So Christ decided to run.

  He didn’t pick a direction so much as he fled — angling away from where he thought the Gutter March probably was, trusting instinct over geography. The forest closed around him almost immediately, branches knitting together overhead, light thinning into fractured shafts that slid across the ground and vanished just as quickly.

  It was beautiful.

  That almost made him angry.

  At times like this, Christ thought distantly, he really wished he were one of those clouds.

  Just floating.

  No weight.

  No screaming muscles.

  No man-eating monsters stomping through the forest behind him.

  No homicidal city lords trying to sell him by the headcount.

  Just a soft, white nothing drifting wherever the wind felt like taking it.

  He huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh.

  Then the ground shook.

  Not a tremor — a statement.

  Christ stumbled, barely keeping his footing as the earth thudded beneath him. Leaves jumped. Dust lifted in a shallow wave from the forest floor.

  He didn’t look back at first.

  He didn’t want to.

  The sound came again.

  THOOM.

  Trees rustled violently. Something large slammed into something else, followed by the wet crack of splitting wood.

  Christ’s humor died instantly.

  He risked a glance over his shoulder.

  At first, he couldn’t see it — just chaos. Shrubs crushed flat. Saplings bending, then snapping like brittle toys. A tree moved sideways, its roots tearing free of the earth as if something had simply decided it didn’t belong there anymore.

  Then the shape resolved.

  “Oh,” Christ breathed.

  The thing wasn’t fast.

  It didn’t need to be.

  It lumbered forward with terrifying inevitability, each step crushing undergrowth into pulp. Its bulk forced a path through the forest rather than following one, shouldering trees aside, ripping them free when they resisted too much.

  It was massive.

  House-sized, at least — and not in the vague way people exaggerated danger. It had the presence of a structure, the kind that dominated space simply by existing in it.

  Plates covered its body.

  Not armor exactly — not forged — but something grown, layered, overlapping like warped metal fused with stone. Dull greys and scorched blacks caught the light unevenly, as if the surface had been burned and cooled again and again.

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  When it breathed, the air around its maw shimmered.

  Plants near its mouth wilted as it exhaled, leaves crisping and curling inward, stems blackening at the edges. Heat rolled off it in waves, pressing against Christ’s skin even at a distance.

  Its head was wrong.

  Too large.

  Too blunt.

  A heavy skull crowned by jagged ridges, eyes sunk deep and glowing faintly like embers buried in ash. Its mouth opened as it moved, revealing rows of serrated teeth layered backward, designed not to bite once but to hold.

  It wasn’t running.

  It didn’t need to.

  It was just… coming.

  “Okay,” Christ whispered hoarsely. “Okay, okay, okay.”

  He ran.

  Running became something else after the first half hour.

  At first, it was panic — explosive, sharp, unsustainable. Then it turned into survival rhythm. Breath. Step. Weight shift. Don’t trip. Don’t fall.

  Kael was dead weight over his shoulder.

  Christ’s arms burned. His back screamed. Sweat soaked through his clothes until they clung to him like a second skin. His lungs felt like they were scraping themselves raw with every breath.

  The forest blurred into repetition.

  Roots.

  Stone.

  Mud.

  Creek beds dry from heat.

  Birds exploding into flight.

  Behind him, the sound never stopped.

  Trees snapping.

  Heavy impacts.

  The low, furious bellow of something being inconvenienced.

  The monster wasn’t hunting him carefully.

  It was annoyed.

  And that terrified Christ more than hunger ever could.

  His cursed energy stirred faintly as he ran — not enough to use, but enough to exist. A shallow trickle pooling inside him, painfully slow, like water seeping back into a drained well.

  “Come on,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Come on, come on…”

  After what felt like an eternity — and might have been an hour — he heard water.

  A creek.

  Not wide. Not deep. But real.

  Christ veered toward the sound without thinking, boots slipping on damp stone as he skidded down a shallow embankment. Cold water splashed up around his calves, shocking but welcome.

  He followed the creek upstream just long enough to break his trail.

  Then he saw it.

  A narrow cleft in the rock face, half-hidden by roots and hanging moss. Not a cave — more like a wound in the earth, a shallow hollow carved by water and time.

  It would have to do.

  Christ dragged Kael inside and collapsed against the stone, chest heaving, muscles trembling uncontrollably.

  The space was barely large enough for them both.

  Dark.

  Cool.

  Damp stone pressing against his back.

  The sound of the forest swallowed them.

  Then the footsteps returned.

  Closer now.

  Christ swallowed hard.

  “This is going to hurt,” he whispered.

  He closed his eyes.

  And pushed.

  Activating his ability felt like tearing open a wound he hadn’t let heal.

  Cursed energy drained out of him immediately — not violently, but steadily, like blood leaking from a cut you couldn’t close. His head began to pound almost at once, pressure building behind his eyes.

  The world outside the hole didn’t change.

  That was the worst part.

  The beast didn’t vanish.

  The forest didn’t blur.

  Christ knew the effect was working because of what didn’t happen.

  The monster slowed.

  It stomped closer to the creek, massive head lowering, nostrils flaring as it inhaled deeply. Heat washed through the trees as it exhaled, leaves curling and smoking faintly.

  Christ peeked through the narrow opening.

  Up close, the thing was worse.

  The plating along its flank wasn’t smooth — it was layered, scarred, fused unevenly like metal melted and reshaped by violence. Cracks glowed faintly along its joints, leaking heat with every movement.

  Its breath was a furnace.

  The ground beneath its feet blackened.

  It sniffed.

  Paused.

  Christ’s vision blurred as his cursed energy continued to bleed away.

  Don’t notice us. Don’t notice us. Don’t notice us.

  The monster tilted its head.

  For a terrible moment, Christ thought it had found them anyway.

  Then it snorted.

  Irritated.

  It slammed a clawed forelimb into the ground, tearing free a boulder and hurling it aside with explosive force. Stone shattered. Birds screamed.

  Another tantrum.

  It reared back and opened its mouth wide.

  Heat surged.

  A sphere of fire condensed between its jaws — not precise, not controlled — just raw combustion given form. It hurled the blazing mass upward, where it detonated in the sky with a thunderous boom, scattering embers like falling stars.

  The forest lit up orange for a heartbeat.

  Then the beast turned.

  Stomped away.

  Each step grew more distant.

  Christ sagged against the stone as his cursed energy finally ran out completely.

  His ability collapsed softly, like a breath released after being held too long.

  He didn’t move.

  Didn’t breathe.

  Didn’t think.

  Minutes passed.

  Then more.

  Finally, when his legs gave out and he slumped sideways against Kael’s unconscious form, Christ let out a weak, hysterical laugh.

  “…we’re alive,” he whispered.

  For now.

  The forest answered with silence.