The plan had gone to hell.
Jeremiah, Tessa, and Mariah lunged forward in a desperate dash toward the outpost. The puppets reacted.
They moved to intercept.
Jeremiah thrust his hand forward mid-stride, mana surging through his core and condensing violently in his palm before erupting outward.
A blast of compressed fire tore through the nearest group—
Flames swallowed them whole.
Jeremiah's eyes narrowed.
What—
The fire clung to them, burning, but their bodies pushed forward through it like the damage barely registered.
Dammit.
His jaw tightened.
If I could use my vampiric vision I'd know exactly what they are…His eyes flickered faintly—Then he killed the thought. No. Not now.
Glowing red eyes in the middle of this? Way too risky. Nyx already knew about part of his ability seeing into mana cores—but this…This wasn't the time to complicate things further.
Focus.
Lightning crackled beside him. Tessa surged forward, electricity dancing wildly around her body as her weapon formed in her grasp—a polearm snapping into existence as she accelerated.
She blitzed past Jeremiah, closing the distance in an instant.
Her weapon carved through two of the burning puppets—
…So that's it.
Jeremiah saw the opening: they weren't immune to physical attacks. He pivoted instantly, the fire mana in his palms dying as he conjured a blade of solid ice. Gripping the hilt tight, he hacked through the remaining guards in their path. Behind them, Mariah kept pace, sprinting through the gap as Jeremiah and Tessa carved a bloody path toward the outpost.
They broke through the last of the second perimeter.
Bodies fell in their charge, carved by clean cuts and precise elemental strikes—yet the battlefield refused to quiet. The remaining puppets surged in a relentless charge, joined by others clawing their way from the earth and spilling from the surrounding woods. A tide of black swept across the fractured ground, their movements jerky and unnatural, yet fast enough to close the distance if any of them faltered for even a heartbeat.
Jeremiah glanced back mid-sprint, eyes narrowing as he tracked the pursuit. "They're gaining," he grunted.
Tessa didn't spare a look. "Gods. What the hell?"
"Don't engage," Mariah's voice cut through,"Keep moving. We're too exposed."
The incline toward the outpost loomed ahead, the terrain tightening into narrow funnels.
Jeremiah's gaze flicked from the slope back to the treeline, his mind racing through the geography. If we push straight up, they'll box us in halfway.
His jaw tightened. They needed breathing room. He pressed two fingers to his ear, his voice steady despite the pace. "Nyx, give us some space. Don't overdo it…On second thought—don't hold back. Overdo it."
A heartbeat of silence followed.
"Got it," her voice crackled through.
High on the elevated ridge, Nyx shifted her footing, the silver frame of Moonpiercer gleaming as mana surged through the weapon.
A translucent string wove itself into existence, humming with suppressed power. Reaching into her storage ring, she drew a heavy shaft and notched it; the bow didn't strain against her pull, its enchantments stabilizing the draw and amplifying the kinetic force waiting to be released. Below, her eyes locked onto the pursuing cluster—Jeremiah, Tessa, and Mariah—sprinting just ahead of the closing puppets.
She timed the release perfectly. The arrow vanished from the string without a trail or a sound, leaving only a vacuum of silence until the moment of impact. An explosion tore through the earth behind the team, erupting in a violent burst of force and debris that sent puppets spiraling into the air, their fragile bodies breaking apart under the blast. Dust surged upward in a thick curtain, momentarily shattering the enemy's formation. Though Jeremiah didn't look back, he felt the searing heat lick the back of his neck, and a small, grim grin tugged at his mouth.
"Perfect," he muttered, his boots digging into the loose stone of the steepening incline. Beside him, Tessa laughed, her pace accelerating despite the climb.
"I like her," she called out, though Mariah didn't slow, her gaze fixed on the outpost entrance embedded in the rock face like a dark wound.
"Keep moving," Mariah commanded. "That won't hold them long."
She was right; through the settling dust, the puppets were already reforming, climbing over the jagged debris with an unnatural, twitching persistence. Mariah raised a hand to her comm, her voice steady despite the exertion. "Nyx, do you have the barrier array you were working on?"
