The plains were quieter now. Only the wind moved, bending the tall grass in long, slow waves.

  “Spread formation,” Bash said. “No more than thirty meters apart. Pick off the stragglers first. Keep

  spacing tight but controlled.”

  Everyone nodded. The herd had drifted further east, leaving isolated wanderers grazing along the

  ridges. They moved quickly, silently, shadows across gold.

  The first target stood near a shallow ridge, alone. Nyra crouched, aligning her scope.

  “One-hundred ten meters,” she murmured.

  “Take it.”

  The rifle bucked once. The shot burned through the morning air, straight into the beast’s eye. It fell

  before it even had time to cry out, body sliding across the dirt with a dull thud.

  Bash’s chest jolted again. That same electric shock, low and quick, like a nerve catching fire for an

  instant. He flinched, pressing his palm against his sternum.

  “Again?” S-C asked quietly.

  “Yeah,” thought. “Same as before.”

  “Still no essence data recorded. No ability resonance. This isn’t standard.”

  He didn’t answer. There was no time.

  They pressed on.

  The next two beasts fell even faster.

  Each time, they aimed for the eyes or the soft tissue at the throat. Every time, Bash felt it, the flicker in

  his chest, that same silent pulse right as the creature died. He didn’t mention it now; the others were in

  rhythm, focused, efficient.

  By the fourth kill, they were a machine. Taren’s dual sidearms cut through the air, Calen’s arrows

  traced perfect arcs, Nyra’s rifle boomed like punctuation.

  The next target fell near a slope. Rixor moved in first, the others covering his approach. The massive

  creature turned, grunted, and lowered its head, but Rixor didn’t slow. He lunged beneath its swing and

  drove his hammer upward in a savage arc.

  The hit landed square under the jaw.

  The beast’s skull cracked, a wet crunch echoing through the valley. It froze mid-motion, then collapsed

  like a collapsing tower.

  Rixor stumbled back, panting, and then suddenly grabbed his chest.

  “Rix!” Liora shouted.

  He didn’t speak at first. His mouth opened, breath hitching, pain etched across his face. Then, slowly,

  he straightened.

  “I… unlocked!”

  The words hung in the air. Everyone stopped moving.

  He looked down at his hands, then up at the group. “My ability… I unlocked it!”

  Taren blinked. “Wait, what? Now?”

  Rixor nodded, still half-stunned, still holding his chest. “System Core just classified me, Durability

  class. I, I can take more damage. That was it! The shock, it was...”

  Bash’s heart dropped. “The shock?”

  Rixor nodded quickly. “Yeah! It hit hard. It hit me right when that thing dropped, like a pressure in my

  chest, and then, boom, System Core confirmed activation!”

  Bash’s expression tightened. “So that was your first time feeling it?”

  “Yeah,” Rixor said. “Nothing before this. Guess I just needed to land the killing blow.

  Everyone exchanged looks of disbelief.

  “Why the fourth one?” Nyra asked. “We’ve all hit kills.”

  “Maybe it needs the final blow,” Calen said. “That has to be it.”

  “Or,” Taren muttered, “the system’s just screwing with us.”

  The team laughed quietly, the absurdity of it washing over them.

  Rixor grinned through the adrenaline, excitement burning in his eyes. “Durability, huh? Guess that

  means I can take a hit now. I want to see how much.”

  Bash cut him off immediately. “No. You’re not testing it against these things. We’ll figure it out later.”

  He sighed but didn’t argue. “Fine. But still, feels good to, get one.”

  “Let’s keep moving,” Bash said. “Same formation. We’re making progress.”

  For the next hour, they hunted methodically, isolating lone beasts, cutting them down in quick, silent

  bursts. Every strike was cleaner than the last. They’d learned exactly where to aim: the eyes, the soft

  throat tissue, the joints just behind the horns.

  The Razorvein knives tore through anything they hit.

  Nyra’s rifle stunned when needed, though more often than not, her shots simply ended it outright.

  They moved with quiet confidence. The fear was gone, replaced by rhythm.

  But the confusion remained.

