He sensed it coming from his right and tried to throw himself backwards while thrusting the knives at it to drive it away. The manoeuvre was only partially successful, and one of the claws punched through his wrists. It stung.

Tom missed Healing Tranquillity. It was easy to forget how much he had taken the ability of it to freeze time to deal with these situations for granted. In pain and without the time to do it properly, he cast Purge Foreign Substance and allowed the identification process to go to work.

He nearly stumbled in shock at the reported outcomes. A tier-two venom in a rank-three lair? It stretched the bounds of credibility. Almost subconsciously, skin and muscle walls grew out to stop the venom from spreading. This was not something that his skills would allow him to purge. Even containing it might have been impossible without the sideways evolution to improve the strength of the containment technique.

While half of his mind focused on isolating the venom, the rest concentrated on survival. Standing still would have been suicide, so he sprinted forward into the blackness, wishing he had brought a torch.

Instincts screamed at him, and he pulled out of the sprint and thrust his hands to brace against a wall he was certain was in front of him.

He thumped into the solid rock.

Too slow, he thought. He had braced too late.

His already hurt wrist cracked as it absorbed most of the momentum of the collision. Then his teeth slammed into the wall, and he discovered that hypothesis was delusional. Shards of front four teeth filled his mouth along with blood. He felt the push of wind against his back as the monster zoomed by. His body wanted to collapse, his sore knee was in a worse state, but he had pushed himself. He spun to face the open cathedral and spat the mixture of saliva, blood, and teeth to the side.

It was coming again, and with his left non-dominant hand he threw the dagger. A moment later, he felt the whoosh of its wingbeats as it was forced to abort the attack. He switched his other knife into the good hand; at least he was armed, and could still fight.

The situation was hysterical to him. Whatever formal skill he had acquired was a good one, because he was not tracking the monster in the darkness with any specific senses, but he knew exactly where it was. None of that mattered if he died, though.

The random thoughts didn’t distract him from what was important. His mind was assessing the threats busily. Almost his entire mana generation was being directed towards the poisoned area of his wrist. If he relaxed for a moment, it would overwhelm him, and the rapid paralysis it would cause would either kill him outright or leave him as an easy victim for the monster. The only silver lining to all of this was that he could no longer feel the broken bones in his wrist. That small mercy was thanks to the miniscule amount of venom that had leaked out in the collision with the unyielding stone.

His mind catalogued the rest of the wounds: the damaged kneecap, the disabled arm, shattered teeth, a dislocated jaw, a heavily bleeding wound on his shoulder.

He threw himself to the side, and the creature aborted the swoop. He wondered if it was confused by how its supposably helpless prey was able to sense its approach and track it.

He swayed, feeling lightheaded, and wanted nothing more than to lie down. Tom recognised the symptoms and directed mana into a desperate Body Restore to improve his blood pressure. The wound on his back was haemorrhaging far too much for comfort.

This was bullshit. He could feel the stirring of his anger underneath his battle trance. He had been so certain of his destiny. Yet the bat would keep coming and there was no guarantee Dimitri would reach him in time. Worry gnawed at him. Existentia was not that black-and-white. There was no such thing as a prophesied champion. People could die at any moment. He had been killed in his first life when he had thought himself safe. Panic and anger warred within him.

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How could one dagger and his non-existent agility hold this off? How long would it be until Dimitri got here? For him to survive, it had to be soon.

It was coming again and he crouched slightly, then pretended to go one way before he threw himself in the other direction.

It fell for the feint, but how long until it guessed right?

It would continue coming until it got him. The fate he had invested, and this new skill, would keep him alive for a while, but could he outlast the monster? Frantically, he worked on purging the infected wound. When it got him next, he couldn’t afford to have two of them.

It was approaching him dead-on this time. He didn’t feint, but instead threw himself in the direction he first moved toward. It went the wrong way, buying him another ten seconds.

Tom wondered how much active fate he still had left in play. How long was it until his luck failed?

His sense of where the bat was had vanished.

His new skill had run out of juice and stopped working. Annoyance flared through him, but getting angry at it was only a distraction. He concentrated harder, straining everything to stay alive a few moments longer, to make time for Dimitri to get here. He stilled his breathing and listened. He strained his eyes to see, but the blackness was absolute. It had a pattern, so in his head he counted down the seconds.

Now!

He threw himself to the side. No monster plunged into him. It was a success. If he had gotten the timing wrong, he would be dead.

Tom stood, ready to repeat the action. He shut his eyes and focused on the hairs on his neck.

Now!

He flung himself horizontally and felt the brush of the creature’s wings on his arm.

Too close. A single blow would kill him. Only half the venom in the wrist wound had been driven out. He lacked the mana to heal the cut on his shoulder blade, and he knew he would have been dead already without that sideways evolution reducing the bleeding. His visual senses weren’t helpful, so he stood there, feeling for the enemy, eyes shut. A hair on his hand twitched, and he threw himself sideways. There was a stinging pain on his calf. It had been swooping low, and the claw slice had split his lower leg open. More blood loss, more problems. Then the entire leg below the knee failed to respond to his mental commands.

That was it. Two lame legs meant death. He pushed himself to his feet, but it was mainly his arm strength that did it. Neither leg was working properly.

He collapsed.

Wind brushed his back as the monster went over him.

Get up, he told himself. But he knew this feeling, and understood the state he was in. Mind over matter only worked so far. If you lost your legs, no amount of wishing would get you walking. His body wasn’t intact enough to move. He needed to get strength from somewhere. If he died here… No, he wouldn’t accept that outcome. He wouldn’t allow it. He had a duty to survive and save humanity.

Tom thought about his anger curse, and his suspicion around what it did. Not only was it unfair, it would be an injustice if he died here.

He had sacrificed a lot to try and make a difference. It was unacceptable to die now!

He couldn’t fail after everything he had done.

That was unfair. Wrong. He felt the rage rise, and he welcomed it. He wouldn’t accept a world where his legs couldn’t support him.

With a scream of rage, he propelled himself to his feet with a single arm. The pain wasn’t that bad, his muddled thoughts decided.

He threw the knife. “I’ll kill you,” he screamed at the darkness. “I’ll tear your head off.”

With a roar, he charged forward.

The leg failed him; he hit the ground, but pushed himself to his feet. Where was it? He lunged to his left, hoping to grab it, and then screamed again in frustration as, judging by the wind, he felt it go through the spot he had just vacated.

It was lucky. If he had gotten his hands on it…

“I will kill you,” he yelled and leapt forward. He crashed into something, and there was a stinging feeling in his thigh. He didn’t care, and he tried to grip hold of the monster. Its torso was the size of a large dog. He slipped off and slammed into the ground. “You’re dead next time.” He shrieked. He attempted to force himself to his feet, but his leg wasn’t responding. Blood filled his mouth, his back stung, he could no longer feel the leg with the broken kneecap. The only thought in his brain was that it had hurt him and he would have revenge.

It was grounded and coming for him. He would let it get closer and then kill it with his bare hands, dig his fingers into its eye sockets and rip its skull right off.

Bright light engulfed the room.

There was a wet thud.

He squinted through the tears flowing from his eyes. The bat had been cut in half. It was lying less than a metre from him. A sensation of healing slammed into him.

Good! It meant he could tear apart whoever had stolen his kill. He lunged at the figure behind the slain monster. Strength, stronger than he could imagine, pinned him to the ground.

“Why on earth are you in an enraged state? And what the hell, Tom! Where’s your goddamn armour!”