Stone groaned under my boots. Then, to my left, a wet cough.
I stopped, my back pressed against the cold, uneven wall of the tunnel. My left arm was a dead weight, a throbbing column of pain from shoulder to fingertips. I'd wrapped it against my chest with a strip of torn cloak, but the makeshift sling did nothing for the shattered bone. Healing Pool: 99.2%. I could fix this. I would not. The energy was not for me. It was for the list.
The cough came again, closer. A figure stumbled out of a side passage, armor scraping against rock. A shield guard, Dark Flame insignia barely visible under a layer of grey dust. D-rank, by the dull sheen of his gear. He was young, maybe nineteen, his face pale under the grime. Someone his age should have been paired with a senior. Dark Flame had stopped pairing after the third quarter audit last year. I had signed a protest form. It had gone nowhere. One of his greaves was dented inward, and he was favoring that leg.
He saw me and froze, his eyes widening. "Healer?"
I nodded, once. My voice was flat. "The collapse is channeling this way. The main force has already pulled back."
"I know." He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "My squad… the ceiling came down behind us. I'm the only one who made it through." He looked at my sling, his expression tightening. "You're hurt."
"It's manageable." I pushed off the wall, ignoring the cold lurch behind my eyes. "This tunnel leads to a lower chamber. It might have another exit. Staying here is not an option."
The ground shuddered again. A shower of fine grit rained from above. The shield guard—boy, really—flinched, his shield arm coming up instinctively. "Okay. Okay. Lead the way."
I did. My right hand trailed along the wall, the stone cold and damp. The air grew thicker, tasting of ozone and crushed rock. The Rift was dying, and its death throes were destabilizing everything. We moved in silence, broken only by his labored breathing and the distant, echoing crashes of falling architecture.
The tunnel opened abruptly into a wider space—a circular stone chamber, perhaps twenty meters across. The ceiling was a dome of interlocking, carved blocks, now cracked like a spiderweb. In the center of the room, a pale, phosphorescent fungus gave off a sickly green light. And between us and the only other visible exit—a narrow archway on the far side—were three shapes.
They were low to the ground, all sinew and exposed, greyish bone. C-rank Corrosion Hounds. Their bodies seemed to be in a state of perpetual decay, flesh sloughing off to reveal ribs and spinal ridges that gleamed wetly. Acidic drool dripped from their jaws, sizzling where it hit the stone floor. They hadn't noticed us yet, their attention fixed on the archway, as if waiting for something to come through.
The shield guard sucked in a sharp breath behind me. "Three C-ranks. I can't hold that. Not with my leg." His voice was tight with a fear he was trying very hard to control.
I assessed. The chamber was a dead end for us. Going back meant the collapsing tunnel. Forward meant the Hounds. My left arm was useless for anything but pain. My healing energy was pristine, reserved, locked away. But the other pool—the one that didn't show up on any scanner, the one that felt like a silent, hungry void in my palm—that was available.
Using it here was a risk. It was exposure. But exposure to a D-rank shield guard who was about to die was a calculable risk. A dead witness was no witness at all.
"Stay behind me," I said, my voice low.
"What? You're a healer, you can't—"
"I said stay behind me." I didn't look back at him. I took a step forward, my right hand falling to my side. I flexed the fingers. They were cold. Always cold now.
The movement caught the lead Hound's attention. Its head swiveled, empty eye sockets fixing on me. A low, bubbling growl erupted from its chest. It charged.
It was fast. A blur of bone and rotting muscle. The shield guard shouted a warning. I didn't move. I let it come. At the last second, I sidestepped, not with a fighter's grace but with the minimal, efficient movement of someone who has calculated the exact distance needed. My right hand shot out as it passed, not to strike, but to brush against its hind leg.
The contact lasted less than a second. A faint, static-like tingle shot up my arm. To the Hound, it must have felt like nothing. It skidded on the stone, whirling to face me again, its growl deepening. It gathered itself for another lunge.
Then its leg buckled.
It wasn't a dramatic snap. It was a sudden, total failure of structural integrity. The bone beneath the thin layer of decaying muscle simply… lost cohesion. The leg folded inward, the Hound crashing to the ground with a startled yelp. It tried to rise, but the limb was now a useless, misshapen lump. The decay spread visibly, the greyish bone turning black and porous, crumbling like wet ash.
The other two Hounds hesitated, their growls faltering.
"What did you do?" the shield guard whispered, awe and confusion warring in his tone.
I kept my eyes on the remaining creatures. "Their bone structure is unstable. A precise application of healing energy can cause a resonant conflict. It accelerates their natural decay process." The lie was smooth, clinical. A technical explanation for a technical anomaly.
The two Hounds decided together. They split, coming at me from left and right. A coordinated attack. Smarter than they looked.
I couldn't dodge both. I chose the one on the right. I met its charge, dropping low under its snapping jaws. My right palm slapped against its ribcage as its momentum carried it over me. The touch was firmer this time. The tingle was stronger, a brief, cold suction.
The Hound landed, stumbled, and then its entire side seemed to cave in. Ribs collapsed inward with a dry, crunching whisper. It let out a choked whine and went still.
The third Hound was on me. I saw its shadow fall over me, smelled the acid and rot. I started to turn, but my injured arm threw off my balance. I was going to be too slow.
A blur of metal and a grunt of effort. The shield guard slammed into the Hound's flank, his shield braced. He didn't have the strength or angle to stop it, but he deflected it, its jaws snapping shut on empty air inches from my shoulder. It staggered, off-balance.
