Run.
The word slammed through me, loud as a gunshot, but my body didn't obey. My muscles were locked, my breath shallow, my heart hammering so hard it felt like it might crack my ribs from the inside.
The Lykaon Spawn took a step forward.
The ground felt it. Roots shuddered. Leaves leapt.
That was enough.
I forced my perception inward, not wider—narrower. Like Aria said. Like squeezing a lens until the world stopped screaming.
The emotional chaos peeled away in layers. The junkie. The thief. The couple. Gone.
All that remained was the thing in front of us.
Hunger sharpened into intent. Intent into trajectory.
It wasn't looking at both of us equally.
It was watching Aria.
"She's the threat," I whispered. "It knows."
Aria moved first.
She exploded into motion, a blur of muscle and intent, her hand snapping up as a blade of pale light condensed around it—hard-edged, humming, dangerous. She didn't hesitate. She never did.
She struck.
The Lykaon reacted faster than my eyes could track.
It twisted, impossibly fluid for something that massive, and Aria's blade carved a glowing line through fur and skin—but not deep enough. Blackened blood sprayed, sizzling where it hit the ground.
The creature howled.
This time, it was loud.
The sound punched through me, rattling my teeth, vibrating my spine. My perception flared despite my efforts, red warning lights screaming across my vision.
[STATUS EFFECT: FEAR – SEVERE]
[STATUS EFFECT SEEDED: NEURAL LOCK]
"Alex!" Aria shouted. "Move!"
I tried.
My legs trembled, then finally responded, dragging me backward as the Lykaon lunged. It didn't chase me.
It went straight for her.
Claws the size of machetes tore through the space where Aria had been a heartbeat earlier. She rolled, came up on one knee, blade flashing again and again—fast, precise strikes meant to cripple joints, sever tendons.
They should have worked.
They didn't.
The Lykaon adapted. Its joints bent the wrong way, absorbed blows that should've disabled it. Where Aria cut, the flesh knitted, skin crawling back together like it was embarrassed to be wounded.
"Regeneration," Aria snarled, skidding back as the beast snapped at her throat. "Of course it regenerates."
She was breathing harder now. I could hear it. See it in the slight hitch of her movements.
She was strong.
But this thing was level twenty-one.
And I was level five, shaking behind a tree.
Useless.
No.
That wasn't true.
My perception wasn't for fighting.
It was for seeing.
I clenched my jaw and forced it deeper—past the fear, past the pain—until the world thinned into threads and vectors. I didn't look at the Lykaon as a whole.
I dissected it.
Movement patterns. Emotional spikes. Micro-pauses between regeneration cycles.
There.
Every time Aria landed a heavy hit, the regeneration lagged for a fraction of a second.
Not everywhere.
One spot.
"Neck?" I muttered. "No… spine? No—"
The creature reared back, towering, and for a split second my perception slipped inside it.
I gagged.
Pain. Constant, grinding pain. Like its body was stitched together wrong, forced into a shape it couldn't sustain.
And at the center of it—
A knot.
Just below the ribcage, slightly left. Where human organs used to be.
A core of pressure. Corruption. System energy forced into meat.
A weak point.
"Aria!" I shouted, voice cracking. "Left side! Below the ribs—there's a core! It's feeding the regeneration!"
She didn't question it.
She never did.
Aria feinted high, baiting the Lykaon into rearing again. Its claws came down like falling trees.
She slid under them.
For a terrifying moment, I thought she was too slow.
Then she drove her glowing blade into the creature's side exactly where I'd indicated.
The blade stuck.
The Lykaon screamed—not a howl this time, but something broken and wet and almost human.
The regeneration failed.
Skin blistered instead of healing. Black veins pulsed violently around the wound, spreading outward like cracks in ice.
Aria gritted her teeth and pushed.
"Hold it!" she barked.
As if I could do anything else.
The Lykaon thrashed, slamming into trees, snapping trunks like twigs. Aria was dragged with it, boots carving trenches through dirt as she fought to keep the blade embedded.
My perception flared again, screaming urgency.
The core was destabilizing.
"Twist!" I yelled. "Counterclockwise—now!"
She did.
The blade rotated, grinding through resistance—
—and the core ruptured.
Light detonated from the wound, a violent surge of corrupted system energy tearing free from the Lykaon's body. The beast convulsed once, twice, then collapsed with a ground-shaking thud.
Silence followed.
Not peace.
Just absence.
Aria stumbled back, yanking her blade free as it dissolved into motes of light. She dropped to one knee, chest heaving, blood—hers and not—spattered across her arms.
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then the Lykaon's body began to dissolve, breaking apart into ash and shadow, pulled upward by an invisible force.
System text flickered into view.
[THREAT NEUTRALIZED]
[PARTY CONTRIBUTION RECORDED]
I barely registered it.
Because my perception hadn't gone quiet.
It was worse now.
The hum—the one I'd felt before—was gone.
In its place was something deeper.
Broader.
Like the forest itself had inhaled.
Aria swore under her breath. "That wasn't supposed to be here."
I swallowed. "You mean a level twenty-one monster?"
"No," she said grimly, pushing herself to her feet. "I mean a Lycaon Spawn."
"If it's a spawn, the master should be nearby."