  Every time a beast fell, either Bash and Rixor winced. The same brief pulse, sharp, internal,

  undeniable.

  Rixor wiped his forehead. “That’s the sixth one,” he said quietly. “Didn’t hit it, but… felt something.

  Like a jolt in my chest.”

  Bash froze. He hadn’t felt it this time.

  “Confirmed,” S-C said in his head. “Essence resonance is proximity-based. When a creature dies, the

  closest Spartor, or the one delivering the killing blow, absorbs the released energy.”

  So that’s it, he thought. Distance or kill decides who gets it.

  He kept his expression neutral, pretending to check his sidearm while his mind raced. Whatever the

  system was doing, it wasn’t random.

  By the time they’d cleared nearly twenty of the beasts, the team had relaxed, tired but confident. The

  herd still grazed in the distance, mostly undisturbed. The air smelled faintly of dust and blood, the light

  turning amber as the sun began its descent.

  Calen drew another arrow, lining up a shot on a straggler near the slope. “Easy one,” he said, exhaling

  slowly.

  The arrow flew true, but the beast shifted at the last second. The shot clipped its horn, deflecting

  upward and vanishing into the open field.

  No one thought anything of it.

  Not until the echo came back a heartbeat later.

  A deep, distant crack. Then a roar that rolled through the ground like thunder from below. Another

  joined it, louder, closer.

  “Oh, no,” Taren whispered. “You didn’t…”

  The dirt trembled beneath their boots. A low vibration that grew into a shudder.

  Then the plains moved.

  Every beast, dozens, maybe a hundred, lifted their heads in unison. For one terrible instant, they were

  silent, horns glinting in the orange light. Then they surged.

  A wall of muscle and fury turned toward the team, unified by some unseen trigger. Dust erupted into

  the air, the sound like a storm breaking apart the sky.

  “Stampede!” Bash shouted. “Move! Get high ground!”

  They ran.

  The ground convulsed under their feet. The air filled with the pounding rhythm of hooves, a drumbeat

  so heavy it shook their bones. It wasn’t just panic anymore; the herd was in a frenzy, eyes red with

  aggression, every step tearing furrows into the plain.

  “Form line!” Bash yelled. “Eyes, throats, joints, make them fall!”

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  They spun and took position across a low ridge of rock and dirt.

  Nyra dropped to one knee, rifle pressed to her shoulder. The weapon whined as it charged, the barrel

  glowing faintly before she squeezed the trigger. A bolt snapped through the haze, slamming into the

  lead beast’s skull. It froze mid-stride, legs locking before momentum pitched it sideways into the dirt,

  crushing two others in its wake.

  “Next!” Bash barked.

  Calen’s arrows followed in a steady rhythm, thwip, thwip, thwip, each one burying deep into eyes and

  necks, turning forward momentum into collapse.

  Rixor met the first that breached their line. His hammer swung in a brutal arc, colliding with a horn and

  sending fragments flying. The beast’s head snapped to the side, and he pivoted, striking again before it

  could recover. Plain metal or not, the force was enough to shatter bone.

  Taren fired in measured bursts, her sidearms punching through softened targets, throat, underbelly,

  joints, each round dropping a creature that got too close.

  Liora and Darik broke from cover, cutting into the flank. Their blades flashed like mirrors, slicing

  through sinew and artery before they rolled clear of trampling hooves. They worked in tandem,

  ducking and striking, moving like extensions of one another.

  The herd pressed harder. Dust engulfed everything. The world became a storm of sound and motion,

  gunfire, roars, metal against bone, the thunder of a hundred hooves shaking the ridge apart.

  Bash fired into the chaos, his breathing sharp and even, every movement automatic. A beast fell, then

  another. The air thickened with the smell of dust and blood and heat.

  Shock.

  His chest flared again, hard enough to buckle him. He stumbled, teeth clenched, vision flickering white

  before it passed.

  He forced his focus back. Later. Figure it out later.

  Through the storm he caught glimpses of Rixor, massive, unstoppable, swinging wild but deliberate,

  his face a mask of rage and precision. Every time a creature fell near him, his body jerked with that

  same involuntary recoil, but he kept swinging.

