Chapter 76 - Keeping it up.
Lilia and Ryn stepped out into the dark.
The moment their boots crossed the edge of the ruins, the familiar voice echoed through their minds.
[Challenge three begins.]
Ryn rolled his shoulder once and drew his blade with his remaining arm, the metal catching faint firelight that Ariel had set up.
“Whatever it is this time,” he muttered, “it better not be like last night.”
Lilia nodded.
“If anything happens that you can’t handle, remember the retreat points.”
Her voice was low.
“Don’t push yourself too hard, Ryn.”
He gave a short nod.
“Same to you.”
Darkness settled fully over the field of broken grass and shattered stone.
Lilia stepped backward into the deeper shadows near the temple’s edge, disappearing from open sight.
Ryn remained where he was.
Visible.
Waiting.
It was safer this way.
The wind moved through his dark hair, carrying the dry scent of dust and old ruin.
They waited.
And waited.
Nothing moved.
No tremor in the earth.
No shift in the air.
No sound of claws scraping stone.
That’s odd, Ryn thought.
Just as the thought crossed his mind—
He heard it.
Not from ahead.
Not from behind.
Not even from below.
Ryn’s eyes lifted.
The wind had changed.
It came harder now, dragging grass and loose dirt into spirals across the field. Pebbles skittered. Broken grass tore free from the ground.
Then—
A sound cut through the dark.
A violent flap.
Heavy. Rhythmic.
And beneath it—
A screech, Birdlike but wrong.
Ryn’s grip tightened around his blade as a massive shadow passed overhead, blotting out the dark sky.
Something was circling.
Ryn blinked against the rushing wind.
“Of course it can fly.”
Just as the words left his mouth—
Another screech split the sky.
The creature dove.
It tore through the wind like a falling blade, wings folding tight against its body as it plummeted toward him.
The air shrieked around it.
Grass flattened beneath the pressure.
Ryn barely had time to shift his footing before the shadow swallowed him whole
***
“ARIEL!” Lilia shouted.
The air detonated outward.
This time she didn't miss.
A beam of light tore across the sky and struck the creature, shearing into its wing.
It shrieked—
And crashed.
The impact split the earth, dirt, and stone, bursting outward as its massive body slammed into the field.
Ariel’s light disintegrated it.
One wing was gone entirely—reduced to fragments of ash and drifting light. The earlier damage from Ryn’s blade had already weakened it; this finished the job.
The aberration thrashed on the ground now, screeching in raw agony. Its remaining wing beat uselessly against the air while its talons carved deep furrows into the grass in desperate, violent arcs.
It was grounded.
And cornered.
Ryn ran forward.
He was breathing hard now. Blood ran from a cut along his forehead, streaking down past his eye. His arms were lined with scrapes, his side aching from the earlier clash.
But he didn’t slow.
They were too close.
The aberration thrashed on the ground, one wing gone, talons gouging trenches into the earth.
Ryn vaulted onto a fallen column half-buried in the grass. Stone shifted beneath his boots, but he used the height, pushing off with everything he had left.
He raised his sword high with his remaining arm—
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And dropped.
The blade came down straight into the creature’s beaked skull.
There was a sharp, wet crack as steel met bone and forced through.
The aberration shrieked once—cut short.
Its body convulsed violently, throwing Ryn off balance. He was flung backward, rolling across the grass as the creature bucked beneath him.
Then—
It fell still.
The massive body collapsed fully into the torn earth.
No more movement.
No more screeching.
Only the wind moved through the broken grass.
Ryn lay there for a long moment, staring up at the dark sky. Blood had run down the left side of his face, half-blinding him, drying against his lashes.
Every breath hurt.
Planning for the unknown was difficult.
But they had done it.
They had survived another night.
He forced himself to sit up just as he made out Lilia’s figure running toward him through the dim light.
"Ryn? Where are you hurt?" she asked, worry clear in her voice.
He pushed himself to his feet slowly.
“I’m fine.”
Lilia stepped closer, her hands half-raised.
“I—I’m sorry. If I had just—”
“I said I’m fine,” Ryn cut in
He wiped blood from his eye with the back of his hand.
“Go check on Ariel. She fired too many times tonight.”
Lilia hesitated.
Then nodded.
She turned and ran back toward the temple, her silhouette disappearing into the shadows.
Ryn remained standing in the field, the wind tugging at his clothes.
He looked toward the dark horizon.
“Can we really keep this up…” he muttered quietly.
The night gave him no answer.
***
The three of them spent day four recuperating.
Or trying to.
Ryn had taken the worst of it—deep gouges across his shoulder and back where talons had torn through. Ariel had managed to close the worst of them, but she'd collapsed halfway through, leaving wounds still seeping and broken bones
She was completely worn out from the previous night. The golden cracks had spread up her neck now, visible even when she wasn't using her power.
