The creature's draining faltered—
Not because it was weakening.
But because something inside it snapped.
A primal surge overtook its frame. Its molten eyes flared with violent intensity, and the fissures splitting across its armored hide blazed brighter than before. Raw Abyssal instinct flooded through it, drowning whatever fractured intelligence had lingered.
It went berserk.
With a thunderous roar, it tore its arm free from Draven's grip and drove a punch forward with catastrophic force.
This time—
Draven did not fully brace.
The blow connected.
The impact detonated the air.
A concussive shockwave burst outward as Draven's body was launched backward like a meteor, tearing through the clearing in a violent arc. Trees shattered on impact—one, two, five—trunks exploding into splinters as he blasted through them. The forest bent and ruptured along his trajectory.
He finally struck the ground with seismic force.
Stone and earth ruptured beneath him, carving a deep trench across the terrain as momentum dragged him through rock like a blade through soil. Only after dozens of meters did the violent recoil begin to bleed away.
Aldric stood rigid beside Lyriana, eyes wide, breath shallow.
"I knew it," he muttered under his breath. "He should've ended it immediately."
Lyriana didn't respond.
Her gaze remained locked on the battlefield, unblinking.
Everyone present understood the truth.
Creatures from the Abyss possessed two states.
The first—
The stabilized manifestation.
The second—
The unleashed state.
But this one…
This one felt different.
In the distance, smoke and debris rose from the torn forest line.
Then—
Movement.
Draven twisted midair during the final recoil of the impact. His body rotated fluidly, boots angling downward with deliberate control. He drove both feet into the ground and slid backward across fractured stone, carving twin trenches beneath his heels.
His body leaned back at an extreme angle as friction screamed against the earth.
Sparks burst from beneath his boots.
Then—
He stopped.
Dust rolled past him in a low wave, curling around his silhouette.
He remained motionless for a breath.
Exhaling slowly.
"…I was starting to think the damn idiot couldn't do it," he muttered.
He straightened gradually, brushing splintered bark and pulverized stone from his shoulder as though he had merely walked through rain.
"At least now you're not as weak."
His crimson eyes burned brighter.
"Good."
His fingers flexed once.
Twice.
Then he moved them in a strange, deliberate sequence—subtle, precise articulations of the joints, like a craftsman testing the tension of invisible threads.
Crack.
A sharp snapping sound echoed through the clearing.
Then another.
And another.
The air shifted.
Pressure thickened behind him, invisible yet undeniable.
The creature roared again—
But this time, the sound carried something sharper. Something feral.
Its form began to distort.
The crimson fissures widened, splitting further across its armored hide. Plates shifted and overlapped. Musculature expanded grotesquely as unstable energy surged outward in violent waves that bent the surrounding air.
Its silhouette thickened.
Horns elongated, curving more viciously.
The density of its presence warped the atmosphere around it.
The ground beneath its feet began to melt under pressure alone.
And then—
It vanished.
No windup.
No visible motion.
Just absence.
In the same instant—
It appeared directly before Draven.
A massive claw descended in a vertical strike meant to obliterate everything beneath it.
The speed cracked the air like lightning tearing through a stormfront.
But Draven's eyes were already locked onto the distortion point where space had folded a fraction too tightly.
He had seen it coming.
The claw fell.
The ground beneath Draven exploded—
But he was no longer there.
A ripple of compressed air burst sideways as he slipped from the impact zone at the last possible instant.
The creature's blow carved a crater dozens of meters wide. Stone liquefied at the center from force alone, molten fragments spraying outward like volcanic shrapnel.
Draven reappeared several paces away, boots settling lightly against fractured rock.
His expression had changed.
No longer analytical.
No longer curious.
Now—
Focused.
"Finally adjusting," he said quietly.
The creature turned slowly, molten eyes burning brighter, breath rolling from its mouth in thick waves of black vapor.
Its second form had stabilized.
Partially.
But enough.
Draven rolled his shoulders once.
The folded mana within him responded instantly—smoother than before. Denser. Hungrier.
"Alright," he said.
"I'll start."
And this time—
When the creature lunged again—
Draven didn't dodge.
He stepped forward to meet it.
---
The creature lunged.
Not wild.
Not reckless.
Focused.
