As Kuro gripped the hilt of his legendary sword, the fire still burning crimson along its blade, he called out without taking his eyes off the approaching threat. "Fenric."

  "Yes? What?" Fenric's voice was tight with tension.

  "You can handle the little ones, right?"

  Fenric wanted to object—wanted to say that they should fight together, that separating was madness. But he looked at Kuro's profile, saw the absolute determination etched into every line of his blood-splattered face, and simply nodded. "Got it. Don't die."

  "Not planning to."

  The Abyssal Queen came at them like an avalanche given flesh, her massive form bearing down with staggering momentum despite her wound. Behind her, the remaining male Hrungnir followed like a white tide of death. The ground shook with each of her footfalls, sending tremors through the snow.

  Kuro nodded to Fenric. Both warriors dashed in opposite directions—Kuro veering left, Fenric right—splitting their enemies' focus in a maneuver that was equal parts tactics and desperation.

  Kuro led the Queen away from Fenric, drawing her rage and attention entirely to himself. Meanwhile, Fenric curved around in a wide arc to deal with the male Hrungnirs that were attempting to flank them.

  As the wounded Queen rushed toward him, Kuro quickly realized they were both hampered by similar weaknesses. The Queen struggled with her infected wound, her movements occasionally jerky and uncoordinated. Kuro himself was fighting through his wounded leg, and the deep snow continued to hinder every step, every dodge, every attempt at gaining solid footing.

  He tried to melt the snow as he ran, dragging Mosvmora's flaming blade through the white powder, but it did little good as he had to focus most of his attention on evading the Queen's relentless pursuit. Each time he managed to create a small pathway of melted snow, she would force him to change direction, and he'd be back to struggling through waist-deep powder.

  His mind raced as he ran, trying to formulate a plan beyond simple survival. She's bigger, stronger, has longer reach. I'm faster—or would be without this damned snow. She's wounded, but so am I. She has the advantage of—

  The Queen closed the distance faster than he'd anticipated.

  Suddenly, she was right there, her massive head lowering, and one of her three tusks came stabbing toward him like a spear thrust from a giant. Kuro's eyes widened in surprise—he'd misjudged her speed.

  At the last possible instant, he brought Mosvmora up in a desperate block.

  The impact was catastrophic.

  CRAAAASH.

  The force of the Queen's charge met the magical resilience of the legendary blade, and the resulting collision sent shockwaves through Kuro's entire body. His arms vibrated so violently he thought his bones might shatter. His teeth clacked together hard enough to draw blood from his tongue. The world became a blur.

  Then he was flying.

  His body sailed backward through the air like a ragdoll, tumbling end over end before crashing into the snow with enough force to bury him completely. Suddenly, everything was cold and dark and suffocating.

  Kuro lay there, buried, and made the split-second decision to play dead. He went completely limp, controlling his breathing to shallow, barely perceptible movements. Through the snow above him, muffled and distant, he could hear the Queen shaking her massive head—probably clearing away the pain from ramming her tusk against an immovable object.

  Meanwhile, in the background, he could hear the sounds of Fenric's battle—snarls and screams and the wet sounds of claws rending flesh.

  The Queen, satisfied that her enemy was neutralized, began moving toward Kuro's buried form. Each step made the earth tremble. The vibrations traveled through the snow, through the ground, directly into Kuro's body.

  Closer. Closer.

  The tremors grew stronger, more rhythmic. She was coming for the kill.

  Kuro, still buried, felt the vibrations change—felt the earth shake in a different pattern as she prepared for her finishing blow. His eyes snapped open beneath the snow. In one explosive motion, he burst upward, gasping for air, snow flying in all directions.

  He emerged just in time to see the Queen's mouth descending toward him—her jaws open wide, revealing teeth like sword blades. She was going for a bite rather than a tusk strike, perhaps learning from their last exchange.

