The rocky slopes of Calkyuk Ridge rise like broken teeth against the bruised twilight sky. The air hangs heavy, unnaturally still. No bird cries, no insect hum – just the crunch of gravel under boots and the tense rhythm of breathing. Asül walks near the middle of the column, his new leathers feeling stiff and alien, the tainted dagger cold against his thigh. The captain's descriptions of Shade Stride and Time Rip still echo in his skull, making his own flicker of Silent Step feel laughably small.
The ambush hits with the suddenness of a lightning strike.
One moment, barren silence. The next, shrieks rip through the dusk as twisted shapes erupt from fissures in the rock and drop from overhangs. **Skitter-Claws.** Dog-sized demons with carapaces like volcanic rock, six barbed limbs, and mouths full of needle-teeth. Fast. Dozens of them.
Chaos erupts. Hunters become blurs of motion. Asül sees the **Silent Step** in action – not just speed, but terrifying *precision*. Hunters flow between lunging claws, daggers finding chinks in rocky hides with surgical strikes. The archer nocks, draws, and looses three arrows in the time it takes Asül to draw his father's dagger. Each shaft finds an eye socket. The twin-blade wielder is a whirlwind of serrated steel, dismembering Skitter-Claws mid-leap.
Asül lunges at a demon scrabbling towards him. He tries to mimic the hunters' economy of motion, but his strike is wild, fueled by panic. The dagger skitters off thick carapace. The Skitter-Claw recoils, hisses, and springs. Asül barely dodges, stumbling back, the demon's barbed leg tearing a shallow gash across his reinforced jerkin. *Too slow. Too clumsy.* He sees another hunter nearby dispatch two demons in the time it takes him to fend off one. The gap between his raw potential and their honed skill is a chasm.
The tide turns against them. Too many demons. They are pressed back into a tightening circle.
"**Eyes on me!**" The captain's roar cuts through the din. He stands slightly apart, deliberately exposed, drawing the attention of a wave of Skitter-Claws surging towards the center. His hands move in sharp, precise arcs, tracing intricate patterns in the air that leave faint, glowing orange trails – a complex sequence of sigils forming a burning, interlocking circle before him. The air crackles, thick with ozone and gathering heat. Demons hiss, diverting from other targets, drawn to the concentration of power like moths to a lethal flame.
As the leading wave of Skitter-Claws leaps towards him, fangs bared, the captain snaps his fingers once.
***WHOOMF!***
Not just an explosion. A **contained sun**. A sphere of white-blue fire, hotter than any forge, erupts exactly where he stands, engulfing the leaping demons and a ten-foot radius around him. The sound is a physical blow, punching the air from Asül's lungs. The light is blinding.
Heat washes over Asül like a physical wall. Before he can flinch or raise an arm, the bald female hunter – **Lyra** – is *there*. She plants herself in front of him, her own body a shield. Her flintlock is holstered; instead, she crosses her vambraced forearms before her. Runes etched into the darkened steel flare with a cool, blue light, projecting a shimmering, translucent barrier just as the wave of searing heat and concussive force hits.
The shield buckles but holds, deflecting the worst of the blast. Asül feels the residual heat sting his exposed skin, sees the edges of Lyra's leathers singe, but they are unharmed. Behind the barrier, the Skitter-Claws caught in the blast are simply gone. Vaporized. Others at the edge are hurled back, carapaces cracked and smoking. A ring of scorched, glassy rock marks the blast zone. The captain stands unharmed at its center, smoke curling from his fists, his expression grimly satisfied.
Silence crashes back, broken only by the crackle of cooling stone and the whimpers of crippled demons quickly being dispatched by the hunters. The sudden absence of battle noise is jarring.
Asül stares, heart hammering against his ribs, the acrid smell of ozone and burnt demon thick in his nose. He watches the captain take a slow, deep breath, the glow fading from his hands. The sheer, terrifying power… it dwarfs even the speed tiers he's just learned about.
He pushes past Lyra, ignoring her muttered, "Stay back, rookie." He walks towards the captain, who surveys the scorched circle with a critical eye.
"That…" Asül begins, his voice rough. "That explosion. Does it… does it have ranks too? Like the Silent Step?"
The captain turns, a flicker of surprise, then something akin to weary amusement, crossing his scarred face. He wipes demonic soot from his hands onto his jerkin. "Everything has ranks, Asül," he says, a hint of a smile touching his lips. "Everything worth mastering. That?" He gestures at the glassed ground. "That was just **Ember Flash**. A spark. Barely strained the mana reserves." He meets Asül's wide eyes. "Took me ten years to cast it without immolating my own eyebrows. The *real* fires…" He lets the sentence hang, the implication of devastating, city-scouring infernos clear in the sudden intensity of his gaze. "...they take decades of burning."
He claps Asül lightly on his uninjured shoulder, the touch warm despite the lingering heat in the air. "Focus on mastering your step first, boy. One terrifying power at a time." He turns to address the regrouping hunters, leaving Asül staring at the smoldering crater, the concept of "Ember Flash" as a mere *spark* igniting a new kind of awe, and a fresh wave of daunting possibility, within him.