Ice crunched beneath their boots as they descended from the rise, the mining rig looming larger with every step. The pulse of runes intensified, beating like a mechanical heart that shook the ground and made the air crackle.

The swirling mana thickened with every meter, pressing against Akiko's skin like static waiting to snap. She grimaced, brushing her fingers across the sapphire at her throat as her HUD tried and failed to stabilize.

"It's worse up close," she muttered.

Raya's voice came from beside her, tight and low. "The mana density… it feels like the air's been crushed."

Akiko nodded. "Yeah. It's bad."

Behind them, Skadi stumbled slightly and let out a shaky breath. "Feels… ominous, sure, but that's it."

Akiko glanced back with a faint smirk. "Lucky you. If you could feel mana, you'd be puking by now."

She slowed when something caught the edge of her vision.

Fragments scattered across the ice. Pale. Leathery. Shattered.

Her stomach twisted.

She crouched, brushing her claws over the nearest shard. Grooves marred the inner surface, claw marks ripping outward from within.

"Eggshells," she whispered. "Same as the flow station."

Skadi flinched, her grip tightening on the strap across her chest. "Do you think they're still…?"

Akiko rose slowly, scanning the shadows ahead. Her HUD flickered again, heat signatures ghosting across the edge of her vision. Fast. Too fast to lock.

"They're here," Akiko said flatly. "Stay sharp."

A low hiss cut through the air, followed by the slither of something slick against ice.

Akiko's body snapped into motion, claws flaring bright.

The first creature lunged. Serpentine, smaller than the one they'd faced at the flow station, but its claws still glinted like polished steel.

Akiko met it head-on, driving her claws clean through its forelimbs with a sharp crack. It screeched, skidding across the ice in a tangled heap.

"Two o'clock!" Raya's voice cut through the air.

Akiko spun, catching another beast streaking toward Skadi. Skadi grabbed a length of pipe and swung. The clang echoed across the ice, knocking the creature sideways but not stopping it.

"Keep moving!" Akiko barked, diving forward to slash through the beast's flank before it could recover.

Skadi stumbled back, breath heaving, knuckles white on the pipe. "There's more!"

Shapes darted through the shadows, pale forms circling faster now.

Raya pressed close to Skadi, her hands glowing faintly, ready to heal.

"They're surrounding us!" Raya warned.

Akiko ground her teeth, claws flaring brighter as she lunged at another serpent, slicing clean through its chest. Smaller, yes. Weaker, maybe. But they were fast. Coordinated.

One struck from behind, claws raking her shield. It flickered, buckled. Another darted in from the side, claws tearing into her arm, slicing into the seams between dragon scales.

Pain flashed bright.

Akiko staggered, cursing under her breath as blood slicked her sleeve.

"Raya—!"

"I see it!"

Raya rushed to her side, hands glowing brighter now. She pressed them over the wound. Warmth surged through Akiko's skin, knitting muscle and flesh as her suit sealed tight around it again.

"Thanks," Akiko rasped, flexing her fingers.

"Don't thank me yet," Raya whispered back, breathless. "They're not stopping."

Akiko planted herself between them, breath sharpening into focus. "Good. Because neither are we."

Another serpent lunged. Akiko slashed it down in two clean strikes.

More hissed from the shadows.

Akiko grit her teeth, eyes narrowing toward the rig.

"We can't stay here," she snapped. "We push through."

"Toward that?" Skadi choked out.

Akiko's claws flared bright. Her breath came cold and steady.

"Toward the end of this."

She braced herself, waiting for the next wave. And when it came, she moved to meet it.

The swarm pressed harder, bodies twisting like a living tide. Akiko's claws flashed in quick arcs, slicing one creature down only for two more to surge forward. Their shrieks grated against her ears as claws raked her suit, scraping dangerously close to the seals.

"Stay behind me!" she barked, voice raw, batting another aside with a desperate swipe of foxfire.

But they slipped past her anyway.

"Skadi, behind you!" Raya's voice cracked through the air.

