Erel crouched behind a concrete barrier fifteen feet away, watching a pair of prowlers make their patrol circuit past the entrance.
They moved like they were sharing the same brain. One would pause to sniff the air, and the other would mirror the exact movement a split second later. When the lead creature turned its head left, its partner's head would swivel in the same direction with mechanical precision. It made his skin crawl. Take down one and the other would know instantly, feel everything its companion felt.
His neck tattoo started heating up, that familiar warning tingle from his Eternal Survivor ability. These things were dangerous in ways that went beyond just teeth and claws. There was something fundamentally wrong about them, something that made his body's survival instincts scream warnings.
Three minutes until Lyra reached the north entrance. He checked his watch again, then focused on the prowlers as they disappeared around the stadium's curve, their synchronized footsteps echoing off concrete in perfect rhythm. Time to move.
The dash across open ground felt like it took forever, even though his adaptive ouroboros allowed him to cover the distance in seconds by reinforcing his tendons. Every shadow could hide watching eyes, every sound could herald another attack. But he made it to the service gate without incident, pressing himself against the wall beside the entrance.
The lock was actually pretty straightforward once he scraped away the oily black coating that had grown over it like some kind of organic parasite. The substance was warm to the touch and left his fingers tingling with residual Imaginarium. Whatever mythic influence was at work here, it hadn't bothered to actually destroy or replace the original mechanism—just made it disgusting to interact with. Erel picked the lock in under two minutes, the familiar click of tumblers falling into place reassuring the diverse skills Lyra had drilled into him.
He slipped through the gap and closed the gate behind him, immediately regretting the decision to enter this place. The stadium's interior had transformed into something from a fever dream. The walls were covered in a thin film of moving moss-like substance.
Emergency lighting cast everything in sick green hues, making the shadows dance and twist in ways that played hell with depth perception. The air itself felt thick, almost syrupy, and carried scents that had no business existing—copper and ozone mixed with something sweetly rotten that made his stomach turn.
Erel drew his sword—a simple, well-balanced blade that Lyra had been drilling him with for weeks. The familiar weight in his hand was comforting, a reminder of countless hours of practice in controlled environments. But those training sessions hadn't prepared him for the way the corrupted atmosphere seemed to make the steel feel heavier, more sluggish to respond.
He moved carefully through the corridors, every sense straining for threats. His enhanced hearing, a virtue of his tattoo, picked up sounds that didn't belong—wet sliding noises from inside the walls, occasional clicks and chittering that could have been insects but felt wrong. The moving moss tracked his passage, ripples following his movement like waves in a disturbed pond.
His tattoo exploded with heat.
Erel threw himself sideways as ceiling tiles crashed down in a shower of debris and dust. A prowler landed where he'd been standing, red eyes already tracking his movement with predatory focus. The impact of its landing cracked the concrete floor, suggesting it weighed far more than its lean frame should have allowed.
Up close, it was worse than through binoculars. The creature was roughly the size and shape of a large dog, but wrong in every detail that mattered. Its limbs were too long, joints bending at angles that violated basic anatomy. The muzzle was elongated and filled with too many teeth—not just canines but rows of razored points that suggested it could shred flesh as efficiently as any industrial grinder. Its claws weren't simple keratin but something that gleamed with an oily sheen, like they'd been dipped in acid.
But the worst part was the intelligence in those red eyes. This wasn't an animal operating on instinct. It was studying him, analyzing his posture and equipment with the calculating focus of a trained killer.
Shit. Okay. Don't panic. Lyra's training. Trust your abilities.
Erel activated his Adaptive Ouroboros, feeling the familiar sensation of his snake tattoo beginning to migrate. The serpentine design flowed down from his neck like living ink, wrapping around his sword arm where it solidified into protective scale patterns. The transformation was always slightly unsettling—like having a second skin growing over his own.
The prowler studied this development with obvious interest, head tilting as it processed new information. Then it attacked with fluid grace that made Erel's enhanced reflexes seem sluggish by comparison.
He barely got his sword up in time to intercept claws aimed at his throat. The impact sent shockwaves up his arm and drove him back three steps. Sparks flew where the creature's claws scraped against his reinforced forearm, the scale patterns absorbing damage that would have shredded muscle and bone.
Erel pivoted and slashed, aiming for what looked like a vulnerable spot between ribs. His blade found flesh, sliding deep enough to draw dark blood that steamed in the corrupted air. But the creature barely reacted to what should have been a killing blow. Instead, it twisted impossibly, spine bending in ways that defied basic vertebrate anatomy, and brought its claws around toward his face.
His tattoo blazed with warning heat. Erel jerked back, feeling air displacement as claws missed his jugular by inches. The prowler's follow-up attack came immediately—no pause to assess damage or adjust strategy. It fought like a machine designed for one purpose: killing efficiently.
These things don't fight like normal animals.
The creature pressed its advantage, launching into a series of attacks that forced Erel into pure defensive mode. His sword work became a desperate dance of parries and blocks, each impact threatening to overwhelm his enhanced strength. The prowler's claws left gouges in the concrete where his dodges took him, deep enough to suggest they could punch through his body armor without difficulty.
But Lyra's training had prepared him for exactly this kind of engagement. Don't try to match them strength for strength. Use superior tactics and environmental advantages.
