"KEEP FIGHTING!" Diana roared, her voice cutting through the shock, through the grief, through the horror. "KEEP MOVING OR YOU'RE NEXT!"
The wolves sensed the shift in Don. Instinct older than reason told them he'd become more dangerous. Three converged on him at once.
Don moved faster than thought.
First wolf—knife through the eye socket, deep into brain. Dead.
Second wolf—sword across the throat, nearly decapitating it. Dead.
Third wolf—caught mid-leap, knife stabbing up through the soft tissue under its jaw, into brain. Dead.
He didn't stop. Didn't slow. Just kept killing, and the rage that had been hot became ice-cold calculation.
More wolves died. The forest floor grew slick with their black blood.
Don's injuries accumulated—claws across his chest, teeth in his thigh, his left arm broken at the wrist. His regeneration struggled to keep up, mana depleting, but he didn't stop.
Couldn't stop.
["Beautiful,"] Madness whispered. ["Absolutely beautiful. This is who you are, little seed. This is what you were always meant to become."]
Minutes stretched. The tide of wolves finally began to thin. Diana's team pressed forward, creating space, pushing back the corrupted mass.
Ashwood's magic blazed brighter, roots erupting in walls that penned the remaining wolves in, corralling them for slaughter.
And still Don fought, his body moving on pure instinct, weapons flashing, each strike ending a life.
The last wolf fell to Thorne's blades, its head rolling away from its body.
Silence crashed over the forest.
Heavy. Oppressive. Broken only by ragged breathing and the soft sounds of blood dripping onto dead leaves.
Don stood swaying, his body a map of injuries—arm broken, leg gashed deep, chest clawed, dozens of smaller wounds seeping blood. His weapons dissolved, his mana depleted past the point where he could maintain them.
Around him, the others stood in various states of injury. Thorne had a deep gash across his ribs. Sylva's spear arm hung wrong—dislocated shoulder. Ivy bled from claw marks down one leg. Rowan's shield was cracked beyond repair. Ashwood leaned heavily on his staff, breathing hard.
The survivors had fared worse.
Martha bled from a dozen wounds, her stolen sword trembling in her grip. Karn sat on the ground, his leg bent at an unnatural angle.
Aldric's robes were soaked with blood. Renna clutched a wounded arm to her chest. Gorath's knuckles were raw and bleeding. The Wraith's gray cloth was torn and stained black.
And Finn knelt beside Tam's body, sobbing quietly, his whole body shaking.
"We need to move," Diana said, her voice hoarse but still commanding. "More could be coming."
"We can't just leave him," Finn whispered.
Martha limped over, placed a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "We have to. I'm sorry. But we have to."
"The platform is close," the Wraith said quietly. "Ten minutes. Maybe less."
Diana nodded. "Then we move. Now. Carry the wounded if necessary. We don't stop until we're through that portal."
They gathered themselves—the living helping the injured, no one looking at Tam's body for longer than necessary because looking meant feeling, and feeling meant breaking.
Don limped forward, his leg healing slowly, bones grinding together in ways that made his vision gray.
They moved through the forest, leaving Tam behind, leaving a trail of blood and broken bodies in their wake.
And ahead—
A sound began.
Not howling. Not the wet breathing of corrupted wolves.
Deeper. Louder. A sound that vibrated in the chest and made the trees themselves seem to shudder.
From the shadows ahead, massive shadows cast by something far larger than wolves, yellow eyes appeared.
But not at wolf height.
Higher. Much higher.
And then it emerged into the dim light.
A moose.
It had been a moose once—massive herbivore, easily three meters tall at the shoulder, antlers spread wide enough to impale three men at once.
But the taint had claimed it utterly.
Its fur had fallen away in great patches, revealing skin that had turned black and cracked like charred wood. The cracks glowed with dull red light, as if fire burned beneath its flesh. Its antlers had grown twisted and wrong, covered in what looked like black thorns that dripped acidic saliva.
Its eyes—all four of them, because the taint had given it extra eyes that wept black tears—glowed with that terrible yellow-red hunger.
Black smoke poured from its nostrils with each breath, and when it opened its mouth, Don saw rows of teeth. Not herbivore teeth.
Just teeth. Hundreds of them, crammed into a mouth that had split open at the corners to accommodate them.
It stood directly in their path, blocking the way forward.
And behind it, barely visible through the trees—
A clearing.
And in that clearing, ancient stones arranged in a circle.
The platform.
So close. Impossibly close.
And absolutely unreachable.
The moose lowered its head, antlers pointing forward, and pawed at the ground. The earth cracked beneath its hoof.
Then it charged.
"SCATTER!" Diana roared.
The group exploded in every direction as the moose crashed through the space they'd occupied a heartbeat before. Its momentum carried it past them, antlers gouging deep furrows in tree trunks, black thorns leaving smoking wounds in the wood.