Its massive frame compressed inward before exploding forward with terrifying acceleration. The ground beneath it shattered from the force of its launch, shockwaves rippling outward in concentric rings that cracked stone and flattened what remained of the clearing.
Its fist descended like a falling fortress.
Draven stepped into it.
At the final instant, his body shifted—minimal motion, perfect alignment. His left hand rose and struck the inside of the creature's wrist, redirecting the trajectory by mere inches.
The punch missed his skull by a breath.
It crashed into the earth behind him.
The resulting explosion swallowed half the clearing in dust and pulverized rock.
But Draven was already inside its guard.
His right hand shot forward—
Palm striking the creature's sternum.
Not with brute force.
With compression.
A pulse of folded mana detonated inward instead of outward.
The creature's armored chest visibly dented.
A deep, concussive boom echoed from within its ribcage, as though something internal had fractured under pressure.
It staggered.
But this time—
It did not fall.
Its second form reacted instantly.
Black tendrils of unstable energy erupted from the fissures across its body, whipping toward Draven like living spears.
Draven pivoted.
One tendril grazed his shoulder—his cloak disintegrated instantly where it touched, fabric evaporating into drifting ash.
Another lashed toward his throat.
He caught it.
Gloved hand closing around writhing energy.
The tendril screamed against the material of his glove, attempting to corrode, to invade, to consume—
But the folded structure within him absorbed the intrusion immediately.
The tendril flickered.
Dimmed.
Draven's grip tightened.
He pulled.
The creature roared as a chunk of its manifested energy was ripped free, unraveling like torn muscle from bone.
Draven crushed it in his palm.
It dissolved into crimson light and flowed into him, seamlessly integrated.
The creature reacted violently.
Its horns flared with blinding brightness—
And its body swelled again.
Muscle expanded grotesquely. Armor plates shifted outward, cracking under internal pressure.
Its second form was pushing toward a third instability.
Aldric's breath caught.
"It's escalating…"
Lyriana's voice was quieter.
"No… it's losing control."
The creature opened its mouth—
But no beam formed.
Instead, it inhaled.
Deep.
The air across the battlefield reversed direction. Trees bent inward, roots tearing from soil. Debris lifted from the ground and spiraled toward its maw as it began gathering not only mana—
But everything.
Draven's boots carved slightly into the stone as the suction intensified, fragments of rock dragging toward the forming vortex.
He did not brace.
He leaned forward.
Curious.
"… collapsing your own core."
The creature did not care.
It compressed everything into a singular point of annihilating density forming between its jaws.
The pressure warped the sky.
Light bent.
Sound dulled.
Draven's crimson eyes narrowed.
Then—
He disappeared.
Not a dash.
Not a blur.
He stepped into the distortion itself.
Appearing directly before the forming singularity.
The creature's molten eyes widened a fraction—
Too late.
Draven drove his hand straight into the forming sphere.
The world went silent.
No explosion.
No outward blast.
Just a deep, internal crack.
The compressed energy destabilized instantly under his interference. Instead of releasing outward—
It folded inward.
Violently.
The implosion ripped backward through the creature's throat and chest. Fissures along its body burst open as uncontrolled energy detonated inside its own frame.
The creature screamed—
A sound that fractured the sky.
Its massive body convulsed as black cracks spread across its armored hide like fractures racing through glass.
Draven withdrew his arm slowly from the collapsing core.
His skin smoked faintly.
But he remained unharmed.
"You're a dumbass," he said calmly.
"You're unraveling."
The creature tried to swing again.
Slower now.
Desperate.
Draven stepped forward.
Caught the descending arm with both hands—
And twisted.
The sound of tearing armor and rupturing internal channels echoed across the clearing as he wrenched the limb sideways with impossible force.
The creature dropped to one knee once more.
Not from impact.
From systemic failure.
Its second form was destabilizing rapidly.
Mana poured from it in uncontrolled torrents, leaking from every fractured seam.
And this time—
Draven did not wait.
The crimson threads within him surged outward in a visible wave.
They embedded into every glowing fissure across the creature's body.
Latched.
Locked.
And pulled.
The draining was no longer subtle.
It was violent.
The creature's roar broke into something jagged and fractured.
Its massive frame began to shrink—not physically at first—
But in presence.
Its oppressive aura thinned.
Its weight against the world lightened.
The space around it no longer bent under its dominance.
Draven stepped closer.
Looking up into its fading molten eyes.