  Kuro threw himself to the left with every ounce of speed his wounded body could muster. The Queen's massive jaws snapped shut on empty air where he'd been a heartbeat before. Unable to stop her momentum, her entire head crashed into the snow where Kuro had been buried, sending up a massive plume of white powder that hung in the air like a snow-storm in miniature.

  Kuro rolled to his feet, his hand instinctively reaching for Mosvmora's familiar grip to strike.

  His fingers closed on nothing.

  Panic—cold and sharp—lanced through him. He looked down at his empty hand, then frantically scanned his surroundings. The sword was gone. In the impact, in the flight through the air, he'd lost his grip on it.

  The Queen lifted her massive head from the snow, and through the settling white powder, her eyes emerged—glowing red like hot coals, filled with hatred and pain and the promise of violence. Her three tusks—well, two and a half now—sticked out from the smoke of disturbed snow like the prow of some terrible ship.

  She stared at him. He stared back.

  Then Kuro spotted it—in the distance, behind the queen, Mosvmora stood embedded in the ground where it had landed. The flames along its blade still burned, melting the snow around it in a slow, expanding circle, as if the sword itself was waiting patiently for its master to return.

  The smoke from the Queen's crash landing began to fade, revealing her form up close. Even with only the limited lighting provided by his distant sword's flames, Kuro could see her somewhat now. She was even more massive than he'd thought, her muscles rippling beneath her white fur with each breath.

  Then the clouds above began to part.

  The full moon emerged like a benevolent witness to their battle, its light spilling across the snowfield in silver waves. The illumination came gradually, like a rising sun, transforming the battlefield from shadowy chaos into stark, beautiful clarity.

  In the moonlight, every detail became visible. The Queen's eyes, still piercing and hateful. The blood—both hers and Kuro's—staining the pristine snow. The bodies of fallen Hrungnir scattered across the field. And the Queen's horns, which Kuro could now see clearly for the first time.

  One of them was broken—more than half of it sheared off, leaving a jagged stump. Another old wound, another battle survived.

  How many fights has she won? Kuro wondered. How many challengers has she killed?

  He slid his hand through his hair, a habitual gesture, and noticed something else missing. His hat. He glanced around and spotted it lying in the snow several feet away, somehow relatively clean despite everything.

  "For a wounded pig," Kuro whispered, "you sure are relentless."

  He raised his right foot and pulled his knife from his boot—a much smaller weapon than Mosvmora, barely seven inches of blade, but sharp and reliable.

  "KUROOO!" A shout came from the distance. It was Fenric, his voice carrying across the battlefield, filled with worry and exhaustion.

  Kuro didn't look away from the Queen. He simply raised one hand in a gesture that clearly conveyed: I've got this. Focus on your fight.

  Fenric, still worried but trusting his partner's judgment, returned his attention to his own battle. He had to keep the remaining male Hrungnir at bay, preventing them from aiding their Queen. It was taking everything he had—his claws were slick with blood, his arms burned with exhaustion, and there were still a lot of the bastards circling him.

  The Queen, meanwhile, watched Kuro with those fierce, intelligent eyes. She didn't move. Neither did he. They studied each other like duelists waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

  Kuro began to walk forward through the snow, step by deliberate step. The pain in his leg throbbed with each movement, sending sharp spikes of agony up his spine, but he kept his face impassive. He kept his eyes locked on the Queen, never looking away, never showing weakness.

  As he walked, he picked up his hat. He dusted it off with his free hand, taking his time, and placed it back on his head at the proper angle. The whole time, the Queen just watched him, her massive head tilting slightly as if she were trying to understand this human who showed no fear.

  What is this creature? she seemed to be thinking. Why doesn't it run? Why doesn't it beg?

  Kuro kept walking until he reached a section where the thick snow layers had been broken up by their earlier fighting. His boots touched solid ground—the pathway the Queen herself had created during her charge. It was perhaps ten feet of relatively clear terrain, a small arena within the larger battlefield.

  He stopped there and took a deep breath, feeling the cold air fill his lungs. "Taking a breather, are we? That wound must really hurt, ah?" he said conversationally, as if they were discussing the weather rather than preparing for a fight to the death.

