Adlet steadied his breathing.
The Fortress Elephant still stood before him—scarred now, its massive frame marked by cracks in its ivory-plated hide. Each breath the Apex took sent tremors through the sand, but its movements had slowed. Not weakened enough to fall.
Yet.
Enough to matter.
Adlet straightened, rolling his shoulders as his green Aura flowed through him once more. Not explosively. Not recklessly. Controlled. Refined. His legs sank slightly into the sand as he shifted his stance, testing balance, timing, distance.
He had found it.
Not an opening.
A rhythm.
The way the Elephant shifted its weight before turning.
The brief hesitation before it brought its trunk down.
The fraction of a second where its massive bulk betrayed itself.
Adlet inhaled.
This next strike would not be exploratory.
It would be decisive.
He moved.
Green Aura surged, reinforcing muscle and tendon as he sprinted forward—not straight in, but diagonally, cutting across the Elephant's field of vision. Sand exploded behind him as the Apex reacted, tusks sweeping wide in a devastating arc.
Adlet slid beneath them, barely clearing the ivory points, his boots carving trenches through the dune. The world sharpened around him—every grain of sand, every vibration in the air.
Now.
He switched Auras.
The green receded instantly, replaced by the dense, crushing pressure of black.
Black Aura condensed around his arm, the Scarab horn extending longer than usual—sleek, tapered, built for reach more than mass. It cost him more to manifest it that way, and he felt it immediately: a sharp pull behind the eyes, a thinning in his breath, as if the desert itself were taking payment.
He sprinted.
Sand gave under every step, swallowing momentum, stealing the clean explosiveness he would have had on solid ground. He forced his legs to obey anyway, driving forward through heat and fatigue, timing his approach between the Elephant's shifting weight and the swing of its tusk-lined trunk.
The Fortress Elephant loomed above him like a moving wall.
He waited for the smallest dip—when its plated underside lowered by a fraction, when the immense armor section he'd been chipping at finally came within reach.
Then he jumped.
Not high enough.
Not clean enough.
His body was too heavy with days of hunger and heat, his muscles too worn from fighting in sand that never gave back what it took. He felt the failure midair—felt his trajectory sag, felt the distance refuse him.
So he reached.
Black Aura tightened, the horn lengthening that last stretch like a spear being thrown from his forearm. His shoulders screamed as he twisted his torso, forcing the motion through raw will.
He struck upward.
The impact thundered—deep and dull, like metal slammed into stone.
The crack spread.
It raced along the damaged plates he'd been working relentlessly… and for a heartbeat, it looked like it might finally give him what he wanted.
But the horn didn't bite deep enough.
Not this time.
The sand had robbed his launch. The exhaustion had robbed his precision. The Aura—strained into reach—had robbed his power.
The armor fractured wide, but it held. A wound opened, yes—enough for blood to spill in a heavy sheet down the Elephant's side—but not enough to break through to anything vital.
The Fortress Elephant roared—an earth-shaking sound that swallowed the desert itself.
Its massive body reeled, one leg buckling as the dune beneath it collapsed, the weight shifting in a violent surge that made the world lurch.
Adlet hit the sand hard, rolling, lungs burning.
He looked up through grit and glare, heart hammering—not with triumph, not with despair.
With grim understanding.
He had finally hurt it.
And he could feel it.
The next strike.
Could be the last one.
Adlet pushed himself up, black Aura already gathering again, his focus narrowing to a single point.
Then—
The world ended.
Something vast and dark slammed down from above.
There was no warning.
No sound of approach.
No time to react.
A colossal mass struck the Fortress Elephant with overwhelming force, crushing its head and upper body in a violent explosion of blood, bone, and sand. The impact sent a shockwave rippling outward, throwing Adlet off his feet like a ragdoll.
He hit the ground hard, the breath torn from his lungs.
Silence followed.
Not the quiet of calm.
The quiet of something that had just decided the fight was over.
Adlet lay still, stunned, his ears ringing as sand rained down around him. Slowly—carefully—he lifted his head.
The Fortress Elephant was gone.
Not defeated.
Erased.
In its place stood a shape that did not belong.
A towering beast crouched over the corpse, its silhouette jagged and unnatural against the pale dunes. Dark fur rippled across a leonine frame, muscles coiled with predatory tension. Vast wings of leathery skin folded partially at its sides, casting long shadows across the sand.
