They continued to follow the beast's blood trail across the crimson grass.

  Riven glanced over his shoulder. Lya was walking a few paces behind him, silent and joyless, her head bowed as she stared at the ground. She seemed withdrawn, as if the horror of what she had witnessed had hollowed her out.

  He didn't dwell on it, for other concerns weighed more heavily on his mind.

  When he had first picked up the sword, he’d felt a sudden surge of overconfidence. But now that they were actually tracking the blood to kill the monster, the reality of the situation began to sink in.

  Countless climbers were being slaughtered, even those who were well-equipped or possessed a Fragment. How was a mere slave supposed to kill one of these things?

  He looked down at the sword in his right hand. It's not like we have any other choice…It's either we die trying here and now, or we starve to death bit by bit.

  This was their best chance. The creature was wounded, weakened, and alone.

  But Riven wasn't stupid. On the contrary, his mind was already racing, crafting a plan to tilt the odds in their favor and ensure they made it out alive. Focusing on the strategy also helped him drown out the darker thoughts—the stench of death they had just left behind and the very real possibility of meeting the same fate.

  As they reached the crest of a hill, Riven was so deeply lost in his calculations that he had momentarily tuned out his surroundings. It was Lya who brought him back. She tapped his shoulder urgently and pointed ahead.

  The creature was there, lying beside the ancient carcass of a massive beast a few hundred meters ahead. Amidst the rolling red landscape, the bleached bones of the old monster looked like broken ivory pillars, providing a grim shelter for the wounded predator.

  Riven immediately hunched down on the velvet red floor, pulling Lya with him to stay out of the beast's line of sight.

  He took a few seconds to quickly analyze the environment. There were no black hands near where the creature lay—it was further out in the open—which didn't help him at all. He had originally imagined the possibility of luring it in and setting an ambush from above.

  Grass, bones, and us, he thought bitterly. That’s not much to work with.

  "Okay, look," Riven whispered, "as far as strategies go, this is going to be tough. There isn't much here." He paused, glancing back at the beast. "I’m going to need you. You’ll have to get the monster’s attention... just for a second, to distract it." He reached into his belt and handed her back the dagger she had given him when they first began the Ascension.

  "While it's looking at you, I’ll slip into its blind spot and deliver the killing blow."

  Lya didn't respond immediately, waiting for him to continue. When he didn't, she frowned. "That’s it? But what if you miss? Or what if it doesn't die instantly?"

  "I said I had a strategy, I didn't say it was a good one," Riven replied dryly. "It's not like we have a thousand possibilities here."

  Lya simply nodded, clearly unsure of a plan that didn't feel like much of a plan at all.

  She gripped the dagger she had just received and swung it in a sharp horizontal slash at a cluster of purple flower stalks.

  Riven raised an eyebrow. While the surrounding grass had been sliced through as expected, the stalks had barely reacted, simply swaying under the force of the blow. They were incredibly resilient.

  An idea flashed in his mind. He reached out, grabbed a handful of the purple stems, and pulled with all his might. He had to twist and yank them violently before they finally gave way, roots and all.

  Lya stared at him, her eyes wide with disbelief as he ignored the monster to wrestle with the plants. "Riven, what—now? You're doing this now?"

  "Improving the odds," Riven muttered.

  He began trying to tie the stalks together, but his eyes kept darting back to the beast, his hands fumbling blindly with the plants. His knots were clumsy, slipping uselessly against the smooth surface of the stems.

  Lya reached out, her hands steadying his. "Wait, not like that."

  She took the stalks from him. Her fingers became a blur of practiced motion, weaving the fibers with a speed born of pure adrenaline. In moments, she had fashioned a sturdy cord nearly seven meters long—shorter than a real rope, but as tough as leather.

  Riven didn't waste time admiring the work. He snatched up a bone fragment jutting from the earth and began to sharpen its tip into a jagged hook. "Tie it to this," he muttered, his gaze already locked back on the predator. "Fast."

