The drone chimed once—high-pitched, almost uncertain.
Then the sand burst.
A spire of earth exploded upward in a violent spiral, glass shards and heat-rippled air erupting with it. The trench collapsed inward as something massive punched up through the surface. The beast didn't climb—it surged, like a torpedo through the skin of the world.
The Dreadscorpius was bigger than I expected.
Its carapace shimmered with jagged obsidian and a faint oil-sheen. Chitin rippled with unnatural musculature, lined with pale scars that pulsed like molten veins. The tail alone was the length of a bus, curving like a whip of metal and bone.
Its mandibles clicked. The sound echoed like wet steel grinding on concrete.
It was hunting.
But I wasn't prey.
I took a breath. Slow. The wind howled behind me. Sand spiraled around my legs but didn't touch me.
The Crown was already awake.
A shimmer radiated from my skin—heat without fire. The air distorted in a faint magenta haze, flickering like it couldn't decide whether to exist. The ground blackened in a slow ring around my boots, like ink bleeding through cracked stone.
The others stood back.
I didn't speak to them. Didn't look.
This was mine.
The Dreadscorpius lunged—no hesitation. The sand behind it flattened under the pressure of its legs as it drove forward like a spear of living metal. The tail lifted—
—and I raised a hand.
The magenta glow sharpened. The wind stopped.
One word.
"Brand."
The world answered.
A mark—complex and angular—etched itself into the air, then seared into the creature's front joint.
A beat passed.
Then the arm burst outward, from the mark.
Magenta fire tore it off in a sudden, vicious flash—no buildup, no warning. The limb spun once midair, then hit the sand with a hiss.
The beast reeled back, screeching—balance lost.
I tilted my head slightly.
"...Too far right," I muttered.
First time using it. I hadn't aimed properly. Too focused on the limb, not the center of the joint.
The Brand still worked. But it wasn't clean.
The Dreadscorpius shrieked—and its tail snapped forward.
Something launched—a compact, hissing orb of corrosive poison, trailing black mist.
I moved without thought.
Twisted low—dodged.
The orb hissed past, struck a dune behind me, and melted it to sludge in seconds.
I looked back at the beast. Breathing uneven. Movement jittered, wounded—but not backing down.
I exhaled. Calm.
Still no pressure.
I didn't feel fear. Not awe. Not even adrenaline.
Just a creeping sense that I was being underwhelmed.
I stepped once.
Then flared forward—Ember Step.
Flames roared beneath my boots, scorched the air in a searing trail as I launched up—on top of the Dreadscorpius's head.
It reared too late.
I was already there.
No miss this time.
I pressed my hand to the top of its head.
"Brand."
Point-blank.
The mark sank in.
And the head detonated.
A cone of magenta fire erupted from the top down, tearing the skull apart in a perfect bloom of heat and pressure. The jaws flailed once, then slackened.
I jumped off before the body collapsed.
The remains hit the sand with a muffled thud, smoke curling from the ragged stump where the head had been.
I landed softly.
The fire followed.
Behind me, the wind picked up again—like it had been holding its breath the whole time.
The others stepped forward slowly. Cautious. Measuring. Even the sand felt quieter now.
I didn't turn.
But I heard footsteps crunch over scorched glass. Steady, deliberate.
The Silver Sigil.
She stopped a few meters away, far enough to react. Close enough to speak.
"I'm Joy," she said. "Silver Sigil. Seared-tier. Designation: Thornline."
Seems that earned her respect.
I looked over my shoulder. Her eyes didn't flinch.
"Noted."
She glanced at the Dreadscorpius's corpse, then back at me. "That was clean."
"I missed the joint," I replied.
"You corrected faster than most would've."
She studied me again. Not the usual awe. No wide-eyed praise. Just calculation. Professional interest. Like she was cataloging a weapon she hadn't seen before.
Then:"Where did you train?"
I didn't answer.
She continued, unfazed. "That level of control—mana discipline, spatial reading, elemental sync—"
She gestured slightly toward the ruin in the sand.
"—isn't something you get just because the System decided to give you a Legendary skill."
I waited a second. Then shrugged.
"I fought a lot."
That was all I gave her. Joy didn't press.
But she nodded. Slow. Filing it away.
"Well," she said, "whatever you fought… it taught you right."
She turned back toward the others, voice even.
"Verdict's mid-Severance. Juvenile. Mutated strain."
A pause.
"Still not the biggest thing out here."
Verdicts.
They weren't about raw power. No one pretended to understand how these creatures gained their abilities—how they evolved, mutated, or changed.
So humanity stopped trying to measure the why.
And started recording the cost.
Verdicts were a classification system. Crude, but functional. Each tier was based on outcome, not composition. What happened when something appeared. What it destroyed. Who survived.
Tolerated meant manageable.
Unstable meant caution. A swarm of them meant trouble.
Severance meant it could take out an average squad. Clean.
Fracture meant ecosystems failed. Parts of cities blacked out. Local civilization ceased to function.
Collapse meant infrastructure shattered beyond reclamation. Entire provinces lost.
Oblivion meant something deeper: the unraveling of a zone. Mana destabilized. Memory failed. The rules broke.
Extinction meant continental loss. The end of a landmass—and everyone on it.
Analysts said the reason no one had heard from Australia in twenty-eight years was due to a creature of some kind.
No satellite pings. No return expeditions. Just absence.
Verdict assumed: Extinction.
There were no trials of ever reaching it.
Something that strong wasn't meant to be messed with.
Not yet.
"Why Mid-Severance? Its pure strength wasn't that high," asked Calen, his voice steadier now—like speaking helped him settle back into his skin.
Joy didn't turn toward him. Just kept her eyes on the carcass.
"Its sting was mutated," she said. "The orb it launched—poison, but not basic."
She crouched briefly near where the venom blast had landed. The sand was still bubbling, slow and quiet. Black veins spidered out from the impact zone like the desert had been infected.
"That kind of spread? It wasn't just toxic—it was corrosive. Mana-reactive, too. Look."
She lifted a small device from her belt. The display flickered twice, then shorted out with a soft click.
"Burned the sensor just by scanning it."
Eitan finally spoke, stepping in closer.
"Severance isn't always about brute strength. It's about what gets severed."
He pointed at the bubbling crater.
"That orb would've eaten through standard recon armor. Take out a scout, a medic, a relay node—and suddenly a whole unit goes dark."
He straightened.
"That's Mid-Severance. Clean."
Calen nodded, quieter now. "Right."
Joy stood again, brushing sand off her gloves.
Eitan glanced once more at the Dreadscorpius's remains, then at the horizon—flat, distant, and already warming under the climbing sun.
"Break's over."
His voice was calm, but it cut through the air like steel through fabric.
"We keep moving. Target location's still two clicks out. This thing was a stray—either patrolling the edge of the nest or cast out of it."
I didn't speak.
Just watched the wind erase its corpse.
If this was the threshold—
Then I was curious what passed for a gatekeeper.