  They moved like parts of a machine, instinct, training, desperation.

  Nyra fired again, a clean shot that cracked across the plain. The bullet tore through the air and struck

  another front-runner in the chest. The beast seized, stunned mid-leap, crashing into its own kind.

  Dozens went down in a wave, horns tangling, bodies slamming together in confusion.

  Calen’s arrows followed, striking at weakened spots, eyes, necks, open wounds from the collapse.

  Taren reloaded on instinct, dropping an empty mag, sliding a new one in, every motion fluid. “Keep

  firing!” she shouted.

  Liora and Darik darted between fallen bodies, blades finding soft tissue as they moved from one

  downed beast to the next, finishing those still thrashing.

  The air vibrated with fury. The herd was thinning, but those that remained came faster, closer, driven

  mad by blood and noise.

  Bash moved with the rhythm, shoot, pivot, reload, shoot again. His arm ached, his lungs burned, but his

  mind was still locked in that razor focus.

  Another shock hit him, sharper this time. His vision blurred for a second before clearing. A quick

  glance showed Rixor flinch in the distance, different timing, not simultaneous. Closest gets the surge,

  he thought grimly.

  He pushed through it, eyes narrowing as he fired another burst into a charging beast’s throat.

  Then, all at once, the sound began to die.

  When Bash finally looked up, the field ahead was unrecognizable. Dozens of massive bodies lay

  broken and still, sprawled across churned soil and pools of blood. A few staggered weakly before

  collapsing, and beyond them, five or six more ran limping toward the horizon, fading into the haze.

  Silence followed. Heavy, uneven breathing filled the void. The team stood in a loose semicircle,

  weapons half-raised, waiting for a movement that never came.

  Bash lowered his gun, chest still aching from dozens of the phantom surges. The pain was dull now,

  fading into a slow thrum under his sternum.

  Rixor was bent over, one hand on his knee, the other clutching his chest. He looked up, gave a

  breathless grin. “Everyone okay?”

  Calen nodded, stringing another arrow out of habit. “Alive.”

  Nyra reloaded slowly. “Barely.”

  Taren wiped grime from her cheek, her voice tight but steady. “I think we passed the teamwork test.”

  Rixor let out a half-crazed laugh. “Durability’s already paying off.”

  Bash didn’t answer. His eyes scanned the field, the torn earth, the still-twitching carcasses. The smell of

  iron hung thick, the setting sun washing everything in amber light.

  “Essence saturation detected,” S-C murmured faintly in his head. “You should collect quickly.”

  He nodded once. “Grab the fragments,” he said quietly. “Before something else shows up.”

  They moved in silence, exhaustion setting in only after the adrenaline ebbed. One by one, they cut

  through the fallen beasts, severing horns with practiced precision. Each horn glowed faintly as it came

  free, then dimmed again as Bash placed it into the protective containment bag clipped to his belt.

  The bag shimmered faintly with containment threads, expanding as each Beast Fragment was stored,

  sealing itself automatically after every addition. One by one, the others followed his lead, depositing

  their fragments into their own bags until the battlefield was stripped of trophies. The air was still thick

  with the iron tang of blood and dust, but the quiet that followed felt heavier than the chaos that came

  before.

  When the last body had sunk into the earth, Bash brought the team together near the ridge. Calen knelt

  beside his bag, counting softly under his breath while Taren and Liora compared tallies. “That’s all of

  them,” Nyra said at last, tightening the strap on hers.

  Bash opened his bag and poured the data readout across his visor. The display flickered, numbers

  stacking in a neat column before settling.

  103 fragments.

  He did the math automatically. “Three points each,” he murmured. “Three-hundred and nine total.”

  A low whistle came from Rixor. “Not bad for a warm-up.”

  Bash’s eyes flickered again, his system clock overlay appearing at the corner of his vision. 0.27 / 3.00.

  He stared at it for a long moment, then exhaled through his nose, a faint smile tugging at one corner of

  his mouth.

  “We just got started.”