  He stood up, testing the weight of the dark sword in his other hand. "It’s better than nothing, right?"

  They both moved into position. Lya placed herself ahead of the beast at a distance close enough to be seen, but far enough to have a head start.

  Riven, meanwhile, had circled around to the back. He moved like a shadow, stopping first to secure the snare. He took the end of the rope—the side without the hook—and looped it around a thick rib bone sticking out of the ground. Gritting his teeth, he pulled with all his might, mimicking Lya’s complex knots as best he could to ensure the anchor would hold.

  Once the anchor was set, he moved toward the creature. He pressed his back against a massive block of bone, shuffling along it as if he were edging along a wall. He moved cautiously until he reached the very edge of the ivory structure.

  The creature was right there, just around the corner of the bone wall, its back turned to him. He could hear its irregular, rasping breath echoing against the stone-like surface. With the rope coiled in his left hand and his dark sword gripped in his right, he was only inches away from the predator's blind side.

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  Riven gave the hand signal to Lya.

  She understood immediately. A series of sharp, desperate cries pierced the silence, instantly jolting the creature awake.

  The beast scrambled to its feet clumsily, its jaws unhinging in a menacing snarl directed at Lya. Its claws dug deep into the red earth, tensing as it prepared to charge.

  Riven stepped out at the exact moment the creature lunged forward toward Lya. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the bone-hooked snare, aiming for its only remaining intact hind leg. The hook sailed through the air, the purple line trailing behind it like a strike of violet lightning.

  As the beast lunged forward to charge, the trap snapped shut. The rope, anchored firmly to the massive rib bone, reached its limit and went taut with a violent jerk.

  The creature’s momentum was its own undoing. Its charge was cut into a dead stop, and a sickening crack echoed through the air as the force shattered its remaining good leg. Unable to compensate for the sudden tension, the beast was flipped off balance, crashing face-first into the red dirt.

  It let out a pained, strangled roar, its massive body thrashing against the crimson grass. The improvised purple line held firm as the beast's weight crushed the flowers beneath it into a mess of broken petals and red soil.

  Riven didn't waste a heartbeat. He gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands and delivered a powerful slash into the creature’s flank, cutting deep into the flesh just below its protective bony growths.

  He leapt sideways, keeping his distance from the claws that sliced through the air just inches from his chest.

  He lunged once more to finish it, driving the point of his sword forward with the intent to pierce its skull.

  But the wounded monster jerked its head at the last possible second. His blade skidded off one of its jagged horns.

  The force of the deflected blow sent a violent vibration shivering up through his arms.

  Shit.

  Riven took a large, frantic step back, trying to put some distance between himself and the beast to catch his breath.

  But the monster didn't give him a second. With a roar of pure rage, it lunged forward, straining with all its might. A sickening crack echoed as the anchor bone finally shattered.

  Riven didn't even have time to process the danger before the creature’s maw, filled with rows of jagged teeth, lunged at him.

  He threw up his left arm instinctively to protect his throat. A searing agony exploded in his arm as the fangs shredded through his flesh, radiating like liquid fire.

  With his arm locked in its jaws, the beast used its sheer weight to slam him brutally into the ground. The impact knocked the wind out of him, leaving him pinned beneath the predator's heavy frame.

  He strained every muscle, his right hand braced against the monster’s throat to keep the snapping jaws at bay.

  Then, a blur of movement broke through the chaos. With a scream of pure rage, Lya lunged forward. She drove her dagger deep into the monster’s remaining eye,

  “Die," she whispered, her voice laced with pure venom.

  The beast let out a deafening shriek of agony, its jaws snapping shut on empty air as it recoiled.

  The crushing pressure on his arm vanished. Riven, keeping his grip on the hilt of his sword, let out a roar of his own and thrust the dark blade deep into the monster’s exposed throat

  A hot spray of blood geysered out, drenching him as the creature began its final death throes, staggering backward and clawing at the air.

