Chapter 44: Tomorrow I Kill It.

Raven released the bar with one hand.

Burst Step.

Not backward.

Forward and to the side.

The Blackmaw passed beside him.

Raven dropped beneath its shoulder, almost between its front legs.

Heat.

The exposed tissue was there.

Angle.

Perfect.

For the first time, he didn’t need to kill it yet.

He only needed to know that he could.

Raven rolled before the paw came down.

Valeria created a wall of blood.

The Blackmaw tore through it, but lost speed.

Raven got back to his feet.

"Fall back!"

Valeria looked ready to argue.

"What?"

"I saw what I needed."

"We can finish it now!"

"No. Your reserves are dropping, we lost the chains, and that structure just became scrap. If we continue, it wins."

Valeria looked at the Blackmaw.

Then at her own hands.

Raven was right.

That irritated her.

"I hate when you do that."

"Survive?"

"Be right at inconvenient times."

"You’ll get used to it."

Roland appeared beside them.

"Upper route is clear."

Raven pointed.

"Everyone up. Now."

Valeria threw one final curtain of blood.

Not to injure.

To block vision.

The Blackmaw attacked the red.

Found nothing.

The group climbed.

Raven stayed last.

Predator’s Instinct kept hammering at him.

The Blackmaw emerged through the blood.

Saw him.

Raven held its gaze.

Six eyes against two.

For a moment, neither moved.

The creature breathed vapor.

Its chest plates were still partially open.

The hidden organ behind them pulsed.

Once.

Twice.

Raven memorized the position.

Angle.

Depth.

Distance between plates.

Duration of the opening.

Then he backed away.

The Blackmaw didn’t immediately pursue.

It had learned too.

Predator against predator.

Neither had managed to kill the other.

Yet.

---

They stopped two terraces above.

The workers continued toward the exit.

The guards tended to their injuries.

Valeria sat down for the first time since Raven had met her without worrying about doing it elegantly. She leaned against a rock and breathed deeply while Roland handed her water.

Raven remained standing, watching the quarry.

"If you tell me I’m useful right now, I’m throwing something at you."

"You’re useful."

Valeria picked up a small stone.

Raven raised one hand.

"You need that hand strength."

She put the stone down.

"I hate you a little."

"That seems healthier than the alternative."

Valeria drank.

Then looked up at him.

"You found something."

Raven nodded.

This time, there was no reason to hide it.

"Blood Furnace isn’t distributed throughout the body. The three structures we saw are conduits. The main organ sits behind the lower sternum, angled slightly left."

Valeria lowered the bottle.

"Can you reach it?"

"Not from the front. Too much bone. From above, the plates. From the side, too much muscle."

"But."

Raven lifted the metal bar he’d managed to recover during the retreat.

One end was bent.

Still useful for demonstration.

He angled it upward.

"From below. Just behind the front leg. When Blood Furnace overloads, the chest plates separate and the vascular tissue expands. An upward trajectory can pass between the ribs and reach the organ directly."

Valeria reconstructed the angle in her head.

"You’d have to be practically underneath it."

"Yes."

"That’s a horrible idea."

"Also yes."

"And if you miss, it tears you in half."

"Probably."

Valeria closed her eyes.

"Naturally."

Raven crouched and drew in the dust.

Body.

Legs.

The channel.

The organ’s position.

"The first plan failed because we tried to hold it still too early. We don’t need to immobilize it for five seconds."

Valeria opened her eyes.

"How long?"

Raven marked a point.

"Less than one."

She leaned forward.

"Explain."

"Tomorrow, we don’t try to restrain it."

"Tomorrow?"

"You need to recover mana. So do I. If we go back now, we die."

Valeria didn’t argue with that.

"Fine. Tomorrow."

Raven continued.

"We feed it again, but not with scattered projectiles. I want Blood Furnace to reach overload quickly. You force it to regenerate the same wound repeatedly."

"I can do that."

"Then you make it charge."

"At me?"

"At me."

