What the hell is this guy talking about?
Kael stared at the golden-haired boy as if he'd just suggested they go wrestle the monster for fun.
Help them?
Against... that?
Another deafening roar shook the sector. Stone dust rained from above as the minotaur tore a fractured column from the ground and hurled it. The girl barely avoided it, rolling across broken concrete before springing back to her feet with that same terrifying precision.
A low chuckle escaped his mouth. From what Kael had seen so far — the boy's pinpoint shot that had staggered the creature earlier, the girl's relentless spear work and razor-sharp timing — he would've thought the two of them could manage fairly well on their own.
So what exactly did this guy think he could contribute?
"Down!"
They both dove as the slab of stone smashed into their cover, exploding into fragments. Dust and debris rained over them as they pressed against the cracked barricade.
The boy peeked over briefly before ducking back. "Do you have any combat experience?"
Kael tried to opened his mouth.
Of course not!
Unless surviving like a madman during his Metanoia counted — running through chaos, tearing through abjections just to crawl out the other side breathing.
But that wasn't training!
He shook his head.
The boy clicked his tongue but didn't look surprised. "Figures."
Another roar echoed as the girl darted between the minotaur's legs, slashing at tendons before retreating again.
"She has a habit of rushing into things," the boy continued quickly. "You could say it's her trait. But it's also her flaw. She pushes too deep without—"
His words cut off.
Kael noticed the sudden stillness.
The boy was staring.
"...Hah," he breathed. "Would you look at that."
Kael followed his gaze.
It took him a second to understand what he was seeing.
The minotaur's head. More specifically — the section just above its right brow, where the boy's earlier shot had struck. The cracked bone there wasn't just fractured.
It was glowing. A sickly violet seeped from within the fissure, faint at first — then pulsing. Like something alive beneath the skull.
Even Kael knew what that meant.
Violet belonged to an abjection of the lowest cycle — a Dreg-class.
The boy was already moving.
He slid his rifle forward, fingers working with practiced speed as he adjusted the chamber. The weapon hummed faintly, gathering charge.
"That glow means the core's exposed," he said, eyes never leaving the beast. "Head's the weakness."
A faint, humorless grin tugged at his lips.
"Who would've thought. I aimed for the head earlier because it's the obvious critical point."
He adjusted the scope.
"But if it's the actual core of the abjection?"
His finger tightened slightly along the trigger guard.
"Works even better."
Another crash — the girl narrowly avoiding a downward slam that cratered the ground.
"It'll take me time to build up another shot like the first one," he continued with a steady voice.
"So I need you."
He glanced at Kael briefly.
Another violent swing forced the girl back.
"Just distract it. Pull its focus for a few seconds. Ease the pressure on her, please..."
His eyes sharpened.
"...That's all I'm asking."
Distract it?
That thing could crush him flat with a careless swing. He wasn't built for this. He wasn't trained for this. He processed the aftermath — he didn't stand in the middle of it.
His gaze flicked toward the girl weaving through collapsing debris.
He could still run. The thought came quietly, almost reasonably, threading through the chaos as if it were the most logical option available. No one would blame him for it. He wasn't assigned to this operation, wasn't even supposed to be in this sector in the first place. His slate was broken, his role strictly non-combatant, his presence here little more than an accident wrapped in bad timing. By every regulation that governed their world, he had an out.
But leaving now — turning his back while the two of them stayed and fought — that wouldn't fade with time. It wouldn't be something he could rationalize away with policy or circumstance. It would settle into him, like a permanent stain he'd carry for the rest of his life. He could already imagine it: the memory of their silhouettes against the collapsing sector, the knowledge that he had chosen safety while they chose to stand. How was he supposed to live with that?
'Damn it!'
This wasn't about rank. It wasn't about assignment either. Stripped of protocol and designation, it came down to something far simpler and far crueler.
Choice.
And he was so tired of being the kind of person who chose the easier one.
***
No matter what she did, it only made the creature angrier.
Her spear carved clean arcs across hide and tendon. She struck joints, eyes, the exposed fracture along its skull — precise, calculated blows meant to disable rather than enrage.
It didn't matter.
Each wound only fed it.
The violet glow beneath the cracked bone pulsed brighter with every strike, like a heartbeat responding to violence with violence.
The minotaur's breathing turned ragged, steam blasting from its nostrils as it endured another clean thrust to the shoulder. The girl pivoted away, but the creature no longer reacted blindly. It was learning her rhythm — tracking the pattern of her feints, the cadence of her retreat.
It stopped roaring.
That was worse.
Its massive hand shot out faster than before.