  Then he raised his knife and pointed it directly at the Queen, his meaning unmistakable: Come.

  The Queen's eyes blazed. Her nostrils flared. A low, rumbling growl built in her chest—a sound like distant thunder.

  She began pawing at the ground with her good foreleg, the gesture both threatening and visceral. Snow and frozen earth flew backward with each strike. Then, with a final roar that shook the very air, she charged.

  Full speed. All her remaining strength and rage focused into one devastating assault.

  Kuro stood there, still and calm, his eyes tracking every detail of her approach. He was analyzing—watching how she moved, which leg she favored, how she held her head. Where will she attack? The tusks? That bloody mouth with its sword-like teeth? Or the horns?

  The Queen closed the distance with terrifying speed. Thirty feet. Twenty. Ten.

  Then she made a subtle shift in her posture—a tilting of her massive head, a tensing of her neck muscles—and Kuro's eyes caught it.

  The horn. She's going for the horn strike.

  "Good," he whispered.

  The Queen closed the final gap in a blur of white fur and moonlight, bringing her forked horn to bear like a massive trident. The jagged point came crashing down toward Kuro with enough force to pulverize stone.

  BOOM.

  The horn struck the ground where Kuro had been standing, sending up an explosion of frozen earth and snow. The impact was so powerful it created a small crater, and the sound echoed across the battlefield like a thunderclap.

  But Kuro wasn't there.

  At the very last instant, with minimal movement—just a few precise steps—he had sidestepped the attack close enough that he felt the displaced air ruffle his clothes. As the Queen's head came down and her eyes met his, he saw confusion and rage flash across her face.

  Then he moved.

  Using the embedded horn as a ladder, Kuro jumped and grabbed hold of the rough surface, his fingers finding purchase in the cracks and gouges left by previous battles. The Queen immediately understood what he was doing and tried to lift her head, to shake him off, but Kuro was already climbing with desperate speed.

  He reached the base of her horn, then pulled himself up onto the back of her massive neck.

  The Queen pulled her horn free from the ground with a roar and began thrashing—jerking her head left and right, bucking and twisting in an attempt to dislodge this pest that dared to ride her. But Kuro gripped tightly, pressing himself flat against her fur, and began his attack.

  He raised his knife and started slashing.

  Again and again, he drove the blade down into her back, targeting the thick muscles along her spine. Blood began to flow—not spurting, but seeping steadily from dozens of small wounds. The Queen screamed in terror and pain, a sound that was somehow more disturbing than her roars of rage.

  But the knife wasn't big enough. The blade was only seven inches long, and the Queen's hide was thick, her muscles dense and powerful. He was hurting her, yes, but not seriously wounding her. Not enough to stop her.

  Damn it!

  As the Queen struggled to throw him off, desperately seeking some way to reach this enemy on her back, she made a decision. She reared up on her hind legs, lifting her forelegs off the ground, rising up like a monument of death. Then she prepared to fall backward—to crush Kuro beneath her massive weight.

  Kuro saw the shift in her weight. If she landed on him, he would be flattened instantly.

  "You crazy bitch!" he shouted, unable to suppress a wild grin despite the danger.

  At the last possible moment, he jumped.

  He pushed off her back with all his strength, launching himself away from her falling form. He flew through the air, tumbling, and had just enough time to think: This will give me time to get my sword. Just need to land, roll, sprint to Mosvmora—

  Then he hit the ground, and he felt something wrong.

  The Queen hadn't fallen backward.

  At the very last instant, she had changed tactics. Instead of falling, she stood straight turning her terrifying head to look back at Kuro. Her eyes found him something like triumph flashed in those red orbs.

  Kuro's pupils blown wide as he realized his mistake. Something wrapped around him something strong and flexible and crushing.

  The tail.

  He'd forgotten about her serpentine-like tail. It had whipped around and caught him like a fly in a web. The thick, muscular appendage coiled around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides, squeezing the air from his lungs.

