Oliver was spinning his hammer in the Oathring, loosening his joints and warming himself up, when the narrator-judge announced his opponent. Visibly less energetic this time.

"And his opponent is... Animal Pack."

’What kind of theatrical joke is that? These narrators are starting to compete with Veric, the salesman.’

A relatively ordinary-looking man walks into the arena. Except for the grass cloak that covers his entire back, draped over him like a stretch of lawn that walked into a duel. Underneath the cloak: leather combat gear, well-worn, marked at the knees and elbows. The cloak is sniper-grade, resembling a sniper’s outfit, while the rest of his gear is designed for close work. His eyes are normal, brown, sharp. Many scars across the exposed forearms and the line of his neck. A man who has certainly lived more than his ordinary face suggests.

"Are you ready?" the judge asks. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Oliver nods. Animal Pact doesn’t acknowledge the judge. He just crouches like a lynx preparing to strike, but the judge reads it as a yes.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the match is about to begin."

The crowd quiets for an instant, every eye fixed on Oliver.

"Ready... Fight!"

Animal Pact’s posture changes completely.

His eyes, human a moment ago, are now green. The pupils are vertical—black slits opening between his irises like reptilian seams. The muscles around his jaw shift subtly, the cheekbones widening, the tongue inside his mouth thicker than a human tongue should be. A predator under a man’s skin pushing outward through every surface at once.

"This guy is turning into a snake?" I mutter to myself. "That’s by far the most bizarre class I’ve seen in Thirstfall in a long time, and I have seen a lot."

Animal Pact advances toward Oliver. His movements are erratic now, zigzagging, as if he’s mimicking a serpent in motion. The footwork breaks every clean angle a trained fighter expects. No predictable lead foot. No center of gravity holding still long enough to read.

"Here we go," I read on Oliver’s lips as he whispers. He grips Motorhead with both hands, telegraphing an attack openly with no attempt at stealth. He wants Animal Pact to commit.

Animal Pact hisses. The sound is so bizarrely identical to a real animal that I can see the grimace ripple through the crowd.

He comes in at a low angle while long bone claws extend out of his forearms, sharp as spears. The arms themselves repositioning into something like the raptorial limbs of a praying mantis. Rapid and layered strikes incoming.

Oliver shifts his stance and drops into defense, blocking the ascending strike. The bone slides along the metal haft of the hammer with a high, ugly scrape. He pivots, swings Motorhead up and over his head in a tight arc, and slams the head of the hammer down into Animal Pact’s back with everything he has.

’Damn it, Oliver. Like that, you’ll kill him.’

The sound that follows isn’t the dull, low THUD of a hammer connecting with flesh.

It’s a metallic clang. So sharp and ringing it sounds like Oliver is laying down railroad track in the middle of the arena.

Motorhead bounces straight upward off the impact. The ground beneath Animal Pact erupts—a circular pulse of dust blasting outward from his feet in every direction at once, a low ring of pressure shaped like the impact crater of something heavier than a man.

Oliver tries to recover his balance, visibly confused, not understanding what just happened.

The grass cloak on Animal Pact’s back explodes outward from the force of the impact, shredding into fragments of green that rain across the arena floor.

What’s revealed underneath is armor. Natural armor. The shell of an armadillo. Hard, dense scales like polished steel covering his entire back from neck to lower spine. Each plate overlaps the next at an angle that distributes force outward—exactly why Motorhead skidded sideways instead of crushing through.

That’s why he wore the cloak. It wasn’t camouflage. It was a curtain over a defense he didn’t want any of us to read until contact.

"I thought I miscalculated and was about to knock him out, boss," Oliver says across the comm.

"Careful, Oliver. This guy is treacherous. He could be hiding more... animals?" I answer.

’A snake, a mantis, and an armadillo? What kind of class is this?’

I look at Oliver and see he’s visibly worried. Maybe it’s too much to ask him to hold back against an opponent this chaotic.

"Oliver, go all in. Don’t give the odds a reason to swing."

I already have Chaos Theory dragging me sideways through every other room of my life. Oliver doesn’t need to take risks like that with an opponent this slippery.

In the same instant, the engines on Motorhead begin to open. The vents along the head of the hammer start hissing hot vapor through the cracks.

The crowd erupts. Whatever Oliver’s hammer is about to do, it definitely looks like a finishing move long before it actually lands.

Animal Pact recovers from the blow and launches himself into the air.

An extremely high jump for any Rank D—maybe thirty feet, possibly more. He spreads his arms wide and assumes a pose similar to an eagle in mid-glide.

Oliver slaps the back of his own neck. He is perhaps trying to convince himself that what he is seeing is real.

It’s at this exact moment that I can clearly see the mesh under his armpits, hidden in the normal arm positions. Revealed only at the apex of the spread.

Three parallel notches.

’Deepwarden...’

Cold drops down my spine. The mark is small, half-concealed, a signal meant only for other operatives to read. Whoever this man is, he isn’t a freelancer Rahul fished out of the crowd. He was placed in this bracket.

Animal Pact makes a motion as if clapping his palms together in front of his chest, and from his position high above, he begins descending toward Oliver—steering his body through the air with small, deliberate adjustments. Not flight but an air-guided fall.

I look upward toward Rahul, and he’s smiling maliciously.

I look back at Oliver. He’s still scratching the back of his neck, only now beginning to brace himself for the impact.

’Something is wrong.’