Chapter 278: Enraged
"If you like to hide in the shadow so much..." Kael raised one fist up, the flames crawling over his gauntlet brightening until the entire metal casing glowed like heated iron. "Show me how you’ll hide when there is no shadow left!" he said, and struck the ground down.
His fist slammed into the arena floor with enough force to send cracks racing outward in a jagged circle. Breaking the ground had not been the point, but with Kael that tended to happen whether he intended it or not. The stone split under his knuckles, and the Fire Rune answered the impact by pouring heat into every fracture. A wave of flame rushed through the cracks, spreading across the dark cavern like burning veins. It did not last long, but it did not need to. For a clear, violent moment, the arena lit up.
The darkness peeled back.
Bones, old roots, brittle twigs, scattered debris, and patches of dead grass embedded into the earth all appeared at once under the orange glare. The circular cavern that had felt endless and formless suddenly became a battlefield with shape. Walls. Corners. Pits. Scratched stone. And there, halfway merged into one of the deeper pools of shadow, the Dark Beast of Getava was ripped back into visibility as if the light had hooked its flesh and dragged it out.
The beast howled.
It was not pain alone. It was outrage. The kind of sound a predator made when the forest it owned suddenly turned against it. Its body twisted violently as the shadows around it thinned, forcing it fully onto the ground. Black vapor rolled from its fur in frantic waves, but the firelight ate into that aura and reduced the creature from a ghost in the dark to something with muscle, weight, and a body that could be struck.
Kael straightened from the crater his fist had made, flexing his burning fingers once. The firewave continued spreading beyond him, low but persistent, catching on whatever old scraps the arena had left scattered across its floor. Rotten twigs took flame first, then dried grass, then small brittle bones that crackled as the heat licked over them. The cavern was still mostly dark, but no longer completely. Patches of orange light began forming around the arena, weak and uneven, yet enough to threaten the Beast’s most important advantage.
The Dark Beast noticed it too.
Its head snapped toward the small fires, then back to Kael. The creature’s posture changed immediately. The earlier patience disappeared. It could not afford patience anymore. If the arena continued to brighten, even unevenly, Dark Attunement would turn from a blessing into a shackle. Its speed would fail it. Its damage would drop. The shadow that made it king here would become a cage.
So it attacked.
The beast pounced with a violent burst, all four limbs driving against the stone as it launched itself toward Kael. The distance between them vanished in an instant, its enormous paws opening wide, claws curving inward to tear him apart from both sides. Kael met it without retreating this time. He drove both gauntleted fists forward into the incoming paws, flames flaring around his arms as metal struck claw and muscle.
The collision blasted heat and force outward.
Kael’s boots skidded back several feet, grinding twin lines through the stone. The Beast was shoved away as well, its front half twisting from the impact before it landed heavily and dug its claws into the ground. Neither came out the clear winner. Kael’s arms trembled from the shock, and the torn wound on his shoulder burned as fresh blood ran under the edge of his jacket, but the Dark Beast had not gotten through. Its claws had been stopped before reaching his chest, and the fire coating his gauntlets had forced it to recoil rather than press the exchange.
It prowled again, but the movement was tighter now, angrier. The Beast circled him through alternating pools of darkness and firelight, choosing its path with more caution. Every time it came close to one of the flames spreading across the debris, its body recoiled by a fraction, the darkness around its fur thinning and exposing more of its shape. Kael followed it with his eyes and shoulders, refusing to turn too quickly, refusing to overreact. He could feel Prowling Darkness still trying to drag at him, but the fire around his gauntlets and the scattered flames across the arena were making the pressure less absolute.
The Beast jumped again, this time from an angle, one paw slicing low while the other came high toward his face. Kael kicked backward hard, letting his body slide out of the line of the swipe as the claws passed close enough to stir the heat around his gauntlets. The attack missed, but only barely. A year ago, that near miss would have filled his head with panic. Now he only noted the angle, the reach, and the timing.
The creature’s forelimbs struck the ground where he had been standing and immediately began to sink into the shadow cast beneath its own body. It was trying to merge again, to vanish before Kael could punish the missed strike. Kael had been waiting for that exact instinct.
He raised one burning hand and snapped a fireball forward.