Erel let the creature drive him backwards toward a support pillar, timing his retreat to arrive at exactly the right moment. When the prowler lunged for what it clearly thought was a finishing blow, he spun aside and let its momentum carry it face-first into reinforced concrete.
The impact would have killed or crippled any normal animal. The prowler shook its head once and immediately resumed attacking, but Erel had gained the precious seconds he needed to shift his Adaptive Ouroboros enhancement. The scale patterns flowed from his defensive arm to his legs, reinforcing his stance and providing better traction against the slick floor.
Now he could fight instead of just survive.
A growl echoed from across the stadium, high-pitched and definitely not human. Lyra had made contact.
*
Lyra approached the north entrance like she was out for an evening stroll, her pace unhurried despite the hostile environment. The vine barrier here was thick as her arm, its oily black surface writhing with patterns that seemed to respond to her presence. As she got closer, the vines actually began reaching toward her, sensing potential prey.
They know I'm here. Good. Let's give them something to think about.
She manifested one of her Fragment abilities, feeling the familiar tingle as her connection to the Morrigan activated. A pitch-black feather materialised in her palm, not quite solid, not quite energy, but something that existed in the space between the two states. The feather hummed with Imaginarium, and the vines immediately began recoiling from its influence.
But Lyra wasn't interested in subtle infiltration tonight. This entire mission was about teaching Erel to trust his abilities under real pressure. Sometimes you had to throw someone in the deep end and see if they could swim.
She activated Shadow Step, the world dissolving into cool darkness as she merged with the shadows cast by the stadium's exterior lighting. The sensation was like being embraced by liquid night—comforting and dangerous in equal measure. For a moment, she felt the pull of the darkness, that seductive temptation to just let go and drift away from all responsibility and pain. The darkness offered peace, but it was the peace of abandonment, of giving up on everything that mattered.
Lyra had walked this line too long to be seduced by such easy escapes.
She emerged inside the main concourse, her Raven's Watch ability immediately cataloguing threats and tactical opportunities. The vine infestation here was more advanced than at the exterior walls, floors that felt spongy underfoot, and an atmosphere thick enough to taste. Two prowlers were heading toward Erel's position on the east side, their synchronised movement making them look like mirror images. Another pair was circling back toward her current location, drawn by the disturbance at the vine barrier.
Perfect timing. Let's see how he handles divided attention.
Her hand found the triple spiral tattoo on her shoulder, fingers tracing the interlocking pattern that marked her connection to the Morrigan. The tattoo warmed under her touch, and Fate's Thread activated. The world suddenly blazed with glowing connections, threads of light that showed the relationships between every living thing in the immediate area.
The prowlers appeared as clusters of red malevolence, their threads connecting them to each other and to something much larger and more dangerous deeper in the stadium's underground levels. The kin. But there were other threads too, golden lines that connected her to Erel, showing the bond of family and shared purpose that had sustained them both through years of hardship and loss.
A prowler pair rounded the corner fifty meters away, moving in that unsettling synchronisation that suggested shared consciousness rather than mere pack coordination. Lyra drew her bow and activated her Raven's Feather ability.
Darkness coalesced in her fingers, forming three feathers that gleamed like obsidian blades. Each one was perfectly balanced for flight, sharp enough to punch through armor, and imbued with just enough of her mythic essence to make them supernaturally accurate.
Two targets, three shots. Let's see how smart they really are.
The first feather took the lead prowler center mass, punching through whatever passed for its chest cavity with enough force to pin it against the far wall. Dark fluid sprayed from the wound, but the creature's red eyes remained focused and aware. These things didn't die easily.
But killing wasn't the immediate objective. The second prowler's head snapped toward its wounded companion—exactly the opening she'd been waiting for. Her second feather went through its skull with precision.
Both creatures collapsed, their coordination severed.
Lyra activated her Morrigan's Cloak, feeling raven feathers bloom from her shoulders like dark wings spreading for flight. The temperature around her dropped noticeably as the cloak manifested, its surface absorbing light and sound in ways that made her presence uncertain and threatening to observe. The corrupted moss on the walls actually recoiled from her enhanced presence, creating clear patches around her position.
She expanded the cloak to its full configuration and launched herself toward the nearest group of prowlers, her enhanced mobility allowing her to glide between levels of the stadium's interior structure. The sensation of flight was intoxicating, not true flight like a bird, but something between gliding and controlled falling that let her move through three-dimensional space with fluid grace.
The prowlers looked up as her shadow passed over them, their red eyes reflecting confusion at the sudden threat.
Now for the real work.
She landed among the disoriented creatures and drew her combat knife, a blade that seemed to drink in available light rather than reflect it.
She moved through them with lethal efficiency born of years hunting entities, her knife finding the specific vulnerabilities. Within thirty seconds, four more prowlers lay motionless on the concrete.
Erel needs to handle his own fights if he's going to grow stronger. But I can clear him a path to what really matters.
Through her Fate's Thread ability, she could sense the boy's location and status. He was fully engaged with a single prowler, using his Adaptive Ouroboros enhancement to stay alive while searching for tactical advantages. Good, he was learning to trust his abilities rather than overthinking every move.
But there were more threats converging on his position, and beyond them, in the stadium's underground levels, something much more dangerous was beginning to stir. The kin had apparently decided that subtlety was no longer necessary.