Hulwya settled into a combat stance, her massive form rising into the air with the fluid grace of a projection specialist. Shield raised, sword ready, tail coiled for spine-launches. Fifty feet of scaled predator, waiting for the signal to begin.

  The other three tier-tens arranged themselves as witnesses.

  Cade had asked their names during the walk over. He wasn't sure why it mattered—maybe because he'd killed so many Forged without knowing anything about them, and something in him had shifted at this tier. Or maybe because these were the strongest beings on this world, and the ones dying in the pit deserved to know that their captor had a name.

  Whatever the reason, Hulwya had obliged him with something between amusement and respect.

  Dreykal was the one lying on his back, tossing balls of manifested anima into the air with casual precision. He carried a worldbone bo staff nearly as long as he was tall—a reach weapon for a reach fighter, which marked him as someone who preferred keeping distance. A projection specialist, Cade guessed, based on how effortlessly the anima balls curved through the air. Dreykal radiated lazy disinterest, attention wandering between Cade and the distant pit like a spectator who'd arrived early and was regretting it.

  Senthyl had arrived with the first reinforcement squad. He'd positioned himself at an angle where he could observe both the duel and the spawning grounds, and his crest twitched constantly, eyes tracking micro-movements Cade couldn't perceive. A perception specialist—someone who could read a fight before it happened and react faster than anyone had a right to. He seemed wary in a way the others didn't. Professional rather than entertained.

  And then there was Vreth.

  The one with the absurd asymmetrical crest—flopping to one side like a punk mohawk that had given up on structural integrity. He'd moved to a position near Dreykal, looking ready to discuss the fight while they watched. The others deferred to him. Cade could see it in their body language, the way they oriented toward Vreth even while facing other directions. Not fear. Respect. The kind that was earned through demonstrated superiority rather than claimed through rank.

  The strongest of the four. That's why they're letting him officiate.

  "Vreth will signal the start," Hulwya said. "When he claps, we begin."

  Cade nodded, keeping his expression neutral.

  His mind was racing.

  Four tier-tens. They think I'm bound by contract, limited to pure combat without essence tricks. They think I'm baseline strength, fresh advancement, no hidden advantages.

  They're wrong about all of it.

  His Oath enhancement still hummed through his body—passive, intrinsic, impossible to turn off even if he'd wanted to. His strength, his speed, his perception—all nearly doubled compared to what they expected.

  And they weren't playing fair anyway. The contract guaranteed one-on-one combat, if the Forged initiated it. That didn't mean the Forged were protected from him outside of one-on-one combat. They just couldn't force him into an imbalanced fight, numerically, and keep his essences locked. If Cade attacked them, he'd be breaking no rules—just expectations.

  Dreykal is least aware. Vreth is overconfident—he wasn't here for my earlier fights, doesn't know what I can do. Hulwya is ready, but she's expecting a duel, not an ambush.

  Senthyl may see it coming. But seeing and reacting are different things.

  Cade's enhanced senses stretched outward, tracking every micro-movement of his four opponents. Vreth's hands hung loose at his sides, preparing for the ceremonial clap. Dreykal was still half-watching the pit. Senthyl's attention was genuinely split. Hulwya's weight had shifted forward, ready to explode into motion.

  Three kills if I'm fast enough. Don't think I can pull off all four before they react.

  Do it.

  Cade began preparing while Vreth's hands were still at rest.

  He reached down with his anima—subtle, controlled—and began reshaping the worldbone beneath his feet. Not obviously. Not dramatically. Just a slight wedge forming under his soles, angled to launch him toward eight o'clock. Toward Dreykal.

  At the same time, he manifested anima barriers.

  His Projection affinity was his weakest—the walls flickered at the edge of stability, barely holding together across the distance. But they didn't need to be strong. They just needed to exist long enough for him to reach them.

  First wall: behind Dreykal's head, angled to redirect Cade through the tier-ten's skull and onward toward Vreth.

  Second wall: adjacent to Vreth's head, opposite side, angled to redirect Cade toward Hulwya.

  Third wall: behind Hulwya, positioned for the final approach.

  Vreth's hands began to move.

  Cade's enhanced perception tracked every millimeter of the motion—fingers curling, arms rising, palms orienting toward each other. Time seemed to stretch as his Oath-enhanced mind processed faster than baseline tier-ten cognition allowed.

  Cade moved.

  The sonic boom hit before anyone registered his departure.

  The wedge beneath his feet shattered as he launched. His compressed mass punched through the air like a cannonball—five-foot-seven of impossible density hurtling through the thin atmosphere faster than sound could follow. The shockwave rippled outward behind him, flattening fungal growths in a widening cone.

  Dreykal turned at the boom, confusion crossing his features. His perception was baseline tier-ten—fast by any normal standard, glacially slow compared to Cade's enhanced speed. He saw Cade moving, registered the trajectory, began to react—

  Too late.

