The Anomaly's Path

The ringing in Seris’s ears was deafening. Every breath sent a sharp, wet grind through her jaw, but she couldn’t focus on the pain.

She lay half-buried in the ground. Thick, dark blood filled her throat, forcing a sudden, violent cough that sprayed red over the cracked stone beneath her. Her throat burned like fire with the taste of blood.

She tried to take a steady breath, but her lungs hitched with a sharp, ragged gasp. The purple mist from the monster’s open mouth had shattered her Lunar barrier instantly, leaving her pathways raw and frozen.

Blood dripped steadily from her nose, pooling on her hands as she dug her nails into the dirt to push herself up.

Through the thick haze of dust, she couldn’t see the full street, but she could see the shape. The huge, fourteen-foot grey horror stood in the center of the road. And directly under its raised clawed foot lay a familiar white coat, torn and stained with blood.

Leo.

A strange, hollow feeling hit her chest, not panic, not anger, but a sudden, terrifying emptiness.

Why did I hesitate?

Her thoughts were flat and cold. She had spent years studying every battle, speed, and power. Yet when the monster’s finger-mouth opened, she had just stood there. She had trusted her barrier. She had been careless, relying on a rank that meant nothing against a horror like this.

And because of her carelessness, people were dying.

Spitting another mouthful of dark blood onto the ground, she locked her shaking arms. Her Lunar power was slow and heavy, too weak to form ice or shields, so she stopped trying. She dragged raw, unrefined Lunar energy through her damaged legs.

The sudden burst of pressure tore through her skin with sharp, burning pain, but it forced her knees to straighten.

She moved.

At the same time, twenty feet away, the rubble burst apart.

"Get your filthy foot off him!" Roan’s voice was completely broken, a cracked, bloody roar as he lunged out from behind a shattered pillar.

He wasn’t using his usual swagger or clever tricks. His spear was snapped in half, his chest was bleeding from deep cuts, and his eyes were wild with pure rage. He drove the jagged, broken shaft of his spear straight into the monster’s back knee, throwing his whole weight behind the strike.

"Hold still, damn you!" Elisabeth snarled. Her forehead was split open, blood running into her eyes, but her face was pure hatred. She didn’t flinch. Red tendrils of blood lashed out from her wrists, wrapping tight around the monster’s ankle and pulling with everything she had left.

It wasn’t a smart plan.

It was two broken fighters clawing at a monster to keep their friend alive. Their desperate attack didn’t pierce the beast’s skin, but the sudden force against its leg tilted the monster’s huge body by just a fraction. The crushing grey foot wobbled in the air.

That single second was all Seris needed. She hit the ground in a hard, low slide, her hands locking around the collar of Leo’s coat, and yanked him backward with everything she had.

Crunch!

Thousands of pounds of bone and muscle slammed down into the ground where Leo’s head had been a moment before, smashing the street into a crater of flying rock. The force of the impact threw Seris and Leo backward, tumbling through the dust until they crashed hard against the base of a broken archway.

"Get him back!" Roan yelled, his voice cutting off as a sweeping grey arm clipped his shoulder, throwing him sideways into the rubble of a shop.

Elisabeth spat blood, her tendrils snapping like thin thread, and she scrambled back to drag a stunned Amelia behind a broken wall while Nyra bared her bloody teeth, guarding their retreat with her bare claws. They were barely holding the line.

Behind the archway, Seris pulled Leo into her lap. His body was horribly light, completely limp. His white hair was matted with thick, drying blood, and his face was smeared with dark dirt.

"Leo..." she rasped, her voice dry as dust. He didn’t answer. His ocean-blue eyes were half-open, and fixed on nothing. Seris pressed her shaking fingers against his neck. Nothing. No pulse. His chest was caved in on the left side, his lungs locked, unable to draw air past the dark, bloody foam bubbling over his lips.

He’s dying. His core is completely dry.

Seris had seen him heal from fatal wounds before. During the Gate Tournament, after she was forced to stab him, his torn flesh had knitted back together within hours. She had seen him recover from deep cuts faster than anyone else.

She knew his body had an unnatural ability to heal itself, but she had also noticed the pattern. When his core had mana, his wounds closed almost instantly. When his core was empty, his recovery stopped completely. His bloodline didn’t work on its own; it needed fuel.

Right now, his core was a hollow, empty void. His body wasn’t healing because it didn’t even have the tiny spark of energy needed to expand his lungs or pump his heart. He couldn’t swallow a potion, and his throat was blocked with blood.

She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t pause to think about how it looked or what it meant. Wiping the dark blood from his lips with her sleeve, she tilted his head back, pressed her mouth over his, and blew air straight into his crushed lungs.

It wasn’t gentle. It was cold and tasted of blood. She forced her breath down into his chest, using her own lungs to expand his, while pushing a tiny, steady trickle of her mana through her lips into his throat.

She didn’t force a heavy burst, his torn channels would have shattered completely. She just sent a small, cold spark down into his empty core, giving his body the jolt it needed to realize it was dying.

Damn it... Breathe, you idiot!, she thought fiercely, her eyes squeezed shut as she forced another breath into his chest.

A violent, shaking jolt shot through Leo’s body. His chest heaved up against his broken ribs. A harsh, ragged cough tore out of his throat, spraying bloody foam over his chin as his lungs fought to clear themselves.

