Nick processed the details of his evolving situation all in the blink of an eye. Half a heartbeat later, a black wave of exhaustion plowed into him. It nearly dragged him down into unconsciousness, a veritable death sentence under the circumstances.

He wondered why the world had rotated ninety degrees before realizing that he had fallen and was sprawled out upon the arena floor. He was so tired that he could barely think and had to fight just to keep his eyes open. He couldn’t summon the will to move, much less pick himself up and rise to his feet. He lay there, straddling the cusp of oblivion as the roar of the crowd washed over him, eager voices thrilled by the prospect of his imminent demise.

Nick knew that he should be using this opportunity to concoct fresh plans. To start running back toward his team, drawing the beast into their line of fire. But it was so hard to process what was happening. So arduous to move.

He’d never burned through so much stamina so quickly before, having directly expended his reserves for the first time. Thus, he had yet to build up any innate resistance against the backlash of consuming so much vital energy so quickly. To develop the control required to moderate his output, instead of unleashing all his stamina in a single burst.

Nick was drowning in a tsunami of utter exhaustion, threatening to extinguish the light of his consciousness with every beat of his heart. On top of that enormous impediment, as if it wasn’t enough for him to deal with, the beast was making a skidding turn along the marble surface, preparing to come for him again the instant that it regained control over its momentum sometime within the next few seconds.

Making a terrible situation that much worse, he now had two painful injuries competing for his attention. His left arm was alight in a living latticework of incandescent agony, now that his nerves had regenerated enough to let him feel his frost-ravaged tissue once again. Meanwhile, his left leg was filled with acid and razor blades from where he had torn various tissues during his epic leap.

Apparently, Nick’s leg hadn’t fully healed from his bite wound after all. The parting gift of the bonecruncher he’d killed during the climax of his tutorial.

While most of his awareness was trapped within a turgid, onyx fugue and the sheer sensory overload of his wounds, a small part of his mind was still analyzing the events playing out before his eyes.

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The scene felt fuzzed and far removed, as if he was watching the world through a long, dark tunnel. I’m in shock, a detached realization came trickling up to the surface of his awareness. My body’s shutting down and that thing will be back any second. He struggled to regain control, trying to wall off the torment of his tissue. To rise above his seething lethargy. To start fighting for his life once more.

It almost worked. With a surge of determination, Nick took a step forward in that midnight tunnel. A step closer to returning to the world of light and clear thought. By now, the fallen beast had come to a skidding stop, spinning to reorient on his position with a furious roar. It began running back, slower now that it wasn’t relying on its charging ability, but still terrifyingly quick all things considered.

I’m not going to pull this off in time. I’m going to die. The rhino had closed half of the distance while Nick struggled to gather his will. Despite his best efforts, he still hadn’t regained control over his body and raging emotions, although he was able to pull his legs under him and assume a seated position.

That was the moment when something hit him in the back of his head, just below the rim of his helmet. But instead of shattering his skull, the object shattered instead, depositing its viscous contents along the back of his neck. Something sticky and warm and surprisingly refreshing.

“Thanks for the potion, Veronica. I hit him.” Nick heard Devin’s voice in the distance, unable to process the meaning of the athlete’s words. His neck started to tingle, as the fluid was absorbed into his skin. A heartbeat later, vitality began coursing throughout his body, refilling the depleted basin of his stamina until Nick was brimming over with unbridled energy, washing away his fatigue in a tide of pure adrenaline.

It was as if he had gone from being severely jetlagged to overcaffeinated in the blink of an eye. While the potion’s wonderous magic replenished his stamina, a tide of healing energy sank into his sundered tissue, repairing a portion of the damage and reducing the pain from incapacitating to merely agonizing. With any luck, his leg would be able to bear his weight once more.

Equally important to his odds of living through the day, the fey magic thrumming through his body hastened his journey toward restoring control over his body, snapping him out of his shock and back into true awareness after a final pulse of disorientation.

Now Nick could move. Could plan. Could think.

The problem was, the rhino was only thirty feet away from where he sat, cantering forth in a ground-devouring stride like an avatar of impending doom. With the world of light returned to his mind, Nick could once again hear the roar of the crowd. The chatter of the announcer. The panicked cries of his teammates urging him to rise and start sprinting for his life.

“Nick!” Devin’s voice sang in his ears. “Get up and fucking run!”