Bash’s hand dropped.

  The signal flashed through the team like a spark.

  Taren and Bash broke from cover first, sprinting low across the field. The air hissed past their ears,

  gravity too light to drag them down. The massive beast was already shifting its weight, the slow rhythm

  of its grazing giving way to stillness as it sensed movement.

  Taren knelt mid-stride and raised both sidearms. Two clean bursts cracked through the air,

  clang, clang!, the rounds ricocheted off the beast’s shoulder with sharp metallic rings. Sparks leapt

  from its hide.

  The creature’s head snapped up.

  Its eyes locked on Taren.

  Then it charged.

  The ground shook as it lunged forward, its hooves carving deep grooves into the soil. For something

  that size, it shouldn’t have been that fast, but in Kaelith’s thin gravity, it crossed a hundred meters in

  seconds. Its six horns cut through the air like a charging engine.

  Taren fired again and again, walking backward while unloading precise bursts. Each shot glanced off,

  leaving only shallow scorch marks along the beast’s flank.

  “Dammit!” she hissed, ducking left as it barreled past. The displacement wind nearly threw her off

  balance.

  Before the beast could pivot, a flash of blue light streaked from the hillside,

  Nyra’s rifle discharged with a deep whummp, the arc bursting across the creature’s temple.

  The stun hit home.

  The beast froze mid-stride, limbs locking as energy rippled across its nervous system. It tripped,

  crashed chest-first into the dirt, and plowed a trench three meters deep. The shockwave threw debris

  high into the air, a storm of dust and soil raining down over the field.

  Taren coughed, eyes stinging, but kept moving.

  The beast roared, low, guttural, and staggered back to its feet, shaking dirt and steam from its hide. Its

  focus snapped right back to her.

  “Eyes on me!” she yelled, sidestepping as Calen and Nyra shifted positions.

  Calen’s bowstring sang.

  Then again.

  Then again.

  Arrow after arrow flew, slicing the air. Each one left faint trails of energy, tips glancing off thick hide,

  nicking joints, deflecting near the neck. None sank deep.

  “Minor penetration only!” he shouted.

  Liora and Darik appeared out of the haze, sprinting from opposite sides of Taren. Both leapt high,

  blades catching sunlight as they struck, sharp arcs of motion that crossed in midair. Their swords bit,

  slid, and tore shallow cuts across the beast’s upper flank before both flipped backward, landing in

  perfect, low crouches.

  Blood, dark and viscous, trickled from the wounds, but the creature barely flinched.

  Bash was already in motion, running full speed toward the chaos. S-C’s voice was in his head, cool and

  precise.

  “High durability composite dermis. Strike soft tissue, joints, eyes, throat folds. Aim small.”

  Copy, he thought, shifting his path to circle behind the creature.

  He reached for one of the Razorvein knives, the metal humming faintly with restrained violence. Every

  motion felt slower in the lighter gravity, but his acceleration was unreal, ten strides carried him thirty

  meters.

  The beast’s head swung, trying to locate Taren again. Bash saw the angle open, back leg, left side,

  tendon exposed just above the joint. Perfect.

  He threw.

  The knife spun once, twice, the crimson gleam flaring brighter, and struck clean into the back of the

  knee.

  SHHK.

  The effect was immediate.

  The imbuement activated on impact, the blade grinding deeper as the metal’s inner vibration tore

  through flesh. The wound split wider with a wet crack, blood pouring down the leg in a red sheet.

  The creature bellowed and collapsed onto that side, the entire limb folding beneath its weight.

  “Hit confirmed!” Bash called out.

  It tried to rise, struggling against its own mass. For a second, it succeeded, but only halfway. One leg

  crippled, its movement turned into a slow, lurching crawl. Its chest heaved. Then the sound changed,

  deeper, resonant, a rhythmic grunting that rattled the air.

  S-C’s tone sharpened.

  “Vocal frequency spike detected. It’s transmitting distress. Call for herd reaction imminent.”

  “Rixor!” Bash shouted. “Now!”

  The big man was already charging.

  Rixor tightened his grip on his hammer, the plain steel head gleaming. “Time to shut this thing up!” he

  roared, charging forward.

  He swung with everything he had.

  The impact landed like thunder, metal meeting bone in a sickening crack. The beast’s head snapped

  sideways, a spray of dirt and blood bursting from the wound as the ground trembled beneath the force.

  The beast reeled, stumbling sideways, but it wasn’t done. With a violent toss of its head, one of its

  horns hooked the hammer shaft.

  Rixor’s eyes widened.

