He tried to take the entire body into the Fat Toad Relic.
It did not fit.
Hours passed in grim labor. Blood was drained into the soil. Bones were broken and discarded. Only when what remained was pared down to necessity did the relic finally accept it, swollen to its limit.
Mud clung to his robes and streaked his hair. His boots sank softly into wet earth as he moved along a fallen trunk, bark scraping beneath his palms.
The fat toad tattoo at his neck shimmered once, then stilled.
"That's all it can hold," he thought. "Enough."
The ember-like relic he had taken earlier twitched faintly within his aperture, restless, contained.
A disturbance rippled through the trees.
Leaves trembled without wind. A shadow bent where it should not have. Green light flickered between trunks, sharp and poisonous.
Kaelric slowed.
The figure stepped into view, wiry beneath a drawn hood. Emerald shards rotated above his palms in controlled arcs, like pollen caught in a deadly spiral. His stance stayed narrow, weight balanced, eyes never resting in one place for long.
Poison path.
Kaelric did not know the man's name. He did not need to. The twitching fingers. The way his gaze skimmed branches instead of trunks. A predator pretending to be small.
"Not Stoneheart," Kaelric noted, eyes flicking to where blood-darkened soil had been hastily covered. "Good."
The air thickened.
Green shards burst forward, splitting into fine needles that vanished into mist.
Kaelric shifted sideways into cover as vapor hissed across the forest floor, coiling low and patient. One needle clipped his right forearm as he passed the edge of it.
The burn came instantly.
Not surface pain. Something deeper. His fingers spasmed open. Sensation drained from wrist to elbow in a crawling wave, strength leaking out as if pulled through invisible pores. His hand failed to close around instinctive reflex.
Targeted.
Grimthorn had aimed for the arm.
Stone tore free beneath Kaelric's heel and launched forward.
The shard struck a sudden wall of condensed vapor. The poison cloud folded inward, compressing into a translucent bulwark that caught the impact in a dull, wet thud.
Improvised.
Not a defensive Relic.
Kaelric felt it through resistance. The shield absorbed force unevenly, thickening where stone landed. The cultivator's shoulders hitched as he reinforced it, breath catching.
Kaelric fired again.
And again.
Each Stone Rock impact landed heavy and slow, forcing Grimthorn to thicken the poison, to keep feeding the barrier. The vapor grew denser, greener, dragging downward as mass accumulated. The cultivator held his stance, jaw tight, emerald fragments circling tighter as he compensated.
Kaelric tried his best to adjust his grip with his left hand. The angle wobbled. His throws lost precision. He compensated with power.
Stone Rock hit harder than Dark Claws. Slower. Blunter. It demanded commitment.
He kept using it.
The cultivator adapted to the rhythm. His shield rose earlier each time, poison swelling instinctively into the impact zone. The forest floor beneath him darkened as residue dripped and soaked into ash.
Kaelric broke line of sight and vaulted into the lower branches. Leaves tore softly around his shoulders as he pushed through fire-resistant canopy, moving laterally through layered foliage.
He began to arc.
The cultivator turned with him.
Not chasing. Tracking.
Green needles hissed through gaps in the leaves, passing where Kaelric had been a breath earlier. Another followed, then a third, cutting through branches and scorching bark where they struck.
Kaelric shifted direction again, widening the curve.
The cultivator pivoted in perfect sync.
More poison flashed out, precise and anticipatory. The needles missed, but not by much.
Kaelric stopped behind a charred trunk and felt it then.
The poison on his arm pulsed faintly, heat ebbing and flowing in shallow waves. That cultivator wasn't guessing through aura alone. He was reading the residue. Every movement Kaelric made tugged against that tether.
So long as it clung to his flesh, he was broadcasting.
Kaelric stepped back into view.
Stone ripped free again.
He drove the Stone Rock Relic harder now, not to kill, but to suppress. Each impact forced the cultivator to keep feeding the shield, to keep thickening the poison instead of firing it. The vapor bulged under accumulating strain, sagging toward the ground like overfilled lungs.
The poison barrier grew heavier, more expensive to maintain.
Kaelric let the rhythm establish.
Stone. Shield. Reinforce.
Stone. Shield. Reinforce.
Then Kaelric stopped.
For a heartbeat, nothing moved.
The cultivator froze.
His gaze snapped upward, already expecting another heavy arc.
He would have caught another stone there.
Instead, obsidian flashed low.
Dark Claw carved through thinning fog and slammed into Grimthorn's knee.
The strike was fast, precise, lighter than Stone Rock. Bone did not shatter. Ligament screamed. His leg buckled inward with a short, ugly sound.
He collapsed with a strangled cry.
The poison barrier unraveled as concentration broke, green vapor collapsing inward in a sudden reversal. Kaelric was already moving. Dark Claw raked across The cultivator's thigh, pinning him into ash before he could complete the fall.
The cultivator convulsed.
His own poison surged back through unstable channels. Feedback tore through him, body locking as frost crept across his skin where venom met shock. His limbs trembled, then sagged, consciousness sliding sideways.
Kaelric landed beside him, breath tight, throat burning as residue tried to close it. His right arm hung numb and unresponsive at his side.
"So strong," he murmured, more observation than fear.
The poison cultivator lay half-buried in ash, chest stuttering, limbs trembling.
Kaelric stood over him.
"Tell me who sent you."
The boy coughed, eyes fluttering. "I—I can't. They'll—"
Kaelric pressed down. Mud and blood mixed beneath his boot.
"You'll die if you don't."
The words spilled out in a rush. "Irondusk! I swear it! I can prove it. A Relic oath. Just—please."
Kaelric paused.
"A Relic oath?"
The boy swallowed. "My name's Grimthorn."
The name settled oddly. Grim. Small. Apt.
Grimthorn fumbled inside his cloak and produced a relic shaped like a bruised green apple. It leaked rot layered with bitter herbs.
"It binds through poison," he said hoarsely. "Break the promise, and it reaches the heart."
Kaelric studied it. His hand hovered.
Then lowered.
"Use it."
Blood touched the relic. The apple split without sound, pale green vapor rising before sinking into their chests. Cold threaded inward and went still.
"It's done," Grimthorn said. "If I betray you… I die. Same for you."
Kaelric straightened.
"Stoneheart."
Grimthorn stared. "Stoneheart?" His voice fractured. "I tried to assassinate you. You want me to walk into your clan's town?"
"Near the Brinehook Inn," Kaelric said. "Back alley. Before dusk."
Grimthorn hesitated, then nodded too quickly.
"And bring a storage Relic," Kaelric added.
Grimthorn stumbled to his feet and vanished between the trees.
Kaelric flexed his poisoned arm once and turned away.
"How am I supposed to explain the dirt, squirrel?" he muttered, glancing at the Relic within him, "or the blood?"
Dawn crept in quietly, mist threading between towering trunks. Rabbits darted through wet ferns. Squirrels chattered and vanished into bark and shadow.
Far away, a roar rolled through the valleys.
The Fire Fang King had moved.
And when he moved, the land followed. Cougars in waves. Claws, fangs, and fire flowing wherever hunger settled.
Kaelric watched the fog drift, cold seeping into his skin. The world was alive. Violent. Beautiful in its own feral order.
"If any elder like Averith truly inspects my aperture," he murmured, almost amused, "they will notice."
Irondusk had reached for a blade and found consequence instead.
And if word ever spread of a failed assassination, other clans would not cry justice. They would smell opportunity.
Power rarely pretended otherwise.
Kaelric turned and vanished into the trees, already shaping what came next.