Cael sheathed his dagger in a single fluid motion, the blade sliding into its scabbard with a whisper of steel against leather. His movements were swift and assured and he wasted no time as he surged toward Jack. The Direborn barely reacted, his body slack, his posture that of a man caught in a waking nightmare. His pupils were blown wide, his breath shallow, his expression one of vacant detachment—lost in the unfathomable depths of knowledge force-fed into his mind like a torrent of icy water.

  The goblin didn’t hesitate. His gray fingers, rough with calluses, seized Jack’s collar, bunching the fabric in a white-knuckled grip as he hauled him upright with little effort. Jack’s weight was insubstantial, his body barely resisting. Cael could feel the tremor in his limbs, the way his muscles tensed beneath his grip, yet there was no reaction, no sign that Jack was present within his own skin.

  Cael struck him.

  The sharp, echoing crack of the impact ricocheted through the battlefield, momentarily cutting through the low, guttural whispers that slithered through the air like phantom fingers. Jack’s head snapped to the side, a red bloom of pain blossoming across his cheek. For a heartbeat, nothing changed. Then, with a sudden hitch of his breath, his eyes refocused. The glassy sheen of mental ensnarement shattered like a mirror under a hammer. His chest rose in a sharp, uneven inhale, and he stiffened as though waking from the depths of suffocating sleep.

  Cael didn’t give him time to dwell.

  “Move.” The command was simple, clipped, but the authority behind it was undeniable.

  Jack blinked, once.

  .Then, understanding flooded his gaze, and he gritted his teeth. He pushed himself to his feet, the fog in his eyes beginning to be replaced with sharp focus.

  Cael was already moving to the next. He grabbed Lyla’s shoulder, shaking her with just enough force to jolt her back from the edge of whatever abyss the Charnel Colossus had dragged her mind into. She gasped, inhaling sharply as if she had just resurfaced from drowning, her fingers instinctively tightening around her staff.

  One by one, he attempted to force them back to themselves, snapping them free from the paralysis that gripped their thoughts. They were battered, weakened, but not broken. Not yet

  The Charnel Colossus loomed over them, its stolen voices whispering horrors older than memory. It would not wait.

  "Get up," Cael said, voice calm, unwavering. "Fight."

  His pulse pounded in his ears, his breath coming in sharp, controlled draws as he scanned the battlefield. The others were stirring, shaking off the Colossus’s psychic assault, but it was slow—too slow. Every second wasted was another chance for the monstrosity to strike them down.

  A flicker of frustration curled through his mind, subtle as a whisper.

  They are weak.

  The thought slithered into his mind, unbidden, curling at the edges of his awareness like smoke. He didn’t question it. The truth was evident. Jack was still unsteady, struggling to rally his senses. Lyla’s grip on her staff trembled with residual exhaustion. Monsoon had barely stirred. If not for him, they would have already fallen. He had felled the armored warrior. He had slain the jaguar beast. He alone had withstood the whispers of the corpse-monster’s voice. If not for him, they would be nothing more than shattered bones and broken flesh beneath the Colossus’s mass.

  They slow you down.

  His fingers twitched toward the hilt of his dagger. The blade hummed against his palm, eager, waiting. A thin layer of sweat slicked his skin, though he wasn’t sure when it had started. The battlefield around him pulsed in and out of focus, the sounds of combat muffled, distant. His vision narrowed, centering on the only thing that mattered—the dagger, its poison the only force that had truly wounded the Charnel Colossus.

  Cael’s gaze drifted back toward his companions, their sluggish movements, their fragile forms. If they fell here, so what. Survival had never been about loyalty. It had never been about heroism. It was about efficiency.

  They will die. And when they do, they will drag you down with them.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  His grip tightened on the dagger’s hilt, his thumb running absently along its edge. A shiver ran through him, not from the cold but from something deeper, something unseen. The weight of the blade felt different in his grasp—not heavier, but denser, as though something within it pressed against his skin, searching for a crack in his resolve. It felt right

  in his hand, an extension of himself. Of his will.

  You do not need them. You never have.

  The thought was not his own. Or was it?

  Cael’s mind sharpened like a honed blade. Hadn’t he always known this truth? He had walked alone for most of his life. Even among allies, he had relied on no one but himself. It was his skill, his speed, his instinct that had kept him alive.

  His free hand flexed, a restless energy coiling through his muscles. What was he waiting for? If he turned his efforts fully to the Colossus, he could strike at it again, destroy it piece by piece. What need was there to waste time rousing the others when they would only serve as distractions, liabilities?

