Cassian’s mind raced, his heart thundering in his chest. His eyes flickered to the sword in his hand. He was no slouch with a blade, but this thing? This creature was no beast. It was something far older, far darker, and the thought of facing it with nothing but steel felt laughable.

  Then, a shift in the fog. There was another presence, a second set of eyes, glowing, slithering through the mist. And another... and another. The fog parted, revealing more of them, circling him.

  Cassian swallowed the lump in his throat, his pulse a drumbeat in his ears. He had no choice. They were closing in, their massive forms emerging from the fog like ghosts of a forgotten world.

  His grip on his sword tightened, the metal suddenly cold against his skin. “Come on then,” he muttered, barely audible. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  The largest one—its yellow eyes fixed on him—shifted its weight, its body rippling as it prepared to pounce. The other creatures mirrored its movements, spreading out in a slow, deliberate circle.

  Cassian’s heart thudded in his chest. The fog, thick and impenetrable, offered no escape. He was surrounded.

  No more running.

  Cassian concentrated. The air around him began to heat up. He drew from the friction in the fog, from the tension in his limbs, from the very sting of his breath in the cold. It was basic manipulation—nothing fancy, nothing elegant. Just raw focus.

  He condensed the energy around him, shaping it into a weapon.

  The snow hissed as the air shimmered, rippling in waves around his body. The fog recoiled ever so slightly, pushed back by the distortion.

  The creatures didn’t flinch. They kept circling, slow and patient. They’d seen this before. They knew what humans could do.

  Cassian crouched slightly, steadying his stance. He began to plasmize more air, pulling electrons away from molecules until the very air around him started to crackle with unstable energy.

  This wasn’t advanced work—just more of the same, scaled up, pushed to the brink. He kept storing it, more and more, layering heat and pressure like coiled spring steel.

  When it went off, it would go off hard.

  The creatures didn’t seem concerned. They watched him with something that felt like amusement. Or maybe hunger.

  Cassian didn’t care. He kept going, hands trembling from the effort. The sword in his grip began to hum, not with energy, but with tension—the unbearable stillness before impact.

  The largest creature stepped forward, breaking the circle. It crouched low, muscles coiled, breath steaming in thick plumes.

  Cassian whispered, barely more than breath:

  “Try me.”

  The creatures charged. For the first time, Cassian saw their full form. They looked like cheetahs, except sleeker, and covered in scales. Their legs seemed too long for their bodies, their teeth too long.

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  They moved like liquid shadow—silent, fast, a blur of scale and fang.

  Cassian didn’t wait. He released the stored energy in a single, violent burst.

  The explosion wasn’t loud—not in the way a bomb is loud. It was sharp, like the crack of the world splitting. A blast of searing air and light tore outward from him, turning the snow beneath his boots to steam in an instant.

  The fog evaporated. For a heartbeat, the mountains were laid bare in harsh white and red—like lightning frozen in time.

  The shockwave hit the creatures mid-sprint. Two were flung backward, tumbling end over end through the air like broken puppets. One slammed into a rock outcropping with a wet crunch and didn’t get up.

  The biggest one powered through it. Scales blackened, eyes burning, it leapt—straight through the wall of heat.

  Cassian barely brought his blade up in time. Steel met fang.

  It was heavier than it looked. Stronger. The impact rattled up his arm, through his ribs, into his spine. He dug his boots into the steaming ground and held.

  It snarled, breath hot and bitter. Cassian gritted his teeth, face inches from its split maw.

  “Alright,” he said through clenched teeth. “Round two.”

  Cassian began to duel with the creature. He felt like he was doing quite well. His blade found flesh—if you could call it that. The creature’s hide gave under the edge with a screech like metal on bone. It shrieked, rearing back, and Cassian pressed the advantage.

  He moved with purpose now, not grace. Each strike was tight, economical. No flourish. No wasted motion. Just survival, chopped into seconds.

  The creature lunged low. Cassian twisted, avoiding the bite by inches, and slammed his shoulder into its flank. It stumbled. He slashed again, carving a gash down its side. More of that dark, tar-thick blood spilled into the snow.

  Then something hit him from behind.

  Another one—he’d forgotten the others.

  He was thrown forward, tumbling through the slush and steam. His sword skittered away, vanishing into the haze.

  Cassian rolled onto his back just in time to see the second creature leap.

  He raised his hand instinctively, channeling what little charge he had left.

  The burst wasn’t clean. It sputtered, flared sideways, but it was enough to knock the thing off course. It hit the ground hard, scrabbling to recover.

  Cassian got to his feet slowly, panting. His hand was shaking, fingertips burned from the uneven release.

  He didn’t feel like he was doing quite as well now.

  The first creature was back on its feet, snarling. The second flanked him. Cassian’s fingers twitched toward the sword still half-buried in the snow, but he didn’t reach it in time.

  A juvenile lunged.

  Its claws raked across his arm—not deep, not fatal. But sharp. Unnaturally sharp. Cassian stumbled back with a grunt, hand pressed to the wound. And then he felt it.

  Something was wrong.

  The pain wasn’t just physical—it was pulling. A cold sensation, like something was unraveling inside him. Not blood loss. Not shock. Deeper.

  His breath hitched.

  The creature had cut through him—not just skin and muscle, but into the threads of life itself. He could feel it siphoning, just a little, like a siphon drawn from his core. His legs wobbled. His focus scattered. The heat around him fizzled, unstable.

  But he didn’t drop.

  He locked his knees, forced his spine straight. Gritted his teeth through the numbness leaking into his fingers. The creature was a juvenile—sloppy, inexperienced. The cut hadn’t gone deep enough.

  Not yet.

  Cassian met its eyes, cold fury simmering behind his exhaustion. “That all you’ve got, pup?”

  It hissed, uncertain now. Cassian forced a smirk, even as his side throbbed and his vision tilted.

  One mistake, he thought. That’s all it takes. For them… or me.