The walk back had settled into a grim rhythm. While Jamie and Rhea discussed the final creature David had so graciously allowed them to kill for combat experience, David used the time for his internal drills, a constant, grinding effort to push the demonic energy through his circuits. Down the legs, up the spine. Don't let it pool in the feet. Probably bad if your feet start dissolving or spontaneously combusting. Beside him, Jamie was practicing spear thrusts on unsuspecting ferns, his form a chaotic but improving blend of mimicked movements and pure, energetic improvisation.

  “You think they saved us any of that smoked meat?” Jamie asked, punctuating his question with a thrust that neatly bisected a large, fern-like leaf. “I’m so hungry I could eat one of those imps. Well, maybe not. They look stringy.”

  “Doubtful,” David replied, his gaze perpetually scanning the shadows between the trees. “We were gone a while. They probably ate it all out of sheer existential dread.”

  “That’s just rude,” Jamie huffed, switching his grip and attempting a low sweep that mostly just scattered dirt. “We were out doing… vital reconnaissance. Risking life and limb! We deserve a hero’s portion. Or at least a slightly bigger piece of the charred monster bits.”

  Ahead of them, Rhea adjusted the set of javelins on her shoulder, her silent posture speaking volumes about the likelihood of receiving a hero’s welcome.

  When they finally broke the tree line, the wrongness of the scene was a physical blow. The clearing wasn't just quiet; it was hollowed out, corpse-quiet. The constant, low-grade hum of two dozen people trying to survive was gone. The air itself was dead.

  The camp had been erased. The scattered wreckage remained, but the personal touches—the scavenged blankets, the makeshift water stations—were all gone. The ground was a churned-up nightmare of mud and blood. Dark stains were splattered everywhere, baked and cracked into the perpetually hot earth.

  The ground's always cooking here, David thought, his mind shifting into a cold, analytical overdrive. Is that blood old or fresh? Impossible to tell. If it was more than a few hours old, this heat should have baked it into dust. The fact it's still visible… means it's recent. Very recent. The precision of the logic was its own kind of horror.

  "Where… where is everyone?" Jamie whispered, all his spear-practice bravado evaporating.

  Rhea didn't answer with words. She simply lifted her hand and pointed toward the tree line. A body lay there, crumpled and still.

  "Okay," Jamie breathed out, his voice thin. "That's… that's not the welcome back committee I was picturing."

  "Nobody pictures that committee," David said. "Let's move. To the plane. Now."

  They advanced quickly. The fuselage sat like a wounded metal beast. No ropes dangled from the torn opening.

  "Hello in there!" David yelled up. "Anyone still taking reservations? Or did you all check out early?"

  For a long minute, there was nothing. David’s eyes measured the jump. Could probably make it with a serious demonic boost. Would also likely turn my ankles to powder. A dramatic entrance, followed by being a crippled liability. Pass. A pale, sweat-slicked face finally peered over the edge. Henderson. He looked decades older. A knotted rope and a few lengths of hastily twisted wiring tumbled down.

  "Classy," David muttered, testing the line.

  They climbed into a sweltering, stinking tomb. The air was thick with blood, sweat, and fear. Survivors were packed into every space. Their clothing was in tatters, soaked in blood. But as David’s eyes adjusted, he saw the impossible disconnect. Their skin was flawless. Unmarked.

  The sight hooked into his brain, a paradox of violence and perfection. His mind chewed on the implications, the possibilities clicking into place with a series of quiet, terrifying clicks.

  His gaze found Evans and Theo near the cockpit door. Theo was on the floor. His t-shirt had a clean, vertical slice across the abdomen. Yet the skin beneath was smooth. His hands were caked in dried blood.

  "The hell happened here?" David asked.

  Theo looked up, his eyes haunted. "A scouting party. Hobgoblins. One massive one, and three ‘elites.’" He swallowed. "They didn't make a sound. They moved like… like ninjas." His fingers went to the gash in the armor plate over his stomach. "If I didn't have Deflection, and if Evans and Corbin hadn't been shooting… I'd be in two pieces. They were precise. But they didn't finish us. They just took Mark and Chloe and vanished. Once we ran, they didn't even follow."

  David filed away the information. So they took two people... Why? A ritual? A sacrifice? Summoning? Food? Recruitment drive? What’s up with these monsters? David had seen them, a couple he hadn’t yet spoken to.

  Theo continued, he looked toward the front of the plane, his expression tightening. "They followed Corbin back. He and Mara came back from hunting, and not ten minutes later, those things were here."

  "Theo," Evans said, his voice firm but layered with a deep exhaustion. He was perched on an armrest, his usually impeccable suit jacket torn and stained. "You can't know they followed Corbin and Mara back. That's speculation."

  "Then why did they show up right after he returned?" Theo's voice rose, sharp with frayed nerves. "It was a clear, coordinated attack!"