"It's ready," Nyx's voice crackled back after a heartbeat of focus.
"Good. We're heading for the main door. Anchor a barrier before the end —something to bottle them up."
Above them, Nyx adjusted her stance once more, tracking their ascent as Moonpiercer pulsed faintly in her grip. She drew a different arrow this time, its shaft etched with deep, glowing runes. As the trio surged through the final stretch toward the entrance, she released. The arrow struck the ground just beyond the threshold, it unfolded. Mana surged outward in a controlled expansion, anchoring into the stone and hardening the air itself into a curved, semi-transparent wall of runic energy.
The puppets slammed into the barrier moments later, their momentum rippling across the shimmering surface. It held, though the air thrummed with the strain of their repeated impacts.
"It'll hold for ten minutes," Nyx reported, her breathing rhythmic and disciplined. "Maybe less if they keep pressing. I'll stay up here and thin out the herd."
"Don't overextend," Mariah replied as they finally crossed the threshold into the dark interior of the outpost. "If it gets crazy, fall back and call for backup."
"Got it," Nyx whispered, her eyes already moving onto her next target.
The doors burst open under the force of their entry.
As Jeremiah, Tessa, and Mariah stepped across the threshold, the atmosphere warped around them. Mana saturated the room—thick, heavy, and suffocatingly oppressive. It pressed against their skin and crawled along their senses.
Jeremiah's eyes narrowed. "This is definitely the place."
The interior opened wide, bright lights overhead illuminating a large chamber that led deeper into the facility. Standing between the intruders and that path were two figures, their faces hidden behind the snarling visages of Demon Masks. One stood with a chilling calm, his dark robes suggesting a man who viewed the intrusion as a mere distraction. Beside him, however, stood a monument of sheer violence. The giant was a colossus of layered muscle, his frame built like a siege engine. Scars decorated the thick veins of his bare arms. Though neither carried no weapons, Both presence carried the weight of a death sentence.
A low, amused chuckle vibrated through the air. "Well now… what do we have here?" the robed man mused, tilting his head with a predator's curiosity. While he seemed entertained, the giant remained silent.
Jeremiah's instincts screamed at him to switch his vision—to peel back the fabric of the mundane and see the true nature of the threats—but he forced the impulse down. Not here. Not now.
Mariah stepped forward, her voice remarkably steady. "Who are you?"
The robed man offered a soft, dismissive laugh. "This isn't a movie. I'm not about to give you a speech." His tone shifted into something flat and mechanical as he glanced at his companion. "Gillian. Kill them all."
The order had barely left his lips before the giant exploded into motion. Jeremiah lunged to meet the charge head-on, ice surging along his arm and flash-freezing into a jagged blade mid-flight. He sought to intercept the behemoth before he could find his momentum, but the two collided with the force of a landslide.
Gillian didn't even acknowledge the weapon; He simply punched. Upon impact, the ice blade detonated into a cloud of sparkling dust. The kinetic shock rumbled through Jeremiah's arms, a painful reminder of the vast gulf in their physical strength.
Before he could recover, Gillian's massive hand clamped over his face. The grip was absolute and crushing, snuffing out Jeremiah's momentum as he was snatched out of the air like a common insect. With a violent surge of power, the giant drove him downward. They tore through the building's exterior in a cacophony of shrieking metal and crumbling concrete, tumbling out into the forest beyond. Trees snapped like dry kindling as they carved a ragged trench through the earth and roots.
Gillian didn't let go. His fingers tightened around Jeremiah's skull, threatening to collapse bone. Pain flared white-hot, but in the agony, Jeremiah's mind found a cold, sharp edge. Fine, he thought.
Jeremiah twisted his head just enough to find a gap in the suffocating grip and bit down into the giant's palm with feral intensity.
The metallic tang of the giant's blood acted as a catalyst. As Jeremiah's teeth sank deep, he didn't just bite—he drew. A sharp surge of energy flooded into him, a dark vitality siphoned from the giant's veins that felt deeper and more intoxicating than mere physical force. Gillian reacted instantly; a guttural snarl tore from his throat as the shock of the vampire's drain caused his grip to falter.
