I grinned.
And without even glancing at the beast, I activated [Swap], exchanging places with the fleeing fox in a blink.
Obviously, I hadn't planned to let the Ember Fox escape.
I intended to kill them both.
One heartbeat, I stood in the badger's path. The next, the Ember Fox appeared exactly where I had been, confusion still flickering in its eyes.
The Stonehide Badger didn't even have a moment to register the change—it lunged forward with all its weight and slammed into the fox, jaws snapping shut with a vicious crack. From the way its teeth clamped down, it was clear the predator had been expecting a goblin's skull between its fangs, not the narrow neck of a startled fox that had just materialized out of thin air.
Not that it mattered.
The fox had always been its true target. I had just been a convenient obstacle, a noisy decoy in the wrong place at the right time. Now that I was out of the way, the badger had no reason to hesitate.
