At that name, the Bone Eater’s head jerked like a rusted hinge, clacking once.

So this thing had been called Pence—Adelaide drove the Bloodsword hard against the monster that once wore a human name; the strength array on her arm bled overloading red smoke like burnt incense.

Panic hit first. This wouldn’t do. She ground her teeth; her blood surged like boiling sap; the Bloodsword flared; heat shimmered along its edge like an energy blade, then bloomed.

The Bone Eater hadn’t expected the sudden surge. It went skidding back a dozen meters like a stone skipped across a black lake, yet only took that much hurt. It righted itself midair, bones snapping into form; when it slammed the cliff, it punched bone talons into rock like iron nails. It didn’t chase. It anchored there, and those purple eye-flames, thick with hunger, fixed on Adelaide. A twisted grin crawled over its dark-bronze bones.

“Can’t… es… cape.”

The voice rasped to tatters from its throat. Adelaide’s breath came shallow as frost; the blade in her hands trembled like a leaf in wind.

Frustration burned. She’d carved the strength array from a Silver-Mane Howler, one of the Northlands’ strongest beasts, into her arm—yet this Bone Eater still overpowered it. Whoever planned this ambush paid in blood and coin.

To raise one this strong took spinal fluid from tens of thousands of corpses, a river of marrow—extravagance so wasteful it felt like burning silk; Adelaide pressed her lips thin.

Damn it. She’d foreseen this and wanted to avoid crossing it before securing her materials.

She was outmuscled, and the wide-open ground was a bare field under a cold sun; even if she masked her aura now, it’d do nothing. Regret knifed through her—yet there had been no choice. Kabos was her only lead on Mira. Even knowing a Bone Eater would come, she’d had to pull him out.

One sliver of good news: she wasn’t far from her carriage. If she could just reach it…

She edged back a step. The Bone Eater caught that intent at once. It kicked off the cliff-face; wings snapped wide like torn banners; it dove.

A shrill chant split the air. Dozens of mana bolts burst around the Bone Eater like flak blossoms. They only shaved off the last tatters of human skin. The core body never slowed. It was on her in the next heartbeat, bone claws merging into a thick spike, stabbing straight for her heart.

Clang!

The blow landed like a sledge. Shock ran up from hilt to shoulder, numbing her grip like frostbite. She barely caught the first strike—and it was only the opener. Three heartbeats of fury, and Bloodsword and bone spike met a dozen more times, each hit heavier, like waves piling on rock. She staggered back under the press. The final impact boomed like thunder and shook the air.

Her guard collapsed. She went flying, a cut kite against a gray sky.

Triumph flared in the skull’s sockets like a conqueror’s torch—then faltered, a candle in draft.

It noticed—she’d been outmatched and flung, yes, but in midair her aura thinned again, and the vector lined up with her carriage.

Yes. That was her plan. She had no wish to trade blows head-on. She’d angled her body to ride the force, ready to vanish her aura midair and slip back to the carriage, leave the Bone Eater blundering like a headless fly.

She barely had time to savor the gambit when the Bone Eater blurred, sprinting—not for her—but for Anta, whom she’d left where she’d started.

Damn it!

Rage first, then choice. The thought of abandoning Anta flashed like lightning, then Mira’s instructions lashed her back. Adelaide bit down, stripped the limiter off her heart, let the Bloodsword unspool into a chain-blade, and snapped it out. The links hissed, entangling the spike aimed at Anta.

The chain caught in the nick of time, turning a killing thrust into a near miss—but the recoil jerked Adelaide hard, stopping her midair like a hawk on a tether. She flipped back and hit dirt to bleed off the force.

“Got… you…”

Grinning crookedly, the Bone Eater seized the chain’s far end and hauled, dragging her inch by inch. Its other hand remained a leveled spike at Anta—a clear message spelled in bone: let go, and the purple-haired girl dies.

Damn it, the manuals never said Bone Eaters take hostages!

Adelaide held on, teeth clenched, feet skidding furrows in grit. Far off, the three corpse-golem giants roared; red crystals that served as eyes swung as one to lock on her like hunting hawks. Then they moved.

With each step, black slabs of flesh tore and fell like rotten fruit; when they landed, the ground jumped. The tremor jolted Adelaide; the Bone Eater heaved, and the distance between them halved like a noose tightening.

No time. She had to end the one in front of her. Panic scraped bone; her mind clawed for any path. A gleam winked from the carriage wreck, catching her eye like a fishhook. Her focus slipped for a breath.

