The lizard hissed, jaws opening wide. Then it ran.
It came in low, body rippling with muscle, legs pistoning in heavy bursts. Each stride tore gouges into the dirt, the tail sweeping behind to balance its bulk. The ground shook under its weight. Its head thrust forward with every lunge, jaws opening and snapping shut, smoke and sparks spilling from between its teeth. It wasn't posturing. It wanted him in its mouth.
Li Wei's pulse quickened. The injured prey he had dealt with never moved like this. This was speed, raw and direct, and every step drove it closer to him.
Li Wei threw another spread of spikes, forcing the beast to duck low as they shattered across its scales. It didn't slow. The charge kept coming, claws gouging deep lines into the earth.
He dropped back at once, slipping into a steady retreat across the clearing. Each step he loosed more volleys, not to kill but to sting, to keep its eyes fixed on him. A few shards stuck between scales, others skittered off, harmless, but the beast's fury only deepened.
The cave lay behind him, its treeline and the traps woven into it. If he could drag the beast that far, the ground would turn. Until then, the open clearing was only risk.
The lizard chased, relentless. Each stride cracked the soil underfoot, smoke and sparks spraying from its jaws as it snapped at the air between them.
Step by step, Li Wei drew it closer to his ground.
The beast kept pace, chest swelling again. Its jaws snapped wide, and a fireball spat out — not at where Li Wei stood, but where his path would carry him.
Li Wei caught the shift, the angle just off. He cut his stride short and veered sideways as the blast slammed into the ground ahead, fire bursting upward in a pillar. Heat seared his cheek as he sprinted past, smoke rolling thick behind him.
Another shot came, then another. Each one arced not at him but across his line of retreat, cutting off where it thought he would run. The power was terrifying, each strike cracking the ground into flame, but the aim was plain enough to read. He switched direction at every burst, jagged movements keeping him a step outside the beast's guesses.
The clearing lit with fire, soil blackened and trees smouldered at the edges. Li Wei stayed low, weaving through the blasts, edging closer to the treeline and the waiting traps.
The fireballs kept coming, each one tearing the ground open in bursts of flame. Li Wei ducked and weaved, smoke clawing at his lungs, irritation building in his chest. Too many unanswered strikes. It felt like standing still under a flurry of punches, letting the fight slip out of his hands.
He grit his teeth, watching the beast's chest swell again. Heat shimmered as it drew breath, jaws opening for another blast.
This time, Li Wei moved first. Bone sand surged from his pouch, shaped into a volley and hurled straight at its open jaws. The beast drew in breath to exhale, fire gathering in its throat — and the two met in an instant.
The spikes hit the furnace head-on. Heat fused them mid-flight, the shards turning to jagged glass as they punched into smoke and flesh. The fire burst apart in a fractured plume, sparks bursting wide. The lizard jerked back with a guttural roar, blood and molten fragments spilling from its mouth.
It wasn't a killing blow. But it was like watching a dog bite into a mouthful of quills — agony, raw and irritating, impossible to ignore. The beast pulled up short, thrashing its head, smoke pouring from its jaws in ragged bursts.
Li Wei steadied his breath. He was almost at the treeline, the ground where his traps waited, but the beast had stopped pressing. If it no longer chased, he would have to drag it in.
The beast thrashed, blood and glassy shards spilling from its jaws. For a moment it seemed staggered, the irritation raw enough to break its chase.
Then its chest swelled again. This time the heat was different. Brighter. Sharper.
Blue fire burst from its mouth in a single, searing blast. The roar of it shook the clearing, washing the air in a blinding glare. The fused shards inside its throat melted to slag and sprayed outward in a rain of sparks. The ground blackened where the fire struck, stone itself softening under the heat.
Li Wei narrowed his eyes, lungs tight from the wash of smoke. That strike hadn't been about him. It had been to clear the glass from its throat. Which meant it had been holding back, saving strength for when it mattered.
This beast still had more in store.
Li Wei drew a breath, then reached into his pouch. The bracer came free, dark metal, three curved claws fixed along its frame. Rust Grasp. He slid it onto his arm, the weight cold against his wrist.
