The four Advanced Horrors shifted around Liam and Smoke.

Now that Charlotte was gone, their formation changed.

Two focused on Smoke and the other two focused on Liam.

The one with its wounded shoulder snarled low while dark blood poured down one forelimb. Another had burn marks across its chest from an earlier glancing flame strike. But they both started regenerating. The last two remained largely uninjured.

Liam adjusted his grip on his dagger, then summoned the second.

The air around him warmed slightly.

The first demon lunged.

Liam stepped in instead of away.

Its jaws snapped toward his head, but he dropped low, sliding beneath the bite while carving his dagger across the underside of its neck. The cut was shallow again, but it forced the creature to flinch. His second dagger followed immediately, stabbing toward the core.

The demon twisted its torso, taking the blow through its ribs instead.

’Their reaction speed is too good.’

Before Liam could press further, the second demon attacked from his right.

He released a small flame burst from his palm, pushing himself backward just as its claws carved through the space where his chest had been. The claws struck a tree instead, ripping four massive grooves into the bark.

Smoke roared beside him.

The shadow wolf and two demons collided violently, bodies crashing through roots and low shrubs. Smoke tore into one, but the other bit deep into his side. Shadows scattered from the wound like smoke, reforming instantly, but Liam still felt the drain.

Maintaining Smoke’s full size under damage was costing Myst.

’How annoying.’

Liam spun his dagger once and lowered his stance.

Then suddenly, he felt it.

Movement.

But it wasn’t from the demons in front of him, nor was it from Smoke’s fight.

This was from something else.

Something farther back which was moving fast, too fast.

Liam’s eyes narrowed.

For a fraction of a second, his senses stretched outward, trying to locate it.

And then he realized.

The Berserker had moved, but it wasn’t coming for him or Smoke.

It was heading straight for Charlotte.

Liam’s expression changed for the first time. Barely enough to be noticed at first glance, but it was there.

"Smoke."

The shadow wolf heard the change in Liam’s voice immediately.

Liam moved before the demons could understand what had shifted.

One of the Advanced Horrors lunged to stop him.

Liam’s dagger flashed, cutting across its face, not to kill, but to blind and delay. Flames burst from beneath his feet as he shot past it, leaving Smoke to hold the remaining four back.

Behind him, Smoke erupted into motion with savage force, throwing himself into two demons at once to keep them from pursuing.

Liam tore through the forest as branches blurred past him and roots vanished beneath his feet.

He pushed his speed harder than he had since arriving, using short flame bursts to accelerate between the trees without fully revealing his shadow movement. But even then, he knew immediately it might not be enough.

Because the Berserker was already close.

Charlotte sensed it too.

She had been running quickly through the forest, her breathing steady despite the panic rising behind her ribs. Even though she had been the one who said she would leave Liam the moment she felt something wrong for her own safety, deep down she didn’t like leaving him behind, not because she overly cared for him, but because every instinct in her body screamed that something was far more wrong than when she had previously fled from here.

Then suddenly she felt the air shift.

She picked up the familiar heavy, metallic, and hot scent from earlier, causing her eyes to widen.

She turned as fast as she could in her current form, but it was too late.

A massive figure dropped from the trees above her.

For one horrifying moment, she saw only shape.

A wide clawed hand descended from the darkness, large enough to crush her upper body into the ground. Dark gray flesh stretched over dense unnatural muscle. Red lightning crackled faintly along the arm like veins of burning blood.

Charlotte’s body reacted instantly as she tried to move, drop, or even twist away, but the pressure alone pinned her instincts a fraction too long.

The hand came down.

And in that moment, Charlotte thought about the academy.

’C’mon, isn’t this more than enough for those old fuckers to use a forced extraction on me by now?’ she thought as she watched the massive hand descend further.

Charlotte wasn’t wrong for her thoughts, after all, that’s what Lady Greydon had said.

Students were to be pulled out of the assessment immediately when death became unavoidable.

And as Charlotte remained there, about to be crushed into nothingness, she still believed that at any second she could be back at the academy.

But all she saw was the hand getting closer, as the descending claws reflected in her golden eyes.

Then she realized no extraction awaited her, only death.

"Oh fuck me," Charlotte muttered as her mind went blank for the smallest instant.

Then a shadow crossed her vision.

Liam appeared in front of her.

His arm wrapped around Charlotte’s waist and pulled her out of the strike zone as his other palm slammed forward toward the descending claw.

Immediately, flames exploded.

The blast detonated between Liam and the Berserker with enough force to tear apart the surrounding trees and send fire roaring through the darkness. The Berserker’s claw missed by inches, smashing into the ground where Charlotte had stood a heartbeat earlier.

The impact split the earth open.

Liam and Charlotte were thrown violently backward by the explosion’s force, but Liam twisted midair, using his own body to control the fall. They crashed through low branches before hitting the ground and rolling across the forest floor.

Charlotte gasped as Liam released her and pushed himself upright immediately.

Smoke’s distant roar echoed behind them, still locked in combat with the Advanced Horrors.

Charlotte coughed once, pushing herself onto one elbow.

Her eyes were wide, visibly shaken.

For the first time since Liam had known her, she looked genuinely close to speechless.

"That..." she whispered, staring at the crater where she had been. "That was supposed to trigger extraction."

Liam didn’t answer.

His eyes were fixed ahead.

The flames from his explosion still burned across broken roots and torn branches, filling the dark forest with flickering orange light.

And through the smoke, the Berserker stepped forward.

Its full form finally revealed itself.

The creature stood nearly eight feet tall, humanoid but grotesque in every possible way. Its body carried dark gray flesh stretched over dense, unnatural musculature, thick enough to make even Advanced Horrors look underdeveloped. Blackened bone-like growths protruded from its shoulders, forearms, spine, and ribs, forming something that looked like armor.

Its hands were large and clawed, each finger ending in curved talons stained with old blood.

Its legs bent slightly wrong, built for sudden explosive movement rather than human balance.

Its tail dragged behind it slowly, heavy and lined with jagged growths along the top.

And its face still resembled an Advanced Horror beneath everything else.

But more refined.

The jaw was wide, the teeth sharp and uneven, and the skin around its mouth pulled back enough to make every expression look too close to a grin.

Its dark red eyes burned through the smoke with horrible focus.

And reason sat inside them.

Not the full intelligence and cunningness of a Blood Demon or a Gaia Demon.

But enough to think, learn, and hunt deliberately.

Dark red lightning crackled faintly across its shoulders and arms, crawling over its body in jagged pulses. It didn’t feel like Lightning Magic. It didn’t feel like a normal elemental affinity at all.

Liam understood that instantly.

The energy was biological.

It was like violent Myst leaking outward from a body that had evolved too far, absorbed too much, and learned to survive the damage by constantly rebuilding itself.

The Berserker’s head turned slightly.

It looked past Charlotte and settled directly on Liam.

Then its nostrils flared.

Once.

Twice.

It was scenting him.

Not his blood or his sweat, but something deeper.

The shadows around Liam.

His Dark Myst.

The Berserker’s cracked mouth widened slowly.

A deliberate smile.

Charlotte’s body went tense beside him.

"Nope," she whispered, voice tight. "I absolutely hate that."

The Berserker stepped forward.

The ground cracked lightly beneath its foot.

Then it spoke, but not clearly and perfectly.

"...Strong..."

The word came out rough and broken, dragged through a throat not built for speech.

Charlotte froze completely.

Even Liam’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The Berserker’s smile widened just a little more as dark red lightning crawled brighter across its body.

Then it spoke again.

"...Very strong..."