Teclos couldn’t move, so he had plenty of time to think—and his thoughts were torture, poison seeping slowly through his mind. Images flashed left and right, inescapable and ever-present, each one sending a sharp knife into his heart.

’Shit...’

His tears flowed freely, half from the emotional pain tearing through him and half from the physical agony he had no choice but to endure in this broken state.

At some point, his memory simply cut off. He remembered Gillard taking his last breath, and then, for a while... nothing.

The next thing he remembered was sitting in front of Gillard. A dark pool of blood surrounded them, and an empty flask rested in his hand.

Whenever he tried to remember more, pain stabbed through his skull, as if the worst migraine imaginable had split open behind his eyes. Still, small snippets flashed through his mind for a second at a time.

Hands ripping one of the orc’s eyeballs out and feeding it back to him.

A blade stabbing into an orc’s throat again and again.

A black mass swirling around him in waves, blood coating his hands.

The visions felt strange... blood-red, distorted, like memories not entirely his own. It was as if he were looking at the carnage through a lens, his heart tucked somewhere safe, hidden from further harm while that beast outside massacred the orcs in his place.

Teclos couldn’t stand his thoughts anymore, so he forced his attention toward the fights unfolding in front of him. He watched numbly, feeling almost nothing, but even that was better than reliving Gillard’s death for the thousandth time.

For one, Talmir and Toby had somehow managed to pull off a stalemate against the orcs, despite having only a fifth of the manpower. In a tunnel, no less, where the narrow space should have been advantageous for them.

Ducking under an axe, Talmir slipped sideways and countered with a slash of his own. The orc blocked it, but because its dominant arm had been forced to the wrong side, it couldn’t continue the attack immediately.

Talmir tried to disengage and help the others while the orc chased him, but the creature reacted quickly, shoulder-charging him while preparing an upward slash with its axe.

Talmir sidestepped again and blocked diagonally. The orc’s blow glanced off his sword at an angle, and for a moment, a path for a counterattack opened wide before him. But he didn’t take it. Because the next second, a spear appeared from another orc, thrusting toward him.

Had he taken that opening, he would have been skewered.

Instead, Talmir was already moving into position. He parried the spear sideways, forcing it toward the axe-wielding orc and blocking both of them for a brief moment, buying himself just enough distance.

He seized that chance.

Wind gathered along his blade, sharp and compressed, before he released it toward them.

The axe-wielding orc stood directly in the path of the wind blade, still hindered by the spear. By the time he noticed the incoming slash, it was already too late. That single lapse in focus was enough.

The wind blade tore through his chest and neck.

The spearman ducked in time, but he was forced to release his weapon. Had he held on even a heartbeat longer, he would have lost his hand.

Still, against a speed demon like Talmir, releasing his weapon was a grave mistake.

In an instant, Talmir shifted from retreat to attack. Before the orc could recover, he closed the distance and made quick work of him.

On the other side, however, Toby, Tom, and Zarik were barely holding on.

Toby was not as fast as Talmir, and the orcs facing them were close to his level in strength. Because of that, the three of them quickly found themselves surrounded. The only reason they were still alive was that they stood back to back, each covering one flank.

Together, they blocked any attempt at earth manipulation around them and deflected most ranged attacks.

Teclos shifted his attention to the bigger fight happening at the far end of the small battlefield.

Axel was dancing around the orc, dodging every spear thrust and slash with effortless precision. Pitfalls didn’t faze him at all. The moment Ba’hraka tried to kill him that way, vines shot out from Axel and latched onto the ceiling, lifting him clear of danger.

The vines weren’t only defensive, either. They lashed out again and again, trying to bind Ba’hraka, but the orc spun his spear in response, slicing them apart before they could take hold of him.

Although Ba’hraka was clearly on the back foot, Axel never got the chance to kill him or deal any significant damage. Worse still, the orc possessed an uncanny battle sense. With each exchange, Axel’s attacks became less effective, each cut shallower than the last.

Ba’hraka had more reach with his spear than Axel had with his knife.

To an amateur like Teclos, it looked as if Axel was toying with the orc. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, the fight was creeping toward being even.

Ba’hraka felt insulted. The human wasn’t going all out against him, and for orcs—warriors who were happy to die in battle—there was nothing more insulting than an opponent holding back.

Although he was something of an outsider to his race and community, Ba’hraka was still an orc through and through.

Ba’hraka was sure of it now. Painfully sure. This human had the strength to kill him, so why was he still holding back?

