Kaiden hauled the greatsword out of the skull without breaking stride. The hounds that had chased him for two levels came over the bull's back after him.
Gluttony drank what was left in the animal through the soles of his boots as he crossed it, and the gouge along his ribs pulled itself half-closed somewhere on the next switchback. Half-closed was what he got.
The stance had been drinking every time he called it up and it was still losing, because this dungeon was spending him faster than he could earn himself back.
By then his own blood had stopped being an event. The calf, the ribs, a hole punched through his left forearm by a mantid he'd used as a doorstop, a shoulder gone stiff, his scalp opening again every time sweat found it, and a boot that squelched on every stride.
What nobody watching could process was that he never once slowed down.