Akiko spun, too slow—

Skadi turned just in time to swing the pipe, catching one square in the jaw. It crumpled, but another lunged from the side. Its claws slashed clean through Skadi's pressure suit with a horrible tearing sound.

Skadi staggered, gasping, clutching her side as dark blood welled between her fingers. The hiss of escaping air filled the comm.

"Damn it," Skadi choked, voice tight with pain.

Raya was already moving, slamming her boot into the creature's ribs and dropping beside Skadi. She tore a patch from her pouch, hands steady as she slapped it over the torn seal. Her fingers glowed faintly as she pressed them over Skadi's wound, knitting skin with practiced precision.

"It's not stopping," Skadi rasped, voice shaking.

"Hold on," Raya bit out, shielding her with her body as another beast lunged. She kicked it away, buying another heartbeat.

Akiko sucked in a sharp breath, nearly overwhelmed. Her claws snapped wider as two more creatures circled close.

"Enough!" she roared, her voice breaking.

Her hand shot to the sapphire at her throat. Mana flared sharp and violent as she ripped at her reserves. She raised her other arm, foxfire already spiraling.

Applied Spellform Initialized: Foxfire Pulse Vector (Tier II)

The beam ignited.

A jet of focused foxfire burst from her palm like a cannon, white-blue and blinding. The recoil hit like a freight train, her boots skidding back across the slick terrain, momentum dragging her with it.

Her teeth clenched. She braced. Too late. Too much. Zephara's gravity wasn't enough to keep her secure against the propulsive pulse.

Then hands caught her. Firm. Steady.

Raya, behind her now, arms locking tight around her waist, legs bracing wide against the ice. She'd left Skadi patched and safe, just long enough to throw herself behind Akiko and hold.

"I've got you," she whispered.

Together, they held fast.

The beam swept left, then right, cutting a brutal swath through the creatures pressing in from all sides.

Foxfire flared like a solar bloom across the crater floor, the light etching their silhouettes in stark relief. A tremor raced through her limbs as the strain clawed at them, heat licking up her arm. But she held, directing the beam in wide sweeps until the advance faltered.

Silence crashed down in the aftermath, broken only by Akiko's ragged breathing. Sweat beaded on her brow, her HUD flashing red warnings: mana reserves low.

Akiko exhaled, foxfire dying in a flicker. Her muscles trembled with the aftershock. She half-collapsed back against Raya, both of them still kneeling on the crater floor, surrounded by ash.

Behind her Skadi scrambled to her feet. The girl clutched the patched suit tight, eyes wide and unfocused.

"Are you—" Raya started.

"I'm fine," Akiko breathed, her voice cracking with exhaustion. "We need to move. My reserves—" she cut herself off, jaw clenching. "They're almost gone."

The ground trembled beneath them, low and deep.

Akiko froze.

A guttural roar echoed through the frozen air.

Her claws flickered back to life, barely holding.

"Oh no," she whispered.

A massive shadow swept across the ice, crashing down with earth-shattering force. The ground split in spiderweb cracks beneath its weight.

It stood before them. Towering, monstrous. Pale scales shimmered faintly with unnatural light. Obsidian spines jutted from its back, sharp as razors. Its glowing eyes burned with a cold, malevolent intelligence.

Akiko stared up at it, jaw tightening. "Of course. Because the little ones weren't enough."

Raya pressed in close. "What… what is that?"

"Looks like the parent," Akiko muttered bitterly. "And it's pissed."

The beast snarled, steam curling from its nostrils. Claws dug deep into the cracked ice, muscles coiling.

Skadi's voice shook. "How did Karn make something like this?"

Akiko didn't answer right away. Her mind raced, fear and frustration tangling sharp in her throat.

"How does anyone build a nightmare factory in less than a year?" she spat. "Magic's only been here a year. And Karn's already stocked a whole goddamn monster franchise."

But that question rang hollow in her ears. She'd seen this before. On Ashara. The way Karn had taken a sliver of something ancient, something wrong, and fed it scraps of mana and ambition until it bloomed into corruption.

A dungeon core, twisted into a seed of control. Warping everything around it. People. Places. Bodies.