  “Ah, hell, ”

  The beast jerked, wrenching the weapon free and flinging it fifty meters into the air. The force sent

  Rixor tumbling backward, crashing hard into the dirt just beneath the creature’s heaving chest.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  It reared back, one eye blood-red, the other flashing with pain, and lowered its head. Six horns leveled

  forward like spears. It was going to crush him.

  Bash was already moving.

  He drew another Razorvein in one fluid motion and launched it toward the charging skull. The red

  streak crossed the space in an instant.

  The blade buried itself in the creature’s eye.

  The sound that followed was less a roar and more a collapse of sound itself, a deep, wet shudder as the

  knife dug in. The imbuement engaged again, drilling inward, tearing through nerve and bone and into

  the brainstem. The light in the creature’s other eye flickered out.

  Its body locked. Then fell.

  The ground shook as the massive frame hit, a wave of dust and pressure rolling across the plain. Bash’s

  legs buckled. His chest jolted with a sudden shock, like a pulse of static slamming through his ribcage.

  He gasped, looking down at himself. “What the...”

  S-C’s voice came quickly.

  He gasped, looking down at himself. “What was that?”

  “I sensed something,” S-C said after a pause. “It matches the signature of an essence absorption event,

  but there’s no record of activation or gain. Nothing unlocked.”

  Bash blinked, still feeling the faint echo in his chest. “So I absorbed something?”

  “Possibly. Or the system reacted as if you did. I’m… not certain.”

  He exhaled, the confusion settling into a quiet frown. “Great. That’s reassuring.”

  Rixor groaned and rolled aside just in time as the creature’s carcass settled beside him. “You could’ve

  warned me,” he muttered, wiping sweat and dirt from his forehead.

  “Consider that your warning,” Bash said, still scanning the beast.

  The rest of the team regrouped, weapons ready, forming a circle around the downed monster. Its

  breathing had stopped, but its sheer size was still unnerving up close. The hide was pitted and scorched

  from their attacks, blood seeping into the ground beneath it.

  “Harvest required,” S-C said. “Beast Fragments are localized within the horn structure. Remove both

  sets for full value.”

  Bash relayed calmly, “S-C says we need to cut off the horns. That’s the Beast Fragment.”

  Rixor blinked at him. “You’re joking. You mean those things?” He gestured at the massive six-horn

  rack, each piece thicker than his torso.

  “Afraid not,” Bash said, drawing his dagger. “Three points, remember?”

  Darik groaned. “We’re going to have to carry them?”

  Bash crouched beside the head. “We didn’t come here to lose.”

  The dagger slid into the joint at the horn’s base, and to his surprise, it went in smooth, almost like

  cutting soft clay. The resistance dropped completely as the edge sliced through. The once-tough hide

  parted without effort.

  “Either I’ve gotten stronger,” he muttered, “or this thing’s durability drops to zero after death.”

  Within seconds, the first horn detached with a low hum. Then the next. Bash worked methodically,

  slicing through the joints until all six horns lay scattered across the dirt beside the beast’s massive head.

  The moment the final one came free, the air around them pulsed. A faint white glow spread across the

  pile of horns, threads of light tracing their edges before converging inward. Then, in unison, the horns

  began to shrink, their shapes collapsing and folding into streams of gold that twisted toward each other.

  The light coiled tighter, merging at the center until the separate pieces fused into one single form, a

  small, polished beast fragment shaped like a curved miniature horn. Its surface shimmered with a soft

  inner pulse, gold fading slowly to amber.

  Bash reached out and caught it before it hit the ground. The warmth of it sank into his palm, a faint

  vibration humming beneath the smooth surface.

  “Guess storage won’t be a problem.”

  Rixor exhaled. “One piece. Easier to count, harder to lose.”

  A few quiet laughs followed, the tension bleeding away with the last traces of light.

  As the light trickled away the massive corpse began to tremble. Its surface darkened, edges curling

  inward like paper burning in reverse. The flesh, the blood, even the bones began to disintegrate into

  fine ash, sinking into the ground below. Within moments, the entire beast was gone, absorbed into the

  soil as if it had never existed.

  The grass shifted back upright, erasing all trace of the battle.

  For a long moment, no one spoke. The wind moved through the field again, cool and steady, carrying

  the faint sound of distant life somewhere far beyond the ridge.

  Bash turned the small horn fragment over in his hand, watching the faint glow pulse once, twice, before

  fading.

  “Well,” he said quietly, sliding it into his pack, “one down.”

  Rixor cracked his knuckles, staring out over the plains. “About a hundred to go.”

  Nyra ejected her rifle’s spent cartridge, slotting a new one in with a click. “Next time, we aim for the

  eyes first.”

  Bash smiled faintly, his voice low and calm.

  “Exactly.”