  "Shiiiittt!" he screamed.

  He managed to work one hand free enough to lift his knife, intending to stab the tail wrapped around him. But before he could strike, the Queen completed her motion.

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  She swung her tail like a whip.

  Kuro was swung around the air with tremendous force, still wrapped in her tail's grip, flying backward across the battlefield. At the apex of the swing, she released him.

  He sailed through the air—twenty feet, thirty, forty—a projectile of flesh and bone and desperation. Then he crashed into the tree line at the edge of the clearing, deep into the woods.

  The impact was catastrophic.

  Kuro smashed through branches, bark exploding around him, wood splintering. He hit the trunk of a large tree directly with his back, and the crack that echoed wasn't just from the wood. Then he fell, tumbling through more branches, each impact another sledgehammer blow to his already battered body, before finally hitting the forest floor in a heap of broken wood and scattered snow.

  Silence.

  Fenric heard the crash—a terrible sound of destruction that carried even over his own desperate battle. His head whipped around, his enhanced eyes scanning left, right, searching for any sign of his partner.

  Nothing. Kuro wasn't visible. Even with his superior canine vision, Fenric couldn't spot him in the darkness of the woods.

  "Partner!" he shouted, his voice cracking with fear. "PARTNER!"

  One of the male Hrungnir, sensing his distraction, lunged forward and bit down hard on his forearm. Fangs punctured flesh, grinding against bone. Fenric let out a scream of pain and rage.

  He snapped back to his immediate situation, realizing his mistake. Focus. Can't help Kuro if I'm dead.

  "It's okay," he muttered to himself, even as he grabbed the Hrungnir by the scruff of its neck and tore it away from his bleeding arm. "Everything's alright. Trust him. He's alive. He's... alive."

  He had to believe that. Had to.

  Fenric resumed his fight with renewed desperation, pulling the beast away from his wounded hand, blood seeping between his fingers. "Fucking bitches!" he snarled. Only a few of the males were left now—maybe six at most. They began to circle him, sensing his weakness, preparing for a coordinated attack.

  He dropped back into his fighting stance, claws extended and dripping. "Come on then. Who's next?"

  The Queen, meanwhile, had turned her attention to the woods where Kuro had disappeared. She peered into the darkness, her head lowering, her nostrils flaring as she tried to catch his scent. She sniffed deeply, testing the air.

  Then she threw back her head and let out a scream—not of rage this time, but of victory. A triumphant roar that declared to the world that she had won, that her enemy was dead.

  Deep in the woods, cloaked in shadows and broken branches, Kuro lay motionless.

  He was on his back, face turned toward the moonlight that filtered weakly through the canopy. Blood flowed from a gash on his head, running down his temple, pooling in his ear. His chest didn't rise or fall. His eyes were closed. His skin was pale—too pale.

  He looked dead. Perhaps he was.

  Suddenly, his body convulsed, and he turned his head to the side, vomiting blood all over himself. The warm liquid steamed in the cold air.

  He tried to open his eyes, but only a sliver of light broke through. His vision was blurry, unfocused, showing him nothing but vague shapes and shadows. He tried to move—tried to lift his arms, his legs, anything—but his body refused to obey.

  Nothing worked. He was injured with several broken bones and ribs.

  "Ha... haha... ha..." A slight, sick laugh escaped his lips, the sound more disturbing than any scream.

  That's it, huh? he thought, his internal voice weak and distant. I'm going to die after all. After everything I've been through, all that boasting about how I could do it... ha. Look at me. I didn't stand a chance at all.

  The moonlight seemed to dim. Or perhaps it was his vision failing.

  Well, it's a good way to go, I suppose. Dying in battle. Yes... what more could I ask for? Every soldier's dream, right? To die fighting something worthy.

  His eyes began to close. He tried to blink, to keep them open, but the darkness was so inviting. So peaceful.

