Rain hissed against the warped walls, running down root-veined plaster in rivulets. The tannery stank of rot and old leather, but all Kael could smell now was sap and blood.
Mara stood with her weight slightly forward, like she was half in a runner's stance. The bark plating along her arms flexed with each movement, and her hive eye pulsed in time with the roots on the walls.
The Hive Stalkers at her side crouched low, claws digging into the cobbles.
Hive Stalker — C-Rank (High), GP ~480 each.
"You shouldn't have come here," Mara said. Her voice was almost hers — almost — but the undertone was the hive's dry whisper.
"I could say the same," Kael replied.
Ryn shifted in the shadows behind him, loading a bolt. "Two Stalkers, one Mara," she murmured. "We should pull back."
"We can't," Kael said, low enough that only she heard. "If she's guarding the heart, we don't get another shot."
The Stalkers moved first — a blur of claws and jointed legs. Kael's Stonehide flared, plating his forearms as the first blow came down. The impact cracked stone under his boots, but the force bled harmlessly into the plating.
He pivoted, letting Iron Fang flow into his knife. The blade took on a faint metallic sheen, the edge so sharp it almost hissed through the air. He slashed across the Stalker's foreleg — bark, chitin, and bone parted in one clean cut.
The beast screeched, stumbling back.
[C-Rank (High) | GP: 880 + 10 = 890 ]
The second Stalker leapt for Ryn. She rolled, loosing a bolt that caught it in the jaw hinge. It only enraged the thing. Kael's Ember Lunge flared — heat roared through his veins, the world snapping into sharp clarity. In a heartbeat, he crossed the distance, driving his burning blade into the Stalker's thorax.
The smell of scorched sap and charred flesh filled the air. The beast spasmed once, then collapsed.
[C-Rank (High) | GP: 890 + 10 = 900 ]
Only Mara was left. She hadn't moved during the fight, just watched — assessing. Now she stepped forward, her boots cracking the cobbles where she put her weight.
Mara — B-Rank (Low), GP ~1,050 (Hive-Assimilated).
"You've grown," she said, tilting her head. The roots in her hive eye tightened, making the whole side of her face twitch. "But not enough."
Her first blow was open-handed, but it hit like a sledgehammer. Stonehide absorbed most of it, but Kael still staggered back a step.
"You could come with me," she said. "We could take the heart together."
"That's not you talking."
"Maybe it is," she said, and lunged.
She was faster than he remembered — not Ember Lunge fast, but close. Her strikes were a mix of martial precision and the hive's brutal efficiency. Bark plating turned his blade aside twice before Iron Fang bit deep enough to make her flinch.
Her counter was immediate — a sweeping kick that cracked the side of his shin through Stonehide.
She's holding back, a part of him realized. The hive's not using her to kill me. It's using her to stall.
Which meant the heart was close — maybe close enough for the hive to shift its defenses if this fight dragged.
Ryn's voice cut through. "Kael, the roots on the walls — they're retracting."
A trap closing.
Kael gritted his teeth, heat flaring again as he let Ember Lunge drive him forward. He aimed not for a kill, but for Mara's hive eye. The knife's burning tip sank into the root cluster; she screamed, jerking back hard enough to pull the blade from his hand.
For a heartbeat, her voice was only hers. "Kael… run…"
Then the roots pulsed again, and she slammed him into the wall.
The walls shuddered, roots thickening across them until the street felt like a vein closing around them. Hive Thralls poured from gaps in the buildings — six of them, D-Rank (High), GP ~140 each.
"Go!" Mara snarled — or maybe the hive did — and then she was gone, melting into the twisting alleys with a leap no normal human could make.
Kael retrieved his knife, Stonehide flaring just in time to take the first Thrall's claws on his forearm. He moved through them in a blur — Ember Lunge to close, Iron Fang to cut, Stonehide to weather the blows he couldn't avoid.
One down. Two. Three.
[C-Rank (High) | GP: 900 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 915 ]
The last Thrall lunged, mouth wide, and Kael caught it under the jaw with an upward slash. Its body twitched, then collapsed.
Ryn wiped a smear of sap from her cheek. "We're burning time."
Kael nodded, glancing down the alley where Mara had vanished. The urge to follow her gnawed at him, but so did the map's red circle.
"She's not the heart," he said finally. "We move."
But as they pushed deeper into the tannery, the roots underfoot pulsed with the same rhythm as Mara's hive eye. Whether she was the heart or not, the hive had bound her into its core defenses.
And that meant the choice to save or forsake her wasn't going away.