This had that same signature. That same sick logic. Not just built. Grown.

But where was it? Buried beneath the ice? Nested in some hollowed crater, pulsing like a second heart beneath the moon's surface?

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

She didn't know. And that was what terrified her.

Raya's voice was low, breath tight. "Is that even possible?"

Akiko's laugh was dry and bitter. "Apparently."

She took a step forward, claws flaring weakly but still burning. No more speculation. No more wondering how deep the roots went.

"Not that it matters," she rasped. "It's here. We're here."

Her gaze locked on the beast's glowing eyes.

"And I'm done running."

The creature roared again, the sound rippling through the frozen air like a hammer strike to the chest. Its massive tail lashed wide, slamming into the ice. Shards exploded in every direction.

"Move!" Akiko barked, shoving Raya and Skadi aside just as the tail swept past, close enough to rattle her teeth.

They tumbled behind a jagged ice shelf, the ground shaking beneath them as the beast prowled closer.

Skadi's voice cracked, tight with fear. "What's the plan?"

Akiko's jaw clenched. Her claws flickered weakly, the glow unsteady. Her reserves were nearly dry. She could feel the edge closing in.

"We kill it," she snapped, but the strain in her voice betrayed the lie.

"That's not a plan!" Skadi shot back, panic edging higher.

Akiko huffed a breath, forcing a grim smile. "It's the only one I've got."

The creature reared back, obsidian spines flaring as it readied its next strike.

Akiko surged to her feet, breath sharp in her throat.

"Stay back!" she called over her shoulder. "I'll keep it busy. You two, just stay alive."

Raya's reply came fast, sharp as glass. "Akiko—"

"Trust me!" she bit out, cutting her off. "I've done this before."

Another lie. She felt every crack in it.

The beast lunged. A blur of scale and muscle despite its size.

Akiko moved on instinct, dodging wide, boots skidding over brittle ice. The creature's claws slammed into the ground where she'd just been, shards of ice slicing the air.

"Too slow," she hissed, though the breath caught tight in her throat.

The tail came next, faster this time. She ducked low, feeling the wind whip past her ears.

She darted left, closing the gap just long enough to rake her claws across its forelimb. Sparks hissed as her foxfire met scale.

The cut barely marked it.

Akiko ground her teeth. "Like carving stone with your nails," she spat under her breath.

The beast hissed, spines flaring. It reared again, slamming its weight down. The shockwave cracked the ground beneath her. She leapt back, boots slipping.

Behind her, Raya and Skadi stood frozen near the ice shelf, Skadi's grip tight on her battered pipe.

The beast lunged low this time. Akiko tried to pivot, but she wasn't fast enough. Its claws clipped her side, sending her flying.

She hit hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs. Her shield flickered dangerously. Her HUD stuttered red.

"Damn it," she hissed, dragging herself upright.

The creature was already charging again.

Akiko ducked low, twisting away just as its jaws snapped shut behind her. The tail came next. She rolled under it, driving her claws deep into its flank as she slid past.

This time, she felt them catch. The cut dug deeper, ichor spilling dark and slow across the ice.

She staggered back to her feet, breath ragged. "Okay… that's something."

The beast wheeled toward her, unfazed. Its glowing eyes locked onto hers.

Akiko swallowed hard.

The creature lunged again. It raked claws through the frozen ground, jaws snapping inches from her face.

Akiko threw herself sideways, landing hard on her shoulder. She pushed up fast, spinning to face it again.

The tail slammed down, fracturing the ground in a ring of spiderweb cracks.

Akiko's claws flickered weakly. Not enough. Not like this.

The creature prowled in a slow, deliberate circle, stalking her now. Testing. Learning.

Akiko lowered her stance, breath tight in her chest.

"Come on," she rasped, voice barely more than a whisper. "Come on, you bastard…"

The beast snarled again, spines flaring like a war drum's final beat. It reared back. Drew in a deep, shuddering breath. The glow in its chest grew brighter, pulsing like a heartbeat as frost gathered around its jaws.

Akiko's pulse snapped sharp. She knew that shape. That build-up.