  But... I should have accomplished something. Should have won something. To bask in this 'glorious death,' I should have at least killed that pig. Maybe... maybe I'll go back to my world if I die. Maybe this was all just a dream, and dying here will wake me up...

  His voice, even in his own mind, was growing slower. Weaker. More distant.

  His eyes drifted shut.

  His breathing began to slow, each breath shallower than the last. His heartbeat, which had been racing moments before, began to fade—growing quieter, slower, like a clock winding down.

  Deep silence settled over the woods.

  He was losing consciousness, slipping away into the dark, and it felt... almost peaceful.

  Then, cutting through his fading awareness, his approaching void, a rough voice echoed in his mind—sharp, mocking, filled with contempt:

  "THAT'S IT?"

  Kuro's eyes snapped open—truly open. He blinked frantically, suddenly and completely aware.

  Huh?...

  What... what am I thinking? The thought was clear now, sharp and angry. What's so glorious about death? Death is just death. There's no glory for losers. Only victors write the histories, only winners get to claim something.

  But the question is...

  He tried to move, shaking his boots, tilting his head, forcing his battered body to respond. Every muscle screamed in protest. Every nerve ending reported damage, pain, wrongness. But he pushed through it.

  The question is: do I want to live or not?

  He groaned—a deep, primal sound of effort and pain—and pulled himself up to a sitting position. It took everything he had. Every ounce of will, every fragment of strength, every desperate thought focused on the singular goal of moving.

  And I want to live, he concluded, Or die killing that pig.

  As he forced himself upright, his surroundings came into sharper focus. The woods around him were on fire. The flames had started where he'd crashed—whether from friction or from some spark catching dry wood, he didn't know. But the fire had spread, catching the trees, growing rapidly into a proper conflagration.

  His eyes widened as he basked in the warmth, the orange light making his blood-covered face look almost demonic. In the firelight, his pale eyes seemed to glow with an inner light—or perhaps it was just reflection. It was hard to tell. He looked like he was standing at the gates of hell itself.

  Then he looked down at his hand and gasped.

  Mosvmora was there. Gripped tightly in his fingers. The blade still burned with that unnatural crimson flame, the fire showing no sign of diminishing despite having no apparent fuel source.

  When... when did I grab this?

  He tried to remember. The Queen had thrown him. He'd been flying through the air. The trees had been rushing toward him. And somewhere in that chaos, in that moment of impact and pain and fragmentation, he must have seen the sword embedded in the ground below, must have reached out, must have grabbed it as he passed.

  He didn't remember doing it. But somehow, impossibly, he had.

  He wondered briefly at the flame on the blade—wondered why it still burned, what sustained it. "Did the fire keep burning even when I crashed?" he muttered, confused. "How?"

  Then he shrugged. It didn't matter. Not now. He could puzzle out the mysteries of his sword later, when he wasn't bleeding from a dozen wounds and facing an Abyssal Queen.

  With jagged, unsteady movements, Kuro stood up. The world swam around him. His vision doubled, then corrected itself. His leg—the one that had been wounded earlier—was completely numb now. He couldn't feel it at all, which was probably both good and bad.

  He took a step forward. Then another. Each one more steady than the last.

  Behind him, the forest burned.

  The Queen, having turned her attention back to Fenric, was eyeing the half-beast with anger. She had noticed that her mates' numbers had shrunk to a mere six.

  A slow, thunderous rumble built in her throat—a sound of fury and resolve.

  Fenric felt a powerful surge of bloodlust wash over him, which he perceived as a physical sensation. He turned to look back, his expression ominous.

  She was staring at him with undisguised hatred and hunger. Long, silver strings of saliva stretched and snapped as she opened her massive mouth, revealing those sword-like teeth.

  Fenric's stomach turned. Cold shivers ran down his spine, making every hair on his body stand on end. He started to shake—not from cold, but from primal, instinctive fear. His face broke out in sweat despite the freezing temperature.

  The Queen began to walk toward him with unyielding menace, each step deliberate and final.

  "Shiiittt," Fenric whispered to himself, his voice barely audible. "What's that? What was that feeling? Where is it coming from?"