The beast still faced him, head low, smoke curling from its jaws. No distraction, no gap — but waiting would gain him nothing. He lunged forward, sand spilling to cloak the charge, and drove his arm at its flank where shards had bitten before.
The claws scraped hard across the hide. Sparks spat where metal dragged scale, but nothing broke. The beast twisted at the last instant, shifting so he struck armour, not flesh. Rust Grasp skidded uselessly across stone-hard ridges.
Then its forelimb shot out. Claws raked his side, hot as iron, tearing through cloth and biting deep. Li Wei staggered back, breath sharp, blood spilling fast. The pain burned hotter than it should have, crawling under the skin in a slow spread. His eyes narrowed. Poison. He had never considered the beast might carry venom, and the thought unsettled him more than the wound itself.
Li Wei tasted iron and grit in his mouth. The wound at his side burned in a way that crawled under the skin, slow and wrong. He could feel blood slicking down. No time to wonder what the poison did. He needed space and he needed the beast moving where his traps waited.
He gritted his teeth, pulled a small bundle of herbs from his pouch, and crushed them in his hand. Bitter sap oozed between his fingers as he shoved the pulp against the gash. It wouldn't cure anything, but it might slow the spread long enough to finish the fight.
The close charge had been a mistake; he knew better than to try it twice. He backed off, raising his free hand to draw bone sand into a tight ball. Not a huge sphere this time, just enough to burst where it mattered.
When the lizard's head swung toward him, jaws gaping, he hurled it. The ball cracked apart in the air and exploded into dust, grit lashing against its eyes and nasal slits. The beast flinched, one eye blurring, head jerking side to side.
Li Wei didn't waste the chance. He turned and ran, short, controlled steps toward the treeline. Behind him the clearing smoked where fireballs had struck, but the cloud had bought him a narrow window.
The lizard roared, shaking its head until the dust streamed away. Then its eyes fixed back on him. With a snarl it lunged after, claws tearing divots from the dirt, tail sweeping low to clear its path.
Li Wei broke from the clearing and plunged into the treeline. Branches whipped against his arms as he ran, the beast crashing after him, its bulk tearing a path wide enough to shake the ground.
The first trap met it almost at once. Its forefoot came down on a bed of barbs jutting from the earth. The spikes drove deep, blood spraying as they tore free — but the lizard barely slowed, dragging on with a bellow.
Moments later the second snare caught. A spring trap snapped shut around its ankle, metal teeth biting hard. The beast lurched but kept moving, dragging the trap through soil and roots, metal screeching as it splintered apart.
Li Wei pressed on, leading it further into the trees. The ground narrowed here, shaped by old animal paths into a natural choke point. Fallen trunks and tight undergrowth left only one way forward — straight toward the pit the bone slave had prepared.
The beast thundered into it before it realised. The soil crust gave way, and its bulk dropped hard onto the sharpened stakes below. Wood snapped, splinters flying. A few shafts punched shallow into its hide, but most broke uselessly against its armour. The beast roared, not from pain but fury, thrashing as it clawed to pull itself free.
Li Wei seized the moment. He darted to the pit's edge, eyes locking on a gash already torn along the beast's shoulder where bone shards had bitten before. He drove the bracer's hooked claws straight into the wound, tearing deeper into raw flesh. Hot blood burst up his arm as he ripped free, leaving the gouge wider, angrier.
He sprang back at once. The beast's head snapped around, jaws blazing, and a jet of fire burst from its throat. The stream caught him as he moved, heat crashing forward like a wall.
Li Wei threw bone sand up in a rush, compressing it into a flat shield before him. Flame hammered against it, the surface glowing, cracks spidering through the barrier as grit fused into glass. Heat washed over his face, searing at his skin, but the shield held long enough for him to fall clear of the blast.
The shield held, bone sand fused into a slab under the weight of the flame. When the blast finally ebbed, the barrier dropped heavy to the ground, glassy and warped, shattering into brittle shards. Li Wei staggered back, breath tight, skin flushed from the heat.
The beast clawed at the pit's edge, dragging itself up with blood streaking its side. Smoke curled from its jaws, eyes fixed on him with raw fury.