The spell was not large. It did not need to be. The small sphere of flame shot between the Beast’s hind legs and burst against the ground beneath its body, flooding the space under it with sudden light. The effect was immediate. The Dark Beast’s body jerked, half merged with the shadow and half forced solid by the light now burning beneath it. Its form hardened awkwardly, caught between states, and the creature howled as if part of its flesh had been clamped in an invisible trap.
Kael moved before it could tear itself free.
He launched himself over the creature’s back, ignoring the burn in his shoulder, and hooked both arms around its neck from behind. His gauntlets flared as he locked the chokehold, forearm pressing under its throat while the other arm reinforced the grip. Fire washed over the beast’s neck and jaw, lighting its fur from beneath and forcing the shadow aura away from the contact points. The Dark Beast tried to sink again, but every time the darkness gathered along its body, the flames around Kael’s arms burned it back.
"Not this time," Kael muttered through clenched teeth.
The Beast’s paws scraped at the ground, but because half its body had been caught during the failed shift, it could not immediately exert the force it wanted. Its front limbs slammed and clawed at stone, leaving deep gouges in the arena floor, while its hind legs kicked wildly behind it. Kael tightened his grip and shifted his weight lower, using his own mass and the strength of his arms to keep the creature’s throat compressed. The Beast rasped for breath, a violent choking snarl vibrating through its body and into Kael’s chest.
It tried to throw him off like a bull fighting a rider. Its shoulders twisted. Its spine bucked. Its head slammed backward, once, twice, almost clipping Kael’s face with one of those long sabertooth fangs. Kael tucked his head low against the creature’s neck and held on, his burning gauntlets pressing deeper into fur and muscle. The smell of singed hair filled the arena. The Beast thrashed harder, but with its paws partly pinned by its failed shadow shift, it could not build enough momentum to fully dislodge him.
For a moment, Kael thought he had it.
Not beaten, not yet, but controlled. The creature was strong, dangerously strong, but its greatest advantage had been the darkness and movement through shadow. If he could deny it both, if he could keep light pressed against its body and prevent it from creating distance, then this fight became something simpler. Ugly, brutal, and dangerous, but simple. Hold it. Burn it. Break it.
Then the Dark Beast changed.
The first sign was not a roar. It did not howl louder or thrash harder. Instead, its muscles swelled beneath Kael’s arms. The flesh under his chokehold expanded suddenly, thickening by inches in a single breath. Kael’s grip, which had been locked tight around the creature’s neck a moment earlier, began to fail as the Beast’s body grew too large for the hold to contain.
"What the..."
The black fur darkened first, then shifted. The color bled from shadow into something far more violent, a deep blood-red spreading across its hide like heat moving through iron. The dark vapor that had clung to its body changed with it, losing the cold, smothering quality of shadow and becoming heavier, hotter, more savage. The creature’s shoulders expanded. Its spine arched. Its claws lengthened with wet cracks that broke the ground that was pinning it, and the sabertooth fangs jutting from its mouth grew thicker, crueler, catching the scattered firelight in pale, polished edges.
Kael tightened his arms with everything he had, but the hold was gone.
The Beast rose.
Not fully, but enough. Enough for its muscles to fully tear free of the bad position. Enough for its forelimbs to rip out of the shadow-stuck ground through raw force rather than technique. Enough for Kael to realize that whatever was happening was not part of the status screen he had read. No listed ability had mentioned an enraged state. No warning had told him the Dark Beast could abandon stealth and become something larger, heavier, and more dangerous when cornered.
The Beast bucked once.
Kael was thrown off as if he weighed nothing.
He hit the ground hard on his back and slid across the stone, the flames around his gauntlets streaking against the floor as he forced himself to roll before the impact could rob him of breath. He came up on one knee, blood dripping from his shoulder, both fists still burning, and watched the creature finish changing.
The thing standing in front of him was no longer black as night.
It was red.
A deadlier, larger, nastier version of the predator he had only just begun to understand. Its chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, each one pushing hot vapor from between its fangs. The darkness in the arena no longer seemed to hide it the same way. Instead, the shadows gathered behind it like a curtain around a beast that had decided stalking was no longer necessary.
Kael slowly stood.
His expression had gone completely still.
"This wasn’t in the description. I’m about to file another complaint," he said, tightening his gauntleted fists as the Beast lowered its blood-red body and prepared to move again.
Only this time, it abandoned stealth and abandoned carefulness, it wanted blood, and its eyes could only see blood.
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