"Attack."
Qin Dadi didn't hesitate. Stone crawled over his skin in a heartbeat, hardening into a jagged shell as he charged like a living battering ram.
Two fireballs screamed past him, arcing wide—one left, one right—converging on the Spirit Cat.
They struck nothing.
A hiss split the air. The creature dissolved into shadow, reappearing behind them in a blur of motion—already mid-leap, already hunting.
Liu Zhaozhao ignited instantly, flames roaring up his body, heat distorting the air. The Spirit Cat stopped dead, its momentum snapping to zero as if the world itself obeyed it.
A flash of steel cut in.
Xiao Yunlong's saber howled, green energy spiraling along its edge as his Tornado Slash tore toward the beast's skull.
The Spirit Cat bent—wrongly, unnaturally—its body folding like it had no bones. The blade missed by a breath.
Its claw answered.
Three pale streaks carved across Xiao Yunlong's visor.
Then it slipped past him.
A whisper. A tear.
His leg armor split open, flesh peeling back beneath it. Blood followed.
He staggered.
Too fast…
He had trained in speed, lived in it—but before this thing, he was nothing. A target that hadn't fallen yet.
"Yunlong!"
Qin Dadi's voice cracked with fury, teeth grinding as he turned. If this had been a brute—something slow, something he could break—they would have had a chance.
But this…
This was death given instinct and claws.
The Spirit Cat crouched low, its emerald eyes gleaming with something cruel, almost amused.
Then it moved again.
Straight for Xiao Yunlong.
He tried to retreat—his leg failed. His body betrayed him. He stumbled, terror flooding in.
The claw came for his throat.
—and stopped.
The Spirit Cat twisted mid-strike, rolling away as a bullet tore through the space it had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
It landed, snarling, claws digging into the earth as it turned.
Qin Tian lowered the rifle.
He had expected the miss.
It didn't make it easier to accept.
The creature screamed and launched itself at him.
"Watch out!"
Too late.
The claw descended—
Qin Tian ducked.
Barely.
Shock flickered across every face watching.
Then the world fractured into motion.
Claws became a storm—slashes from impossible angles, too fast to follow. But Qin Tian moved with them, not against them. He bent, twisted, collapsed, rolled—his body folding into shapes that didn't look survivable, slipping through death again and again.
It wasn't skill.
It was instinct sharpened to something feral.
To anyone watching, it looked unreal—like watching a man refuse to die through sheer defiance.
No one could help him.
Qin Dadi was too slow.
Liu Zhaozhao couldn't risk burning him alive.
Xiao Yunlong couldn't even stand.
So they watched.
And waited for the moment it would end.
Another claw cut past Qin Tian's throat, close enough to taste.
He couldn't keep this up.
No training. No technique. No way to fight back without breaking the fragile rhythm keeping him alive.
So he chose something worse.
A gamble.
The next strike came for his eyes.
He didn't dodge.
He caught it.
His hand clamped around the Spirit Cat's wrist—thin, wiry, wrong.
For the first time, the creature hesitated.
That was enough.
His other hand snapped forward, gripping the back of its skull—and he drove his head forward.
Impact.
A dull, sickening crack.
The visor shattered, fragments slicing into his skin.
He didn't stop.
Again.
Bone met bone with brutal force. Pain exploded behind his eyes, blood spilling down his face.
Still, he held on.
One more.
A final, savage collision.
Something gave.
He staggered back, vision spinning, breath ragged, blood pouring freely now.
The Spirit Cat swayed.
Its skull was broken.
Darkness swallowed its sight.
A fireball struck its back, detonating in a bloom of heat—
—and steel followed.
A clean cut.
The head fell, rolling twice before coming to rest, those green eyes dimming into nothing.
Silence lingered.
Heavy. Thick.
Qin Tian stood swaying, barely upright, blood dripping to the ground.
He had won.
But not cleanly.
Not safely.
And not without paying for it.