  Cade hit his first anima wall and reinforced it with his new proximity, his Covenant affinity flooding the structure with stability. The wall cratered under the impact of his density but held just long enough. He kicked off at an angle that sent him rocketing toward the back of Dreykal's massive head.

  Dreykal was still turning. Still trying to track the small figure that had somehow appeared behind him. His mind interpreted Cade's movement as retreat—fleeing away from Hulwya, seeking distance rather than engagement.

  He was wrong.

  Cade's spear tip began rotating as he approached. Not a simple thrust—a bore. He channeled anima into the weapon and spun, his compressed mass adding torque that made the rotation devastating. The air screamed around the spinning point.

  The spear entered between Dreykal's eye and temple.

  There was no resistance. No slowing. Cade's Covenant-enhanced weapon, backed by his Oath-doubled strength and driven by the momentum of his impossible density, punched through skull and brain matter like they were empty air. He maintained his speed, his trajectory, his rotation—

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  And exited behind the ear on the opposite side.

  Gore exploded outward in a spray that would have been beautiful if it weren't so horrific. A tunnel roughly a quarter of the head's height, carved clean through in less than a heartbeat. Dreykal's expression never changed from confusion.

  Cade didn't look back.

  The clap sounded, just a moment after the sonic boom.

  Vreth was turning now, his enhanced senses finally registering that something was wrong. But he was the slowest to react of the three remaining. He hadn't been present for Cade's earlier fights, hadn't seen the small migrant tear through tier-eights and tier-nines with impossible speed. His confidence in his own strength had made him complacent.

  At tier-ten, a moment of complacency was death.

  Cade hit his second wall slightly off-center—the angle shifted as his Covenant anima reinforced the structure. He adapted instantly, adjusting his kick to account for the new trajectory, reinforcing the wall just long enough to push off and letting it fade to nothing in his wake. The impact point showed a deep impression where his feet had struck—his density warping the manifested surface before it dissolved.

  He rocketed toward the back of Vreth's head.

  Vreth had begun to turn. Had begun to raise his hands in defense. Had begun to channel his formidable enhancement into hardening his body against attack.

  Had begun. Hadn't finished.

  Cade's spear bore into the skull behind the ear, the drilling rotation chewing through bone and tissue with the same ease as before. Vreth's enhancement was strong—stronger than Dreykal's, even passively—but it was incomplete, half-formed, applied too late to matter against a projectile that weighed as much as a boulder and moved faster than sound.

  The spear exited through the temple on the opposite side.

  Another spray of gore. Another tunnel carved through a giant's brain. Another tier-ten dead before they could process what was happening.

  Cade felt the anima surge into him—two kills, perhaps five percent toward... what? There was nowhere higher to advance. The power simply accumulated, dense and purposeless.

  Doesn't matter. Keep moving.

  He adjusted his third barrier rather than adjusting himself, pulling it into line with his current trajectory. His Projection affinity strained at the effort, swapping to Covenant to reinforce as he approached at insane speeds, bouncing off these momentary walls like a wrecking ball between mirrors.

  He kicked off, trailing accumulated gore from two dead tier-tens with the change of inertia, and rocketed toward Hulwya.

  She was ready.

  Unlike the others, Hulwya had been prepared for combat from the start. Her Perception affinity—strong among Projection types—had tracked Cade's movement from the moment he launched. She'd seen the walls appear, understood his trajectory, calculated his path.

  And she'd responded.

  Five spines hurtled toward Cade's approach vector, each one imbued with enough force to punch through tier-ten armor. She'd read the angle of his final wall, predicted where he'd bounce toward her, and filled that space with projectiles accelerated by her Projection mastery.

  Cade saw them too late.

  His enhanced perception registered the incoming threats as his feet were already committed to the kick-off. No time to adjust trajectory. No time to dodge. Only time to react.

  Shield up.

  He channeled Covenant into the worldbone disc an instant before impact. The first spine hit dead center—and Cade's airborne body went spinning sideways, the force transfer sending him careening away from his intended path. But not as far as Hulwya expected. His density fought the redirection, his compressed mass resisting the lateral force, absorbing more of the impact than a normal tier-ten's body would have.

  The spine ricocheted off in the opposite direction, deflected but not destroyed.

  She's good.

  Hulwya was already launching more spines at his new trajectory—a fresh salvo aimed at where he was going rather than where he'd been. Cade prepared to block again, tracking the five new projectiles with his enhanced senses—

  The original four spines curved back around behind him.

  Projection specialist. She can guide them in flight.

  He'd forgotten. The first salvo hadn't missed—it had been redirected, looping around to attack from his blind spot while the second salvo occupied his attention.

  Cade reinforced his body an instant before they hit.

  The impacts came simultaneously—four spines from behind, five from ahead, his shield catching the frontal assault while his Covenant-hardened flesh absorbed the rear attack. The forces didn't tear him apart, but they weren't gentle either.

  Pain lanced through his back as spines that should have punched clean through instead cratered against enhanced muscle. His density helped—the sheer mass of him resisted the penetration, each spine hitting something far more solid than it was designed for. His flight path destabilized, sending him tumbling toward the ground.