The tiny spark of cold power Seris had pushed into him had ignited his empty core, forcing his bloodline to wake up and start healing the torn flesh in his throat. Air rushed into his chest, cold and burning.

He gasped, his throat hitching with sharp, painful breaths as his body struggled to pull in air.

Pain flooded back all at once. His collarbone felt like shattered glass, his chest was on fire, and his mana channels throbbed with raw pain. His eyes snapped open, wide, unfocused, and bloodshot, swimming through a haze of red and dirt.

He couldn’t see clearly. He couldn’t hear the chaos in the street. All he felt was the terrible sensation of drowning in his own blood while his lungs screamed for air.

"Leo, breathe!" Seris’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears, sharp and firm. She slammed her hand onto his shoulder, pinning him against the archway so he wouldn’t tear his own muscles apart while shaking.

"Don’t talk," she commanded, her voice rough, tight, and shaking slightly. "Don’t move. Your chest is crushed."

Leo’s breathing was violent and uneven, heavy gasps and desperate breaths as his chest rose and fell in jagged motions. His jaw worked, trying to form words, trying to ask what happened, but all that came out was a low, pained groan.

Through his blurred, blood-filled vision, her face slowly came into focus.

She was inches away from him. Her dress was ruined, her pale cheeks were smeared with dirt and his blood, and her crimson eyes were wide, burning with a furious, breathless focus. Her hands were shaking where they held his coat, her own chest heaving just as hard as his.

"Calm down," Seris ordered, her voice dropping into a harsh whisper as she kept her hand heavy on his shoulder. "Control your breath. Let your core use the mana."

Leo swallowed hard, tasting the bitter cold of her Lunar power mixed with the heavy taste of blood in his throat. He forced his frantic breaths to slow down, taking slow, painful gulps of air, feeling the sharp sting in his chest gradually ease as his bloodline began its slow work.

He managed a weak, broken nod, his eyes locking onto hers.

The cold thread of Lunar power she had forced into him was the spark his empty core needed. His bloodline flared back to life. Reaching out with his focus, he pulled energy from the air around him, the heat from the burning street, the lingering power in the mist, dragging it straight into his body.

Most of the energy he pulled was lost, burning his already damaged channels from the inside, but the small amount that reached his core was enough.

The moment mana hit his core, his body’s healing kicked in. The crushing pressure in his chest eased slightly as torn muscle began to knit back together and his throat stabilized, though his ribs were still cracked and screaming.

His vision cleared enough to piece together the last few terrifying moments. He remembered the violet mist, the blinding speed of the grey limb, and the terrifying weight about to erase him. Then nothing.

He looked at her. Her hands were still locked onto his coat, her breathing ragged, her own skin split and bloody. She had dragged him out from under that foot. She had forced her own mana into his mouth to wake his core.

She saved him again... and he didn’t even know how to process it.

A strange, heavy tightness gripped his chest, one that had nothing to do with his broken ribs. But he calmed himself down and took another forced, slow breath, feeling the harsh bite of cold air in his recovering lungs.

Now is not the time for this. We can’t win this.

The truth was harsh and bitter. A Grade 7 monster wasn’t something they could beat with broken bones and empty cores. Trying to kill it right now was suicide. They didn’t need a victory, they just needed to survive.

With a flick of his wrist, Leo opened his void pocket. A small tear in the air appeared beside him, and he reached inside, his shaking fingers wrapping around a cold piece of metal.

He pulled it out.

It was a thin, silver chain with a lightning bolt emblem, a gift from his father, Noah, after Leo had returned from the Path Trial. It was a hidden emergency signal of the Celestial family. Channeling even a tiny drop of mana into the silver would send a silent, bloodline-bound pulse through the air.

A shockwave that only a true Celestial could feel, a signal that screamed one thing: Your blood is dying. Come now.

And because it was tied to the Celestial bloodline, the signal wouldn’t just reach Noah. It would go straight to Zephyr von Celestial. The old monster would feel the pulse in his own blood, know Leo’s exact location, and tear through whatever stood in his way.

Leo gritted his teeth, pressing his thumb hard against the cold silver edge. I hate using this. I hate relying on them. But we have no choice.

He pushed his mana straight into the lightning emblem. The silver chain pulsed with a faint, invisible wave, sending a silent shockwave rippling out into the air.

"Seris," Leo grunted, his fingers tightening around her wrist as he forced himself up against the archway. Pain shot down his spine, but he shoved it down.

"What are you doing? Sit down!" she demanded, trying to push him back.

"No..." Leo rasped, his grip on her hand firm despite his trembling body. "Listen to me. First, thanks for helping me. But we’re not fighting to kill it. We can’t. We just have to buy time and run. Just a few minutes. That’s all we need. Believe me."

Seris stared at him, seeing the clear, unshakable look in his bloodshot eyes. She didn’t argue. She just nodded once, moving her shoulder under his arm to help hold him up as he pulled himself to his feet.

He looked out past the archway.

Across the ruined street, Roan was thrown out of the dust, coughing blood, while Elisabeth’s red tendrils shattered into mist under the monster’s heavy steps. The fourteen-foot grey horror turned its eyeless, finger-filled skull directly toward their alley, locking onto them.

Leo’s hand tightened, his bloodline burning through the last of his mana as he took a step forward into the light.

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