Metal screamed on impact, and the sound told Izerael everything before the resistance finished traveling back through his arms.
The strike landed wrong. Not because of his angle or timing, but because the material refused to behave like anything meant to be cut. The edge bit, skidded, and protested, sending a sharp, final vibration up his wrist. Izerael adjusted immediately, rotating his grip and shifting his weight before the echo finished bouncing through the gate.
The stone under his boots gave way.
Water slicked the ground in uneven patches, thin enough to hide until it mattered. His right foot slid out, momentum pulling him sideways as gravity tried to finish the mistake. Izerael caught himself on the edge of a broken column, fingers locking around rough stone as his soles scraped for purchase. The correction burned through his calves and hips, and he absorbed it without slowing.
Balance held—not because the footing improved, but because he had learned how to stand where standing was never stable.
The air inside the gate tasted like rust and old rain. Every breath carried grit and something older, thick enough to cling to the back of his throat. This wasn't a place meant to be entered. It felt like pressure left behind after something had passed through and never fully let go, like a wound that resented being disturbed.
The thing in front of him moved low and steady.
It didn't rush. It didn't posture. It advanced the way something did when it had measured the distance and already decided the outcome. Its proportions were wrong in ways that mattered—too many joints compressed into a frame that suggested bulk without clumsiness. Each step landed with controlled intent, weight distributed evenly, balance never breaking despite the wet stone.
It's forearms were plated in layered bone, grown unevenly and thickened where blows usually landed. Not armor added after the fact, but growth shaped by repetition. The hands ended in hooked curves instead of fingers, designed to catch and pull rather than slash. Built for control. Built to end fights without spectacle.
It advanced like the ground belonged to it.
Izerael raised his left blade a fraction too late.
The timing spared his throat but cost him blood. One hooked curve clipped his arm and opened a shallow tear along the outer muscle. Pain arrived a heartbeat later, sharp and localized, followed by warmth as blood slicked his sleeve. Grip reliability dropped immediately. His hand didn't fail, but it protested, tendons tightening as if warning him what came next.
The creature didn't react to the strike or the blood. No excitement. No hesitation. It stepped forward again, confident in the math.
Behind Izerael, someone breathed too fast.
He registered the sound without turning. A young man pressed flat against cracked stone near the corridor wall, shoulders hunched, eyes locked on his own shaking hands as if waiting for them to become something else. Sweat ran down his face despite the cold air, lips moving as his thoughts spilled out loud and useless. He whispered fragments—plans, prayers, numbers that didn't connect.
The creature turned its head and chose him.
The decision was clean and immediate. The angle shifted. Weight redistributed. Target acquired.
Izerael moved before the choice finished settling.
Backing away would have opened space. Space meant momentum, and momentum meant the man behind him would die before Izerael could interfere. So he went forward instead.
His right-hand blade slid under the plated forearm, edge scraping dense resistance that threw sparks into the air. The sound changed—lower, duller—as the bone absorbed the strike without cracking. The feedback told him exactly how much force had been wasted.
The creature tightened in brief surprise, then shoved into him with crushing weight.
Izerael's breath tore free in short pulls as he braced. His legs burned as he redirected the pressure into his stance instead of letting it fold him. Stone ground under his boots as he gave ground by inches rather than steps.
The young man behind him broke.
He lunged toward a side corridor with half a run, half a turn, and no plan that accounted for reach. His foot slipped on wet stone. His balance vanished. The hook snapped out and caught the back of his knee.
The pull was precise.
The man's leg folded the wrong way. His body hit stone hard enough to crack teeth. The second strike ended everything else.
The sound stopped being human.
Izerael registered it without permission and kept his jaw tight and his eyes forward. The creature turned back to him without fear, acknowledging defiance the way something acknowledged resistance that would soon be removed.
He raised his left blade again despite the burning warning running through his forearm. His grip wavered. The delay cost him.
The hook came for his ribs.
Izerael stepped aside first. The hook missed his torso and slammed into his injured arm instead. Pain snapped through the joint, sharp enough to dip the blade and try to fold his body inward. Something deep protested as the muscle compressed under force not meant to be absorbed.
The creature pressed the advantage immediately.
Izerael drove his right blade forward in a straight line and aimed for the narrow gap where the bone plates overlapped. Resistance met the strike dense and engineered to absorb force, but he pushed anyway, shoulder rolling into the motion to add weight.
The creature lifted him just enough to steal his footing.
Gravity stopped helping. His boots left the stone by inches, then more. His center of mass shifted, balance compromised not by strength but by placement.
Izerael didn't struggle against the lift. Fighting it would waste energy he couldn't spare. He pulled his knees up and kicked into the hip joint once, then again, targeting where rotation had to occur.
The first impact jarred his leg. The second found a seam.
The creature's balance broke for a fraction of a second.
That fraction was enough.
Izerael landed hard and carved into the joint while it was exposed, driving the blade deeper as the creature made a rough sound that wasn't a scream. It swung wide in response, hook tearing through empty air as Izerael ducked under the arc.
The hook slammed into the column behind him and ripped stone free.
Dust exploded into the air. Shards bit into Izerael's cheek and shoulder as he surged forward through the debris, closing distance before the creature could reset. His left blade drove up under the plating at the armpit, edge finding softer resistance.
The creature tried to clamp down but, Izerael twisted hard instead.
The arm jerked and the hook spasmed as the creature's eyes changed, not with fear but with recalculation as pain entered the equation for the first time. It tried to step back, redistributing weight and searching for space, but Izerael was already inside the motion and denied it the distance it needed to recover.
Izerael's right blade slid across the throat line where connective cords pulsed instead of flesh. The cut wasn't deep, but it didn't need to be. The cords snapped under tension, and the body sagged as coordination failed.
The creature collapsed in pieces rather than all at once.
Izerael watched until the hands stopped moving. He drew a controlled breath through clenched teeth, then another. Blood still ran down his arm, the cut burning as his grip refused to feel reliable. The joint throbbed under the surface, deeper damage making itself known with each movement.
The gate didn't quiet.
Stone scraped deeper in the corridor beyond, heavy and deliberate. Something larger shifted its weight, testing the ground the way the first creature had, but slower. More confident.
Izerael stepped over the dead and adjusted his stance despite the protest screaming through his arm.
The pressure in the corridor deepened, heavy movement scraping stone with deliberate weight, and Izerael understood that this was not finished. The gate did not react, did not slow, did not acknowledge the blood on the ground or the body cooling at his feet. He stepped forward anyway, adjusting his stance despite the pain burning through his arm, because stopping had never been an option inside places like this.