The sun bleeds orange over the Blackfen Swamp. Heat hangs thick as wet cloth. Asül kneels in the shallows, his calloused hands parting reeds to reveal a Dusk Croaker—a frog-beast broad as a shield, its mottled hide glistening like oiled leather. Its throat pulses with a low, resonant croak that vibrates in the ribs. Behind him, Old Theron grumbles, stuffing another squirming catch into his hemp sack.
"Back in my day, these beasts hid deeper," Theron rasps, rubbing his crooked knee. "Now they flop at our feet like they're begging for the pot."
Asül doesn't answer. His fingers trace the scarred leather hilt of his father's dagger at his hip. The swamp is almost peaceful: dragonflies stitching patterns through the humid air, water striders skating across still pools, the chorus of Croakers a rhythmic thrum beneath it all. For a moment, it's just work. Harvest. Survival. The gnawing hole inside him quiets.
Theron hefts his sack. "Another few like that big brute you found, lad, and we feast for a week. Your master'll—"
The air *splits*.
Not a sound. A *pressure*. Like the swamp itself inhaled and choked.
Theron's sack hits the water. His eyes bulge, fixed on the treeline. Asül follows his gaze.
**Jarga** stands where shadow meets murk. Seven feet of knotted muscle sheathed in grey, scarred hide. Horns like twisted obsidian spearpoints curl back from a skull too angular, too sharp. Eyes like chips of cold flint scan them. No roar. No taunt. Just silent, predatory assessment. Old Theron makes a wet, gasping sound.
The demon moves.
One moment it's twenty paces away. The next, Theron is lifted off his feet, a massive hand clamped around his head. Asül's dagger is free, a sliver of dull steel against impossible bulk. He lunges, silent, aiming for the tendon behind Jarga's knee—a kill he's practiced ten thousand times.
Jarga doesn't dodge. He pivots. A backhand like a falling tree trunk catches Asül square in the chest. Air explodes from his lungs. He crashes into a stand of reeds, mud and brackish water filling his mouth. His ribs scream. He scrambles up, vision swimming.
The demon looks down at Theron, its expression unreadable stone. Its fingers tighten. A sickening, wet *crunch* cuts through the Croakers' song. Theron's body jerks once, then hangs limp. Jarga drops the corpse into the muck. It lands with a heavy splash.
Asül charges again. Father's voice is a drill sergeant in his skull: *Weak! Predictable! She died for this weakness!* He feints left, drives the dagger towards Jarga's kidney. The demon shifts—barely—and the blade skitters off rock-hard hide. A fist like a boulder slams into Asül's shoulder. He hears the joint pop, feels white-hot agony lance down his arm. He stumbles back, the dagger nearly slipping from numb fingers.
Jarga takes a single step forward, closing the distance. Its head tilts, a silent question in those flint-chip eyes. *Why struggle?*
The pain is fire. The shame is ice. Father's voice roars condemnation. He sees Kai's smirk, the hole blasted in his chest by the deities, the way he'd vanished laughing. He sees his mother's eyes, wide with terror, then going blank. *You failed her. You freeze. You fail.*
He raises the dagger for a desperate, doomed thrust. Jarga's hand snaps out, impossibly fast, closing around his wrist. Bones grind. Agony blinds him. He's lifted, dangling like a child's doll. The demon's other hand rises, claws aimed at his heart. Probability's favor. Inevitability.
*Let go, my storm.*
His mother's whisper, soft as swamp mist, cuts through the rage, the pain, the screaming ghost of his father.
He lets go.
Not of the fight. Of the fury. Of the iron grip on his own soul.
The dagger falls from his broken fingers, vanishing into the black water.
Silence. Profound. Absolute. The Dusk Croakers freeze mid-croak. Dragonflies hang suspended. Ripples on the water's surface become glass.
Asül moves.
There is no blur. No light. Only absence. He simply… *isn't* where Jarga holds him. He stands *beside* the demon, his good hand a rigid blade. He strikes Jarga's chest, just below the sternum. No flourish. No sound. Just contact.
He steps back.
