his shoulder.
Riven exhaled, slow and controlled, as his hair darkened strand by strand and his frame settled back into its usual proportions.
The transformation ended.
But he remained standing.
Stone was cracked beneath his feet. Chitin and shattered plates littered the chamber. The bioluminescent flowers trembled weakly, their glow steadying as the last traces of wind pressure faded.
Riven looked down at the corpse.
"…Done," he muttered.
The word echoed once.
Then faded.
Riven's breath slowed gradually.
Only once the ringing in his ears disappeared did he look down at his side.
He turned slightly, inspecting the wound where the stinger had grazed him.
The flesh was torn. Angry red and blackened where the poison had passed through.
But it wasn't spreading.
There was no numbness. No creeping heat. No wrongness beneath the skin.
Just pain.
Ordinary pain.
Something he was more than used to.
Riven let out a quiet breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
He pressed two fingers against the wound experimentally.
It hurt.
That was fine.
He straightened and turned back to the corpse.
The Greater Feral Gale Scorpion lay split and broken where it had fallen, its massive body already cooling. Lying on the ground like that, the creature looked almost smaller than it had moments ago.
Riven knelt and worked quickly.
He didn't rush—but he didn't hesitate either.
He cracked open the chest cavity first, prying apart separated plates and carving through dense tissue until he reached the core. Even dead, the beast resisted him, its body slow to give up what it had contained.
At last, his fingers closed around something solid.
A beast core.
Dense. Heavy. Faintly warm, threads of compressed wind energy spiraling slowly within its translucent surface.
Riven exhaled once.
Finally not unlucky.
He quickly sent it into the spatial ring, before moving on to the poison sac.
That should also be valuable.
He cut carefully, opening the body to retrieve the sac —
And froze.
It was empty.
Drained.
The inner membrane was shriveled and brittle, as if the creature had burned through its reserves until nothing remained.
Riven stared at it for a moment.
Then huffed softly through his nose.
Figures.
The Greater Feral hadn't been conserving anything. It had spent its poison freely during the fight—another reason it had been so dangerous.
He discarded the useless sac and turned toward the tunnel leading back out.
He didn't leave the lair immediately.
Instead, he moved to a position near the entrance and waited.
The first scorpion returned alone.
It crept into the chamber cautiously, sensing something wrong too late to understand it.
Riven killed it in a single motion.
Another followed minutes later.
Then another.
Some came in pairs. Most alone. None strong enough to matter.
They died quickly.
Efficiently.
There was no struggle. No danger. No wasted movement.
Compared to the Greater Feral, they were nothing.
Time passed.
Eventually, no more came.
The lair grew still—empty in a way that felt final.
Satisfied, Riven turned away, his hand finding itself on the ring around his neck.
I killed them all.
The walk back to the cave felt longer than before. Fatigue crept in now that there was nothing left demanding his attention.
When he reached the familiar shelter, he stepped inside and let his shoulders ease for the first time in hours.
He sat down heavily against the stone wall.
The day was over.
The scorpions were dead.
Now there was no more reason to stay here anymore.
Riven exhaled slowly and shifted where he sat.
That was when the wind reached him.
A cold draft slipped through the cave entrance—the gap he hadn't bothered to cover again yet—and washed over his exposed torso. The heat from the fight was gone now, adrenaline spent, leaving only sweat and torn skin behind.
His clothes barely deserved the name anymore.
Strips of fabric hung loose from his shoulders and waist, doing little more than catching the wind as it passed. The chill sank in quickly, raising goosebumps along his arms.
Riven frowned faintly.
He drew his arms in and leaned back against the stone, shoulders tightening as another gust slid through the opening. It wasn't freezing. Not dangerous.
Just uncomfortable.
He sighed softly and reached for the ring at his chest.
A thread of soul force brushed it.
The folded blanket slid out into his hands, rough fabric spilling open as he caught it. He wedged one end into the gap between stone and rock wall, pulling it taut before letting the rest fall into place.
The wind dulled.
Not gone—but muted.
The cave settled into a colder, quieter stillness.
Riven leaned back again. It helped. A little. But without proper clothes, the chill still crept in, slow and persistent, seeping through skin and bone alike.
He frowned faintly.
Then his gaze drifted downward again.
To the ring.
He turned it once between his fingers, feeling its familiar weight.
Yue Lin's ring.
Or rather.
The Knight's Order girl's ring.
He'd almost forgot about its origin, since he'd seen Yue Lin walk around wearing it for so long.
But in reality Yue Lin had used it as nothing more than an accessory.
After all, back then neither he nor Yue Lin had known how to use soul force.
And even later, when he finally could, there had always been something more immediate demanding his attention.
Survival.
The trial.
Loss.
Only now, sitting in the dim cave with the wind pressing softly against stone, did he decide to finally fully check out its contents.
A second blanket would be nice.
His focus turned inward.