Before a top-tier killer like this, one stray breath equals a death sentence. Purple flames roared; bronze bones second-hardened like quenched steel. It yanked. Balance vanished. She crashed into shattered wood, splinters flying like winter thorns. She rolled, flipped—too late. It was already there, twin bone-spears driving down at her chest.

“Hh-khah—”

A dull thud, then a ragged cry. She was pinned to the earth like a butterfly under glass. The spike didn’t pierce the warding array, but the impact crushed the air from her lungs; she coughed, mouth hot with iron.

The Bone Eater loomed over her, scant scraps of skin left, yet its expression was naked and human—a glisten of satisfaction. At this range it had absolute strength, but it didn’t punch through. It pressed, slow as a cat’s paw, savoring the way pain blossomed in her face.

As blood beaded at her lip, its limbs trembled with delight.

Yes. Now. Time to push through the ward, to peel open that lovely, full chest inch by inch, to show that the perfect wrapping hid meat no different from salted pork. It—no, he—couldn’t wait to eat this female’s heart, because it tasted best while still beating. Then her soft liver, her kidneys. Her beautiful hands and head he’d keep. Trophies for a man. With them, no one would ever look down on him again, call him little chick—

“Pence!”

The scream from the female beneath him slashed his daydream. Fury flared; he dipped his skull, ready to punish her with more pain.

But when he looked down, he didn’t see a pretty face.

He saw a monster in a mirror. A skull wreathed in purple fire for eyes. Metal sheen over every inch of bone. Torn scraps of skin and clothing hanging in the bone-spikes that made the thing’s body, all once a whole, once a person.

Who… who had that hair, that cloth? Why so familiar? They belonged to… someone named… Pence?

They… belonged to him? Then the monster in the glass… was…

Pence?

“Pence, look at what you are now!”

Adelaide shouted through a stab of pain in her chest. She held the mirror she’d glimpsed in the wreck; the Bone Eater froze. Purple fire guttered like a candle in wind. The metal sheen drained from its bones.

“turya—Amplify.”

A crisp snap cracked the air. Without a touch, blade-like ribs at its chest exploded like glass; the right arm tore free and, without core linkage, fell to dust on the wind.

It went spinning, a rag of shadow carving an arc in the air. Adelaide lay gasping. One hand kept the mirror raised; the other stayed a tight fist braced against its back. The strength array etched on her pale wrist overran and shattered like frost.

She’d gambled right. If the Bone Eater answered to that name, it still thought of itself as Pence. She used the shock of seeing itself to pry open its guard, then sacrificed a Silver-Mane Howler’s finger and, with its strike-through-the-mountain knack, blasted power inside the Bone Eater.

For a spur-of-the-moment plan, the result was better than she’d dared. Pity the window was too short. She didn’t crush the core—only blew away half its body.

Even so, it wouldn’t be bullying her by brute force anytime soon. Teeth bared, Adelaide forced herself up, fought the burn in her lungs, and turned for her carriage.

Something moved first.

The Bone Eater clawed up from sand, fire rekindled, words dribbling from a broken throat—no meaning left, only hatred etched to the marrow.

It snapped around. Half a body blurred faster than before, like a thrown spear.

Its line tore toward Adelaide and Mira’s carriage.

Adelaide’s pupils pinholed.

Before the thought of revenge even formed, her fingers were already weaving. The offering array locked. The hollow ache in heart and veins returned like winter emptiness.

Time slowed. People’s screams stretched into long howls; wind chimes on the wrecked cart swung in slow arcs; the corpse giants froze mid-step. In the hush, she watched the Bone Eater drift toward her carriage in syrup-slow motion.

She ran. She knew she couldn’t stop it from shredding her stock of sacrifices, but she ran anyway, every stride a drumbeat. She watched the bone spike punch into the carriage, rip it in two like paper. Fine clothes sliced. Cotton from bedding whirled up like snow. Glass vials with offerings burst midair into glitter.

Months of careful hoarding turned to smoke. Even so, she didn’t stop, because she saw it—a shard throwing back the moon’s deep-blue light.

It spun and danced in the air, as bright as the day it was dug free of earth.

She ignored her heart’s ragged war-drum. She ignored everything. She reached with all she had.

Just a little more. One step more, and she could—

Crack.

Crimson Frenzy rose with that brittle snap. Adelaide hit the ground, tumbled, sand pasted to skin and face; a nail of pain drilled through her palm.

She opened her shaking hand. Blood welled and ran, staining those azure shards a deep red.

At the last instant, the Bone Eater’s mouth-spike had punched through her palm—and through the gem.

The gift she’d prepared for Mira’s birthday.

In that instant, a sound like chains breaking rang through her mind.