It wasn't fire this time, but it might as well have been. That same ancient dread clawed up her spine. The memory of heat, of dragonflame, the kind that could melt through stone and bone alike. Only now it was inverted: frost replacing flame, but the fear was the same.

Her HUD flared red.

"Warning: High-energy buildup detected. Recommend evasive maneuvers."

Her breath caught. Instinct screamed: Move. Dodge. Survive.

But the blast wasn't aimed just at her. It was aimed through her.

Straight at Raya and Skadi.

Akiko planted her feet. The breath hit like a freight train.

Foxfire flared into being, a blue-white shimmer erupting in front of her. But as the blast screamed toward them, golden light surged to meet hers, Raya's shield snapping into place just behind her own, two barriers woven in tandem.

The dragon's breath hit like a freight train.

A frozen tidal wave slammed into both shields, howling with wind and needle-sharp ice. Akiko staggered, boots skidding across the brittle ground as frost laced across her skin. The foxfire barrier cracked first, webbing fractures with every second.

Her HUD shrieked.

Shield integrity failing. Overload imminent.

Behind her, she could feel Raya bracing too, her shield humming under the pressure. They were holding. Barely.

Then the next pulse hit.

Akiko's shield shattered. Raya's held a moment longer before rupturing with a thunderclap. The cold surged through in full, battering Akiko's frame like a solid wall. Frost coiled around her limbs, burrowing past the joints in her suit. Her legs nearly buckled, agony knifing through muscle and bone.

Still, she stood.

Behind her, Skadi and Raya had dropped low, shielding their helmets. Akiko heard Skadi's voice break across the comm, sharp and panicked.

"Akiko!"

She gritted her teeth.

No backing down. Not now.

Akiko forced her legs to lock, trembling under the strain. Her breath faltered under the chill, lungs laboring in shallow bursts. Every inhale icing through her, burning cold trails through her chest.

Her eyes flicked back to the beast. The glow in its chest had grown brighter during the attack, pulsing with dense, unstable mana.

"There you are," Akiko rasped, voice raw as frost clung to her lashes.

The creature's breath finally faltered. It reared back, steam curling from its jaws as it reset its stance.

Akiko's claws flickered weakly to life. Every instinct screamed at her to fall back, to run, but she didn't.

She stepped forward.

"You've got a real design flaw," she whispered, lips curling into a crooked, breathless grin. "Let's see if I can exploit it."

Her movements were sluggish, armor groaning under the ice's grip. But she pushed on, step by step, her eyes locked on that pulsing weak spot.

Behind her, Raya's voice cracked through the comm. "Akiko, stop! You're—"

"I've got this!" she snapped, sharper than she meant. No time to explain. No time to doubt.

The beast dropped lower, claws digging into the ice, spines flaring as it readied to pounce again. The glow in its chest dimmed slightly. Bracing, recovering.

Akiko flexed her fingers. Her HUD flashed red again. Mana reserves critical. The overlay pulsed like it was mocking her.

She ignored it. Her hand closed around the sapphire at her throat.

"You've got one shot," she whispered, voice barely audible.

The gem flared, foxfire surging up her arm like liquid flame. Her claws elongated, burning hotter, brighter, shimmering like molten blades.

Takuto's voice buzzed sharp in her ear.

"Caution: Mana output exceeding safe thresholds. Potential instability detected."

"Noted," Akiko bit out, forcing a grin. "Guess I'll deal with that later."

The beast lunged.

Akiko dove to the side, every movement sharper than it had any right to be. Her burning claws sliced through the air, trailing fire as she twisted wide, barely dodging the snapping jaws.

"Come on," she hissed, eyes locked on the glowing pulse.

She darted left, then right, forcing the beast to track her motion. Her breath burned in her lungs, every step shredding what little strength she had left, but she didn't stop.

"Show me an opening," she whispered, muscles coiling tight.

The creature's claws carved deep trenches through the ice. Akiko dropped low, feet slipping across the ice as she twisted into a controlled slide beneath its bulk.

The beast roared overhead, claws raking down, but missed. Barely. One talon scraped sparks off the dragon-scales on her shoulder, close enough to split the air with heat.

