The cave smelled of old blood and musk.

Owen ducked through the entrance, his Cosmic Impact Fist already gathering at his knuckles. The light dimmed fast. Twenty meters in, the passage widened into a den.

The Crimson Hide was massive.

Imagine a great cat—but built like a bull. Thick, slab-muscled body covered in deep crimson fur that looked almost black in the dim light. Six legs instead of four. A heavy, blunt head with two pairs of obsidian-black eyes. Tusks curving down from its lower jaw. It was easily the size of a small truck.

It lifted its head as Owen entered. The four eyes locked onto him. A low rumble started in its chest.

Owen didn’t wait.

[Cosmic Impact Fist]

He fired a directional burst across the den—not at the beast, but at the wall behind it. The shockwave exploded against stone, sending fragments raining down. The Crimson Hide roared and surged to its feet, charging him.

He sprinted backward toward the entrance.

The beast came after him, all six legs hammering, the cave shaking with each impact. Owen burst into the canyon’s daylight, rolled, came up at a sprint.

The Crimson Hide emerged behind him.

Yalira dropped from above.

She landed on its back, daggers driving down into the joint of its right hindquarter. The beast screamed—a sound that vibrated Owen’s teeth—and bucked. Yalira launched herself clear, rolling into the dust.

The beast’s right rear leg buckled.

Owen had his opening.

He charged. Channeled 1,500 CE into his right fist. The gauntlet—still humming with refined Desolate energy from his cosmic training—blazed bright. He went low, slid under the beast’s guard, came up beneath its jaw.

His fist slammed into the underside of its head, into the soft point where the skull met the spine.

CRACK!

The beast’s body locked. Its eyes went black. Its legs collapsed under it.

It hit the canyon floor with a sound like a falling building.

Then Silence.

Owen breathed hard. His CE had dropped to 2,800 in an instant. Yalira jogged up beside him, dust on her face, daggers still drawn.

"Clean kill," she said. "Brain stem. Perfect."

"Tell that to my arm. Felt like punching a mountain."

"That’s because you punched a mountain."

He laughed despite himself.

---

The core was in the chest cavity, just behind the heart.

Yalira cut into the beast with practiced efficiency, her dagger work surgical. Within minutes, she pulled out a fist-sized crystal—deep crimson at its center, fading to gold at its edges, pulsing slowly with a warm, regenerative light.

It was beautiful.

"Grade four," she confirmed. She handed it to Owen carefully. "Keep it close to your body until we get back. Heat keeps the regenerative resonance stable."

Owen wrapped it in a strip of cloth and tucked it inside his jacket against his chest.

"One more thing," Yalira said. She produced a small ceremonial blade—older, etched with markings he didn’t recognize. She knelt beside the beast and made a careful cut along its flank.

"What are you doing?"

"Old beast-hunter custom. Where I’m from, you take a small piece of the hide as acknowledgment. The beast gave its life. You honor it by remembering."

Owen watched her work for a moment. Then crouched and helped her finish.

When they walked away from the canyon, the system pinged Owen’s display. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

[CRIMSON HIDE - TIER 5, FOUR-STARS - ELIMINATED]

[CREDITS AWARDED: 145,000]

[BONUS: SPECIES PRESERVATION PROTOCOL - 50,000]

[TOTAL: 195,000]

Owen stared at it.

"What’s the species preservation bonus?"

Yalira looked over. "Oh. Yeah. Crimson Hides are tagged as ecologically significant. The Tribunal pays extra to keep their population balanced. They want them hunted, but not too often. Bonus credits for clean, single-target kills."

"How much do these bonuses normally drop?"

"Most beasts? Nothing. A few species? Twenty, thirty thousand. Crimson Hide is one of the highest." She glanced at him. "You’ve been hunting Lifers and standard prisoners. There’s a whole second tier of credit-earning down here that you don’t even know about yet."

"Apparently."

His mind was spinning with the implications. Special beasts. Bounty multipliers. He’d been playing the slow game when there were faster ones available.

But that was a problem for later.

---

Back at the camp, Gorvax was awake.

He sat propped against the boulder, slowly drinking water from a flask Tessa had given him. His blue skin was still pale but alert, abyss-black eyes tracking Owen as he ducked under the tarp.

"Dragon. You went hunting?"

"Got you something." Owen knelt beside him and pulled the wrapped crystal from his jacket. He unwrapped it carefully.

The crimson glow lit Gorvax’s face. The Sower’s eyes widened. Genuine surprise—rare, on him.

"That’s a Crimson Hide core."

"Yeah."

"Dragon..." Gorvax took a long breath. "Do you know what this is worth?"

"I know what it does. Yalira recognized the signature."

"This isn’t a pardon-credit core. This is a medical core. These cost more than ships. People kill for them."

"Then good thing we killed something for it instead." Owen pressed the crystal into Gorvax’s palm. "Absorb it. Heal."

Gorvax stared at the core. Then at Owen.

His blue hand closed around the crystal.

He shut his eyes.

The crimson light flared, then sank into his palm, into his core, spreading through his chest in slow waves of warmth. Gorvax’s whole body relaxed against the boulder. His breathing deepened. The lines around his mouth eased. The bandage around his ribs began to loosen as the swelling beneath it receded.

The damaged left arm twitched. Then flexed. Sensation returning.

It took nearly twenty minutes.

When Gorvax opened his eyes again, the difference was night and day. The death-pallor was gone. His abyss-black eyes had their depth back. He flexed his left hand experimentally, then his ribs, testing.

"Most of it," he said quietly. "It healed most of it. The deep damage is gone. The cosmic-energy ruptures sealed. The nerve pathways..." He flexed his arm fully. "Functional."

"You’re still not at full strength."

"No. Maybe seventy percent. But I can walk. I can fight defensively if I have to. I’m not dying anymore." His eyes met Owen’s. "I owe you for this."

"Stop. Just rest."

Gorvax didn’t argue. He leaned back against the boulder and closed his eyes. Within minutes, his breathing went slow and steady, real sleep now, deep and restorative.

Owen exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Tessa’s voice came from behind him. "He’s going to make it, isn’t he?"

He turned. She stood with her arms crossed, watching.

"Yeah," he said. "He’s going to make it."

"Good." She nodded once. Then: "Now. Tomorrow morning. You and me and Jorik and Vren are going to sit down. And you’re going to tell us the whole story."

"Fair."

"All of it, Owen."

"All of it."

She walked away.

Owen sat back down beside Gorvax. The Sower’s chest rose and fell. The crisis had passed.

But the conversation tomorrow—and everything that came after—was just beginning.