The city screamed behind him.
Kael ran. The bells blurred into a single, broken sound. House Leo's fire fractured into orange smears against the clouds and vanished.
The ascent was a brutal equation. The rolled Skin of the Abomination pressed against his spine. The Monolith dragged at his shoulders. His lungs burned.
Stone gave way to churned earth. Scrub. Broken road. The darkness was absolute, broken only by the sound of water striking dead leaves.
Kael kept moving until the slope leveled. He found a leaning waystone and stopped.
He shrugged the straps loose. The rolled Skin hit the ground. Thud.
Kael collapsed into a crouch. He stripped off a glove and pressed his palm against the hide. The geometric tattoos shifted beneath the surface—slow, restrained.
[ HIGH-GRADE ANOMALY: STABLE (INACTIVE) ]
He stood. He gripped the Monolith. The iron felt light after the cursed hide.
The rain changed.
The drumming on the leaves stopped.
Kael froze.
The sound wasn't gone. It was interrupted. Something was moving through the downpour.
Thirty paces downslope, the grey curtain parted.
A figure stepped into view.
[ TARGET IDENTIFIED ]
[ THREAT ASSESSMENT: LOW ]
Limbs stretched longer than bone allowed. Muscle packed tight. The joints were swollen, reinforced with calcified growths.
It watched him.
The creature shifted its weight. It circled. It kept distance—hovering exactly two inches outside the Monolith's maximum reach.
Kael's gaze dropped to the creature's neck. Burned deep into the stretched flesh was a mark. A circle with three intersecting lines.
The same symbol as the wolves. The same geometry as the Skin.
Kael lowered his stance.
The creature's nostrils flared. It sampled the air.
"Done looking?" Kael whispered.
He exploded forward.
He drove the iron slab like a piston.
Whoosh.
The creature collapsed its structure. It dropped flat to the mud. The iron slab passed millimeters above its spine.
It hissed. Claws raked against Kael's shin guard. Screech. Metal sparked against metal.
Kael let the weight of the Monolith carry him into a spin. He used his hips as the fulcrum.
Crack.
The iron slab caught the creature in the side.
The impact folded the torso. The reinforced spine shattered.
The creature slammed into the mud. It tried to rise. Its broken back twisted.
Kael stepped down. He drove the tip of the Monolith into the skull.
Squelch.
Motion ended.
[ AETHER POINTS: +6 ]
Kael exhaled. He wiped a fleck of black blood from his cheek.
He turned the body over. The brand on the neck was clean. Surgical.
Kael stood up.
He looked south.
The rain continued to fall. The smell changed. The ozone vanished. The air grew thick with the scent of antiseptic and raw meat.
Ahead, the fog pulsed.
It moved with the rhythm of a massive, wet lung. Through the mist, Kael saw it.
A silhouette. Massive. Indistinct. It drifted through the treeline like a float made of grafted nightmares. Limbs—hundreds of them—twitched and wove, hanging from the main bulk.
It made a sound: the wet tearing of skin separating from muscle.
A low vibration hummed in the ground.
Kael stepped back.
System. Scan.
[ WARNING: EXTREME THREAT ]
[ DESIGNATION: FLESH-WEAVER ]
Kael scanned the terrain. Ten meters to his left, the roots of a collapsed sequoia created a mud-choked fissure.
He threw himself into the hollow.
The vibration in the ground became a physical nausea.
Kael ripped the Skin of the Abomination from his back. He jammed the rolled hide deep into the mud. He unstrapped the Monolith. He slammed the massive iron slab down on top of the hide.
He lay in the mud. He curled his body beneath the overhang.
System. Invert Gluttony. Protocol: Stasis.
Pain spiked in his chest.
He forced his heart rate down. 120... 80... 40...
His vision grayed. The heat in his limbs receded. His breathing slowed. Stopped.
Darkness.
He was a cold object in the mud.
The Sweeper arrived.
Schlock. Tear. Knit.
Something blocked the faint light of the fissure.
A warm, slick substance dripped onto Kael's cheek. It burned.
The entity hovered above him. The wet gurgle of internal processes filled the hollow. Something touched his boot. Soft. Exploring. It moved up. A heavy, wet weight pressed down on his shin.
Kael held the void.
The Sweeper paused.
[ TARGET LOST ]
[ RESOLVING ANOMALY... FALSE POSITIVE ]
The weight lifted.
The wet tearing sound moved away. It drifted south.
Kael waited. One minute. Two.
The vibration in the earth faded.
Restart.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
Gasp.
Kael tore in a breath of cold air. His body convulsed. He coughed, retching bile.
He was alive.