Kael's arm shook.
Not from fear.
From strain.
The creature's weight pressed down harder, its presence distorting the air so thickly that even the hunters struggled to breathe. Stone cracked beneath Kael's knee, spiderweb fractures racing outward as the ground gave up before he did.
The silence inside him screamed.
Not audibly.
Instinctively.
It tried to compress again, to erase warning, to fold distance—but the moment Kael pushed, resistance slammed back into him. This thing wasn't unstable. It wasn't learning.
It was enforcing.
Kael's teeth clenched as pain lanced through his ribs. He felt something give—cartilage, maybe. Blood ran warm down his side, soaking into his clothes.
Still, he held.
The creature leaned closer.
Its featureless head tilted, and Kael felt the pressure shift—not heavier, but focused. It wasn't trying to crush him anymore.
It was trying to understand why he hadn't broken.
The hunters moved.
Two struck from opposite sides, coordinated, blades flashing as they drove everything they had into the creature's joints. Metal screeched. Stone plates fractured.
The creature didn't fall.
It turned instead, its grip on Kael loosening just enough for the pressure to spike elsewhere.
Kael gasped as the weight lifted from his chest.
"Fall back!" the older hunter shouted.
Kael didn't.
He couldn't.
If he released now, the creature would finish them.
He forced himself upright, legs trembling, and pushed back against the pressure—not with silence, not with speed.
With presence.
The hum inside him surged violently, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he felt it tearing something loose—something fundamental. The world around him wavered, edges blurring as if reality itself hesitated.
Kael knew then.
If he pushed further, he wouldn't lose hearing.
He wouldn't lose control.
He would lose himself.
And whatever came after wouldn't be him anymore.
Kael stopped.
The pressure didn't vanish.
It held.
A stalemate.
The creature hesitated.
Not because it was weaker.
Because Kael had ceased resisting.
The silence collapsed inward completely, no longer a weapon, no longer a shield. It retreated so deep it was almost gone.
Kael breathed.
Once.
Twice.
The creature pulled back.
Just a fraction.
Enough.
The hunters didn't waste it.
Everything they had left came down in a single coordinated strike—anchors detonating, blades finding fractures, force overwhelming stability through sheer repetition.
The creature roared.
Sound tore free this time, violent and wrong, ripping across the platform as the anchored form finally failed. Its body cracked apart, collapsing inward as the gate behind it shuddered violently.
Kael staggered backward as the pressure vanished entirely.
He dropped to one knee, gasping, vision swimming.
The creature imploded, dragged back toward the gate as the stabilized rupture destabilized in response. Stone and shadow folded inward, sucked screaming into nothing as the gate collapsed in on itself.
Silence returned.
Not Kael's.
The world's.
Kael stayed where he was, breathing shallowly, blood dripping steadily from his shoulder. His hands shook—not from adrenaline, but from exhaustion so deep it felt structural.
The older hunter approached cautiously.
"You stopped," he said quietly. "On purpose."
Kael nodded once.
"If I hadn't," he replied, voice rough, "it wouldn't have been me anymore."
The man studied him for a long moment.
Then he looked at Kael's empty hands.
"You need a weapon," he said simply.
Kael didn't argue.
For the first time since the basin, he agreed completely.