The circling horde shrieked without sound.
Then they surged again.
Riven did not wait.
He charged.
Not defensive.
Not reactive.
He plunged straight into the ocean of bodies.
His fist collided with the first skull like a falling hammer. Bone shattered. He pivoted mid-stride, driving his knee upward into another ribcage hard enough to split it open. He did not stop moving.
Forward.
Always forward.
He tore through them like a blade dragged across fabric.
Bodies collapsed around him in waves of dust and fractured remains. He ducked under a claw swipe, twisted at the waist, and drove his elbow backward into a spine. It snapped with a dull crack.
Another leapt for his throat.
He caught it midair and slammed it head-first into the ground with such force the impact cratered the stone.
They kept coming.
Relentless.
Mindless.
Infinite.
The difference now?
They were stronger.
The next wave did not shatter as easily.
Their bones were denser. Their strikes heavier.
A claw raked across his ribs, drawing blood deeper than before.
He responded with a brutal cross to the jaw but instead of exploding into fragments, the creature staggered and lunged again.
Riven adjusted instantly.
More force.
Less hesitation.
He shifted his weight into every strike, planting his feet harder, rotating through his hips fully.
He began tearing limbs off instead of simply striking.
He began crushing throats rather than snapping necks.
Efficiency became brutality.
Seconds turned into minutes.
Minutes stretched into hours.
The battlefield transformed.
The ground was no longer visible.
It was layered in broken remains.
Riven's breathing deepened into a steady rhythm. inhale, strike, pivot, break, exhale.
The Forgotten evolved with him.
The stronger versions pushed through the weaker ranks.
Larger frames.
Thicker hides.
More coordinated lunges.
One massive distorted wolf barreled into him with the weight of a charging bull. They crashed through a column of stone. Riven rolled to his feet instantly and drove a straight punch into its sternum.
The impact reverberated up his arm.
The creature did not shatter.
It roared silently and slammed its head into his face.
Stars exploded in his vision.
He staggered
Then responded with three precise strikes: throat, temple, knee.
The creature collapsed.
More filled the gap.
They always filled the gap.
He leapt upward, landing on shoulders, running across backs, using their own bodies as terrain. Every landing crushed another skull beneath his heel.
He fought like a storm front fast, deliberate, merciless.
But there was no sky here.
No horizon.
Just endless gray bodies charging.
Hours passed.
His knuckles split open fully.
His skin tore in multiple places.
His thigh wound reopened.
His back bled freely.
He ignored all of it.
Pain became background static.
His body began adapting under constant load.
His bones felt denser.
His strikes heavier.
Each movement required slightly less effort than before.
They adapted too.
The next wave moved in tighter formations.
They grabbed.
Pulled.
Pinned.
Dozens piled on him at once.
He roared not with energy but with pure exertion.
Muscles bulged as he forced himself upward, lifting bodies off him like debris. He twisted violently, sending them flying outward.
He did not use Night Wolf energy.
He did not let Dark Lunar rise.
Base strength.
Only base.
Night fell.
If time even existed here.
The Catacombs did not shift light but his body felt the passage.
Fatigue crept in.
His punches slowed by fractions of a second.
That fraction cost him.
A jagged claw pierced through his shoulder.
He ripped free, tearing flesh wider.
Blood poured.
He pressed his palm into the attacker's skull and drove it backward into the ground until it collapsed.
He kept moving.
Minutes became hours.
Hours became something heavier.
His breath turned ragged.
His vision tunneled occasionally.
He shook it off.
Forward.
Always forward.
By what his body measured as the second day
He was fighting through instinct alone.
His strikes no longer thought out.
They flowed.
Predictive.
Precise.
He did not waste energy.
He did not overcommit.
He struck once where others would strike twice.
The stronger variants increased.
Some moved faster than him.
Some struck harder.
One landed a blow across his jaw that nearly knocked him unconscious.
He staggered
Caught himself
And headbutted it so hard both skulls cracked.
He did not fall.
He refused.
Third day.
His body screamed for rest.
His muscles trembled mid-strike.
His legs occasionally buckled.
He tore through wave after wave anyway.
The pile of broken remains rose like a mountain range behind him.
Still they came.
Still endless.
Fourth day.
His breathing sounded like gravel dragged across stone.
His arms felt like iron weights.
His fists were swollen and torn open.
But something had changed.
His movements were no longer slowing.
They were stabilizing.
Fatigue remained
But his body held together.
Muscles did not tear as easily.
Bones did not fracture under impact.
His base strength had grown.
Exponentially.
The last wave surged.
Stronger than the rest.
Massive distortions towering, malformed, barely wolf-shaped.
They charged together.
Riven inhaled deeply.
And ran straight at them.
Impact thundered across the field.
He tore through them with relentless precision.
Punch. Elbow. Knee. Spin. Break.
He climbed one giant's back and drove his fist into its skull repeatedly until it caved inward.
He leapt from falling bodies and landed in the center of three more.
A brutal flurry.
Stone cracked beneath his feet.
His roar echoed through the endless chamber.
And finally
The field fell silent.
No movement.
No charging.
No circling.
Just dust settling over mountains of shattered Forgotten.
Four days.
Nonstop.
Riven stood alone in the center.
Chest heaving.
Blood covering him like war paint.
Then
Fatigue arrived fully.
Not creeping.
Crushing.
His legs trembled violently.
His vision swayed.
His knees buckled.
He dropped hard onto both knees.
Cold sweat poured down his back.
His hands shook uncontrollably.
Every muscle in his body screamed.
His heart pounded unevenly.
He lowered his head.
Breathing.
Just breathing.
Then
The ground trembled.
At first faintly.
Then violently.
The mountains of remains began dissolving into the stone.
The battlefield reset.
Riven's eyes widened slightly.
No.
The tremor intensified.
From the horizon
Dark shapes formed.
Not thousands.
Not tens of thousands.
Millions.
An ocean.
The largest mob yet.
Distorted wolves in their zombified state, packed so tightly they looked like a shifting wall of flesh and bone.
They began moving forward.
All at once.
Riven stared.
Exhaustion clamped down on his chest.
Despair flickered brief but real.
Four days.
And it reset.
His body screamed at him to stay down.
To rest.
To stop.
His arms barely responded when he tried to lift them.
The mob drew closer.
The sound of millions of feet striking stone became deafening.
Riven closed his eyes for one second.
Just one.
Then he forced himself upright.
Slowly.
Painfully.
His legs shook violently as he stood.
His vision blurred.
He wiped blood from his eyes with the back of his hand.
The ocean of Forgotten was nearly upon him.
His body felt like it would collapse if he exhaled too hard.
He stepped forward anyway.
One foot.
Then the other.
He rolled his shoulders.
Raised his fists.
Extended one slightly ahead of the other.
Assumed his stance.
Breathing rough.
Exhausted beyond reason.
Facing annihilation.
But standing.
The wave closed in.
And Riven Thorn
Battered.
Bleeding.
Four days broken
Did not kneel.