Using her Blessing that many times had drained her nearly dry.
Which meant Ryn couldn’t be healed immediately.
The temple had fared no better. Another section east had collapsed during the fight—destabilized when the creature's body had slammed into it.
Lilia was the only one still functional.
She hated that.
Being the only one awake left her alone with her thoughts.
And her thoughts weren’t kind.
Ryn had taken too many hits last night.
Because of her.
How had she never realized it; Every poor shift in footing. Every moment she hesitated. Ryn stepped in to compensate.
Every mistake she made—
He absorbed.
Lilia pressed her palms to her eyes.
It made her feel terrible.
Really terrible.
After a while, she stepped outside the temple.
The air was still.
The corpse of the aberration lay where it had fallen—a massive shape of black feathers spread across torn grass. One red eye remained open, glassy and lifeless. Blood darkened the spot where Ryn’s blade had pierced its skull.
It looked smaller now.
Less monstrous.
Lilia pulled out her journal and knelt beside the body.
She sketched quickly.
A rough outline of wings. Talons. A curved beak.
She studied it.
“…Close enough,” she muttered to herself with a faint, self-conscious laugh.
Then she began to write beneath it.:
The creature tonight was different from the others.
It could fly.
That alone changed everything.
It forced us to think vertically — something I hadn’t even considered before. Which makes me uneasy. If I failed to account for something as simple as flight, what else might this trial throw at us?
Thankfully, it lacked ranged attacks. Its only means of damage were its talons and beak. That gave Ryn and me, but mostly Ryn, windows to strike.
But it wasn’t enough.
For every attack we landed, it landed several more. Its mobility made direct engagement inefficient.
So we had to change strategy.
We struck when it retreated skyward. Ariel used her Blessing to intercept it mid-air. But the creature was fast. She missed. alot.
So we adapted again.
Ryn began guiding it — pulling it toward predetermined positions where Ariel would have a clean line of sight. In those moments, he made himself the primary target.
When the shot was clear.
Right before impact, I notified Ariel, and she fired.
That worked.
In terms of durability and strength, it seemed comparable to the lizard-like aberration from day one.
Which raises the question…
Ground.
Adaptation.
Air.
If that’s true…
What axis haven’t we been tested on yet?
Lilia closed the journal slowly.
She remained kneeling there for a moment, eyes drifting back to the massive, feathered corpse sprawled across the torn grass.
The red eye still stared blankly at nothing.
The wind shifted the feathers slightly.
She sighed.
“…Might as well.”
She reached for her blade.
***
“Again?” Ryn asked.
Lilia glanced back at him, still dragging a large slab of bird meat through the grass.
“R-Ryn?” she blurted out. “Why are you up? You should be resting.”
“How can I rest,” he replied, “when you’re doing things like this?”
He walked over and took hold of the other end of the meat before she could argue.
He was still covered in dried blood. The cut along his forehead had clotted poorly, and his movements were slower than he tried to pretend.
Lilia noticed.
She looked away.
They carried the slab back toward the temple and dropped it beside the small fire she had set up earlier.
Ariel was still asleep nearby, the faint golden cracks along her skin brighter than before, pulsing weakly even in daylight.
Ryn lowered himself to sit against a fractured column.
“I’ll cook it,” Lilia said quietly. “Just… do me a favor and rest a little longer.”
Ryn didn’t argue.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Lilia began cutting into the bird meat, separating the tougher muscle from the softer portions.
After a moment, Ryn spoke again, eyes still shut.
“Don’t blame yourself, Lilia.”
Her blade paused mid-cut.
The fire crackled softly between them.
Her mouth opened, then closed slowly.
The words stayed trapped in her throat. Where they always did.
And she resumed cutting.
***
Hours passed before Ariel woke.
Even then, she surfaced slowly, breath uneven, sweat clinging to her skin as though she had been fighting in her sleep.
The golden cracks along her arms were brighter than before.
Unstable.
Lilia handed her a portion of the cooked bird meat as she helped her up.
Ariel thanked her, and they ate in silence.
It was good.
But not as good as the first time.
Or maybe it was just that none of them had the energy to appreciate it.
Afterward, Ariel moved to Ryn.
She knelt beside him and began healing what she could.
Light pooled in her palms, pressing into torn skin and fractured muscle. The deeper wounds closed. The bleeding stopped.
But it was clear the effort cost her.
Her breathing grew shallow.
Her hands trembled.
Ryn said nothing.
He let her finish.
Like the day before.
And the day before that.
The rest of the daylight was spent planning.
They adjusted their regroup points. Reviewed signals. Revised contingencies based on the bird’s mobility.
Prepared for something different.
Prepared for something worse.
And the six suns began to lose their light again
as they would the next day.