She grit her teeth, breath burning in her lungs. The ice slicked her path, frictionless and treacherous, but it gave her speed.

The glow beneath its chest pulsed with unstable mana. Coiled tight around something deeper, something wrong.

Akiko surged up from the slide, both hands flaring with foxfire as she drove her claws into the seam of light. Straight into the beast's exposed core. And the world shuddered. Not just from the explosion of power, but something deeper. Familiar.

Her vision blurred at the edges, tinged red as that heat slipped under her skin.

And worse, something she recognized.

No. No, not again.

The mana surge hit like a punch to the chest, raw and unfiltered, crashing through every conduit in her suit.

Her limbs locked for a heartbeat, her thoughts skipping like a needle across a cracked record. The pressure wasn't just external, it was sinking in. Curling around her bones. Trying to thread itself into her.

Like before. Like the dragonling.

But this was different. Wilder. Fractured. Familiar.

Her claws sparked with unstable light. Her suit writhed, its reactive plates flickering with confused signals as if responding to two different instincts at once. Scales shimmered into being across her arms. Her teeth pressed sharp against her lip.

Her fingers twitched, claws flexing. Lines of unreadable code blinked past the edges of her vision, her HUD stuttering. Breath caught in her throat, then turned to mist.

The foxfire wreathing her claws flickered once. Twice. Then vanished, snuffed as if some deeper instinct had reached up and pinched it shut.

In its place came silence. Stillness. Cold.

"Don't let it take you." Takuto's voice, sharp and grounding, broke through the static. "There's a resonance. Similar genetic profile to the dragonling. It's trying to… align. I'm segmenting. Just hold on."

She yanked her claws free and staggered back. Steam hissed from the wound, but no blood followed. Only frost. The creature coiled slowly, its ruined chest pulling itself back together in strange, crystalline patterns. Its body moved like muscle, but healed like ice.

Akiko raised her hand. Froze. Her claws were still there, but they weren't hers. Not entirely.

The shimmer was different now. No longer the flickering blue flame of foxfire, but something colder, sharper. Curved slivers of ice coalesced around her fingers in perfect mimicry of what had been. They pulsed with a dim inner light, refracting the ambient glow of her suit like a prism.

She grit her teeth. Her body wanted to lean in. To accept. To claim. But that wasn't her. She wasn't a beast. She wasn't a construct. She was Akiko.

She'd already walked that edge once. She wasn't doing it again.

Her breath came ragged. The instinct to let go, to ride the power, scraped at her mind like claws on metal. But she forced it back, forced herself to remember the fire that had almost consumed her.

"Not this time," she muttered. Her voice sounded wrong. Not just deeper, older.

The influence pulsed again, thrumming like a second heartbeat just beneath her own. Takuto's firewall wasn't fully in place yet. But he was working. She just had to outlast the tide.

The creature limbs cut through the dust and cold with brutal precision. Akiko didn't try to match its strength, only its rhythm. Her body twisted, side-stepped, countered. Her claws shimmered, parrying one of its swipes, but the feedback pulsed hard up her arm. It was like striking tempered iron.

Behind her, she could feel Raya and Skadi regaining their footing.

Takuto's voice pulsed in her skull. No words, just a constant, rhythmic awareness. He was working. Isolating the fragments. Cutting away the roots that tried to wind around her mind.

She had to hold out a little longer.

She lunged first, but it wasn't a choice. It was a movement that came before thought, a reflex written into the marrow of her new skin. Her body bent low, slicing through the air in a blur, claws angled for the underbelly. The serpent twisted to meet her, but she was already moving. Around, under, behind.

They collided like elements, ice cracking like thunder.

Her claws sank in with a hush. The silence of frostbite. The silence of snow covering a corpse.

The beast hissed. Reared. Slashed.

She ducked. Slid. Moved not like a person, but like water frozen midstream.

They fought in circles. Overlapping. Tangling. Two forces caught in a spiral neither fully understood.

The beast hissed, an awful, chittering sound that resonated through the rubble like a dying engine. Its bulk tensed again, and Akiko sensed the shift too late.

