I grew used to my stomach absorbing everything I ate after gaining regeneration. Even the chemically rich NB rations were devoured and absorbed to the last atom.

  That was why a loud grumbling in my guts caught me completely off guard.

  I was just about to leave the tree I had been on since leaving Ivor’s camp when it happened. As much as I wanted to begin working on the artefact, it wasn’t the right place for it.

  I needed a controlled environment, and a secluded enough place—

  A sharp spasm in my stomach almost bent me in half, and I clung to the trunk, hiding my moan.

  Oh shit.

  —

  Putting my pants on, tying all the laces, I did my best to ignore what I had turned the tree into behind me.

  Still, my imagination, fed by the ugly smell hanging in the air, supplied me with a picture I wanted to have nothing to do with.

  And yet, I learned a very important thing.

  You could regenerate the lost limb, maybe even close a gap in your torso, but if you get poisoned, your regeneration means shit.

  And gut flora was not something you could fix with it, either.

  Luckily, I wasn’t poisoned. I just stupidly ate local wheat, rich with spices.

  Who the fuck knew it would lead to this?

  Slipping my bag onto my shoulders, I hurried to buckle up the waist belt.

  There was no way I would stay here any longer.

  —

  Jumping from tree to tree, I kept away from the slowly unfolding madness below me.

  Growls and roars, with cries of pain.

  They echoed in the night along my path, and I had no clue what was going on or what had come over all those beasts.

  Steering away from places with loud clashes, I was getting closer and closer to the cliff line I saw above the forest.

  If my calculations were right, that was the beginning of the F-zone. A zone that beasts were supposed to avoid.

  I saw nothing of the sort. The longer I travelled, the more certain I was—the safe place was behind me, not ahead.

  The night sky flashed on my left, and a thunderclap reached me a few seconds later. Too close.

  Making an arc to the right, I kept closer to the canopy this time, rarely breaking above it. And a rare aerial beast circling in the distance wasn’t the reason—it was simply faster that way.

  I was at it for hours but had yet to find a secluded enough place. Or a lake with a lonely island in the middle.

  Getting around another hill, I almost lost my footing when a giant tree came into view with unhurried grace. Monumental and broad, it was pushing away the forest with its widespread branches.

  I used to feel small, but this was different—I was all but an ant against it.

  It was also perfect for my needs.

  Five minutes later, I landed on a branch high above the ground and dropped my bag off my shoulders.

  The branch was wide enough for me to sleep on it, perhaps even sideways, but the absence of beasts was more alluring.

  For the makeshift workshop, it was perfect.

  —

  The core crystals rolling on my palm were close to flawless. Two were green in colour, and one was blue, somehow perfectly matching Lola’s invented colour scheme.

  D and E rank accordingly.

  Slipping the others into my vest pocket, I spun the green one between my fingers. It looked a tiny bit smaller than I had remembered.

  Still walnut-sized, though.

  It was the same type Branco had used in the formation banners earlier.

  Gently placing it down between the ridges of the branch’s bark, I reached for the pouch with my sparks.

  I remembered how volatile it was back in the hideout, how unpredictable the result was, and I wasn’t about to leave anything to chance.

  Pulling the spongy spark out, I secured it on the branch, away from the core crystal.

  The last ingredient was the blank claw knife. I had three of those.

  Taking them all out, I turned them over in my hands. The smallest was convenient for simple tasks. The largest I had already used in the hunt, and it had been my choice in place of the ice-tipped one.

  Which left the middle-sized one.

  Placing it down on the bark, I put the other two back into the bag and began to strip.

  Losing the only clothes I had was not an option.

  Fiddling with the laces on my pants, I thought about the buckles Lola made for me, back in the cave.

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

  Sure, they weren’t a smart-seal, and you had to slide the leather tongue through and line up the hole with the pin, but compared to the laces I had made myself, they were a godsend.

  Finally done, I bundled my clothes and, leaving the needler and a piece of boar meat by the trunk, jumped up a few branches.

  It was far enough in case something went wrong, but close enough if I needed it.

  Just a precaution. One of many.

  The branch forked there, sprouting many twigs and forming an almost natural alcove. And if not for the desire to talk to Lola, I would just hide there myself and maybe sleep until the next morning.

  Hiding the yawn, I stashed my backpack between the twigs and put the clothes bundle on top of it, before taking the pouch with the Lola necklace off my neck.

  The aetherium in it would only interfere with the craft I was about to attempt.

  I hung it on the twig, just next to the alcove entrance.

  Jumping down, I landed next to the crystals and picked up the claw knife.

  It was showtime.

  Crouching over the crystals, I activated my hex-field and, holding the claw knife above the spongy spark, pushed the core along the bark’s ridges toward it.

  The core clicked against it, producing a heatwave distortion, and I surged the claw knife forward.

  It stuck in the shimmering air above the crystals, like an ant in syrup, barely inching forward.

  Too slow.

  The air flickered and pulsed between a light glow and optical distortion, visibly peeling away the branch beneath the crystals.

  I pushed more energy into my hex-field, and the claw knife moved an inch deeper.

  Just a bit more.

  Time stretched, shifting everything into a dark tone as a low hum filled the air around me.

  In slow motion, the tip of the claw knife touched the edge between the crystals, and the core cracked, crumbling to dust.

  As I collapsed on the branch, my hex-field began to tear itself apart, unable to contain the backlash.

  No, No, No.

  Instinctively, I released it all into the claw knife embedded in the branch, and the branch just vanished from under me.

  Suspended in midair, I looked at the branches and the ground far below me with wide eyes.

  Just for a moment.

  And then I began to fall.

  As twigs and branches flashed past my sides, I tried to slow myself down, to bleed the speed of my fall, but it felt all wrong. It wasn’t working.