Valeria looked up.

"No."

Raven almost smiled.

"Now you’re rejecting things before hearing the rest."

"I’ve heard enough to know your plan ends with you underneath a Level Thirty-Four creature."

"Only for a fraction of a second."

"Strangely, that doesn’t solve my objection."

Raven pointed at the drawing.

"It has the same problem as most heavy animals. Lots of mass, lots of speed, poor correction during a full charge. When it comes at me, I’ll use Burst Step at the last moment, but not to escape completely. I’ll move under the shoulder."

Valeria was already seeing the rest.

"And I open the plates."

"You keep Blood Furnace at maximum."

"Then Kinetic Acceleration on the bar."

Raven nodded.

"Straight into the organ."

Silence.

Valeria looked at the drawing.

Then the quarry.

"That could work."

"Yes."

"It could also kill you."

"Also yes."

Valeria looked at him with irritation.

"Stop saying that like it’s an administrative detail."

"It’s an important detail. Not necessarily a disqualifying one."

Several yards away, Roland slowly shook his head.

"I’m starting to think Lady Valeria should’ve hired someone more normal."

Raven pointed at Valeria.

"She tried."

Valeria looked at him.

"Two hundred crowns are still on the table."

"No."

"You just designed a suicidal plan where I’m indispensable."

"Cooperating doesn’t mean I work for you."

"You’re unbearable."

"Also still true."

Valeria studied the drawing one last time.

Then a smile slowly appeared.

Not amused this time.

Predatory.

"Fine. You don’t work for me."

Raven raised an eyebrow.

"That was surprisingly easy."

"Because tomorrow I’m getting my Crimson Blood Core, you’re getting whatever disgusting part of that thing you intend to eat, and technically neither of us will have worked for the other."

Raven looked down.

The Blackmaw had returned to the Mirehorn’s corpse.

Still feeding.

Every minute made the target stronger.

Every minute also taught them something.

Raven briefly opened Predation.

From this distance, it couldn’t perform a full analysis, but the known Traits remained visible.

«Blackmaw Tyrant — Level 34 — Elite

"Blood Furnace"

"Predatory Regeneration"

"Obsidian Carapace"

"Mana Scent"

Additional Traits: Unknown»

An Elite.

Twenty-nine levels above him.

An entire Rank beyond anything Raven had killed before.

The system had recommended running.

Objectively, that remained the smartest advice.

Raven closed the interface.

Valeria followed his gaze.

"What are you thinking?"

Raven watched the creature’s black chest.

Remembered exactly how the plates had opened.

One and a half seconds.

Upward angle.

A foot or slightly more behind the sternum.

An organ that converted magical blood into regeneration.

A secondary heart for a predator built around killing other creatures and turning them into fuel.

Now Raven knew its weakness.

That changed the odds.

"That it’s too strong for me," Raven said.

Valeria looked surprised by the admission.

He continued.

"And your magic is exactly what it needs to regenerate. Alone, you could probably injure it for hours until you ran out of mana and it ended up fuller than when you started."

She grimaced.

"An unnecessarily cruel description."

"But accurate."

"Unfortunately."

Raven pointed toward the quarry.

"Alone, I can’t penetrate its armor or force the Furnace open. You can. You can’t exploit the opening without feeding it even more blood. I can."

Valeria went silent.

Raven picked up the map.

"Neither of us can kill it alone."

The noblewoman smiled.

"That must have hurt to admit."

"Less than an Elite claw."

"You’re learning."

Raven started walking toward the improvised camp they would establish outside the quarry.

Valeria followed.

Below, the Blackmaw Tyrant raised its head.

Even from that distance, its six eyes seemed to find Raven.

The creature had just killed the Mirehorn, driven human hunters from its territory, and turned the magic of one of Asteria’s most promising Blood Mages into food.

It probably had no reason to consider them a threat.

Raven preferred that.

Predators were easier to kill when they still believed the other animal was prey.

Tomorrow, they would find out which of them had made that mistake.