  He'd felt fear before. Many times. But this was different. This was the fear a rabbit feels when it sees the hawk's shadow. The fear a deer feels when it hears the wolf's howl.

  The queen stared intensely at the fidgeting Fenric, trying to steel himself, trying to find courage—

  Then she realized something was wrong.

  His terrified gaze wasn't actually fixed on the Queen. It had drifted past her, toward the woods behind her, where a column of smoke was rising into the night sky.

  The Queen, noticing his distraction, stopped. She turned to look where Fenric was staring.

  The forest had caught fire. The flames were spreading rapidly, catching like waves, moving from tree to tree with hungry enthusiasm. The woods looked like a sea of fire, the orange and red flames painting the night in hellish colors. The heat could be felt even from this distance, pushing back the cold, making the snow around the burning trees hiss and steam.

  Both the Queen and Fenric stared, transfixed by the sight.

  Then a shadow figure emerged from the flames.

  Fenric squinted, his enhanced eyes trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The figure walked through the fire as if it were nothing more than a curtain, as if the flames parted for him rather than burned him.

  Fenric gasped.

  It was Kuro emerging, like a devil coming from hell.

  His hat was still on his head. His face was covered in blood—from the head wound, from vomited blood, from who knows what else. It created a grotesque mask that made him look barely human. In his hand, Mosvmora burned with that impossible crimson flame, the fire seeming brighter now, angrier.

  He walked with surprising ease despite his injuries. It was as if he'd simply decided that pain was irrelevant, that damage was a suggestion rather than a limitation. He moved step by step through the snow, his eyes locked on the Queen, never wavering.

  The male Hrungnir around Fenric suddenly panicked. They started to sprint away from him—not in organized retreat, but in outright terror. They ran toward the dark woods in different directions, their survival instincts finally overriding their loyalty to their Queen.

  They had seen something in Kuro's approach, in his blood-covered face and burning sword and inexorable advance, that triggered every predator's deepest fear: There is something more dangerous than me here.

  The Queen's eyes fixed on Kuro. Her gaze was complex—fury, yes, but mixed with something else. Something she probably hadn't felt in years.

  She fidgeted, shifting her weight from one leg to another, taking a step forward and then backward, unable to decide whether to charge or flee.

  Kuro walked with steady, mechanical precision. He was seriously injured—there was no question about that. By all rights, he should be dead or dying in those woods. But somehow, impossibly, he didn't seem to feel any pain whatsoever. Or perhaps he felt it all and simply didn't care.

  He moved step by step, staring down the Queen, and he saw it clearly for the first time: emotion in those bestial eyes.

  Fear.

  A smirk crossed his blood-covered face, making him look absolutely demonic in the firelight. "That's more like it," he said, his voice carrying across the battlefield.

  Then he picked up momentum. His walk became a jog. The jog became a run. He held his burning blade straight out beside him, parallel to the ground, the flames leaving a trail in the air behind him as he charged.

  The Abyssal Queen, facing this terrifying figure emerging from literal hellfire, made her decision. She was a queen. She had never fled from a challenge in her life. She would not start now.

  She would not back down.

  Her white fur glistened in the moonlight as she charged to meet him, her remaining strength focused into one final, desperate assault. If she was going to die, she would at least take this demon with her.

  As they both charged toward each other, the moonlight painting them in silver and the fire behind Kuro painting him in gold, the battlefield seemed to hold its breath.

  Then Kuro did something unexpected.

  Mid-charge, without breaking stride, he tossed his knife into the air. The small blade spun end over end. Then, with perfect timing and pinpoint accuracy, Kuro swung Mosvmora like a bat and struck the knife with the flat of the blade.

  CLANK.

  The knife rocketed forward with tremendous force. It tore through the falling snow, creating a visible wake in the air, and struck the Queen's left foreleg—the already wounded one—with crushing impact.

  The blade pierced through fur, through muscle, through bone, embedding itself completely.

