Leonardo hung by one arm. His muscles trembled violently. The lactic acid was a corrosive fire in his veins. The adrenaline crash was coming fast.
He looked up. Twenty feet below the rim.
One Seeker left.
He couldn't see it, but he could hear it. Pacing directly above him, claws clicking rapidly. The rhythm had changed. No longer the slow hum of a pack hunter. Fast. Erratic. Frantic.
It knew. The pack was dead. It was alone.
Leonardo pulled his right hand up.
The Sting was changing. The ancient silver runes were glowing with a hungry, aggressive violet light. Feeding on the residue of the slaughtered beasts. The blade felt heavier. Like it was gaining physical mass, drunk on the corrupted mana.
He tightened his grip. Began to climb.
He didn't use the Vazio to hide anymore. Stealth was over. Now, he used the nothingness of his core to sharpen his intent. Funneled the cold void into his burning muscles. Overriding the pain. Overriding the exhaustion.
He wasn't the air anymore. The air was passive.
He was the hunter. And the twitching beast at the top of the cliff was the only thing standing between him and tomorrow.
He moved upward. Slowly. Methodically. Fingers torn raw. Blood mixing with dirt. But his brain refused the pain. The terror had burned away, replaced by a cold, deadly focus. Every breath calculated. Every movement exact.
His hand grasped the rim of the chimney.
His violet eye leveled with the flat expanse of the granite ridge.
The final test was waiting.
Leonardo hauled himself over the edge.
He didn't stand. Standing turns you into a silhouette, and silhouettes get killed fast. He dropped into a deep crouch the instant his boots hit the flat granite ridge. Left hand spread on the freezing stone for balance. Right hand tight on the Sting in reverse grip, blade running close to his forearm.
He pulled one breath. Ozone. Pine sap. Copper from his own blood.
The final Seeker was waiting.
Ten feet away. Not pacing anymore. All that frantic pack-energy had vanished, replaced by the ugly stillness of an ambush predator that had finally lined up its prey. The massive armored body was crouched absurdly low, center of gravity dialed in to perfection.
Its front scythes—reinforced chitin blades the size of broadswords—were vibrating so fast the edges blurred in moonlight, humming in a low register that made Leonardo's teeth hurt.
It was dead silent. No clicking. No hissing.
Its sensory pits, usually bruised purple, now burned a steady crimson. Not just tracking heat anymore. Tracking intent.
Leonardo didn't blink. Wait for it.
The Seeker lunged.
It didn't come in straight. The Scavenger had made that mistake. This one was built for war. It zig-zagged hard, multi-jointed limbs detonating against stone, cutting impossible angles meant to overload human tracking.
A normal Hunter would have died there, slicing at empty air and calling it a fight.
But Leonardo wasn't looking at the monster. Not really.
With three corrupted souls burning in his chest, his left eye had crossed a line. It wasn't just a sensory organ anymore; it was a warped lens reading things before they finished happening. He didn't need to track chitin, scythes, or blur.
He saw displacement first. Saw the jagged wake ripping through cold air. Saw friction trails map out in bruised violet a fraction early, before the body reached the point.
There.
Leonardo pivoted hard on the lead foot, snapped his hips for torque, and stepped into the monster's line instead of backing off.
The Sting whistled.
He didn't go for the armored dome. Didn't waste steel on carapace. He cut upward in a tight, vicious arc straight into the primary scythe as it whipped in to take his head.
The Earth-Tier metal met the abyssal chitin.
No clean steel ring. Just a violent violet flash and a crack like a glacier splitting in half.
The scythe didn't just break. It withered.
The dagger's stored frost dumped on impact. Freezing energy flooded microscopic pores in the limb. Chitin went brittle, then white, then exploded into useless frozen fragments. The creature's main weapon became a dead stump in less than a heartbeat.
The Seeker recoiled hard. Its massive frame stuttered, predatory balance gone. It screeched in that high alien register, half rage, half confusion.
Leonardo didn't give it a second to process the pain.
No wasted movement. Cold. Calculated. He stepped deeper into range and slid under the wild arc of the remaining scythe.
He drove the dagger upward.
He aimed for the seam: that thin vulnerable joint where thorax armor met softer abdominal plates.
The blade sank to the hilt.
Leonardo felt wet resistance tear open. The silver runes on the Sting flared like starving light. The dagger behaved like a siphon and ripped out the last desperate reserves of the beast's twisted life force.
The Seeker shuddered. A massive, full-body convulsion.
Then, its legs simply gave out.
The full weight of the monstrosity crashed onto the stone and dragged the dagger with it. Leonardo twisted the hilt ninety degrees to maximize internal damage, then ripped free.
He stepped back.
The creature didn't ash out right away. It twitched on the granite in ugly death spasms. The crimson glow in its sensory pits flickered, dimmed, and finally died. Thick sweet rot spread on the wind and slowly thinned.
Leonardo stood over the carcass.
His chest heaved. Lungs on fire. Silver hair glued to his forehead with dirt, sweat, and ichor. He let the Sting hang at his side.
Silence.