The second armored Abyssal being came at Kel with everything it had.
Kel saw the charge coming, but seeing it and being ready for it were two different things.
His ribs were already bruised. His hands were swollen, and the sudden awakening of his Internal Qi had left his entire body feeling too full, as though something inside him had opened faster than he knew how to control. Every breath hurt, but the armored creature didn't care.
It crossed the burning street in seconds.
Kel shifted his lead foot and slipped outside the first punch. The armored fist passed beside his cheek and buried itself in the remains of a stone wall. Before the creature could pull free, Kel stepped close enough to take away its reach.
His left hand snapped toward the gap beside its neck.
Jab.
The creature turned.
Kel's rear heel lifted as his hips rotated.
Cross.
The second punch struck the damaged opening beneath its chest plate.
The Abyssal being recoiled, but Kel didn't chase recklessly. He pivoted away before the creature's elbow could catch him and reset several feet to the side.
His breathing came hard.
The creature turned toward the northern road again.
Kel's expression hardened.
"No."
It took one step north.
Kel stepped back into its path.
The armored Abyssal being attacked.
Kel ducked beneath the first swing and drove a short left hook beneath its arm. His Internal Qi moved with the strike before he consciously called for it. The creature staggered half a step.
Kel felt it.
He still wasn't used to that.
Before tonight, every use of Internal Qi had required effort. He had to think about where he wanted it, force it through his body and hope his timing matched his movement.
Now his Qi seemed to understand his body before he did.
The creature swung again.
Kel rolled beneath it.
His knees bent.
Torso turned.
Rear hand stayed close to his jaw.
When he came back up, his feet were already underneath him.
Kel threw a jab into the creature's neck, followed immediately by a right hand into the fractured chest plate.
The armor cracked farther.
The Abyssal being roared and drove forward.
Kel tried to pivot away.
His injured ribs slowed him.
The creature's forearm caught his side.
Kel was lifted off his feet and thrown into the street. He hit shoulder-first, rolled twice and stopped near the remains of a burning wagon.
Pain exploded through his body.
Kel stayed down for a second longer than he wanted.
One of Luno's insects landed on a broken wheel beside him.
It immediately turned north.
The way out.
Kel stared at it.
Luno had already left him the answer.
Run.
Harven had given him the same answer.
Kel pushed onto his hands and knees.
The Abyssal being started toward him.
Behind it, the northern road remained open.
Kel breathed through the pain.
Luno had to be far enough by now.
The civilians had to be far enough.
He had bought time.
He didn't need to prove anything else.
Kel started to rise.
Then the creature turned its head north again.
His jaw tightened.
"Seriously?"
It stepped toward the road.
Kel stood.
"Fine."
The creature looked back at him.
Kel wiped the blood from his mouth.
"One more."
Heat rolled from the burning wagon beside him.
Kel felt it touch his skin.
Then disappear into him.
The sensation had grown stronger throughout the night. Fire didn't gather around his hands. No flames appeared across his body. Nothing about Kel looked like a fire user.
The heat simply vanished into him.
His chest warmed.
His exhausted muscles tightened.
Internal Qi stirred beneath his skin and moved toward his legs.
Kel didn't understand it.
He didn't need to understand it yet.
The Abyssal being charged.
Kel met it halfway.
Not head-on.
At the last instant, he stepped outside the creature's lead leg.
The armored fist passed his shoulder.
Kel planted.
His body rotated from the ground upward.
Foot.
Hip.
Torso.
Shoulder.
Right hand.
The cross slammed into the damaged chest plate.
CRACK!
The fracture spread.
Kel stayed close.
Left hook beneath the arm.
The creature twisted.
Kel dipped under the returning elbow and came up with an uppercut beneath the edge of its armor.
Its head snapped backward.
Kel stepped with it.
Jab.
Cross.
The creature covered the damaged section.
Kel immediately changed levels.
Body hook.
The armor there held.
Pain shot through Kel's fist.
He grimaced.
"Still hate that."
The Abyssal being shoved him backward.
Kel slid across the dirt but kept his feet.
For the first time, the creature hesitated.
Kel noticed.
His breathing slowed.
He wasn't stronger than it.
Not really.
But now he understood how it moved.
And it hadn't learned him nearly as quickly.
Kel shifted his weight lightly between his feet.
The creature attacked high.
Kel slipped.
It followed with a second strike.
Kel rolled beneath it.
The third came toward his body.
Kel stepped back just enough for it to miss.
Then he returned immediately.
Jab to the neck.
Cross to the crack.
Left hook beneath the arm.
The creature staggered.
Kel moved before fear could talk him out of it.
He stepped inside.
His lead shoulder pressed close to the armor.
Short right hand.
Then another.
