The cathedral's vaulted ceiling, though cracked, provided shelter. They worked through pain and exhaustion to establish a defensible position. Brom used his earth magic to seal the main entrances with fused stone, leaving only murder holes and a single, narrow escape tunnel Lyra camouflaged with persistent illusions.
Lyra, despite her broken ribs, set up detection arrays using foxfire and scavenged ward-crystals, creating a spiritual tripwire perimeter. Kiran, his acid burns bandaged, spent hours placing Unstable Void-Mines at key approach vectors—spatial traps that would detonate with chaotic erasure.
Damien, his left arm still partly numb, focused on the prize: the Chimera's Core. It was a lump of swirling, unstable energies the size of his head, pulsing with beast-kin essence, spatial anomalies, and raw chaos. To consume it directly would be suicide. But his Glacial-Phoenix Constitution, now tinged with Abyssal hunger, saw it as a puzzle.
He didn't try to eat it whole. Using his Twilight Rend daggers with surgical precision, he began dissecting the core along its energy fault lines. He separated the pure beast-kin vitality, the useful spatial-attunement fragments, and the volatile chaos-energy, which he carefully sealed in a crystal vial—a potential weapon or catalyst.
The beast-kin vitality they split four ways, accelerating their healing. The spatial fragments Damien absorbed himself, further refining his Rime-Slip and spatial senses. His cultivation nudged to 4th Order, 2nd Rank (Solid).
Over three days, they healed enough to function, though not to peak condition. Lyra's ribs were knit but tender. Kiran's burns were scars. Brom's puncture wound was a shiny patch of new stone-flesh. Damien regained full feeling in his arm, but a lingering weakness remained.
On the fourth day, their perimeter alarms chimed. The Gilded Claw had arrived.
Through a crystal viewport Brom made, they watched. Five figures approached the city' edge cautiously. Vex, the leader, was a tall man with bestial features—feline eyes and sharp canines. He wore practical leathers adorned with trophy teeth and carried a whip that crackled with binding lightning. His aura was a solid 4th Order, 7th Rank, a full five sub-ranks above Damien.
His team:
· Gale, a wiry woman with wind-mana tattoos, a scout and harrier (4th Order, 3rd Rank).
· Stonefoot, a dwarf with a massive shield and a face like a grumpy boulder (4th Order, 4th Rank).
· Silent Maw, a hulking, mute brute whose mouth was sewn shut, radiating brute force (4th Order, 5th Rank).
· Weaver, a hooded figure whose fingers constantly moved, laying down subtle detection and trap-disarming spells (4th Order, 3rd Rank).
A professional, balanced team. Trackers, tank, brute, support.
"They'll probe first," Damien said, his storm-eyes tracking their movements. "Weaver will look for traps. Gale will scout. We need to make the first cost hurt."
Weaver did indeed begin unraveling Lyra's outer illusions. But Lyra had woven them in layers, with Kiran's void-mines nestled between. When Weaver dispelled the first layer, he triggered a mine.
A sphere of chaotic spatial erasure bloomed silently, swallowing the ground where he stood. Weaver screamed—a short, cut-off sound—as his legs were unmade from the knees down. He collapsed, writhing. The first blow was theirs.
But Vex didn't panic. He barked an order. Stonefoot planted his shield, creating a dome of earth-energy that protected the group from further surprises. Gale took to the air, swirling on wind currents, her eyes scanning.
"They know we're here now," Kiran said. "No more traps. They'll come hard."
Vex's voice, amplified by wind, echoed through the ruins. "Damian Black! Kiran Dracos! Surrender your weapons and submit to binding. The bounty is for alive, but we get paid for dead, too. Your choice."
Damien didn't answer. He looked at his team. "We can't win a straight fight. Vex alone could take two of us. We need to split them, isolate them in the city where our knowledge of the terrain and smaller team size is an advantage."
He laid out a plan. Risky, reliant on perfect timing and each of them surviving alone against stronger opponents.
They scattered just as Stonefoot shattered the cathedral's main sealed door with a concentrated earth-spike.
The Gilded Claw entered cautiously. They found only an empty chamber, the Chimera's dissected remains, and four different exits.
Vex smiled, a predator's grin. "They've split up. Foolish. Gale, track the witch-fox. Stonefoot, take the big one. Silent Maw, you get the void-brat. I'll handle the prize myself." He sniffed the air, his beast-kin senses locking onto the unique scent of frost and storm. "Black is mine."
The hunt within the broken city began.