It skidded to a stop, claws—hooves transformed into something between the two—tearing up earth and roots. Then it turned, impossibly fast for something so massive, and charged again.
This time at Rowan.
The massive warrior braced, throwing away his broken shield and setting his feet. The moose hit him like a battering ram.
Rowan's boots carved trenches in the earth as he was driven backward, hands locked around those twisted antlers, muscles straining, veins standing out on his neck and forehead.
The moose's extra eyes tracked the others even as it pushed against Rowan. Its mouth opened wider—impossibly wider—and black smoke poured out.
"MOVE!" Ashwood shouted, his staff blazing.
Roots erupted from the ground, wrapping around the moose's legs, trying to hold it.
The moose screamed—a sound that had no right coming from any throat. The roots caught fire from the heat of its corrupted flesh, burning to ash in seconds.
It shook its head violently, sending Rowan flying. The warrior hit a tree trunk hard enough to crack it, then slid to the ground, gasping.
Thorne and Sylva attacked from both flanks.
Thorne's mirrored swords bit deep into the moose's flank—his real strike and its afterimage both cutting through blackened flesh. Black blood sprayed, hissing where it hit the ground.
Sylva's spear punched through its shoulder, the point emerging on the other side.
The moose didn't slow.
It spun—antlers whistling through the air in a deadly arc. Thorne ducked under. Sylva tried to pull her spear free but couldn't, had to release it or be caught by those thorned horns.
Ivy's arrows rained down. One, two, three, four—all finding eyes. The extra eyes burst like overripe fruit, black ichor running down the moose's face.
It screamed again, but didn't fall. Didn't even stagger.
Just turned toward Ivy's tree and charged.
Its antlers hit the trunk with the force of a siege weapon. The ancient tree cracked at the base, groaned, began to fall.
Ivy leaped clear, rolling as she hit the ground.
Diana moved in, her one good arm swinging her broken sword. The jagged blade caught the moose across the muzzle, opening a wound that wept black smoke.
The moose's head snapped toward her. One massive hoof came up and kicked.
Diana barely got her sword up in time. The impact sent her flying backward, the blade shattering completely, her body hitting the ground hard.
She didn't get up.
"PRINCESS!" Thorne's voice cracked with fear.
The moose advanced on Diana's prone form, preparing to crush her beneath its hooves.
Don moved without thinking.
His mana was low—dangerously low. His body was broken in a dozen places. But he moved anyway.
His right hand formed a knife. His left hand formed a short sword.
And he charged.
But even as he ran, he felt it—the difference in power. The moose was stronger. Faster. More dangerous than anything he'd faced.
He was going to lose.
["Not if you let me help,"] Madness whispered. ["Not if you trust me, little seed."]
Don's jaw clenched. No time for hesitation. No time for doubt.
"Source!" he shouted in his mind, not caring if anyone heard. "Distribute the points! Five to Agility! Five to Strength! Do it NOW!"
The response was immediate.
[DISTRIBUTING STATUS POINTS]
[AGILITY: 21 → 26]
[STRENGTH: 16 → 21]
[POINTS REMAINING: 0]
Power flooded his body. Not overwhelming, not transformation, just... more. His movements became sharper. His strikes would hit harder. The difference between life and death.
Don leaped, using a fallen log as a springboard, launching himself at the moose's exposed flank where Thorne had opened it.
His sword drove into the wound, sinking deep. His knife followed, punching through blackened flesh.
The moose bucked, trying to throw him off.
Don held on with his sword-hand, legs wrapping around the creature's barrel chest, knife stabbing again and again.
["Lower,"] Madness whispered, his voice eager, guiding. ["Four inches lower. The heart. There. THERE!"]
Don's knife found it.
Punched through corrupted muscle and into the organ that still somehow beat.
The moose's scream was different this time.
Pained. Desperate.
It thrashed wildly, slamming its body against trees, trying to crush Don against the trunks.
Don's ribs cracked. Then broke. Pain exploded through his chest. His grip on the sword loosened.
["Don't let go! Finish it! FINISH IT!"]
Don twisted the knife with everything he had, pulling it sideways, tearing through the heart in one savage motion.
The moose staggered.
Its legs buckled.
Don released his weapons, letting them dissolve as he fell with the creature, hitting the ground hard, his broken ribs screaming.
The moose collapsed beside him, its massive body crashing down like a felled tree. Its four eyes stared at nothing. Black smoke poured from its mouth one last time, then stopped.
Silence.
[ENEMIES SLAIN: TAINTED WOLVES ×68] [+340 XP]
[Current XP: 490/500]
[ENEMY SLAIN: TAINTED MOOSE (ALPHA)]
[+50 XP]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL 3 → LEVEL 4]
Don lay on his back, gasping, every breath agony. His mana was gone—completely depleted. His injuries weren't healing. Couldn't heal without energy.
And in the corner of his vision, that number changed.
[MADNESS: 18% → 19%]