  The monster’s body hit the ground with a heavy, final thud, its limbs twitching once before going still.

  The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the sound of Riven’s own ragged breathing. His fingers, cramped from the intensity of his grip, finally buckled. The sword slipped from his hand, clattering uselessly against the blood-stained earth.

  Now that the life-or-death struggle had ended, the adrenaline that had masked his injuries began to recede like a retreating tide.

  He looked down at his mangled arm. It didn't just hurt—he felt a cold, jagged tension radiating from the wound, as if the tendons in his arm were being unraveled like frayed rope.

  He tried to push himself up, but his left arm was a foreign object. It was a dead weight of shredded meat that refused to acknowledge his commands. When he tried to flex his hand, he felt nothing but a dull, distant ache, as if his fingers belonged to someone else entirely.

  The sound of frantic, uneven footsteps approached through the crushed crimson grass. Then, Lya’s face appeared in his blurring vision. She was trembling, her hands stained with the beast’s dark ichor, her eyes wide as they locked onto the ruin of his arm.

  She dropped to her knees as he tried to push himself up, "Wait, wait... don't move."

  Her hands reached for his mangled arm, trembling. "I’m going to heal you. Just stay—"

  But he swiped her hand away, his teeth gritted. "Not now."

  He braced his weight on his right hand, forcing his body up. It was a slow, agonizing process, his muscles screaming in protest. "We can't stay here," he managed to grunt.

  He reached down and retrieved his sword, the weight of the steel nearly pulling him back down. He looked at the horizon, where the light was fading fast.

  "Night is already falling. We shouldn't linger here longer than we have to, before other monsters are drawn to the scent of the blood."

  He gestured toward the massive carcass with a weak, pained smile. "We still need to harvest the meat. That’s why we went through all this, isn't it?"

  Lya tightened her jaw, clearly torn between forcing him to sit and the cold reality of the falling night. She let out a frustrated huff. "Then at least... let me help you with that."

  The two of them began hacking away, carving rough chunks of meat from the beast's flanks as quickly as they could, desperate to take as much as they could carry. A grimace of pure disgust twisted Lya’s features as she worked, drawing a weak, raspy laugh from Riven despite the situation.

  They bundled the meat together, using the rope Lya had fashioned to secure the haul into a makeshift rucksack for easier transport.

  Seeing Riven struggle to hoist the heavy load with his one good arm, Lya stepped in. "Let me take it. It’ll be faster this way."

  This time, Riven didn’t protest. He looked at the deepening shadows stretching across the clearing. "We really need to move now."

  They fled the blood-soaked patch of grass in a desperate sprint, Riven fighting the agony in his arm with every jarring step as the sun vanished. The open landscape offered no sanctuary, and as the horizon was swallowed by an encroaching ink, the vulnerability of the plains finally forced them to a halt.

  Driven by exhaustion, they sought refuge in the shadow of a nearby black hand. They scrambled up onto its palm in silence, Riven carefully avoiding the dark smears of liquid on the stone.

  As he sat there, his gaze drifting toward the star-studded void above, he suddenly felt a soft, cool sensation creeping along his wounded arm.

  Lya was using her power.

  So, this is what it’s like. Fascinating... and strange.

  Dozens of thin, luminescent green filaments began to drift from her palms. They were like threads of soft light, glowing gently in the midnight blue of the night. As they touched his skin, the filaments seemed to come alive, latching onto his torn flesh and sliding into the depths of the wound.

  Beneath his skin, the threads began to branch out, dividing into a microscopic web of light that spread through his muscles like a living root system. It wasn't just healing—it was as if she were reweaving him from the inside out.

  Riven finally let his head fall back, his body yielding to the exhaustion he could no longer fight. He lay there, staring up at the silver-flecked void, letting Lya work her strange, living magic.

  Without even realizing it, his breathing slowed, his grip on consciousness slipping away as he drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep, lulled by the gentle glow of Lya’s hands.