For a moment, time seemed to stall.
Bodies lay scattered across the ground behind me, broken shapes half-seen through smoke and drifting ash, but none of it made a sound that mattered. The screams, the clash of steel, the distant thunder of collapsing stone all dulled into something irrelevant, like noise carried through water. My world narrowed until there was only the space in front of me.
And the thing standing in it.
I had faced monsters before. Ren. The creatures of the Mortar Zone. Golems that should have ended me outright. Until now, those had been the strongest beings I'd ever fought, the benchmarks by which I measured danger.
This Dracus Lieutenant was something else entirely.
If Ren had been an ant—dangerous in his own way, clever, vicious when cornered—then this thing was a scorpion. Larger. Faster. Purpose-built for killing. Its movements were controlled, economical, every shift of its weight deliberate. I could feel the structure of power around it, dense and coiled, reinforced by an Interlogue just like the humans.
But there was a difference.
Human Interlogues had limits. Caps. Invisible thresholds that, once crossed, marked you for death. Anyone who drew too deeply from the system became a liability, a beacon to be erased.
Dracus Interlogues had no such restraint.
They siphoned Null directly from the Void without consequence, without fear, without a ceiling. No leash. No mercy. Just raw access to power humanity was never meant to wield freely.
The Lieutenant's aura pressed against my senses like a physical weight, thick and oppressive, radiating authority and violence in equal measure. It should have made me hesitate.
It didn't.
Since clawing my way back to life on Earth months ago, all I had known was struggle layered atop suffering. Pain. Torture. Loss stacked so high it blurred together. I had witnessed human misery on a scale that would have shattered anyone who hadn't already been conditioned for war—entire squads erased, cities reduced to silence, people transformed into numbers and memories.
I had survived things no man—Interlogue or not—should have been able to endure.
And I was still paying for it.
The Mortar Zone had nearly killed me. The fight with the golems had pushed my body to the brink of annihilation, leaving damage that still lingered beneath my skin. My muscles remembered failure. My bones remembered collapse.
None of that mattered now.
If I died here, my body would heal eventually. My mind would repair itself the way it always did. I had been granted that much, cursed with it if I was being honest.
The people behind me hadn't.
Those who had stood and fought. Those who had bought time with their lives so others could escape. They wouldn't be granted another chance.
That settled the last trace of doubt inside me.
I didn't care what happened to me in this fight.
Only that I won.
I drew my dagger.
Voidscar slid into my palm with familiar weight, grounding me as I fed Essence into the blade. The metal drank it in hungrily, the edge shimmering faintly as it sharpened beyond anything physical.
I moved first.
The Lieutenant met me head-on. My strike came in low and fast, but it blocked with its forearm, scales grinding against reinforced steel as sparks and black residue burst outward. It answered with a violent, sloppy punch infused with Null, a wide swing meant to overwhelm rather than outmaneuver.
I slipped under it.
The force passed close enough to ripple through my ribs, but it missed. I planted my feet and formed a compressed sphere of Essence between my palms, then fired it point-blank into its chest.
The blast wasn't meant to kill.
It was a feint.
The Lieutenant raised its arm to block, and I dragged Voidscar across the exposed forearm. The blade bit deep. Black blood sprayed across the stone, thick and smoking where it landed.
It snarled and grabbed me.
The grip was crushing. Before I could twist free, it slammed me into the ground with savage force. The impact knocked the wind from my lungs and rattled my vision, pain flaring white-hot through my spine.
I rolled and surged back to my feet before it could follow.
Two more Essence spheres formed in my hands, smaller and faster. I hurled them in rapid succession, angling them to force a reaction.
It didn't dodge.
It tanked them.
The blasts detonated against its body, cracking scales and staggering it a half-step, but it roared and charged through the smoke, closing the distance far faster than something that size should have been able to move.
I dropped low.
My leg swept out, reinforced with Essence, catching its knees from beneath it. The Lieutenant stumbled forward just long enough for me to capitalize. I drove Voidscar into its back again and again, carving deep gouges between plates of armor, spilling more black blood.
It should have slowed.
It didn't.
The Lieutenant surged upright and twisted, throwing me clear with a backhand that sent me skidding across the ground. It straightened fully and smirked, low guttural groans vibrating through its chest with mockery I ignored completely.
Words didn't matter.
I drew in more Essence.
The aura around my body thickened as I reinforced muscle, bone, skin. Pain bloomed instantly, sharp and invasive, my insides protesting the strain.
I welcomed it.
This time, I didn't form a sphere.
I formed a pyramid.
The shape locked into existence in my palm, sharp-edged and precise, Essence bound into rigid geometry that hummed with destructive intent. I hurled it.
The Lieutenant raised its guard—and staggered.
Fissures spiderwebbed across its scales. Confusion flashed across its face.
I didn't give it time.
Another pyramid. Then another. Then several more, forcing it to dodge instead of absorb. Heavy steps carved trenches into the ground as it retreated for the first time.
I gathered everything I could afford.
Essence screamed as I compressed it into a massive charge. Pressure made my vision blur and my teeth grind together.
I launched it.
The Lieutenant dodged.
I had already anticipated where.
Voidscar drove upward into the center of its skull. The blade punched through scales and bone with a wet, brutal sound. The Lieutenant reeled backward, a scream tearing from its throat.
For a heartbeat, I thought that was it.
I was wrong.
The scream deepened, warping into something inhuman as massive amounts of black Null erupted outward from its body. The air froze. My skin prickled violently as a new aura flooded the battlefield, heavier and colder than before.
I hadn't gained an advantage.
I had awakened something.
The Lieutenant straightened slowly, its presence expanding, warping the space around it as its true power surfaced.
The thing standing before me was no longer just a Dracus commander.
It was a monster.
And the real fight was only just beginning.