The trees snapped like kindling.

Something massive surged through the forest below the ridge, sending birds screaming into the sky. Cael crouched low beside the blackened roots of an overturned tree, eyes locked on the source of the tremors. His hand hovered over the hilt of his blade, lips set in a cold line.

"Target approaching," whispered Lark, his sharp-eyed scout, perched above in a low branch. "East flank. Eight meters tall—maybe more."

Cael gave a short nod.

The beast crashed into view a moment later—a lumbering, sinewed colossus of muscle and armor-like hide. A chimeric nightmare stitched together with fangs, tusks, and plated limbs. This wasn’t a wildborn. This thing had been made.

It slammed into the clearing with a roar that rippled the air.

The Black Fang Unit fanned out in perfect coordination. Crossbows loosed bolts tipped with silver and powdered acid; chains shot from spring-loaded traps; firebombs ignited against the beast’s side. It screamed. Staggered.

But it didn’t fall.

Cael moved like lightning—slicing across its flank, dodging a gnarled claw, shouting for Rix to detonate the charges under its legs. The monster buckled but didn’t go down. Blood soaked the mossy ground. It wasn’t theirs.

Not yet.

Then the wind shifted.

A blur dropped into the battlefield like a stone through water. Leather and white hair, gold catching the sunlight. She landed without a sound, sword drawn, the glint of metal and violet eyes catching Cael mid-strike.

"What the—?" Lark stumbled backward.

The woman didn't look at them—didn’t even acknowledge the carefully laid traps, the coordination, the strategy. She moved straight for the beast.

“Who the hell—?” growled Rix.

Before Cael could answer, she sprinted up the monster’s leg as it reared back, dug her boot into a joint, and vaulted onto its spine.

Then chaos.

She was everywhere—dancing across the creature’s back, blade flashing, carving it open along the seams like she was undoing a garment. The beast thrashed wildly, disoriented. Screaming.

She dove beneath its chin, her movement impossibly fast, and plunged her blade into the soft plate between its mandibles. The whole creature shuddered and let out a final, wheezing death cry before collapsing like a felled tower.

Silence.

Smoke curled from its wounds. The air stank of burned blood.

Cael stood frozen, sword still in hand. His entire team stared, panting, battered, blinking in disbelief.

She landed beside the corpse with the grace of a dancer, one boot pressed lightly on its snout. A single swipe of her blade, and the thick, grotesque head began to separate from the neck.

“She’s just one girl!” Rix sputtered from behind a half-collapsed tree.

Cael didn’t take his eyes off her.

“But that one girl is kicking our ass.”

She looked up—finally. Met his gaze with something between amusement and indifference. Her face was smeared with black blood, hair falling wild around pointed ears. A long scar curved down her cheek, but it only made her more unnervingly beautiful.

And she was already sheathing her blade.

“You’re welcome,” she said dryly, voice low and smooth as smoke.

Cael stepped forward, chest heaving. “We had this under control.”

Her smirk was knife-thin. “You had a plan. I had a solution.”

She reached down and hoisted the beast’s head with practiced ease, blood dripping from its maw as she slung it over her shoulder like a sack of grain. Rix started to raise his bow, but Cael put a hand on his arm.

“Don’t.”

“You’re letting her walk?” Lark hissed.