  And the claw knife, it felt heavier, dragging me down even faster.

  I let it go, and it sped towards the ground, clipping against a lower branch.

  Bracing myself, I smashed against it and dug my fingers into its bark, finally stopping my fall.

  With legs dangling, I clung to the branch, catching my breath.

  The fuck just happened?

  —

  Hidden among the branches and with my invisibility active, I was simply observing my claw knife sticking out of the branch, fallen to the forest floor.

  The branch looked suspiciously familiar to me, as if it were the same branch that had vanished under me.

  Looking at the smooth cut on its thick end, I couldn’t stop thinking about the discovery I had just made.

  I had never tried to use the hex-field and the moose’s powers at the same time before. I didn’t think about it and, perhaps, didn’t have a reason.

  But in hindsight, it totally made sense.

  The hex-field was absorbing any force or energy applied to it. The inertia system manipulated my own, well, inertia. And together, they just didn’t work.

  Luckily for me, the hex-field just suppressed the latter, without any other side effects. Or, perhaps, absorbed any output from within.

  I wasn’t sure.

  And that was the problem here. I kept making errors. Like with this rush to make a replacement for the banner.

  Sighing, I stopped wasting my time and smoothly glided down, landing next to the claw knife.

  Leaning over, I tried to see any changes to its shape or texture, but found none.

  Tapping it slightly with my pinky, I listened to myself. Nothing either.

  It didn’t try to cut me, or pull me down to the ground with extra weight, or drain my energy.

  With another sigh, I grabbed the handle and pulled it out. The claw knife came out as easily as it always did and looked exactly as before, unchanged even in its basic function.

  But I hoped it would do what I wanted. That I went through all of this not for nothing.

  Hearing the beasts’ battlecries echoing in the forest, I glanced around. It wasn’t the place to be distracted.

  Jumping up, I pushed against the trunk and then a branch, beginning my climb back to the top of the tree.

  Soaring between the branches, I kept glancing around, alert to my danger senses.

  Something was not right.

  Landing on the cut branch, I picked up the needler, but when I tried to lift the meat wrapped in leather, it didn’t budge.

  Crouching next to it, I poked it with my finger and only then noticed that it was half absorbed into the tree.

  Something sharp pierced through my soles, and I jumped backwards, feeling agonising pain.

  Soaring up, I saw the bloody footprints I left behind. They vanished a moment later, along with the boar meat.

  The fuck!

  Feeling danger from the tree itself, I rushed up towards my bag and clothes, jolting in pain each time I touched bark.

  But I was already late. The alcove was closing up, my bag already caught under piercing twigs.

  I grabbed the clothes bundle, the only thing I could, and cut the twig the necklace pouch hung on.

  The tree shook angrily under me, and my soles flared with pain again.

  I jumped off and glided down, swinging between shaking branches, steering towards the rocky hill.

  The hell away from here—from the all-eating tree.

  —

  Landing on my knees between boulders on the rocky hill, I swore under my breath when the pain shot through me.

  Suppressing it, I dropped onto my back and tried to keep my feet in the air as they bled.

  Hissing through my teeth, I finally activated regeneration, still bleeding on the stone beneath me.

  Before my eyes, my bloody soles began to recover, regeneration restructuring my feet, but it was too slow to my liking. I had very little time left before some beast would come after blood in the air.

  My eyes fell on the claw knife in my hand. The same one it all started from.

  Once more, I looked over it, searching for any changes, but saw none.

  K: [ do you copy ]

  I knew it was pointless. I needed to activate the hex-field to try it properly, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  Still, the silence in reply was heavy.

  Checking on my feet, I saw the skin stretching over my soles, thin and fragile, but it wasn’t fast enough. I already felt the danger in my guts.

  I wiggled my toes and sucked in a breath through the pain. It was too early.

  Getting on my knees, I crawled between the boulders where they came together, dragging the clothes bundle after me.

  Reaching the end, I turned around and, placing the pouch with the necklace and my clothes behind my back, held the needler and the claw knife before me.

  I just needed to win some time.

  Time stretched with my heart beating in my ears, and I forcefully slowed down my ragged breath.

  I will not die here.

  If not for the bloody trail I had left on the stone, I would have had a good hiding spot. Hard to dig into, easy to defend.

  The sound of someone sniffing air came first. I didn’t hear their footsteps, nor did I see them yet. But the sniffing? It was right before me.

  I didn’t wait.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The air shimmered right at the entrance to my hiding spot, revealing a huge black cat.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  It was getting closer, flaring with the shield and easily fitting between the boulders.

  The hex-field stretched over me, ready to defend.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I didn’t feel the first or second slash against it, but the tingling in my fingers was a telltale sign I knew to watch for.

  The next one struck my needler hand and tore it out, severing my fingers.

  Fucking aetherium.

  I surged forward, the claw knife leading.

  I felt it strike the energy shield and pushed all the charge from the hex-field into it.

  The bloodbath I got wasn’t what I had expected.

  With the beast’s invisibility gone, I saw the second half of it, with its tail, bleeding on the stone.

  But the front part, with the head and a torso? It was gone.

  And the claw knife in my hand again gained extra weight.

  I let it go, and it clanked heavily against the stone.

  And then, with another distortion in the air, the other half appeared, splashing blood on me and the stone, with the claw knife sticking out of the beast’s nose.

  It was still alive, its eyes looking at me in agony.

  It scratched the stone, leaving deep grooves behind and exhaled for the last time—dead.

  Half lucid myself, I flipped it over and dug my healthy hand into the exposed core, not knowing what I had been looking for.

  A moment later, I pulled it out, ripping it off. It was its core, still emanating powers.

  It trembled in my hand.

  I dug into it with no thoughts, except meat in my mind.

  I felt like a beast, no better than the one I killed.