Its tail—no, not a tail—
A weapon.
A massive length of black stone ended in a bladed point, already slick with blood. Twin horns curved back from its skull, framing eyes that burned with cold, intelligent malice.
This was not a predator driven by hunger.
This was a ruler.
Adlet's heart sank.
Apex.
No—
Something beyond that.
Before the name even surfaced in his mind, before reason could catch up to instinct—
Run.
Pami's voice screamed inside his head, raw with urgency.
Run, Adlet—now!
Adlet tried.
He shifted his weight, pushing himself backward—
The creature's gaze snapped to him.
In that instant, pressure crushed down on Adlet's chest as if the desert itself had decided to kill him. His instincts shrieked, his body locking up under the sheer weight of the threat before him.
Rank 5.
A Manticore.
The beast lowered itself slightly, muscles tightening, wings flexing.
It was going to strike.
There was nowhere to run.
No cover.
No escape.
Adlet clenched his teeth.
Then… he stepped forward.
"I'm sorry, Pami," he whispered.
He steadied himself.
Fear was still there—tight, cold, pressing against his ribs—but it no longer ruled him.
This wasn't the first time he stood before something stronger.
This wasn't the first time the gap felt absurd.
If there was no path forward…
Then he would carve one.
Adlet stepped toward the Manticore.
The creature watched him with something like amusement, its massive frame relaxed despite the tension coiled beneath its dark fur. It didn't rush. It didn't need to. One wing twitched. The stone-bladed tail scraped lazily against the sand.
It was waiting.
Adlet moved first.
Green Aura surged, reinforcing his legs as he dashed in, circling wide. He attacked from angles, never straight on—testing, probing. The Manticore responded effortlessly, turning just enough to deflect each attempt. A claw snapped out, forcing Adlet to leap back. A wingbeat sent a violent gust tearing through the dunes.
Too easy.
Every strike he threw was read. Every feint dismissed.
He switched to red.
A translucent shell formed just in time as the Manticore's tail slammed down, the impact driving Adlet into the sand. The shield cracked but held. Barely.
He rolled away, sand filling his mouth, heart pounding.
Black Aura.
The Scarab horn manifested and Adlet lunged, pouring power into a single thrust aimed at the creature's flank.
The Manticore shifted.
The strike missed by a hand's breadth.
A claw caught Adlet midair and hurled him aside like debris. He hit the ground hard, pain exploding through his ribs. The world spun.
The Manticore approached slowly now.
Not hurried.
Not threatened.
Playing.
Adlet forced himself up, blood running from the corner of his mouth. His breathing was ragged. His Aura flickered unevenly.
Then the pressure changed.
The creature's posture shifted. Its wings spread slightly. The amusement vanished from its gaze, replaced by something colder.
Intent.
It was done playing.
Adlet felt it instinctively—the moment before death.
There would be no next exchange.
No second mistake.
His body moved before his mind could catch up.
Red Aura surged.
Not as a shell.
Not as armor.
It reshaped violently, instinct guiding it where thought never could. The spectral form of a massive turtle head erupted before him, jaws wide, heat condensing at its core.
Adlet screamed—not in defiance, but in pure, desperate will.
Flames burst forth.
A torrent of fire tore across the sand, swallowing the space between them. The desert screamed as heat warped the air, dunes fusing into glass beneath the inferno.
The Manticore roared.
A sound of fury, pain—and surprise.
Adlet didn't think.
He couldn't.
The red Aura collapsed instantly.
Black Aura ignited—compressed tighter than ever before—refined, focused, ruthless—but he kept just enough flowing through his body to move, to react, to live.
The Scarab horn formed, smaller than usual… yet terrifyingly dense.
Power packed inward instead of spilling outward. No excess. No waste.
This was not desperation.
It was precision born from survival.
Adlet surged forward, bursting through the curtain of fire, heat tearing at his skin, vision blurring—but his target remained clear.
The Manticore's throat.
The one place unguarded for a heartbeat too long.
Time seemed to stretch.
Not because the world slowed—
—but because this moment mattered more than any other.
Every battle before this.
Every step through the desert.
Every mistake that hadn't killed him.
All of it led here.
Adlet drove the horn forward with everything he had left.
Not for certainty.
Not for victory.
But for the chance—
For the narrow, impossible opening where a miracle could exist.