She twisted — almost clearing the grab — but her spear shaft caught against a jut of broken rebar. That brief delay was enough. The minotaur's fingers closed around her forearm.
"Shit!"
Stone cracked beneath its tightening grip.
Her eyes widened.
It lifted her.
High.
Another second and it would slam her into the ground hard enough to shatter bone.
***
"Hey, hey, wait!"
The frightened boy ran. His boots slipped over broken stone and splintered beams as he bent mid-stride, fingers closing around the first thing they found — a pebble no larger than a knuckle. Pathetic and useless.
He almost laughed at himself.
The creature's attention was still fixed on the girl — massive shoulders rolling, bone plates grinding as violet light throbbed beneath its cracked skull.
Kael didn't think. He snapped his arm forward and flung the stone.
It wasn't a heroic throw. It didn't whistle through the air. Hell, it barely made a sound as it cut across the dust-choked space.
Tick.
The pebble struck the glowing fracture. For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the pulse beneath the bone shuddered, causing the minotaur froze in an instant.
Its massive head twitched — once. Until it finally turned. Two burning hollows locked onto him.
The girl dropped from its loosened grip, crashing onto the rubble below and rolling away just as the creature's focus shifted entirely.
Back to him. Its first prey.
Kael stood there with his chest heaving, heart threatening to burst from his ribs.
The worst part?
Looks like it remembered him.
But behind his nervousness — behind the tremor in his hands and the very real understanding that he might have just shortened his lifespan dramatically — a crooked, defiant smirk tugged at his lips.
He still had a debt to collect from that earlier hit it landed on him.
And he wasn't planning on leaving it unpaid.
***
The game shifted.
The creature pivoted again, massive head swinging between the two of them. Its attention flickered — the girl, the irritant. Kael, the easier kill. Back and forth.
Cat and mouse.
Except there were three players.
Kael darted right, deliberately making noise this time. He grabbed another loose fragment and hurled it wide, striking a distant wall. The crack echoed sharply.
The minotaur's head snapped toward the sound.
The girl seized the opening, scrambling farther away, ducking behind debris. But the beast was no longer so easily fooled. It feinted toward Kael — then abruptly twisted back toward her, forcing him to double back and intercept.
A claw came down.
"Holy—!"
Kael slid beneath it, the wind of its descent flattening him against the ground. He rolled, came up on one knee, and slammed his shoulder into its injure foreleg — courtesy of the girl's earlier relentless attacks — just enough to disrupt it. The limb shifted just enough. The claw gouged stone instead of flesh.
"Hey!" he roared, breath tearing his throat raw. "I'm right here!"
The minotaur answered with a bellow that shook the ruins.
It committed.
This time the charge was direct.
Kael's heart hammered as the distance collapsed. Too fast. Too heavy. There was no clean angle nor a clever detour. He sidestepped at the last second, but the beast's horn clipped his side and sent him skidding across rubble. Pain flared white-hot through his ribs. He tasted blood.
'Fucking... again...'
He barely rolled aside before a follow-up strike cratered the ground.
The girl screamed something at him.
He forced himself up, vision swimming. The minotaur stalked forward now instead of rushing, savoring it. It herded him away from her, step by step, until broken walls pressed cold against his back.
A pinch. No space left to run.
'This is it, huh...'
Its shadow swallowed him.
The claw rose.
For a split second, everything narrowed—the tremor in his arms, the ragged pull of air into damaged lungs, the violet glow pulsing brighter and brighter as if feeding on the inevitability of the moment.
Then—
BAM!
The shot cracked through the courtyard like thunder splitting the sky.
The impact tore through the minotaur's skull from the side, punching clean through bone and violet light alike. The glow ruptured in a violent burst, spraying fragments of fractured armor and something darker into the air. The beast's massive body jerked mid-strike.
Silence followed.
It stood there for one impossible second, claw suspended inches from Kael's face.
Then the weight gave out.
The corpse collapsed forward.
Kael barely had time to register relief before the dead weight shifted strangely. A final convulsion rippled through the minotaur's body — some last, spiteful echo of motion. Its arm twitched.
The claw drove down. Not with the force of life.
But with the weight of a falling mountain.
There was a sickening sound — wet and abrupt.
The talons pierced straight through Kael's center, punching through fabric and flesh alike, pinning him to the shattered stone beneath.
At the horrifying sight, the girl's breath hitched.
The boy with the rifle lowered his weapon slowly, smoke curling from the barrel, and his eyes were widening as the reality of the scene settled in.
It's Kael's turn to looked down. At the claw embedded in him. At the blood spreading dark and fast.
The minotaur was dead.
But so, perhaps—