The pit was a killing floor. The soft earth of the walls was slick with mud, blood, and the beast's dark, oily venom. Raveish was knee-deep in debris, the air thick with the metallic stench of iron and the suffocating odor of the monster's desperate fear. This was the consequence of his choice: an ugly, chaotic, drawn-out brawl in a grave of their own making.
The beast was a study in ruined ferocity. Its right forelimb was a useless, broken thing, dragging in the mud. Its left side was a massive, vulnerable target, slowed by the crippling strike. But the injury had stripped it of predictability. Its movements were maddeningly erratic, fueled by pure, blinding pain rather than logical malice. It thrashed, its immense head snapping wildly, its remaining good claw digging into the earth in furious attempts to launch itself forward.
Raveish knew, instantly, that his old method was useless. His clairvoyance offered no clear path to victory, only a blinding, overwhelming storm of agonizing possibilities. He saw a thousand ways the beast could win, a hundred ways he could die, but not one clean strike. The knowledge was a debilitating weight.
With a profound, conscious effort, he silenced the vision. He shut down the screaming future, forcing his mind back to the present, to the immediate, visceral reality of the pit. He was fighting blind, with the five simple senses of a man. His feet found purchase in the shifting mud. His ears strained to hear the beast's labored breathing. He relied on Kael's brutal lesson: Channel the aggression. Fight with rage, but move with discipline.
The monster lunged again, a low, guttural roar preceding its attack. It was too fast for his exhausted body, its trajectory obscured by the swirling mud. Raveish didn't dodge; he reacted, throwing his shoulder into the crumbling wall of the pit, angling his body away from the snapping teeth. The beast's blow missed, tearing a deep channel in the earth where he had stood.
He didn't seek distance. He pressed the advantage of its miss, closing the gap. He was fighting like a cornered animal, using every available surface. He drove his sword into the beast's already wounded shoulder, not aiming for a kill, but for pure, debilitating pain. The blade struck the ragged wound left by his first strike, deepening the cut.
The beast screamed, a high-pitched sound of blinding agony, momentarily forgetting its attack plan. It writhed, trying to shake him off, its massive torso twisting violently. Raveish clung to the slope, driving his foot hard into the beast's body for leverage, leveraging the creature's pain against its stability.
The ground pitched and slid beneath him. The mud-slicked surface offered no traction. He slipped, his sword scraping uselessly across the beast's back. He scrambled backward, pulling his feet free just as the beast's massive tail, a powerful whip of bone and muscle, slammed into the spot he had vacated. The pit was trying to kill him as much as the monster.
He felt the exhaustion settling in, a crushing weight in his chest. His lungs burned, demanding air thick with dust and the stench of blood. His movements were growing slower, his parries less sharp. He was paying the price for the clean victory he surrendered.
He saw Miran's face, pale and empty.
The image—the memory of that vulnerability—was a jolt of raw energy. He was not fighting for foresight or a divine principle. He was fighting for the difficult, messy, beautiful life he had chosen. His weariness was tempered by an infusion of pure, human rage.
He launched himself into motion, not towards the beast's head, but toward its crippled forelimb. He used his sword like a pickaxe, driving the blade repeatedly into the already broken limb, severing muscle and tendon remnants. He was systematically dismantling the creature, turning its injury into a fatal liability.
The beast responded with a frantic, desperate fury. It tried to smother him, throwing its weight around, aiming to crush him beneath its bulk. Raveish was knocked sprawling, the air driven from his lungs. He felt the intense, burning heat of the monster's hide against his face, its breath a foul vapor.
He rolled free, spitting blood and earth. His right leg seized, a sharp cramp paralyzing his muscle. He was trapped against the steep, mud-caked wall of the pit, his body screaming for rest.
The beast saw the opening. Crippled, blinded by pain, and desperate for revenge, it surged forward, ignoring its own agony. Its massive jaws opened, a cavern of bone and sharp teeth aimed directly at his exposed torso. This was the final, uncalculated act of malice.
Raveish had no time to move, no strength left for a complex maneuver. He brought his sword up in a desperate, last-second block, crossing his arms over his chest. He didn't meet the blow with steel; he shoved the hilt, the blunt end of his weapon, into the beast's massive mouth.
The impact was bone-jarring. The teeth clamped down on the steel and his armored forearm, the force shattering his grip. The sword was torn from his hand, a dull flash of silver spinning into the muck. Pain exploded through his arm, a crippling agony that momentarily blinded him.
He staggered backward, leaning heavily against the pit wall. He was disarmed, wounded, and cornered. The beast, its teeth now locked around the metal hilt of his sword, thrashed its head, its eyes burning with a triumph so absolute it was terrifying.
But its victory was fleeting. Its immense chest heaved, its breathing loud and ragged. The sustained effort, the loss of blood, and the pain of the broken limb had finally caught up. It could not move. It was utterly spent.
Raveish leaned against the wall, body trembling, his right arm dangling uselessly at his side. He was breathing in painful, shallow gasps. He was bleeding from a dozen cuts and abrasions. He was disarmed.
But he was still on his feet.
He glared at the monster. It glared back, its ruined eye filled with an unwavering hatred. They were two spent forces in a muddy, bloody grave, both pushed past the point of endurance. The fight had devolved into a battle of sheer, absolute will. The final confrontation had arrived.