’Why do I, the great warrior of the Frosty Peaks, have to endure this humiliation?!’

With a furious roar, Ba’hraka shifted from defense to offense. By now, he had adjusted to the speed of Axel’s attacks, and he was confident he could avoid any strike aimed at his vitals.

An earth platform burst beneath his feet, propelling him forward at incredible speed. Axel seemed to wait for the attack, standing in place, already preparing to counter.

Of course, Ba’hraka was prepared to give it everything now. No more running. He would put his life on the line, and because of that, a half-hearted counter would be dangerous even for Axel.

As he reached him, Ba’hraka thrust his spear toward the human’s skull.

Axel, unsurprisingly, dodged it by a hair’s breadth and drove his own blade toward the orc’s throat. But Ba’hraka stomped the ground at that exact moment, and two plates of hard rock erupted from either side.

He could lose an arm here, but Axel would be crushed between the stone slabs if he committed.

’Tch... it’s getting annoying now.’

With no other choice, Axel disengaged and jumped upward, one hand still gripping the orc’s spear.

With another stomp, Ba’hraka summoned spikes to his side and slammed his spear down toward them, forcing Axel to release the weapon unless he wanted to be turned into a pincushion.

Again, it left his back exposed, but it was a poisonous apple to bite into. The next second, the summoned spikes flew toward Axel like homing missiles.

Reacting immediately, Axel sprouted vines from his back and pulled himself down, dodging the spikes easily. But yet again, Ba’hraka sustained no injuries.

The next moment, a large boulder from the ceiling came crashing down toward Axel’s head, and the instant he dodged it, Ba’hraka was already in his face again.

With all this pressure mounting around him, only one thought lingered in Axel’s mind.

’Should I just leave the kid?’

He glanced toward Teclos and saw him watching the fight between him and the orc.

Something was wrong with the boy. The black veins across his face and arms were pulsating, dark and dead-looking beneath his skin.

’The kid might die even if I help him...’

In the meantime, Ba’hraka let out an irritated roar of fury at Axel. The audacity of this human, daring to look away during their battle.

He slammed his spear into the ground, and the entire section of the tunnel shook.

Spikes erupted from every direction in a wide-area attack, sweeping through friend and foe alike—his own warriors, the last surviving hunters, everyone caught within range.

Talmir leapt upward, avoiding the attack by a fraction of a second.

Zarik, Toby, and Tom reacted together, dragging an earth wall up from the ground just in time. The spikes crashed against it a heartbeat later, barely stopped before they could tear through them.

"Kur’snava!" Ba’hraka roared before encasing himself in diamond-like skin and charging forward.

He rushed Axel with everything he had. Every time his body struck the tunnel wall, floor, or ceiling, spikes erupted toward Axel, followed by crushing slabs of stone that tried to grind him into paste.

At the same time, Ba’hraka himself had become a literal fortress—nearly impenetrable, impossibly heavy, and strong enough to crush human bones to dust with a single flick of his finger.

Teclos fell sideways from his sitting position as tremors from the battle shook the tunnel, and the fall made him remember the pain in his body all at once.

Air scraped down his throat and hit his lungs like broken glass. His chest seized, his ribs screaming as if invisible hands had wrapped around them and started to twist. He tried to breathe shallower, but even that hurt.

At that moment, even existing was painful.

Once the pain subsided slightly, Teclos could think again. See again.

Somewhat.

Dust choked the air around him, thick enough to sting his eyes and scrape against his throat. He coughed violently, each spasm sending another wave of pain through his body.

Not long after, more detonations resounded through the tunnel.

Axel was still alive.

Still fighting.

But when the dust finally began to settle, Teclos saw the carnage Ba’hraka had left behind.

That orc had killed over half of his own subordinates.

And besides Toby, Tom, Zarik, and Talmir, no other hunter was alive anymore.

Once he saw the bloodied corpses, unpleasant memories dragged themselves back up, paralyzing his mind again.

For a moment, Teclos was not in the tunnel anymore.

He was back in the forest. Back in front of Gillard. Back with that empty flask in his hand and the taste of iron still thick in the air.

His vision blurred at the edges, the corpses in front of him blending with the images inside his mind until he could no longer tell which bodies belonged to the present and which belonged to the past. His breath hitched, and pain punished him instantly, lancing through his chest so sharply that his thoughts scattered.