The break in the hold was sudden. Without the giant's weight pinning him, Jeremiah's remaining momentum turned him into a projectile. He was hurled backward, his body splintering through trunks and branches as wood and bark exploded around him. He skipped off the uneven ground before finally crashing hard into the base of a thick tree at the edge of a wide clearing.
The impact emptied his lungs. Darkness followed. Then as he opened his eyes the clearing opened around him, a rough circle of flattened earth where tall trees swayed under the coastal wind. Jeremiah didn't move; for a moment, his body simply refused to respond.
The back of his head was torn open, blood pooling into the dirt. One arm was bent at an unnatural angle, his ribs were broken, and his legs were fractured from the high-speed collision. He stared upward, vision blurred, his breathing shallow and ragged.
Across the clearing, Gillian stood at the edge of a raised slope. He didn't advance. Instead, he looked down at his hand, turning it slightly to study the bite mark with a small, deliberate motion—as if trying to understand how a creature he had just crushed had managed to wound him.
Jeremiah focus drifted inward as the stolen blood began to circulate. How can I fight these types of opponents without giving it my all… He felt the hunger rising, dulling the pain of his broken limbs. Well damn… if I get caught, fuck it… I'll deal with it. He has to die for this… I want more blood.
It was not a slow recovery, but a violent, unnatural rejection of injury. At the base of his skull, the ragged wound began to knit, flesh pulling itself together in a grotesque display of rapid mending. Bone snapped back into alignment with sickening, muffled cracks, and the blood that had soaked the dirt seemed to defy gravity, drawing back toward his skin as if refusing to be wasted.
Jeremiah's arm straightened, and his ribs realigned with a series of wet thuds. Within seconds, the damage was undone, leaving his body as unmarred as if the collision had never happened.
He rose from the dirt, his movements slow and deliberate. Reaching up, he gripped the remnants of his tattered shirt and ripped the fabric away, letting the scraps flutter into the coastal wind. His bare torso was pale, the faint traces of drying blood fading as his Vampiric regeneration erased the last of the trauma.
He lifted his gaze, searching the area until he found his mark.
The demon masked mage still stood on the higher edge of the clearing, perched like a gargoyle. The giant was just standing there watching him.
"What are you?" Gillian's voice was low and calm. He was asking out of curiosity or fear; Jeremiah couldn't tell and didn't care.
Jeremiah didn't offer an immediate answer. His eyes had ignited into a deep, unnatural crimson, and his teeth had lengthened into sharp points. A faint, involuntary curl of his lips pulled into something resembling a smile, though there was no joy behind it. For a fleeting second, his mind drifted to Nyx, Mariah, and Tessa. They'd be fine. They were strong.
His focus snapped back to the giant, the air between them growing thick and stagnant as the wind died down. "Why does it matter?" Jeremiah's voice was detached. "There's no point in explaining things to a dead man."
Gillian's response was a surge of mana. It condensed with a terrifying density, shaping itself into a massive greatsword. The weapon was an artifact of dark metal, etched with twisting runes that pulsed with a rhythmic, hungry power. The blade seemed to drink the light around it, while the hilt—wrapped in deep red wood—sat in the giant's hand as if it were an extension of his own limb.
Jeremiah's sharpened perception cut through the intimidation of the blade, diving deeper into the giant's essence until he saw it: the core. It burned with a brilliant greenish-blue light, the engine driving the monstrosity before him. So that's how, he realized. Had he seen that power earlier, he never would have taken the initial clash head-on—but that was a lesson for a different life. Now, the objective was singular.
Gillian lifted the heavy blade, his expression hidden by the mask. "What are you?" he repeated, his voice dropping to a whisper.
Jeremiah remained silent. His nails lengthened into subtle claws as he flexed his hands at his sides. He began to walk forward, his boots crunching steadily against the dirt. Each step was like a predator closing the distance with absolute certainty. His red eyes remained locked onto the giant, unblinking and cold.
"Well..." Jeremiah's voice was a low, "...time to die."