Silence in the pit was a heavier pressure than the beast's roars had been. It was the absolute quiet of two forces brought to the point of extinction. Raveish leaned against the muddy wall, his dangling arm a dead weight, his breath sawing raggedly in his chest. Across the shallow grave, the beast glared, its breath hitching, its immense body shuddering with involuntary muscle spasms. It was defeated, but not dead. And his sword was its hostage.
The monster's teeth were clamped around the hilt, the metal a painful vise. That small piece of steel, now lodged in its mouth, was its final, desperate weapon. It couldn't charge, but it could snap, and it could keep the hunter from his tools.
Raveish knew, with chilling certainty, that he had no time. The stalemate was ending. He had to disarm the beast before it could gather enough strength for one last, crippling bite. He had no sword, no foresight, and no energy left for a graceful maneuver. He had only a raw, primal refusal to yield.
He launched himself forward. It was not a jump; it was a desperate, stumbling fall into the creature's space. He used his good leg to propel his ruined body across the slick mud, smashing into the monster's massive, heaving chest. It was an act of pure, calculated madness—a suicide charge aimed not to wound, but to leverage.
The beast reacted instantly, its head snapping down to crush him. Raveish ignored the teeth. He reached with his uninjured hand, gripping the pommel of his sword sticking out from the creature's jaws. His fingers slipped on the blood-slicked metal. He squeezed harder, his knuckles white, and drove his entire weight against the beast's jawline.
He used the sword as a lever, twisting the hilt with frantic, desperate energy. The movement was small, measured in agonizing inches, but the pressure it applied to the beast's already weakened jaw was immense. The creature shrieked, a muffled, gurgling sound of ultimate betrayal. Its teeth ground against the steel, attempting to crush it. But the torque was too great.
With a final, desperate surge of adrenaline-fueled strength, Raveish twisted the hilt sideways. The blade bit into the soft, inner flesh of the monster's mouth. The pain was excruciating, forcing the massive jaw to spasm and open. The sword, coated in gore, clattered into the mud.
Raveish stumbled back, panting, his weapon free but useless in the dirt. He was unarmed, facing a beast that was now fully dispossessed, its last defense gone.
The monster surged, its desperation lending it a shocking, final burst of power. It rose up on its remaining good limbs, its crippled body towering over the man. It ignored the wounds, ignoring the pain. It was going to crush him with sheer mass.
Raveish did not back away. He did not search for the sword. The time for steel was over. He plunged forward, low and fast, diving beneath the monster's terrible reach. He reached out with his good hand, driven by a savage, primal knowledge. He wasn't aiming for the throat or the heart. He was aiming for the eyes.
Elara's voice echoed in the void of his mind, quiet but clear: The sickness is strongest where the light enters.
His fingers clawed at the beast's massive head, finding the ruined eye socket that the herbal mist had inflamed. He jammed his thumb into the soft, inflamed tissue, pushing with the terrifying, final strength of a man fighting for his life.
The beast stopped instantly. Its final roar was not one of rage, but of blinding, agonizing shock. The sound was ripped from its lungs, a horrific, pathetic noise of absolute pain. Its huge body bucked and twisted, a mountain of flesh in its death throes.
Raveish held on, refusing to release the pressure, clinging to the writhing head like a burr. He was a small, fragile appendage of destruction. He felt the sickening give of the tissue beneath his fingers, the hot, wet blood pouring over his hand.
The beast thrashed wildly, its legs kicking out, destroying the remaining pit walls, sending torrents of mud and rock cascading over them both. It was trying to shake him off, to smash him into the earth.
Then, the thrashing began to slow.
The magnificent, terrifying engine of malice ran out of fuel. The life force that had sustained its rage and its immense power began to drain away, not with a bang, but with a slow, agonizing slide into nothingness.
Raveish felt the final shudder run through the colossal body. The struggle ceased. The weight beneath him went slack, heavy, and lifeless. The beast's head fell into the mud with a dull slop.
Silence.
This time, the quiet was absolute. It was the silence of cessation, the profound stillness that follows an act of unimaginable violence.
Raveish released his grip. He pushed himself off the creature's ruinous body. He stood on trembling legs, utterly spent, covered head-to-toe in black blood, sweat, and mud. He looked down at the colossal, unmoving bulk of the monster. It was dead.
He was alive.
A cheer erupted from the forest edge, tentative at first, then swelling into a raw, joyful shout of triumph. The remaining warriors and villagers emerged, running toward the pit, their faces etched with horror and awe. They had won.
Raveish didn't register the cheering. He didn't move. He stood over the carcass, his chest heaving, his body an empty shell of pain and exhaustion. He had made the difficult, human choice, and he had paid the price with an agonizing fight. His victory was not divine. It was earned.
Strong hands, belonging to Kael and a handful of silent, mud-caked warriors, reached down into the pit. They lifted Raveish out, their movements gentle and reverent. He felt himself rising out of the grave, out of the chaos.
He looked back at the pit—the scene of his final, messy triumph.
Then, the world tilted. The light fractured into a thousand pieces, and Raveish collapsed, his vision consumed by absolute darkness. The stand was over.