Each impact sent dust raining from the ceiling. Each clash between Axel and Ba’hraka struck the air like thunder.

Teclos forced his eyes open wider, and through the settling dust, he saw Axel move.

The man was still alive.

Somehow, impossibly, he was still dancing around Ba’hraka’s spear, slipping past thrusts that would have split a normal hunter in two. His vines lashed out from every angle, sometimes from his arms, sometimes from his back, sometimes bursting from cracks in the stone as if the tunnel itself had transformed into a jungle.

But Ba’hraka was not the same as before.

He defended against every possible attack, countering Axel whenever he could and forcing him to retreat occasionally.

A spear thrust cut across, almost hitting Axel’s shoulder.

He twisted away, and a vine latched onto the ceiling, pulling him up just before a stone spike erupted beneath his feet. Ba’hraka followed immediately, launching himself upward on a pillar of earth, his spear already spinning for the next strike.

Axel clicked his tongue and severed his own vine before the blade could reach it, dropping back toward the ground. The moment he landed, roots erupted around Ba’hraka’s legs, trying to slam him back down.

The orc roared, and the stone beneath him shattered outward and up. The roots were torn apart, reduced to green paste.

To Teclos, it still looked like Axel had the upper hand. He was faster, and the only one inflicting wounds on the enemy.

’Come on, old man... kill that bastard already.’

Then Axel’s eyes shifted.

To the entrance of the tunnel, like something was drawing closer.

His gaze moved toward the darkness behind them, toward the way out, then toward Teclos.

Axel’s expression changed. It was calculating, cold, and ugly, followed by something that almost looked like regret.

He dodged another thrust, stepping inside the spear’s range and dragging his knife across Ba’hraka’s forearm, but the cut was shallow.

Ba’hraka swung his free fist toward him, stone coating his knuckles in a jagged layer. Axel bent backward under the blow, one hand touching the ground.

Roots burst up between them, trying to tie him down.

For a heartbeat longer, the tunnel was filled with motion.

Then he glanced at Teclos one last time.

"Sorry, kid."

The words he spoke were quiet. No one could have heard them, but Teclos instinctively knew what he said.

His mind did not process the words at first. They slipped through his thoughts like fingers over wet stone.

Sorry?

For what?

Then Axel’s body split apart.

Roots burst from beneath his skin, his limbs stiffened, and his face hollowed. The color drained from him as bark crawled over his features, twisting his mouth into a dead, carved line. His eyes sank inward, becoming two empty holes in the sinister wooden doll that now stood where Axel had been a heartbeat before.

Ba’hraka reacted instantly, expecting a new kind of attack.

His spear pierced the doll through the chest.

The wooden body cracked apart with a hollow snap, splinters bursting outward as the force of the strike carried through it. Ba’hraka twisted the weapon and tore the doll open from the inside, reducing it to broken chunks of lifeless wood.

There was no blood.

Only scattered pieces of wood hitting the stone floor, bouncing once before lying still.

Ba’hraka froze, shocked beyond belief.

The orc’s spear remained extended, buried in the ruined doll, but his eyes widened with disbelief that did not fit his monstrous face. His head turned sharply, searching the tunnel and the earth beneath his feet, but nothing came up.

Ba’hraka looked truly robbed.

Betrayed.

The human who could have killed him had vanished.

The battle he had wanted, the death and glory he had been reaching toward with both hands, had slipped away like smoke between his fingers.

A low growl rose from his throat.

—

It was no less shocking for Teclos.

Axel had left.

The thought slowly formed in his mind.

Axel had left him.

For a second, the pain in Teclos’s body vanished beneath a cold void. His chest felt hollow, as if Ba’hraka’s spear had pierced through him instead. He could still see Axel’s face in his mind as he chose to abandon them.

"Sorry, kid."

The words constantly repeated in his mind.

"What the hell..." Toby whispered, his voice barely audible through the dust and ringing aftermath.

Ba’hraka slowly pulled his spear free from the remains of the doll. Wood fragments fell from the blade and scattered at his feet.

Then his gaze turned toward Teclos.

The orc’s expression shifted from shock to rage so pure it seemed to darken the air around him. The earth beneath his feet trembled from the pressure of his mana leaking into the stone.

It was hatred.

The tunnel groaned around them. Cracks raced along the walls, thin at first, then widening as Ba’hraka’s mana poured through it.

Everyone in the tunnel was forced to the ground momentarily.

’That bastard... he left us all to die here...’