  Blood sprayed. The Queen's leg buckled. She crashed sideways with a scream of pain, her charge disrupted, but her momentum kept her moving forward. She staggered, limping now on three legs, trying desperately to keep up her speed despite the agony.

  Kuro closed the final gap, his eyes cold and focused. The Queen, in her pain and desperation, showed an opening—her head was low, her neck exposed.

  He swung Mosvmora toward her head, aiming for a killing blow.

  But even in agony, even crippled, the Queen's instincts were perfect. At the absolute last moment, she tilted her head aside.

  The burning blade caught her right tusk instead of her skull—the longest of the three, the one she'd used to block Kuro's first strike—and Mosvmora, sliced clean through the massive piece of bone as if it were soft wood.

  The severed tusk flew through the air and crashed into the snow twenty feet away. The Queen, her balance now completely disrupted by the sudden loss of weight on one side of her head, crashed sideways into the snow.

  For a moment, they were both still.

  Then the Queen groaned—a sound of pain and fear mixed together—and struggled to get up, her movements staggering and uncoordinated.

  Kuro stood, raised his burning sword, and walked toward the fallen beast. His expression was almost peaceful now, as if some internal struggle had been resolved.

  The Queen managed to get her legs under her, but barely. She stood trembling, her body a map of wounds—the recent scar on her side, the knife in her leg, the severed tusk, the numerous slashes on her back.

  She opened her mouth and screamed one last time—but this wasn't a battle cry or a threat. It was a call.

  "What?" Kuro paused, head tilting slightly. "Trying to scare me?" Then understanding crossed his face. "No... are you calling your husband's?"

  He smirked, the expression somehow both cruel and almost admiring. "Too bad they're dead. Do you miss them? Ah, I can be generous. Let me show you the way, to hell."

  He charged toward the Queen, but not directly. He began circling her, moving laterally, forcing her to turn to track him. The beast tried to keep up, tried to face him, but with her wounded leg she couldn't move quickly enough.

  In a flash, Kuro got behind her. The Queen, remembering her earlier success, used her tail to attack again—that same whip-like strike that had worked so well before.

  "Idiot," Kuro said, a genuine smile on his face. "That's what I was aiming for."

  He dodged the incoming tail as it traveled like a whip toward him, side-stepping, ducking, weaving through each strike with increasing ease. He'd seen this attack before. He knew its timing now. And when the tail came for him one final time, he didn't dodge.

  He swung.

  Mosvmora's burning blade caught the tail mid-strike and severed it cleanly. The end fell to the ground, still twitching, and immediately began to burn from the fire that clung to it.

  The Queen's scream was unmistakable—pure agony, the sound of something that finally understood it was going to die.

  Fenric stood in the distance, watching the entire sequence unfold. His mouth hung open in shock.

  "It looks like I'm not needed there," he muttered to himself. "I can't believe this. He's toying with an Abyssal beast. The Queen of the Hrungnir."

  He watched, unable to look away, as Kuro systematically dismantled the Queen. First circling to cut her mobility. Then severing her tail to remove her best weapon. Now moving in for—

  Kuro swung horizontally, and the Queen's remaining good foreleg was sliced clean through at the knee. She collapsed forward, her front end slamming into the snow.

  "Ha... haaha..." Fenric laughed, the sound slightly hysterical. He was witnessing something that shouldn't be possible. A human—a D-rank human—was defeating an Abyssal Queen in single combat.

  The Queen lay there, staggering, caught between the instinct to escape and the desire to fight. But there was nowhere to escape to. Her body wouldn't obey. She was finished, and some part of her ancient mind knew it.

  Kuro approached slowly, limping now himself, the adrenaline finally wearing off enough for him to feel some of his injuries again. He stopped a few feet from her head and looked down at her with something approaching respect.

  "Even now, you're stronger. Way stronger than me," he said quietly. "But once fear settled in your eyes, everything was over, pig." He paused. "Not gonna lie—of all the battles I've had, you take the crown. Too bad you're going to die now."

