The weight of the dead Cliff-Shredder was suffocating, the cold obsidian hide pressing Elian into the muck. Through the haze of fire in his retinas, a single thought pulsed in time with the agony: Nine minutes.
Above the wreckage, the second beast let out a blood-curdling shriek. It crouched on the splintered rafters, muscles tensing to dive and finish the boy who had slain its kin. But before it could leap, a shadow blurred across Elian's flickering vision.
"Leave him alone, you bastard!" Talin screamed.
The old miner didn't have Authority like Elian orAura/Mana-arts, but he had a broken spade and the desperation of a man who refused to watch another child die. He slammed the metal edge into the beast's leg, followed closely by Baraq, who lunged with a guttural roar, using his beast-kin strength to grab the creature's tail. It was a suicide mission, but it bought the one thing Elian needed: Time.
Elian gritted his teeth, his frozen blue eyes vibrating with silver static. He pushed against the dead beast's carcass, his integrated muscles spasming as he slid out from under the obsidian mass. He stood up, swaying, his scavenged shard gripped in a white-knuckled fist.
His mind, sharp and pragmatic as Kaito, analyzed the field. He saw Talin and Baraq being tossed around like ragdolls. I could run, he thought, his internal logic cold and detached. I could slip away while they die.
But the thought was discarded instantly. No. If they die, I'm alone in the Vanguard. If I fight with them now, I have a shield for later. Survival isn't just about breathing; it's about assets.
He broke into a sprint, his eyes locked on the second beast's chest. The silver lines were glowing with a blinding, terrifying intensity. He was twenty feet away. Ten feet. He could see the vibration of the Aether-heart. He could see the path to victory.
Then, the world shattered.
[Authority Duration Exhausted]
The ten-minute mark hit like a physical execution. The silver static in his eyes didn't just fade; it imploded.
"AGH!"
Elian's legs gave out, his knees slamming into the gravel. The scream that ripped from his throat was primal. It felt as if someone had hammered glass shards into his brain and set them on fire. The "burning" was no longer a metaphor; it was a physical reality that scorched his nervous system.
Thick, hot blood began to pour from his tear ducts, masking the frozen blue of his eyes in a mask of gore. The crystalline clarity was replaced by a suffocating, 50% grey blur. He couldn't see the "Logic." He couldn't even see the floor.
"Elian!" Talin shouted, his head whipping around in horror at the sight of the boy's bleeding eyes.
Baraq hesitated too, his protective instincts overriding his combat focus. It was the opening the Cliff-Shredder had been waiting for. With a powerful flap of its wings, it sent Talin and Baraq flying in opposite directions, their bodies slamming into the stone walls.
The beast turned. It saw the boy on his knees, blind and screaming. It lunged, its beak open wide to crush the life out of the "anomaly" once and for all.
Elian felt the rush of wind. He felt the shadow of death. He raised his hands uselessly, the obsidian shard trembling in his weakened grip.
SHLUCK.
The sound wasn't the crushing of bone. It was the sound of metal meeting meat.
From the darkness of the rafters, a silent shadow had descended. Kaelen, who had watched Elian's strike with the eerie focus of an Umbra-boy, had moved. He didn't have Insight, but he had a Sapper's precision and a predator's timing.
Kaelen drove a Mana-siphon pickaxe with every ounce of his weight into the exact "Stress Point" Elian had exposed on the first beast. He didn't know why it was a weak spot; he only knew that Elian had proven it was.
The pickaxe sank deep into the beast's chest. The creature's scream died in its throat as the Siphon tool began to drink its Aether-heart dry. The Cliff-Shredder slumped forward, its beak stopping mere inches from Elian's face, before it toppled sideways into the dirt.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the sound of Elian's ragged, pained breathing and the dripping of blood onto the stones.
Kaelen stood over the corpse, his face as unreadable as ever, his hands trembling slightly as he looked at the blinded boy on the ground.
The Knight-Commander, still watching from the wall, slowly gripped the hilt of his sword. The "Crows" were no longer just slaves. They were a unit. And in a world of iron and order, a unit like this was a variable he couldn't control.