  They will fail you. Just as they always have.

  f A pressure curled at the back of his skull, a sensation that was neither pain nor thought but something in between, an oppressive weight pressing inward. It was subtle, like fingers ghosting along his spine, or a hand resting lightly on his shoulder, its presence felt but unseen. A whisper without words, a suggestion without voice, nudging him toward the only logical choice.

  His vision blurred at the edges. The battlefield, once chaotic and overwhelming, faded into insignificance. He saw only the dagger, gripped tightly in his fingers, and the monstrous form of the Charnel Colossus looming before him. His thoughts funneled into a single, narrow channel, a singular, brutal path forward. The voices of his allies—urgent, desperate—became distant echoes, barely registering in his mind. His pulse thrummed in time with the blade’s silent hum, an almost soothing rhythm, steady and inevitable.

  Then, piercing through the suffocating haze, came a voice that did not belong to the whispers.

  “Cael!”

  The single word struck like a hammer against glass, shattering the silence in his mind. He turned sharply, instinct tightening his muscles, expecting an attack—but instead of an enemy, he found Jack standing before him. The man’s stance was solid despite his exhaustion, his golden eyes sharp and unyielding, fixed firmly on Cael. Pain and fatigue lined his face, but his voice held no trace of weakness. Only certainty.

  “We need to move. Now.”

  Cael’s grip on the dagger went rigid. The pressure in his skull wavered, then cracked, as though a taut wire had finally snapped. A sickly sort of weight—the kind he hadn’t realized he was carrying—receded, slinking back into the recesses of his consciousness like a retreating tide. The world around him, previously drowned in shadow and static, rushed back into clarity.

  He blinked. The battlefield returned in full. The broken ground beneath his boots, the scent of blood and rot in the air, the labored breathing of his comrades—it all came back in a flood of sensation. His fingers flexed against the hilt of the dagger. The whispers were gone.

  Jack didn’t wait for confirmation. He turned, reaching down to drag Lyla to her feet. Cael watched for half a heartbeat, the lingering unease curling in his stomach like a restless snake. Something had taken hold of him in those moments—something dark, something hungry. The memory of it clung to him, a phantom sensation of temptation. But there was no time to dwell.

  The Charnel Colossus stirred. Its many mouths opened in unison, releasing a guttural, churning chorus of stolen voices, words twisted into incomprehensible horrors. The pressure in the air thickened, the ground vibrating beneath their feet as the monstrosity prepared its next strike. There was no more time.

  Cael moved.

  He sprinted toward Monsoon, who remained slumped against a jagged outcropping of stone. Blood smeared the side of his lupine muzzle, his breathing ragged but steady. His eyes, usually so keen, were dulled, lost in the same mental fog that had consumed the others. Cael reached down, seizing him by the leg and yanking him upward with practiced ease.

  “Monsoon.” His voice was sharp, cutting. “Get up.”

  The Wavewolf groaned, his body slow to respond. The weight of the Colossus’s assault still lingered, like chains wrapped around his mind. Cael shook him once, twice, hard enough to jolt him free. Monsoon’s eyes flickered, focusing. Instinct returned in an instant, his body tensing with the promise of fight.

  Cael was already turning, scanning the battlefield. Lyla was up, leaning heavily on Jack, but her grip on her staff had steadied. She would hold. Monsoon had regained himself, shaking off the last vestiges of the Colossus’s influence. That left Goldeyes.

  The wolf was sprawled near the remnants of a shattered pillar, his usually fluid movements sluggish, as though he were fighting against invisible restraints. Cael was at his side in moments, crouching down and gripping his shoulder.

  “Goldeyes,” he snapped. “Focus.”

  The white wolf’s eyes fluttered, his jaw clenched as though fighting off some unseen force. Cael’s grip tightened. “Look at me.”

  Goldeyes inhaled sharply, as if surfacing from deep waters. His pupils contracted, recognition flashing across his face. He shuddered, then nodded once, a silent confirmation that he was back.

  Cael exhaled. They were battered, but standing. So was their opponent.

  The Colossus loomed above them, its form shifting, writhing, impossibly vast. Its stolen voices coalesced into something sharper, a singular, commanding force pressing against their minds, seeking purchase. But they would not fall again. Not now.

  Cael adjusted his grip on the dagger. The weight of it felt different now—not heavier, but altered, as though something within it had changed in response to his moment of hesitation.

  He refused to look at it.