The beast didn't pause. It didn't growl. It simply recalculated.
It pivoted on its six legs with a mechanical fluidity that made Fredrik's skin crawl. The four-petal mandibles flared wide, revealing a throat that pulsed with a rhythmic, violet bioluminescence. Then, it surged.
Fredrik met the charge not with strength, but with geometry. He dived beneath the creature's second lunge, the wind of its passage cold against the back of his neck. He lashed out with the combat knife, aiming for what should have been the femoral artery of the lead leg.
The blade skittered off the translucent skin like a needle on a phonograph. No blood. Just a shower of sparks and a high-pitched, crystalline screech.
The creature's tail—a whip of segmented obsidian—lashed out in a blind arc. It caught Fredrik across the ribs, the impact throwing him five feet into the trunk of a silver-veined tree. The air left his lungs in a ragged burst.
Assessment: Skin is armored. Speed is superior. Reach is three-to-one.
Fredrik rolled as the beast's mandibles slammed into the wood where his head had been, the white bark splintering like glass. He was back on his feet before the creature could extract itself. His vision was tunneling, his heart rate red-lining, but the soldier in him remained cold.
He stopped looking at the beast as a monster and started looking at it as an anatomical map. Through the translucent skin, he could see the crystalline skeleton—the "bones" weren't solid; they were conduits. He saw the primary nodes where the six limbs met the torso, the equivalent of a brachial plexus glowing with a steady, electrical hum.
He needed a gap. He needed a joint.
The beast turned, its movements becoming more erratic, its violet light flickering. It lunged again, but this time, it led with its upper-right limb. Fredrik didn't dodge. He stepped in.
He parried the claw with the flat of his knife, the vibration numbing his arm to the elbow, and drove his shoulder into the creature's chest. For a split second, he was inside its guard. He saw the hinge of the jaw—a cluster of soft, pulsing filaments behind the obsidian plates.
Fredrik drove the six-inch steel into the cluster.
The beast shrieked, a sound that vibrated in Fredrik's marrow. A viscous, blue fluid sprayed across his fatigues, smelling of burnt copper. The creature's movements faltered. Its six legs buckled, the rhythmic light in its skeleton stuttering.
Fredrik didn't let up. He grabbed a jagged protrusion on its head, wrenching it down, preparing to drive the knife into the primary ocular node.
He was winning.
Then, the air changed.
The smell of ozone—previously a faint hint—became a suffocating weight. The blue blood on his hands began to tingle, then burn. The creature's entire skeletal structure flared with a blinding, ultraviolet intensity.
Fredrik realized his mistake a millisecond too late. He was holding onto a conductor.
The beast didn't strike with its claws. It simply released.
A jagged arc of violet lightning erupted from the creature's hide, using the blue blood as a bridge. The current slammed into Fredrik's chest, bypassing his skin and seizing his muscles in a tetanic grip. Every nerve ending in his body fired at once—a white-hot agony that felt like his blood was being boiled by a thousand X-rays.
His grip shattered. He was thrown backward, his body arching in mid-air as the discharge continued to ripple through him.
He hit the moss, but he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel his legs. He couldn't feel the air. His vision went white—not the soft white of the transition, but a harsh, flickering strobe that burned his retinas.
The last thing he saw was the beast standing over him, its jaw hanging loose, its violet light dimming as it prepared for a final, physical strike.
Then, the strobe slowed.
The emerald green of the forest bled into a dull, suffocating gray. The scent of ozone was replaced by the thick, cloying stench of wet wool, tobacco, and decaying meat.
The silence was broken.
"Lorenz! Get your head down, you idiot! The barrage isn't over!"
The mud returned. Cold. Sucking. Home.
Everything went black.