  He raised Mosvmora one final time, the flames along the blade burning brighter than ever, as if the sword itself recognized this was the killing blow.

  "After all, I'm hungry as hell," he added with a slight smile. "See you in hell."

  He ran—faster than should have been possible given his injuries—so fast it looked like he'd teleported directly in front of her face. Then he swung.

  Straight down.

  The strike looked like a meteor falling from the heavens.

  Mosvmora descended in a perfect arc, the crimson flames trailing behind it, painting a line of fire across the night sky. The blade met the Queen's skull directly between her eyes, and for a single frozen moment, everything seemed to stop.

  Then the sword cleaved through.

  The cut was surgical, precise, terrible. Mosvmora split the Queen's face open down the middle with a sound like tearing canvas magnified a thousand times. Blood erupted like a volcano—a geyser of crimson that sprayed upward in a fountain before raining back down across the snow, across Kuro, across everything within a ten-foot radius.

  The Queen's body shuddered once—a final, violent convulsion—and then fell with a thunderous THUD that shook the earth. The impact sent up a wave of snow and frozen blood that spread outward in a ring.

  Her eyes, those terrible red eyes that had glowed with such hatred and intelligence, faded. The light went out of them like candles being snuffed, leaving behind only dull, glassy orbs that reflected nothing but moonlight.

  She was gone.

  Kuro stood there for a long moment, still gripping Mosvmora, watching as the last breath escaped from the Queen's ruined face. The flames along his sword flickered once, twice, and then vanished entirely, leaving only a thin trail of smoke that rose lazily into the cold air.

  The sudden absence of the fire made the night seem darker, colder, more final.

  Kuro stood motionless, processing what had just happened. The battle was over. He had won. He contemplated his victory.

  Then the exhaustion hit him all at once—like a dam breaking, like the weight of everything crashing down simultaneously. His legs went weak. His vision swam. The adrenaline that had been keeping him upright, keeping him moving, keeping him fighting, finally abandoned him.

  Mosvmora slipped from his fingers. The legendary blade fell straight down, embedding itself point-first in the earth with a soft chunk, standing upright like a grave marker.

  Kuro's knees buckled. He fell backward, landing flat on his back in the blood-soaked snow. He lay there, staring up at the sky, at the moon and stars visible through the thinning clouds, at the smoke from the burning forest drifting across his vision like ghosts.

  He stared at nothing and everything, his mind blank, his body finally registering just how badly he'd been hurt.

  "Kuro!" Fenric's voice cut through the haze, distant at first, then rapidly getting closer. "KURO!"

  Fenric came running, his claws retracting as he moved, his features slowly returning to their more human appearance. He dropped to his knees beside Kuro, his hands immediately going to check for a pulse, to assess the damage, to do something.

  "Come on, partner! Wake up! Don't you dare die on me now! Not after all that! Kuro!"

  Kuro's eyes were open, but they weren't focused on anything. He was breathing—shallow, rapid breaths that fogged in the cold air—but he wasn't responding. He was conscious, technically, but somewhere far away in his own mind.

  Fenric grabbed his shoulders and shook him gently, then more frantically when he didn't respond. "Damn it, don't do this! We won! You hear me? We won! You killed an Abyssal Queen! Do you know how insane that is?!"

  But Kuro just continued staring at the sky, his expression oddly peaceful despite the blood and dirt covering his face.

  If one were to zoom out from the battlefield, to see it from above as a bird might, the scene would appear almost artistic in its brutality.

  The once pristine snowfield had been transformed into a crimson lake, the white powder stained so thoroughly with blood that it looked like someone had spilled red paint across a canvas. Bodies of Hrungnir lay scattered everywhere—some burned, some torn apart.

  Behind them, the forest burned. The flames had spread considerably now, consuming tree after tree, creating a wall of fire that cast dancing orange light across the entire battlefield. The heat from the blaze was slowly melting more of the snow, creating streams of pink water that ran through the carnage like veins.