I didn't waste the opening. I lunged forward, my right hand clamping over its snarling muzzle.
The decay was instant and violent. The bone of its skull seemed to dissolve from the point of contact outward. Its snout collapsed, the jaws going slack. The light in its empty sockets flickered and died. It dropped, a heap of rapidly disintegrating bone and fetid flesh.
Silence, broken only by the shield guard's heavy panting and the persistent, groaning song of the dying Rift.
I looked at my right hand. It was clean. No residue, no stain. Just cold. And inside, a faint, warm trickle of something flowed back into me. It wasn't healing energy. It was sharper, darker, more potent. It seeped into the core of my Imprint, a drop of fuel added to a dormant engine. The sensation was unmistakable. Corrosion absorption: C-rank energy times three. Imprint intensity +0.3%.
First feedback loop. The decay wasn't only an expenditure — it could also feed. A new variable for the ledger.
"You…" The shield guard was staring at me, then at the dissolving remains of the Hounds. The first one was still feebly trying to drag itself, its leg a puddle of black slurry. "That wasn't just healing energy. That was… targeted. You knew exactly how to kill them."
I turned my gaze to him. He took an involuntary step back, then straightened, shame flashing across his face. He was scared of me. Good. Fear was simpler than gratitude.
"I read the briefings," I said, wiping my clean hand on my trousers. "Dark Flame archives have case studies on Corrosion-type Rift beings. Their structural weakness is documented." Another lie, layered over the first. "We need to move. This chamber won't hold."
He nodded, too quickly. "Right. Yeah." He limped toward the archway, glancing back at me with a new, wary respect. "You're… you're the best healer I've ever seen. To do that with one arm…"
I didn't answer. I followed him through the archway, which led into a steep, upward-sloping tunnel. The air began to change, the oppressive weight of the Rift lifting, replaced by the cooler, thinner taste of the outside world. Light, real light, filtered from somewhere ahead.
We emerged onto a rocky hillside under a bruised twilight sky. The landscape was scarred and broken, the aftermath of the Rift's manifestation. Behind us, the entrance—a jagged tear in reality that pulsed with sickly violet light—gave one final, convulsive shudder and sealed itself with a sound like a thunderclap. The connection severed. The Rift was gone.
The area was deserted. No triage stations, no retrieval teams, no guild transports. Just wind over broken rock. Dark Flame had pulled out completely, leaving the stragglers for dead.
The shield guard sank onto a boulder, his head in his hands. "They didn't wait."
I scanned the horizon. In the distance, maybe half a kilometer away across the shattered plain, I saw it. A shimmering, rectangular portal of silver energy—a guild-grade long-range teleporter. Figures in Dark Flame black were stepping through it. As I watched, the last few disappeared. One figure remained standing beside the portal frame, overseeing the shutdown.
Even at this distance, I knew his silhouette. The broad shoulders, the posture of absolute, unassailable authority. Gideon Roarke.
He didn't look toward the hillside. He didn't scan for survivors. He simply watched his people depart. Then, as the portal's energy began to flicker and collapse inward, he turned and stepped through. The portal winked out of existence, leaving nothing but empty air.
He never looked back.
I committed the image to memory. The casual abandonment. The absolute certainty that whatever was left behind was not worth a second glance. I filed it next to the other memory: Ana's laughter, cut short. The two pieces fit together into a single, unshakable truth.
The shield guard pushed himself to his feet, wincing. "What do we do now?"
I turned from the empty space where the portal had been. "We walk. There's a frontier outpost fifteen kilometers northeast. Iron Edge maintains it."
"Iron Edge? You're with them now?"
"I am." I started walking, picking a path down the rocky slope. My left arm screamed with every jolt. I ignored it. Healing Pool: 99.2%. Still intact. The +0.3% from the Hounds was a separate ledger, a hidden column. "You can come. They'll need a statement about the Rift collapse. And a shield guard."
He hurried to catch up, his limp pronounced. "You'd vouch for me?"
"I'll state the facts. You held the line when it mattered." It was almost true. He had intervened. It had been a liability in the moment, but it had also sold the lie of my healer's bravery. He was useful.
We walked in silence for a long time. The twin moons rose, casting long, stark shadows. The pain in my arm settled into a constant, grinding ache. I ran the numbers. The encounter had been a successful field test. The decay worked on C-rank Rift beings. The energy feedback was confirmed. The cover story held, at least against a low-rank, traumatized witness.
But Gideon Roarke's retreating back was the brighter data point. List target #1. Final name. Seeing him here, in the aftermath of his own guild's callousness, didn't make me rage. It made me clear. The distance between us wasn't physical. It was power, influence, layers of protection. To reach him I would go through all of them. Zack Stroud. Moira. The others.
The shield guard's voice broke into my thoughts, hesitant. "Back there… you really saved my life. I won't forget it."
I didn't look at him. "Don't." The word came out harsher than I intended. I softened it, not with warmth, but with a healer's practiced neutrality. "Just do your job at the outpost."
He fell quiet. I kept walking. Halfway down the slope we passed a wayside marker scratched with three letters: *HWA.* The shield guard did not notice. I had seen the same letters twice before. Never asked. Each step was a step away from the portal and toward the list I hadn't yet written. The hidden energy from the Hounds hummed in my core — a secret resource, a stolen strength.
A start. Nothing more.
*Vote if this chapter hurt. Vote harder if it hurt the right people.*