Three seconds later:
The swamp erupts. A thunderclap of displaced air shatters the stillness. Water explodes upwards. Jarga's torso caves inwards like stomped parchment, a crater of shattered bone and ruptured muscle. The demon staggers, flint-chip eyes wide with impossible shock, then crumples forward into the mire.
The dagger lies hidden beneath the murk. Asül looks at his empty hand, then at the wind stirring the reeds where no wind blew a moment before. It carries no voice but its own.
Jarga lies face-down in the muck, the massive crater in his back steaming. For three heartbeats, there is only the choked silence of the swamp and the ringing in Asül's ears. Then, a wet, grating *crack* splits the air.
The demon's arm twitches. Another *crack*, like stone breaking under pressure. Jarga pushes himself up onto one elbow, black ichor bubbling from the ruin of his chest. Broken ribs jut through torn flesh like snapped branches. He twists his head, vertebrae realigning with a series of sickening pops, those flint-chip eyes locking onto Asül. Hateless. Calculating. He plants a massive hand in the mud, preparing to rise.
A whistle cuts through the humid air – sharp, urgent.
Twelve figures erupt from the treeline bordering the deeper swamp, moving with lethal silence. They wear dark, oiled leathers marked with a single silver eye – the insignia of the Demon Hunters of the Blackfen Chapter. Their arrival is a blur of drawn steel and focused intent.
A towering hunter, easily seven feet tall, hefts a massive mallet forged from dull, blue-tinged metal. Beside him, a woman with a shaved head levels a long-barreled flintlock pistol, its muzzle wide as a thumb. Another hunter uncoils heavy chains tipped with hooked barbs. Swords whisper from scabbards.
The leader – lean, scarred across one cheekbone – steps forward. He snaps his fingers once, a sharp *crack* echoing. Flame erupts around his clenched fist, not orange, but a fierce, unnatural white-blue.
Jarga freezes mid-rise. His eyes dart from the mallet to the flintlock, linger on the chained hooks, and finally fix on the burning fist. The flint chips seem to fracture. Survival overrides vengeance. With a guttural snarl, he throws himself backward into the deeper, ink-black water where the Dusk Croakers brood.
The splash isn't water. It's like liquid shadow exploding upward, thick and viscous, swallowing him whole before collapsing back with a heavy, sucking *thud*. Ripples spread, black and oily, then fade into the murk.
The fire-fist leader lowers his hand, the flames snuffing instantly into smoke. "Illusionist sign," he rasps, scanning the treeline, not the water. "Molik was tracked here hours ago. Vanished." His eyes sweep the scene: Theron's broken form, the churned mud, Asül standing rigid, cradling his shattered wrist. "You. What happened?"
Asül meets his gaze but doesn't speak. His throat is dust. His mother's whisper still echoes where his father's rage used to live.
Survivors from the harvest party stumble forward, voices trembling. "Monster! Came from nowhere! Crushed Theron's head! Attacked the quiet one!" They point at Jarga's fading splash zone, at Asül.
The hunters converge on the spot where Jarga vanished. They murmur, pointing at the unnatural slick of darkness still swirling on the surface, at the deep gouges in the mud. "Not Molik," the fire-fist growls. "Something else. Something strong."
He turns back to the survivors. "Three of ours stay. Guard the village edge. If it crawls out…" He nods to the mallet-bearer, the chain-wielder, and a third hunter with twin serrated daggers. They melt back into the reeds, becoming shadows.
The leader spares one last, unreadable glance at Asül's empty hand, then at the spot where the dagger vanished. "Move the dead. Burn the remains before sundown."
They leave as swiftly as they came, taking Theron's body wrapped in coarse canvas. The swamp exhales. The Dusk Croakers resume their hesitant song. The three hunters are invisible ghosts in the periphery.
Asül walks slowly to the edge of the ink-black pool. He stares down into the opaque water where Jarga sank, where his father's dagger lies. He kneels. Ignores the agony in his wrist. His good hand plunges into the cold, clinging dark.
His fingers close around scarred leather. He pulls the dagger free. Water, thick and black as demon blood, streams from the blade. He doesn't wipe it clean. He sheathes it. The weight at his hip is familiar. Heavy. But the voice inside it is silent.
The wind stirs the reeds again, carrying the low croak of a Dusk Croaker.