Blake crouched at the highest point of the wreckage, knife ready, as the ferroghest's charge sent tremors through the metal beneath his boots. Time seemed to crystallize as his training took over, every detail sharp and immediate. He shut out the creature's thunderous approach and focused inward, reaching for that familiar well of power.

Mana surged through his system as he activated [Warden's Insight]. The ability blazed to life, but this time Blake pushed further, channeling energy into his [Awareness] and [Perception] attributes. The world around him sharpened, details flooding his consciousness with crystal clarity.

Stress patterns rippled through the debris field like cracks in glass. Load-bearing points glowed in his enhanced vision, revealing which pieces could support weight and which would collapse. Useful information, but not for this fight—he filed it away for later. Right now, he needed to focus on survival.

The alpha's movements painted clear vectors across Blake's field of view. Its momentum created predictable paths, limited by mass and inertia. Despite its raw power, physics still applied. The creature couldn't change direction instantly, even with those augmented limbs. Each potential route blazed like a neon trail in Blake's mind, probability percentages floating beside them.

But the wound—that caught his full attention. The gash in its chest pulsed with sickly light, following a distinct pattern. One-two-three, pause. One-two-three, pause. Like a heartbeat, but wrong. The energy signature was familiar somehow, resonating with something deep in Blake's core. A weakness, if he could figure out how to exploit it.

Blake's boots shifted on the metal as he poured mana into [Unfettered Stride]. The ability responded instantly, creating temporary anchor points that would hold his weight but crumble under anything heavier. The ferroghest wouldn't find stable footing here—not without time to analyze the terrain like he had.

He mapped his escape route, factoring in the creature's likely responses. Three moves ahead, always three moves ahead. The path gleamed in his mind: a quick sidestep to the left, then drop to the lower section of debris, using the unstable footing to his advantage.

The alpha closed the final distance, its massive form filling Blake's vision. Perfect balance, perfect timing—Blake launched into motion, body coiled like a spring. But the creature was faster than his calculations predicted, pouring on a surge of speed that defied its size. Instead of missing completely, its shoulder clipped Blake's hip as he dodged.

The impact sent him spinning, his boots losing contact with the debris. His stomach lurched as gravity took hold. Blake's muscles screamed as he fought for control, forcing his body to respond. The [Agility] exercise kicked in automatically—thousands of hours of training condensing into pure reflex.

He tucked and rolled, redirecting momentum as he hit the angled surface below. [Unfettered Stride] flared to life again, creating a controlled descent path down the treacherous slope. Metal screamed beneath him as he slid, sparks flying from his boots, but the mana-forged path held true.

Blake's mind raced ahead, plotting his next move even as he maintained the controlled fall. The alpha would follow—that was certain. The real question was whether he could turn this momentary separation into an advantage. His fingers tightened on the knife's grip as the ground rushed up to meet him.

Time to find out.

The impact rattled through Blake's legs as he landed. He flowed with the force, transforming the jarring collision into a practiced roll across broken ground. Metal shrieked behind him as the alpha thundered down the incline, its bestial fury echoing off the walls. Blake didn't waste precious seconds looking back. Instead, he channeled [Unfettered Stride] and rose in one smooth motion, letting the ability lend him speed and grace.

The combat knife sang in his grip, practically vibrating with latent energy. Blake grasped for that weird spatial warping he'd stumbled onto before—trying to summon up that same reality-bending distortion from earlier. But the power wouldn't come, sliding away from his mind like trying to grab oil floating on water.

"You're forcing it," Chimera's voice cut through his frustration. "Think smaller. More precise."

Blake ducked under a twisted beam, mind racing. Smaller. Precise. Like pushing water through a straw, but the straw kept dissolving. He needed—

The beast's claws whistled past his ear, close enough that Blake felt the wind of their passage. He spun round, knife coming up more from instinct than skill. Steel met augmented meat with an ugly shriek that set his teeth on edge. Blade didn't bite deep, but something odd followed its arc—reality went liquid in its wake, shimmering like a mirage in the desert heat.

"There!" Chimera's excitement surged through their shared link, sharp and electric. "That's it! The beginnings of spatial manipulation. Now you just have to—"

Blake threw himself sideways, the alpha's other claw slicing through the air so close it stirred the hair at his temple. No time for a strategy session. He needed space—needed a second to think.

[Warden's Insight] flared to life, slamming his senses wide open with a deluge of tactical intel. The chaos around him sharpened into a vivid, three-dimensional map etched in his mind. Every shard of debris, every jagged edge glowed with highlighted weak points, structural vulnerabilities screaming for exploitation. The alpha’s movements painted ghostly afterimages in the air—probability trails that hinted at its next attack.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Then his focus locked onto the wound in its chest. It throbbed with that same nauseating, sickly light, pulsing in a relentless rhythm: one-two-three, pause. One-two-three, pause. The cadence burned itself into his brain, each beat echoing with a strange, bone-deep resonance. That energy… there was something about it. Something uncomfortably, unnervingly familiar.

Blake heard Chimera's voice through the link, sharp with sudden understanding. "That energy signature—I think I know what's happening with it."

