Far from India, half a world away, Sanctuary burned beneath a different sky.
The skinwalkers did not slow.
If anything, they multiplied.
They came in waves that no longer resembled strategy so much as inevitability, pouring from the forest in endless procession. The trees themselves had begun to warp permanently, trunks twisted into rib-like arches, leaves falling as strips of skin instead of foliage. The land around the temple had been reduced to scorched earth and fractured stone, yet still they came, crawling over corpses of their own kind, climbing burning wreckage without hesitation.
Mike was at the center of it.
A living catastrophe.
He tore through them with reckless joy, wings snapping and folding with brutal efficiency as he moved faster than sound. Each strike landed with annihilating force. Claws punched through torsos. Fire reduced bodies to drifting ash mid-scream. Shockwaves rippled outward from his impacts, flattening entire clusters at once.
He laughed as he fought.
Every kill fed the furnace inside him, Bahamut's presence roaring approval through his veins. This was what he had been forged for. Just enemies. Slaughter and the joy of battle.
A skinwalker lunged from behind, its form splitting mid-leap into three smaller bodies. Mike spun without looking and exhaled. The firestorm erased them instantly, leaving nothing but scorched stone beneath his feet.
"Yes," he growled, voice raw with delight. "That's it. Keep coming."
They obeyed.
But joy could not silence his growing thoughts forever.
Between impacts, between heartbeats, Kelsey's face intruded, vivid. Thoughts of her broken body laying in bed after she had been rescued from Hecate. The last time he spent time with her after the trial. Her warm frail hand and supporting voice. No matter the joy of a battle, she was always what kept him going.
Mike crushed a skull beneath his heel hard enough to crater the ground.
"She needs to talk to you."
Hamza's words echoed again, unwanted and persistent.
Mike snarled and ripped a skinwalker in half, flinging the pieces into the advancing horde like burning offerings. The feeling receded for a moment.
Then came another.
"I just want my husband back."
His laughter stuttered.
Across the field, the council fought desperately to keep the temple from being overrun.
Nicolas hovered several feet above the ground now, body fully subsumed by storm. Lightning arced constantly across his skin, thunder rolling with every movement. He gestured once and a cyclone tore through the horde, lifting dozens of skinwalkers into the air before detonating them in blinding flashes of light.
Jennifer and Cyra worked in tandem, coordinated bursts of power knocking creatures away from breached wards. Pete fired relentlessly, swearing every time something got too close. Leo moved supplies and wounded without stopping, eyes wide but resolute.
Still, the horde pressed closer.
"They don't stop," Pete shouted. "They don't fucking stop!"
"They will," Nicolas answered calmly, voice layered with thunder. "Just keep killing them. They are not infinite in number."
Hamza fought with terrifying efficiency. All his movements precise, lethal, conserving motion even as blood soaked his armor. His flames dancing as he moved. But his attention kept drifting back to Mike.
The way his movements were growing sloppier.
Angrier.
Not weaker but unfocused.
Abbadon noticed too.
He stood at the temple steps, untouched, hands clasped behind his back as chaos raged below. His gaze flicked from Mike to the sky and back again, smile slow and knowing.
"The fourth night," he murmured. "Soon I will have to visit India."
Another massive skinwalker, this one fused from half a dozen bodies charged the temple doors. Mike intercepted it mid-stride, catching it by the throat. For a moment, they struggled, the ground cracking beneath them.
Then Mike roared and tore its head free.
The body collapsed.
Silence rang in his ears for half a second too long.
He stood there, chest heaving, fire dripping from his claws. The horde still came. The battle still raged.
But something had shifted.
Mike felt it before anyone else did.
The sky… tightening.
He looked up.
Above Sanctuary, the veil rippled like disturbed water.
Abbadon's smile widened.
"Oh," he said softly. "They've decided to act."
The air screamed.
From the distortion above, something fell.
Then another.
Then a dozen more.
Giant metal pylons punched through reality itself, crashing down around Mike in a widening circle. Each was taller than the temple, forged of dark metal etched with ancient engravings that burned as they struck the ground. The impacts sent shockwaves across the battlefield, flattening skinwalkers and knocking council members off their feet.
The horde faltered for the first time.
Lines ignited.
Runes flared outward from the pylons, carving glowing sigils into the earth as they connected, forming a massive circle centered precisely on Mike.
Pressure slammed down on him.
Mike staggered, wings flaring as gravity multiplied. The air crushed inward. His bones screamed. His breath hitched as something ancient and deliberate settled its weight upon him.
"Mike!" Hamza shouted, fighting against the force to reach him.
Bahamut roared inside Mike's mind. "They are afraid so now they look to remove you from the battlefield! Cowardly fools! This cannot kill a dragon and will make the retaliation much worse!"
This was not an attack meant to kill. The lines and symbols that had ignited began converging onto Mike.
Mike dropped to one knee, claws gouging trenches into the stone as he fought to rise. Fire leaked uncontrollably from his mouth, but it dissipated uselessly against the forming construct.
Above, the ripples intensified.
Light gathered.
White.
Blinding.
The skinwalkers froze, caught between instinct and terror.
Abbadon laughed quietly, eyes alight with anticipation.
"Fools," he whispered. "Show him what you're truly afraid of. Seal your fates."
The pressure peaked.
The runes screamed.
And the air detonated in a massive flash of light.
The pillars slowly dissipated and crumbled into dust as the smoke began to clear. The courtyard was now empty. Only the charred stone and destruction from the pillars impact remained. Mike was nowhere to be found.
"Mike!! Mike!!" Hamza shouted as he ran to the center of the destruction. Only claw marks and cracked stone remained. Hamza looked up at the sky toward the veil as if he could hear the laughs of the gods who launched this attack on Mike.