The strikes weren't wide. There wasn't room.
Kel used his legs and hips, driving compact punches into the damaged section while the creature struggled to create enough distance to use its greater reach.
It finally grabbed for him.
Kel felt the movement and pivoted away.
The creature's hand closed on empty air.
Kel came around its side.
The broken plate was exposed.
His Internal Qi rushed through his right arm.
Kel planted both feet.
One clean cross.
BOOM!
The armor collapsed inward.
The armored Abyssal being stumbled backward.
Kel stepped after it.
Its hands came up too late.
Jab.
Jab.
Kel drew its attention upward.
Then his knees bent.
His hips turned sharply.
A hook drove into the broken section of armor.
The creature folded.
Kel stepped to the outside, loaded his rear leg and fired one final right hand through the opening.
Internal Qi surged at the moment of impact.
The Abyssal being flew backward.
Its body crashed through the remains of a burning doorway and disappeared beneath collapsing wood.
Kel remained in his stance for several seconds.
Waiting.
Nothing moved.
He slowly lowered his hands.
"Okay."
His breathing came in broken pulls.
"Now I'm leaving."
One of Luno's insects immediately flew north.
Kel almost laughed.
"Yeah, yeah. I know."
He took one step after it.
Then stopped.
Something changed.
The fire was still burning.
People were still shouting farther away.
Buildings still cracked under the heat.
But beneath all of it, Kel felt another presence enter the edge of his awareness.
His newly awakened Internal Qi reacted first.
Then his instincts.
The pressure wasn't like the armored Abyssal beings.
Those creatures had felt heavy and violent, their Abyssal Qi spilling outward like they couldn't contain it.
This was different.
Controlled.
Compressed.
The kind of pressure that didn't need to announce itself because it knew everything nearby would eventually notice.
Kel slowly turned.
Several streets away, inside the damaged building, Solara felt it too.
Her Soul Qi cloak remained wrapped around herself, Roku and the dark-metal case. The discovery they'd made only minutes earlier still sat heavily between them.
The case was the reason they'd been hunted.
Not their Qi.
Not their tracks.
Not bad luck.
The package.
Now that Solara's cloak covered it, the search outside had become scattered and aggressive.
Roku sat against the wall with one hand pressed to his injured shoulder.
Solara suddenly stiffened.
Roku noticed.
"What?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Her eyes shifted toward the street.
"He's moving."
Roku didn't need to ask who.
Drako.
They had watched him direct the search after the explosion. He hadn't panicked when the trail vanished. He hadn't screamed at his people.
He'd simply adapted.
That bothered Roku more.
"Toward us?"
Solara concentrated without extending her Soul Qi beyond the cloak.
"No."
Roku frowned.
"Then where?"
Another pulse of pressure moved through the town.
Solara's eyes widened slightly.
"Toward the awakening."
Roku understood.
The Internal Qi pulse they'd felt earlier.
Someone nearby had broken through in the middle of this disaster.
Roku looked toward the wall separating them from the street.
"Whoever that is has terrible luck."
Solara didn't answer.
That familiar feeling she'd noticed earlier returned to the back of her mind.
She still couldn't place it.
Outside, Drako walked through the burning settlement without hurrying.
He was taller than nearly everyone around him, standing just under seven feet, with a broad, powerful frame that made the fighters moving around him look smaller. His dark skin caught the firelight as he passed beneath broken roofs, and old scars crossed his forearms, shoulders and the exposed section of his chest beneath his damaged sleeveless coat.
Thick braids had been pulled away from his face and tied behind his head. A short beard covered his jaw, uneven enough to suggest grooming wasn't something he spent much time worrying about.
Nothing about the way he moved matched the chaos surrounding him.
His shoulders remained loose.
His arms rested naturally at his sides.
His breathing was calm.
Even the burning buildings seemed more frantic than he was.
That was what made people move out of his way.
Abyssal Qi moved around Drako in slow, dark waves. It didn't pour wildly from him. It gathered close to his body, thick enough to make the air around him feel heavy. Occasionally, faint red traces appeared inside the darkness and vanished again.
Where the armored beings felt uncontrolled, Drako felt deliberate.
One of the armed fighters approached him.
"We still can't feel it."
Drako kept walking.
"The package?"
"Gone."
"Then keep looking."
"We've searched this section twice."
Drako finally looked at him.
The man stopped talking.
Drako didn't raise his voice.
"Then search it three times."
The fighter nodded.
Drako continued forward.
He hadn't forgotten the package.
That was still why he was here.
But the Internal Qi awakening had gotten his attention.
Not because awakenings were impossible.
Because of the way this one felt.
It had erupted suddenly, violently, and then settled faster than Drako expected.
Someone had adapted in the middle of combat.
