The fog thickened until Lucas could barely see Seris's silhouette ahead of him. The marsh was silent except for the soft slosh of their boots and the faint, unnerving hum of the Rainbow Orb against his chest.
Then the silence broke.
A sound rolled through the mist — deep, guttural, like stone grinding on bone. The marsh water rippled. Even Kaelen's voice dropped to a whisper. "That's not human."
Seris froze, hand drifting to her crossbow. "Stay behind me. And for the love of the old gods, don't run."
The ground trembled. From the wall of fog emerged… something. Its shape was wrong — too many joints in its arms, too many eyes scattered across its face, each glowing like molten gold. Its skin was black as oil, slick and shifting, as if it couldn't decide on a form.
It looked at Lucas. No — into him. The Orb flared under his tunic, sending stabbing heat through his ribs.
Kaelen hissed, "It's reacting to the Orb—"
The creature moved. Fast. One moment it was ten paces away, the next it was nearly on top of them. Seris fired, her bolt punching through one of its eyes, but the wound closed instantly, skin knitting back like liquid.
Lucas's heart pounded. His hand closed over the Orb. The heat turned to a blinding surge, threads of every affinity flooding his veins — flame licking his fingertips, wind swirling around his arms, stone-hard strength in his legs, even the tingling chill of water essence coiling at his back.
"Lucas!" Kaelen barked. "Control it—"
But Lucas didn't have time to control. He released.
A torrent erupted — fire and lightning bursting from his palms, shards of ice spinning with razor wind, the ground beneath the creature heaving like an earthquake. The marsh exploded into chaos.
The creature staggered, howling — not in pain, but in what sounded disturbingly like laughter. Then it lunged again. Lucas shifted, instinctively wrapping himself in stone armor while a whip of flame tore from his other hand. Seris darted past, driving a blade crackling with Kaelen's spell into one of the monster's joints.
The Orb pulsed harder, faster, demanding more. Lucas could feel it drawing on him, deeper than his muscles, deeper than his breath — like it was tapping into his very life.
He forced one last surge, combining every element he could grasp into a single blast. The explosion threw the creature back into the fog, vanishing with a splash into the marsh water.
Silence.
Lucas dropped to one knee, gasping, his vision tunneling. The Orb cooled, as if satisfied.
Seris grabbed his arm, hauling him up. "Not bad, kid. But keep that up, and the Orb will kill you before your enemies do."
Kaelen's face was pale. "That wasn't just a monster. That was a hunter."
Lucas swallowed hard. "Hunting me."
Somewhere in the mist, the grinding voice whispered again — and this time, Lucas could swear it said his name.