  Before the argument could escalate, David’s attention was pulled away by a subtle shift in the crowded cabin. A young woman was moving slowly, deliberately, through the press of bodies. She looked utterly drained, her face pale and sheened with a feverish sweat, but her movements were methodical. She stopped beside a man clutching a deep gash on his arm, placed her hands over the wound, and closed her eyes.

  A soft, golden light emanated from her palms.

  David watched, his analytical mind seizing on the data. The bloody tear in the man's flesh began to… change. The edges pulled together, the raw tissue smoothing over, the skin weaving itself back into unblemished wholeness in a matter of seconds. It was like watching a film of the injury played in reverse.

  Now that was a new variable. He let a trickle of demonic energy seep into his eyes. The world washed in hues of purple and black, and he saw it clearly—a torrent of incredibly vibrant, almost blinding mana, swirling from a nexus in her chest, rushing down her arms, and flooding into the injuries of those she touched. The mana covered the wounds, then it did much more; it seeped in to the wounded’s body, slowly merging with the person's own mana, going deeper to merge with something more, catalyzing a rapid, visible reconstruction of tissue.

  Then his enhanced sight fell on Henderson, who was slumped against the fuselage wall. He was ghastly pale, shivering uncontrollably. His left arm ended in a raw, neatly sealed stump just below the elbow.

  The girl stumbled to him, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She knelt, placing both hands over the horrific injury. Her whole body trembled with the effort. A feverish sweat broke out on her forehead and neck as the golden light flared, brighter and more intense than before. And then, the impossible happened. The stump began to change. Slowly, agonizingly, new bone extended from the sealed end, followed by a weaving lattice of muscle fibers and sinew, all knitting itself into existence from nothing but light and will.

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  Jamie stared, his mouth hanging open. "She's... she's growing his arm back," he breathed, all his usual energy frozen in a state of pure, uncomprehending awe.

  Theo and Rhea rushed to the girl's side as she swayed, their hands coming up to support her under her arms, holding her upright as she poured everything she had into the miracle.

  David hardly noticed them. His heart was pounding in his ears. His eyes were locked on the girl, on the staggering, system-defying power she represented. In a world of death, she was life itself, being spent like currency. The calculation in his mind was instantaneous, cold, and absolute.

  Prime real estate, his mind whispered, the thought as clear and sharp as a shard of glass. That is the most valuable asset I have ever seen.

  David’s focus snapped from the impossible sight of the healer back to the two men in front of him. The math wasn’t adding up. Not a regular one, but a colossal hobgoblin? Four ‘Elites’ who each sounded just as strong as the colossal he had fought? So essentially, in terms of power, five colossal? A scouting party that strong should have wiped most of them out.

  “It would have been a lot worse if Mara hadn’t been here,” Evans said, the words seeming to cost him effort. He rubbed his temple with a blood-stained hand. “The big one made a straight line for her. Ignored everyone else.”

  Theo, who had been hugging his knees, looked up, his eyes wide. “It had some kind of… aura. A weakness skill or something. Felt like all the strength just drained out of my legs. The second we were all slowed down, it went right for her. That’s when everything went to hell. That’s when Henderson got his arm torn off and that elite opened me up.” He gestured to the large slice in his shirt that suggested to David, that Theo’s insides had briefly been outside. “I was just lying there, bleeding out. I thought that I was done for.”

  “She was immune to it,” Evans continued, his gaze distant. “You should have seen her move. She was… fluid. Dodged the big one like it was wading through mud and went straight for one of the elites. The way she fought, it was familiar. Reminded me of you.”

  Theo nodded vigorously, a spark of frantic energy in his gesture. “The colossal was a monster, but those elites… they were like six-foot-tall masters of king fu or something. I fucking hate this place. But Mara… she kept them busy. Or distracted. Or—I don’t know.”

  David went completely still. His internal thoughts, a constant stream of observations and calculations, hit a wall. Immune. The word rang. Repeated itself. The colossal he thought was tactical, disciplined and trained. It always targeted the greatest threat. Mara was a necromancer. He’d seen her pull something from a corpse once, a faint wisp of energy she’d absorbed after their first fight with the possessed armor. He’d filed it away as useful information.

  Now, new variables plugged into the equation. A debuff aura that weakened everyone. A colossal hobgoblin that specifically targeted the one person who was immune. Or the cause. A sudden, improbable display of combat prowess from a woman who usually hung back and never faced real threats.

  What if she didn't just get lucky? What if she gained a new skill, just like I did? The thought was a cold spike. What if she didn't resist their magic… what if she stole it? Sucked the strength right out of them and everyone to power herself up while the rest of you were turning to jelly?

  The pieces fit together with a clean, terrifying click. It was elegant. It was ruthless. He was almost impressed.

