Dorian jogged to the perimeter but didn’t intervene. There were enough Illuminated now to handle standard Starspawn engagements. He would only step in if something truly dangerous appeared.

  Twelve Starspawn emerged from the tree line. The largest group yet.

  Thirteen Illuminated moved to meet them.

  Their weapons were forged from Starspawn remains. Jagged blades. Horns shaped into spears. Alien rebar hammered into shields.

  Captain Keller directed the engagement from the rear, voice sharp and unyielding. He had refused Illumination, unwilling to risk the hunger clouding his judgement, but his command presence never wavered.

  They moved with practiced precision.

  At Keller’s signal, micro-railgun teams opened fire. Crippling shots tore into limbs, staggering momentum and breaking charges. Before the Starspawn could recover, the Illuminated closed in.

  They fought in staggered formations, each covering the next. Their strikes landed in a relentless cadence that denied the creatures any chance to stabilize.

  One Illuminated remained in reserve, darting wherever Keller pointed, sealing gaps before they could form.

  Dorian watched from the edge, stunned.

  What he and Kesi had once called coordination had been instinct. Two people improvising under pressure, surviving by reaction alone.

  This was discipline.

  This was an army.

  The Starspawn were destroyed in less than two minutes.

  Tongs collected the Remnants for controlled distribution. Other remains were separated and cataloged for forging and research. Early tests showed that the glass-obsidian structures were as hard as diamond but far less brittle, capable of holding edges sharper than high-carbon steel. They resisted heat stubbornly, refusing to melt even under sustained torch exposure.

  More rarely, some Starspawn yielded metallic materials. Rebar-like growths. Heptagonal plates like the ones taken down by the first lieutenant earlier.

  These behaved strangely under stress. Soft and workable when shaped, but hardening instantly under impact, stronger than tungsten. When heated, they slowly repaired themselves, behaving like an advanced self-healing alloy.

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  Dorian watched the process unfold and understood one thing with growing certainty.

  This war was already changing how humanity fought.

  Meanwhile, the Gauntleted Fiend moved through the burning neighborhood like a living shadow.

  Its furnace-chest radiated a low, molten glow, warping the smoke and air around it into wavering heat-lines. Each step left faint scorch marks on the pavement. Beside it padded the spiny Fiend, gill-vents flaring in steady rhythm, like a bellows feeding the other’s forge.

  Seven lesser Starspawn followed behind them. They orbited, drifting and repositioning instinctively around their betters.

  The Gauntleted Fiend did not see the world as humans did.

  Its awareness reached outward through something deeper than sight. Presence. Essence. Souls burned to it like embers in a dark field. Most humans registered only faintly, weak sparks already guttering toward extinction.

  Two did not.

  Far away, but unmistakable, burned two flares of blinding intensity. Controlled. Focused. Wrong.

  Dorian. Kesi.

  Those lights lingered in the Fiend’s awareness, irritating in their persistence. Left unchecked, they would grow dangerous. The sensation stirred something primal in the Fiend’s core. No, not fear. But something, something like recognition.

  A metallic creak cut through the smoke.

  A car door.

  The Fiend turned toward a sedan crushed against a tree. Inside, a woman thrashed against her seatbelt, fingers fumbling at the latch.

  Her soul was dim. Fragile. Barely a spark.

  The Fiend crossed the distance in two strides.

  It tore the door away like foil. A gauntleted hand plunged through the frame and crushed her midsection effortlessly. Her scream was sharp and brief before the Fiend lifted her bodily and shoved her into the gaping furnace where its head should have been.

  There was little blood. No gore.

  Only the flare of incandescent light. The sound of something burning from the soul outward. Then silence.

  What remained collapsed in on itself like paper tossed into a fire. The furnace glowed a shade hotter.

  The Spiny Fiend reveled in what little it gained from being the subordinate to a soul-eating Fiend. It broke from its stupor and hastily exhaled a low heat-pulse. It wasn’t language, more of a shared sensation that rippled through the air.

  Something else approached.

  From the far end of the street, another presence emerged. The pavement trembled as it stepped into view.

  The newcomer moved slowly at first, deliberately, its lower body was equine but grotesquely elongated, six legs ending in hooked, scythe-like hooves that bit into asphalt with every step.

  Above that rose a narrow, elongated torso. Four mantis-like arms flared outward from its shoulders, each ending in jagged, glassy scythes. Two forward-curving horns crowned its head, their tips glowing faintly. From its flanks trailed two segmented whip-tails lined with barbed hooks that gouged deep furrows into the street.

  Where a human might raise hands, the Centaur Fiend extended all four scythe-arms in a slow, precise gesture.

  Simultaneously its soul-sense unfurled. It projected not submission, but openness. Acknowledging another apex presence.

  Five Starspawn emerged behind it, forming a loose crescent.

  The Gauntleted Fiend halted. Its furnace dimmed to a rolling ember. The Spiny Fiend shifted, spines rattling softly.

  A long moment passed.

  Heat flares. Subtle repositioning. Pulses of intent that were neither sound nor thought. Visible in the air as the pressure made the smoke dance.

  Then the Gauntleted Fiend decided.