One of its forelimbs slammed into the ground, sending a shockwave outward. The fractured terrain buckled, and she stumbled back as ice speared up from below like jagged teeth.

Pain burst through her shin. She dropped to a knee. Frost crept up through her core.

No more.

Her mana core flared in defiance, reasserting itself, foxfire erupting in reflexive defense. It stopped the follow-up strike just short of her head, burning through the ice.

The ice-formed claws shattered under the heat of her resolve.

"Akiko!" Raya's voice. Desperate.

"I'm fine," Akiko lied, gritting her teeth. She wasn't. The creature's proximity was getting worse. Her mana stuttered, flickered. And beneath her skin, something coiled, recognizing the shape of the enemy. Wanting to reach out. Wanting to merge.

No.

She wasn't a monster. She wasn't the thing Karn had built from scraps of dragon and hate.

She was Akiko Tsukihara. She would not be rewritten.

The beast reared, shrieked, and threw itself forward again.

Akiko screamed back.

The creature lunged again. It was faster now, or maybe Akiko's reflexes were lagging, blurring beneath the foreign presence that pulsed like ice through her veins, trying to reclaim her core.

She stumbled back, narrowly avoiding the sweep of a jagged limb that cleaved a furrow into the ruined metal beside her. Her foxfire shield flared reflexively, sputtering as her will faltered for a fraction of a second.

"Takuto—" she hissed, stumbling over her own breath.

"Still isolating the contamination. Do not overextend."

Too late. The influence was already gnawing at the edges of who she was. Her own breath came ragged, not just exhaustion but from a pressure that was not hers. Lungs forced to function beneath a will that strained to remain singular.

The monster circled. One of its hindlegs dragged with a warped hitch, blue ichor steaming from a ragged gash. Akiko couldn't remember landing that hit. Her mind was a mess of impressions, blurs of movement, the shock of impact, the hiss of mana-ripped air. Her senses were filled with the creature's scent, its pulse, its hunger.

Her hunger.

"No," she whispered, closing her eyes for the space of one breath. "You don't get to be me."

It lunged again, desperation in its movements now, driven by a fraying instinct. Akiko pivoted into the strike, ducking beneath the slashing claws and driving both hands into its chest. Her foxfire flared, and this time, she didn't channel it as a shield or blade.

She opened the floodgates, raw and unfiltered.

A rush of searing white-blue energy poured into the monster, to destroy it from within, but also burning away the resonance. To sever the mirror it had held up to her soul.

The creature screamed. No voice, just a harmonic shriek that cut through the air like ice fracturing at depth. The beast convulsed violently, its body thrashing as it tried to shake her loose. Claws slammed into her from both sides, gouging her barrier with bone-cracking force.

She grit her teeth, muscles locked. She couldn't move. Couldn't dodge. All she could do was burn.

Another blow landed. Her shield flickered, then shattered.

The breath tore from her lungs.

And then, light.

Raya's golden barrier surged up from behind her, wrapping around her like a second skin just as the beast's claws came crashing down. The impact rocked her, but the shield held for one heartbeat longer.

That was all she needed.

The foxfire surged. The creature's core ignited from within.

Its limbs jerked, spasmed, then crumpled as the energy overtook it. Steam and slag erupted outward, the massive frame collapsing in on itself, its grasping claws finally still.

Akiko sank to one knee, breathing hard. Her body ached. More than wounds, from something deeper than blood, like the marrow of her being had been scraped raw.

Takuto's voice was a distant pulse in her ear, dulled by fatigue and static.

"The contamination is being isolated. But… it left impressions. Echoes. I will monitor closely."

Too tired to care about posture or appearances, she slumped sideways onto the frost-laced stone. The ice steamed around her where her warmth met it, curling in wisps that ghosted upward and vanished.

She closed her eyes for just a moment.

Footsteps pounded toward her, quick and uneven, Raya's voice rising in alarm, Skadi not far behind.

But Akiko couldn't lift her head. Not yet.

The whisper in her mind was gone.

"I'm still me," she whispered.

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