That interested him.
He rounded the corner.
Then saw the body.
One armored Abyssal being lay half buried beneath a collapsed wall.
Farther down the street, another remained motionless inside the remains of a building.
Drako stopped.
For the first time that night, genuine amusement touched his face.
"Well."
He looked ahead.
Kel stood alone in the intersection.
Bruised.
Bleeding.
Clothes scorched.
Hands swollen.
Sixteen years old and looking like he had absolutely no business still being on his feet.
Drako smiled.
"That's interesting."
Kel watched the stranger emerge through the smoke.
His first thought was that the man was huge.
His second was worse.
The two armored Abyssal beings had made every instinct Kel possessed scream at him to run.
This man made the instinct quieter.
Not because he felt weaker.
Because whatever was coming off him felt so controlled that Kel's body seemed unsure how afraid it should be.
Then the pressure settled over the street.
Kel understood.
Very afraid.
One of Luno's insects shot north.
Another followed.
Kel glanced after them.
His escape route.
He should follow.
Drako noticed the movement.
His eyes shifted briefly toward the insects and then back to Kel.
"You planning to leave?"
Kel raised his guard again.
"I was."
Drako's smile widened slightly.
"What changed?"
"You showed up."
Drako chuckled.
It wasn't loud or cruel.
He genuinely seemed amused.
"Fair."
He walked closer.
Kel didn't move.
The Abyssal Qi around Drako thickened with every step. Dark pressure curled near his shoulders and arms before sinking back toward his body.
Kel's Internal Qi reacted automatically.
His legs reinforced.
His breathing changed.
Drako noticed that too.
His eyes narrowed with interest.
"You just awakened."
Kel frowned.
"Awakened what?"
That made Drako stop.
He stared at him.
Then laughed.
"You don't even know?"
Kel's fists remained raised.
"Know what?"
Drako shook his head slowly.
"That's better."
Kel didn't find any of this funny.
"Who are you?"
Drako looked toward the two dead armored beings.
Then back at Kel.
"Drako."
Kel waited.
"That's it?"
"What else do you need?"
"Maybe why your people are tearing through a town."
Drako's expression lost some of its amusement.
"We're looking for something."
"The two teenagers?"
Drako's eyes sharpened.
Kel noticed.
"So it is them."
"You've seen them?"
"No."
Drako studied him.
Kel could almost feel the conversation changing.
"Then why are you here?"
"Helping people."
Drako looked around the burning settlement.
"By fighting things that can kill you?"
"They were in the way."
Drako laughed again.
Kel was starting to hate that laugh.
Then Drako looked at the dead armored beings.
"Apparently."
Inside the damaged building, Roku slowly shifted toward the cracked wall.
Solara grabbed his sleeve.
"What are you doing?"
"Listening."
"You can listen from there."
"I can hear better from here."
"You're also easier to see from there."
Roku glanced back.
"Your cloak works."
"Barely."
That ended the argument.
Roku moved back.
Outside, Drako took another step toward Kel.
Kel could finally see the details of his stance.
Or lack of one.
The man hadn't raised his hands.
His shoulders remained loose.
Weight balanced naturally between both feet.
But Kel had spent enough time training with Dyrain to recognize when someone was actually relaxed and when they were pretending.
Drako wasn't pretending.
He didn't need a stance yet.
That bothered Kel more than if he'd come forward swinging.
Kel shifted his lead foot.
Drako's eyes dropped briefly.
"You box."
Kel didn't answer.
"Not just street fighting either."
Drako moved one foot slightly forward.
His posture changed almost imperceptibly.
Kel felt the difference immediately.
The man's weight settled.
Rear heel light.
Hands rose just enough.
Elbows positioned close.
His lead leg became ready to check, kick or drive forward.
Kel had never trained against anyone who stood exactly like that.
But he recognized the intention.
Every part of Drako's body was positioned to hurt somebody.
Hands.
Elbows.
Knees.
Shins.
Nothing wasted.
Drako saw Kel studying him.
"Good."
Kel frowned.
"What?"
"You're watching."
Drako rolled one shoulder.
"Most kids your age see somebody bigger and stare at the muscles."
His grin returned.
"You looked at my feet."
Kel didn't like how pleased he sounded.
"I'm not here to entertain you."
"No."
Drako's Abyssal Qi began to rise.
The flames nearest him bent away from his body.
"But you might."
Kel's Internal Qi responded.
Pressure gathered through his arms and legs.
Heat from the burning town continued to disappear into his skin in faint waves, keeping his exhausted body from falling as quickly as it should have.
Neither of them understood exactly what the other was.
Kel only knew Drako was stronger than anything he'd faced tonight.
