The silence after Zara's death was a physical thing, thick with blood-iron scent, ozone, and the low, guttural growl rumbling from the beast's chest. Its molten gold eyes, devoid of anything but predatory contempt, swept over the broken survivors.
Beneath Adam, Lira gasped, her face pale but alert. Raven knelt beside them, hands glowing with intense white light – one pressed firmly over the deep, seeping tear on Lira's shoulder, the other hovering over the burning agony across Adam's back. "Muscle damage, Ashblade. Stabilizing," Raven gritted out, sweat beading on his brow despite the cool air. "Lira's contained." Adam felt the searing pain lessen to a deep, throbbing ache, the torn flesh knitting slowly under Raven's focused power. Storm let out a frantic chirp, talons digging gently into Adam's uninjured shoulder, his small head darting between Adam's face and the looming beast, radiating protective anxiety through their bond.
"Stabilized," Raven confirmed, pulling his hands back. Both wounds were closed, scarred, but the underlying damage remained. Adam pushed himself up, ignoring the protest in his back muscles. Lira scrambled to her feet beside him, flexing her injured arm with a wince, her gauntlets reforming.
Cain's shattered scream – "ZARA!" – ripped through the glade. He lunged, blind with grief.
"CAIN! NO!" Rowan tackled him hard, dragging him back just as the beast's massive paw slammed down, cratering the earth where Cain had stood. The beast snarled, its gaze locking onto the struggling pair.
Kael materialized beside Adam. A faint golden-yellow aura flickered around Kael's limbs – Wren's Amplification, pushed to its limit during the initial ambush and held in reserve. Kael's usual icy calm was fractured by a tightness around his eyes, a subtle tension in his jaw. In one hand, he held a pulsing, unstable sphere of crackling white energy – siphoned chaos absorbed from Andrew's frantic blasts as Darain fled. "Distract it," Kael commanded, his voice low and urgent, laced with an unfamiliar strain. "Flank. Throat core. Now."
Adam nodded, the familiar volatile heat surging within him. He stepped forward, violet fire erupting along his blade, casting eerie shadows. "HEY! OVER HERE, STRIPES!" he roared, slamming the violet-flamed sword against rock. Sparks flew like amethyst stars. "Too slow to catch the real threat?"
The beast's massive head snapped around. Its molten eyes narrowed, fixing on Adam. A deep, grating voice, like stones grinding together, echoed in their minds, heavy with disdain: "Insolent Spark. You burn brightest before you are snuffed." It took a deliberate step towards him, muscles coiling.
Kael moved. Amplified by Wren's golden-yellow aura, he was a blur. Twin rapiers, slender and deadly, appeared in his hands as he flowed left. He raised his free hand, the one not holding Andrew's chaotic energy. From his palm, a searing lance of concentrated plasma – blinding white-blue and hotter than Adam's fire – screamed towards the beast's flank, not to kill, but to scorch and blind.
Simultaneously, he hurled the sphere of absorbed chaos. It struck the ground near the beast's forepaws. CRUMPH! Not kinetic force, but a localized detonation of wild, discordant energy, flinging dirt and disrupting its stance.
The plasma seared across its shoulder, leaving a smoking furrow. The chaos blast made it stumble, roaring in startled fury, shaking its head. Its gaze wavered from Adam.
"BRIAN! NOW!" Kael yelled, already darting in with his rapiers, amplified speed making him a streak of golden light as he aimed precise stabs at tendons and eyes.
High above, Brian, tears cutting tracks through grime, fired. His lightning-infused bolt streaked down towards the momentarily exposed, pulsing core beneath the beast's jaw.
Thwack!
It struck true. Golden light flared violently from the impact point, spider-webbing under the fur. A sound like shattering crystal mixed with the beast's agonized shriek tore through the forest.
It staggered, its roar choking into a wet gurgle. Intelligence fled its eyes, replaced by primal, agonized rage. Its body seemed to swell, muscles bulging grotesquely beneath the striped fur. The air crackled with uncontrolled power. It threw its head back and unleashed a final, deafening battle cry that shook the trees – a sound of pure, berserk fury.