  The low gravity gave him time—too much time in some ways, the slow descent stretching the moment into an eternity of vulnerability. He bounced once off the worldbone surface, leaving a shallow crater where he struck, and went high, spinning, trying to regain orientation.

  Hulwya closed the distance with terrifying speed.

  Her sword came around in a horizontal arc, Projection-accelerated, aimed at the space Cade would occupy. He got his shield up just in time, the impact ringing through his arm, but he'd anticipated this—had created an anima wall at his feet synchronized with the block.

  The combined forces should have sent him flying. Instead, the wall gave him something to push against. He held his ground in the air, shield locked against sword, for one frozen instant. His density anchored the contact—she was pushing against something that weighed far more than its size suggested, and her eyes widened fractionally at the unexpected resistance.

  I'm stronger than she expected me to be. But she doesn't know why.

  Hulwya pressed forward, breaking the bind, pulling back for another strike. Her flight was effortless—she could maneuver in three dimensions the way Cade moved on solid ground. Every angle of approach was natural to her.

  But she was also angry.

  Cade could see it in her movements. The rage at his betrayal of expected combat. The fury at watching Dreykal and Vreth die before they could react, dishonorably. She was fighting emotionally now, pressing her advantage, trying to overwhelm him with the superior mobility her Projection affinity provided.

  Emotional fighters make mistakes.

  Cade released the anima wall beneath him, letting the residual force from their clash propel him downward. Hulwya followed, sword rising for an overhead strike that would split him from crown to groin.

  But Cade wasn't falling anymore.

  He'd created a new wall behind himself—horizontal, solid, positioned precisely where he needed it. His back slammed against the surface as Hulwya's sword descended, and he met the blade with his spear.

  Not a block. An attack.

  Every ounce of his Covenant affinity poured into the spear tip. Every bit of his Oath enhancement. All the power that made him something more than baseline tier-ten, compressed into a single point of contact.

  The spear met the sword.

  Cade's enhancement overwhelmed Hulwya's completely.

  The top half of her blade shattered, worldbone fragments spinning away into the thin air. Hulwya's eyes went wide—shock replacing rage as her weapon disintegrated against an opponent who shouldn't have been able to match her, let alone overpower her.

  Cade planted his feet against the wall behind him and pushed.

  He launched like a siege engine—his full density behind the thrust, all that compressed mass channeled through the rotating spear point aimed at Hulwya's face.

  She raised her shield.

  It didn't matter.

  Cade hit the shield dead center and punched through. His enhancement shattered her defense like glass, the drilling spear barely slowing as it encountered the worldbone barrier. The tip found her massive, scaled nose, and Cade's gore-covered body collected even more gore as he bored through her skull.

  Brain tissue sprayed from the exit wound at the back of her head.

  Cade emerged on the other side, trailing viscera, and turned to face Senthyl.

  Three bodies fell toward the ground in slow motion.

  The low gravity stretched their descent into something almost peaceful—fifty to eighty-foot giants drifting downward like leaves, their expressions still frozen in the moments of their death. Confusion. Overconfidence. Rage.

  None of them had hit the ground yet. The fight had lasted less than three seconds.

  Senthyl hovered a few hundred feet away, having retreated the moment he sensed Cade's intentions. He'd read the attack in its first instant—seen the anima walls forming, understood the trajectory, known what was coming before the first kill landed.

  But knowing and preventing were different things.

  He'd only had time to save himself. To put distance between them. To survive while his three companions died.

  Now he watched Cade with eyes that held no anger. No shock. Just... assessment. Calculation. The cold evaluation of a specialist whose primary affinity was perceiving threats before they materialized.

  Behind Cade, the first of the three bodies finally hit the ground. The impact shuddered through the worldbone.

  "You planned that from the beginning," Senthyl said. His voice was calm—the measured tone of someone who'd already accepted that the situation had changed beyond his control. "You started before the clap even happened."

  "Yes," Cade said.

  "The contract—"

  "Only restricts Forged from outnumbering me. It does not bind me to one-on-one combat if I choose otherwise." Cade's spear dripped with the mingled remains of three tier-tens. "Why would I wait when this is so much more efficient?"

  Senthyl's crest flattened—the Forged equivalent of a grim smile.

  "Clever. Dishonorable, but clever." His tail twitched, tracking possibilities Cade couldn't see. "I won't make the same mistake they did."

  He turned and flew toward the distant Worldvein, accelerating with every passing moment, flying much faster than Cade could.

  Running for reinforcements. To spread word of what happened here.

  Cade could chase him, perhaps—jumping between anima walls might close the gap, though maintaining speed in one direction was harder for him than for a true projection specialist. And every second spent chasing was a second not spent at the pit.

  Cade let him go.

  He turned to face the spawning ground, where fresh souls were dying in an endless cycle of violence, and began walking toward them. The worldbone dimpled faintly under each step.