The alpha lunged, a blur of lethal intent, but Blake was already in motion. [Unfettered Stride] propelled him up and over a collapsed support beam, his boots grazing the metal just long enough to launch him forward again. The beast's sheer size was its own enemy here—too much bulk, too much inertia to pivot on a dime.

"These things are a lot like Leviathans in the way they merge with anything they consume or bond with," Chimera continued. "This big guy has been taking bites out of the crashed Leviathan. I think it's trying to integrate properties of its core—and it doesn't seem to be going well."

Blake's thoughts churned, sharp and relentless, as he wove a network of mana-forged pathways across the treacherous ground. Some were solid enough to bear his weight; others were traps, fragile as spun glass, ready to shatter at the slightest pressure. It was a labyrinth of his own making, and only one path led to safety.

The alpha lunged, right on cue. One massive paw slammed through a fragile mana path, shattering it and sending the beast stumbling. Blake pivoted without hesitation, his knife a gleaming extension of his will. This time, when he reached for the spatial manipulation, he didn’t wrestle with it. He let it surge and twist on its own, smooth and inevitable, like a river carving its course.

The blade carved through the air, trailing distortions in its wake. Not the clean penetration he wanted, but something else—something deeper. Each strike resonated with the wound's pulse. One-two-three, strike. One-two-three, strike. Building a rhythm, feeding off the warp energy that both of them carried.

"You're starting to get it," Chimera said. "You're definitely doing better harnessing the warp affinity than this thing is."

Blake finally fully processed her words. The wound wasn't normal damage; it was a tear in reality that was actively harming the alpha. What's more, it leaking energy that his core resonated with. Each pulse sent ripples through space, distorting the very fabric of the world around them. If he could mimic some of what he felt from the creature…

The alpha's claws whistled overhead as Blake ducked beneath them. His knife bit deep, opening the beast's flank in a spray of dark blood. But there was something different about this cut. Where the blade had passed, reality itself seemed to bend and shimmer like heat waves off summer stone. The beast's roar shook his bones, yet Blake hardly noticed. He was lost in the flood of power surging through his veins, feeling how it ebbed and flowed like a tide he could almost control. Almost.

It was still like forcing water through a broken straw—awkward and unnatural—but now he could sense the contours of that straw. He could feel how to steer the power, how to let it flow with him, amplifying his strikes instead of resisting its nature.

"Mana flow steady," Chimera reported, her voice clinical but encouraging. "You're maintaining about thirty percent efficiency—not great, but consistent. Focus on—"

Pain exploded through his ribs as the alpha's tail sent Blake spinning through the air like a broken toy. He hadn't even seen the attack coming. His back found rubble, hard, and stars burst behind his eyes. For a moment he found himself unable to move, only to project his anger and pain at the beast.

Fuck you, you fucking Cujo reject. You shitty Clifford animatronic. Shit.

He sucked wind through clenched teeth, forcing his battered body upright even as his side screamed in protest. One rib at least, maybe more. But he'd had worse. Maybe even this week. He spat blood and got his feet under him.

[Warden's Insight] painted a grim picture. The alpha was learning, adapting to his tactics. Its movements were becoming more controlled, more deliberate. The wound still pulsed with that steady rhythm, but now Blake could see how the creature was using the warp energy—unconsciously perhaps, but using it all the same.

"Yeah, that attack didn't move through space normally," Chimera confirmed. "It really did come out of nowhere."

Each pulse of the creature's aura sent out waves of spatial distortion, subtle but growing stronger. The very air around them felt thin, stretched somehow, like reality itself was starting to fray at the edges. This wasn't going to come down to knife work anymore. He had to figure out how to really start injuring this thing—and fast.

Blake's mind raced through options as he caught his breath, scanning his surroundings. The alpha prowled closer, each step warping space in nauseating ripples. Something about the way it moved, the predatory grace—

The memory hit him like a thunderbolt. Eastern Cape, South Africa. A salvage operation gone sideways when great whites started circling the wreck. The team had carried specialized gear for exactly that scenario.

The WASP knife. Weapon Against Shark Protocol. A hollow blade designed to inject compressed gas into whatever it struck. Against sharks, it would rupture their insides, forcing them to surface. But against this thing...

Blake let the memory flood through his mind, a chaotic rush of images and sensations. The sleek shape of the WASP knife in his hands, its hollow core filled with compressed gas. The way it had torn through shark flesh, creating devastating internal damage. The precise mechanics of how it worked, the engineering behind its lethal efficiency.

His thoughts spilled across the mental link he shared with Chimera, unstructured and raw. No words, just pure experience—the cold grip of the knife, the exact pressure needed on the trigger, the devastating results when deployed correctly.

"Oh." Chimera's voice held a note of vicious delight. "Yes, I see exactly what you're thinking. We could do that. The spatial mana—if we concentrate it right, we could create a bubble of repelling force. It would work just like that gas expulsion, maybe even better."

A smile split Blake's face, all teeth and predatory intent. The plan crystallized in his mind, taking shape with brutal clarity. He had the concept now—the rest was just execution.