Drako only knew the bleeding teenager in front of him had somehow killed two armored Abyssal beings, awakened his Internal Qi in the process and was still standing between him and the northern road.
For Drako, that was enough.
"Those people you sent away."
Kel's expression hardened.
"What about them?"
Drako noticed.
There it was.
"Nothing."
He smiled.
"Just wanted to see your face when I mentioned them."
Kel's hands tightened.
Drako's smile grew.
"Yeah."
His voice became quieter.
"That's why you stayed."
Kel took one step forward.
"If you go after them—"
"I'm not interested in them."
Kel stopped.
Drako gestured toward the destroyed buildings.
"I'm looking for something else."
"The package."
Silence.
Inside the hidden building, Roku and Solara both froze.
Drako's amusement vanished.
For the first time since entering the street, his expression became completely serious.
"Who told you about a package?"
Kel realized immediately he'd said too much.
Nobody had told him about one.
He had heard Drako's people searching.
He'd pieced together enough to know they wanted something.
But Drako's reaction confirmed more than Kel expected.
Kel shrugged.
"You just did."
For two seconds Drako stared at him.
Then the smile returned.
Bigger this time.
"Okay."
He nodded slowly.
"I like you."
Kel sighed.
"Wish I could say the same."
Solara closed her eyes inside the building.
"Kel."
Roku stared at her.
"What?"
She looked toward the wall.
"I know that voice."
Roku went still.
Then his face changed.
"No."
Solara looked at him.
"It's Kel."
Roku slowly leaned his head against the wall.
"You have got to be kidding me."
Solara's stomach twisted.
The familiar Internal Qi presence.
The voice.
The fighting they'd heard moving through the town.
It had been Kel.
Roku immediately tried to stand.
His injured leg nearly gave out.
Solara caught him.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting him out."
"With what Qi?"
Roku looked at her.
She didn't need to say anything else.
They were barely holding the cloak.
If they revealed themselves now, the package would become visible to the search again.
Every infected human, fighter and Abyssal presence in the settlement could converge.
Roku's jaw tightened.
"So we sit here?"
"For now."
"That's Kel."
"I know."
Solara's voice cracked slightly.
She looked toward the wall.
"I know."
Outside, Kel and Drako stood less than ten feet apart.
Kel wanted to run.
There was no point pretending otherwise.
Harven would tell him to.
Luno would definitely tell him to.
Even Dyrain would probably call staying stupid.
The civilians had distance now.
Kel had done what he came to do.
But Drako had just learned Kel knew about the package.
And Kel had no idea whether turning his back would make the man follow him toward Luno and the civilians.
So he stayed.
Drako rolled his neck once.
A soft crack sounded.
Then he finally raised both hands.
The movement changed everything.
Kel felt it immediately.
Drako's Abyssal Qi compressed closer around his body.
His stance narrowed.
His weight shifted onto the balls of his feet.
The casual man walking through the burning village disappeared.
A fighter replaced him.
Kel's heartbeat quickened.
Drako noticed.
"Scared?"
"Yeah."
The answer seemed to surprise him.
Kel adjusted his guard.
"Would be pretty stupid not to be."
Drako smiled.
"Good answer."
Kel's Internal Qi moved through his arms.
The heat inside his body stirred with it.
Drako's dark Abyssal Qi gathered around his elbows, knees and shins.
Kel noticed that too.
Every limb.
That was the fighting style.
Drako saw him understand.
"Still watching."
Kel swallowed.
"Still talking."
Drako laughed.
Then disappeared.
Kel barely saw the first step.
His guard rose instinctively.
Drako's shin slammed into Kel's forearms.
BOOM!
Kel was thrown sideways.
His boots left the ground.
He crashed through the remains of a market stall and rolled across broken wood before stopping against a wall.
Pain burned through both arms.
Kel stared at them.
He had blocked it.
And it still felt like his bones had almost snapped.
Drako remained where he'd finished the kick, completely balanced.
No wasted recovery.
No opening.
Kel slowly stood.
Drako smiled from across the street.
"Now you understand."
Kel shook the numbness from his hands.
"Yeah."
He raised his fists.
"You're annoying."
Drako's grin widened.
Then both fighters moved. Inside the hidden building, Solara felt the collision before she heard it. She closed her eyes.
"Kel..."
Roku gripped one of his daggers despite barely having enough strength to stand.
Outside, Drako's black-red Abyssal pressure crashed against Kel's newly awakened Internal Qi as fire twisted around the street.
Kel had stayed behind to buy everyone else time.
He had already beaten the enemies he was never supposed to fight. Now he stood across from something worse. And for the first time that night, Drako wasn't thinking about the package. He wanted to see what Kel would become if he pushed him hard enough.
End of Chapter 38 — When Monsters Meet