  Then a thought struck him—what if she had done that while we hunted? What if she was the reason I got injured in every fight? The hunting trip with Jamie and Rhea had been the first time David had fought a creature with barely so much as a graze. Sure it could’ve been attributed to teamwork, but what if something else was the cause?

  A hot, sharp anger bloomed in his chest, so sudden and intense it was a physical pressure behind his ribs. He wasn't angry about the two people who were taken. That was just the cost of doing business in this shithole. He was pissed because she had a better, safer trick than he did, and she’d used it like an asshole who stuck his million dollar check under the bed instead of putting it in the bank; failing to reach even half of its potential—and repeatedly risking his life in the process. She’s been holding out.

  He didn't say any of it. He just stood there, a statue of simmering resentment, as the implications of Mara’s new skill set rewrote his entire assessment of the group’s survivability.

  The anger was a hot, stupid pressure behind David’s eyes. He was going to do something about it. Now. He knew this was a bad idea. A public, messy, emotional idea.

  But the image kept playing in his head on a loop: Mara, standing over him in the forest, as a hobgoblin’s—an elite, or worse—club came down, casually siphoning his strength to save her own skin. She’d do it. She absolutely would. And she’d probably look bored while doing it.

  His feet were moving before the thought fully formed. He crossed the crowded fuselage, the demonic energy in his veins surging from its usual controlled circulation into a raw, brute-force flood to his muscles. It felt like liquid fire filling his limbs. This is so dumb. This is the kind of thing that gets you stabbed. Do it anyway.

  He didn’t say a word. He just clamped his hand down on Mara’s shoulder. His grip, reinforced by the energy, was like a steel vise. She flinched, her head snapping around.

  “What—” she started, her usual flat tone sharp with surprise.

  He ignored her. He focused his [Energy Affinity], his perception closing in to the flow of power within her. He saw it—a dense, coiled reservoir of mana, different from the healer’s vibrant light, darker, more patient. He inhaled sharply, and pulled with everything he had.

  For a moment, nothing happened. It was like trying to drink from a stone.

  “David? What are you doing?” Her confusion was genuine, which just pissed him off more.

  “Is there a problem here?” Evans’s voice cut in, low and wary.

  “Back off,” David snapped, not taking his eyes off Mara. He kept pulling, his own demonic energy churning, a corrosive engine for the theft. He was a siphon with nothing coming through. Come on, you secretive bitch. Give it up.

  She tried to shrug his hand off, a sharp, irritated motion. When that failed, her confusion began to curdle into anger. “Let go of me. What is your damage?”

  People were starting to stare. Muttered complaints filtered through the stale air. “Hey, man, leave her alone.” “What the hell is he doing?”

  Then, after what felt like a minute of straining against a locked door, he felt the first trickle. Mana. Mara struggled, David didn’t let go, people stirred. Corbin stepped closer. Another minute later, he felt something else. It wasn’t quite mana. It was something thinner, sharper. Life force. A wisp of her stamina, her vitality, drawn into him. A faint warmth spread through his arm. Mara’s eyes widened slightly. She paled, just a shade.

  “I said let GO!” she snarled, and this time, she fought back. He felt her own affinity activate, a grasping, hungry pull that latched onto the stream of energy he was stealing and tried to reverse it. She was trying to take it back, and take something of his in the bargain. A classic necromancer’s tug-of-war.

  Mara pulled a storm of energy from David, so much that he was left with less than half of his reserves.

  It was her mistake.

  Her skill was built for mana, for the life energy of this world. His was fueled by demonic energy, a foreign, corrosive power that operated on a different set of rules entirely. The second her theft met his, it was like throwing water on a grease fire.

  Her eyes blew wide with shock and sudden, searing pain. A choked scream ripped from her throat as the foreign, aggressive energy rampaged back up the connection she’d created. Red veins crawled up the sides of her face and neck, burning. He guessed it wouldn’t feel like having her energy stolen; it would have felt, and looked like having acid injected directly into her veins. The healer would likely not be able to cure this, demonic energy was not a wound, but a force of incompatible, uncontrollable nature, and Mara was full of it.

  “Get him off her!” Corbin barked.

  Hands grabbed at David, pulling at his arms, his jacket. He circulated and held on for another second, long enough to see the truth of it seared into her panicked expression, so she knew, that he knew exactly what she was. He wanted her to feel the corrupt, life-draining nature of her power as it scrambled against his own. Then he let them pull him away.

  She’s a necromancer, he thought, the anger settling into a cold, hard certainty in his gut. And she was perfectly willing to let everyone here play meat shield while she leveled up.

  He stood there, breathing heavily, as people yelled, as Evans demanded to know what the fuck was wrong with him, as Rhea watched with silent, calculating eyes.

  David didn’t give a single shit. The test was over. The result was indisputable.

  Right now, Mara was being consumed by demonic energy, being taken over by it—or dying.

  And David wanted her to know that only he could save her.