"WRRRRAAAAAGGGHHH!"
The sound hammered into Adam. As it faded, something shifted inside him. A pressure built in his chest, hot and ancient. Before his eyes, glowing, translucent golden script materialized, visible only to him:
[System Awakening...]
[Threat Detected: Alpha Guardian - Frostclaw Ravager]
[Primary Directive: Eliminate Guardian]
[Activating Dragon's Blessing...]
Power, raw and immense, flooded Adam's veins. It wasn't just his own fire; it was deeper, darker, older. The violet flames wreathing his sword deepened, swirling with streaks of obsidian black, radiating intense, predatory heat. The sword itself hummed, resonating with the new energy. Without thought, driven by the directive and the surging power, Adam launched himself forward. He moved faster than he ever had, a comet of dark violet flame.
The berserk Ravager, reeling from the core wound and Kael's plasma and rapier strikes, turned its enraged maw towards him. Adam was already there. He poured every ounce of this sudden, overwhelming power into a single, devastating downward strike. The dark-violet blade, humming with power, cleaved through the air and into the spider-webbed core on its throat.
A silent pulse of dark-violet energy exploded outwards. The Frostclaw Ravager froze mid-roar. Its molten gold eyes dimmed instantly to cold stone. Then, with a sound like crumbling mountains, the immense creature collapsed, hitting the forest floor with a final, ground-shaking thud.
Adam landed on one knee, gasping. The dark-violet fire vanished. The humming sword in his hand shimmered, then dissolved into thousands of tiny, glowing violet particles that winked out like dying stars. Utter exhaustion, deeper than any fatigue he'd ever known, crashed over him like a wave. His vision blurred, darkened at the edges. He heard Storm's panicked shriek, felt Raven's hands grabbing him as he pitched forward, consciousness fleeing. "Adam!" Raven's voice was strained. "He's crashing! Severe exhaustion... or system shock..." Raven's own hands, raw and blistered from channeling relentless light blasts without his usual protective focus, trembled as he checked Adam's pulse. He looked utterly spent, dark circles under his eyes.
Silence descended again, heavier than before. The beast was dead. The cost: Tobin, Zara. Adam lay unconscious. Raven knelt beside him, his own energy clearly spent, breathing raggedly. Wren sagged against a tree, the golden-yellow Amplification aura gone, his face pale and drawn, utterly drained from sustaining Kael. Lira clutered her throbbing shoulder, leaning heavily against the rockface. Kael stood panting near the beast's head, rapiers lowered but still ready, the borrowed amplification gone, his breathing harsh, a fine tremor visible in his hands – the only sign of his immense exertion. Cain knelt by Zara, silent tears falling, Rowan's hand on his back. Jax and Ryan stared numbly at Tobin's remains.
The sound of crashing undergrowth and urgent shouts broke the grim silence. Trees groaned, pushed aside. Instructor Garrick stepped into the clearing, accompanied by two Academy medics bearing stretchers and kits. He was already enlarged, standing twelve feet tall, muscles like corded steel beneath his scaled armor, his massive sword looking proportionate in his hand. His flinty eyes took in the horrific scene – the two dead students, the monstrous corpse, the exhausted, wounded survivors, Adam unconscious.
"Darain reached the Drop Zone," Garrick stated, his deep voice cutting through the shock, devoid of emotion but carrying grim authority. "Called for aid." He gestured sharply to the medics. "Stabilize the living. Secure the remains." His gaze swept over Cain, Rowan, Jax, Ryan, then his own battered group. "Report later. Survival first." His presence, immense and grim, was the final punctuation on the bloody lesson. The Green Glade's safety was a lie. The assessment was over. Survival had demanded everything, and the price was etched in blood and utter exhaustion on the forest floor. The silence now was the silence of trauma, broken only by the medics' urgent movements and Storm's worried chirps beside Adam's still form.