Kaizer didn’t answer the Centaur with words. He surged forward, spear angled low, boots cutting through leaf litter and churned mud. The Centaur gave him one clean look, then stepped back into the forest and fired. Kaizer shifted aside and the arrow hissed past his shoulder, deep blue essence trailing behind it in a bright seam through the dim trees. He pushed harder, instinct screaming to close. The next shot came faster, aimed at the ground in front of him. It struck with a crack that split pale stone and spat grit into his shins. Kaizer didn’t flinch, but the half-step to avoid planting his foot on the shaft cost him distance, and the Centaur took it without urgency. It moved like the forest belonged to it, hooves finding purchase on slick rock, shoulders turning just enough to slip through narrow gaps between trunks. Kaizer felt the shift in the fight immediately. This was a chase built to drain him in small cuts, one decision at a time.

  He drove forward anyway, breath steady, core heavy beneath his ribs, essence circulating slow and dense. The Centaur’s retreat didn’t look rushed. It used terrain with purpose. Trees broke sight lines. Low ridges forced Kaizer to climb. Fallen logs turned straight pursuit into a choice. The second arrow was aimed at Kaizer’s path again. It struck at an angle and a thin thread of condensed essence unfurled the instant the shaft bit into the earth, whipping toward his ankle. Kaizer felt the tug catch his boot. It wasn’t strong enough to stop him. It was strong enough to steal the next step. He snarled, channelled control into his leg, and ripped free with a sharp jerk that tore the thread and scraped leather. The momentary resistance made his thigh tighten and burn. Kaizer hated it because it was deliberate. The Centaur wasn’t trying to kill him yet. It was forcing him to spend.

  Kaizer launched himself over a broken root and came down hard, spear haft flexing in his grip. A third arrow came in from his right, not from the Centaur’s direct line. It had been threaded through a lane Kaizer hadn’t tracked, and it clipped his shoulder as he landed. Pain flashed bright and thin, a line cut across skin and scale, enough to draw blood and remind him that if he treated those shots as nuisances, one would eventually take his eye. Kaizer’s jaw tightened. He pushed forward again and the Centaur spoke, voice calm, carrying cleanly through the trunks.

  “Still chasing?”

  Kaizer didn’t answer. He accelerated, spear tip steady, claws half-extended and itching to come out fully. The Centaur backed into another lane and Kaizer saw the shape of the fight with sick clarity. This wasn’t a duel. It was a hunt where the one with the bow decided when danger existed.

  Heat punched into his ribs before he registered the motion. A burst of orange flared against his vest, fire blooming off an arrow and scorching leather. Kaizer grunted, staggered half a step, and the smell of scorched hide filled his nose. He slapped at the burning patch with his forearm, scales on his shoulder taking some of the worst of it, and kept moving because stopping was exactly what the Centaur wanted. The fire died fast. It was never meant to burn him to ash. It was meant to break his breath.

  Kaizer forced the cough down and ran through it.

  A beast stepped into his lane, heavy and stupid and fearless. It looked like a boar, only thicker, plated hide cracked with old scars, tusks broken and regrown wrong. It lowered its head and charged for Kaizer’s legs. Kaizer didn’t slow. He planted, rotated his hips, and drove the spear through the creature’s skull with one committed thrust that used weight rather than speed. The point punched through bone and stuck for a fraction. Kaizer ripped it free and the beast dropped. Blood splashed warm over his fingers. Essence bled out of the corpse in a faint leak that his awareness felt more than saw.

  Kaizer caught one breath through his nose and let Essence Siphon do what it did. No feast. No frenzy. A controlled pull that steadied his core and fed circulation without changing pace. The leak stopped. The corpse became a corpse. Kaizer kept moving.

  Behind him, far away, the encampment roared with another kind of noise. Timber splitting. People shouting. The impact of something heavy hitting walls. Kaizer didn’t turn his head. He kept his eyes on the Centaur’s path because every glance back was another metre lost.

  The Centaur retreated again, hooves striking stone without slipping. Kaizer felt frustration sharpen. He was faster than most things on two legs. He was stronger than he had ever been. None of it mattered if he couldn’t touch the target.

  A cluster of shapes dropped from the branches above.

  They hit his shoulders and back with the weight of thrown sacks. Fingers, claws, teeth. Monkeys, lean and vicious, limbs hooking around his neck and arms, trying to pull his head down and twist his spear line away. One shrieked in his ear. Another raked claws across his cheek and tore skin. Kaizer’s vision flashed red. He bared his fangs and snapped at the nearest one, but it jerked away and latched onto his forearm instead, biting through fur and drawing blood. A third reached for his spear hand, trying to pry fingers loose.

  Kaizer growled low and his claws came out fully. He raked backward, caught something soft, and felt the wet tear as a monkey split open under his hand. Another tried to clamp onto his wrist. Kaizer slammed his elbow back into its face and heard teeth crack. The pack didn’t scatter. They clung harder, goal simple and cruel. Slow him. Break his form.

  Kaizer planted his feet, twisted his torso, and used weight like a hammer. He rolled a shoulder, pinned one monkey against his back, and crushed it against a tree trunk with a single brutal motion. Bone snapped. Another was still on his neck, claws digging into skin and scale. Kaizer reached back, seized it by the scruff, and tore it off with a jerk that stripped flesh. It screamed once, then stopped when he drove his claws into its throat. Blood ran down his arm. His vest was ripped. The burn on his ribs throbbed under torn fabric.

  He looked up.

  The Centaur was further away again, already stepping into a new lane, already drawing another arrow.

  Kaizer swore under his breath and ran.

  The chase became a grind measured in metres and anger. Kaizer would close distance, spear tip almost within threatening range, then an arrow would force a stutter step. A snare would steal half a second. A ricochet shot would come from the side and make him throw himself sideways through brush so the shaft wouldn’t take his eye. He took small cuts. A fragment grazed his forearm and left a line that burned. A shatter arrow struck rock beside him and peppered his face with grit and sharp splinters. His regeneration tightened in the background, sealing the worst of it, but the sting remained, and the fatigue began to stack behind his ribs.

  The Centaur didn’t let him find rhythm. Every time Kaizer started to settle, something disrupted him. Heat in his peripheral. Essence-thread snapping for his ankles. A creature hurled into his lane at the exact moment his weight shifted forward.

  “Come on,” Kaizer snarled, voice rough with smoke and effort. “Stop running!”

  The Centaur’s reply drifted back through the trees. “You keep asking for a duel. You keep forgetting you’re not worth one.”

  Kaizer’s grip tightened until the spear haft creaked.

  A wolf-shaped thing hit him from the left, jaws snapping for his forearm. Ribs wrong. Eyes too bright. It came low, trying to take the limb that held his weapon. Kaizer twisted and took a graze across his wrist, then drove the spear point into its shoulder. The beast didn’t die cleanly. It clawed at the shaft, mouth foaming, and Kaizer finished it with his claws, raking down through neck and spine until it sagged. He didn’t stop. He took one controlled inhale over the corpse and kept moving.

  More came. A deer-horror with antlers sharpened into spears tried to gore him as he passed. Kaizer slipped inside the angle, shoved the spear through its throat, and kept momentum, ripping free in the same motion. A thick reptilian beast slammed into him from the side, trying to crush him against a tree. Kaizer braced, shoulder taking impact, scales biting pain into nerve, then drove the spear up under its jaw until bone popped and it went limp. Each kill bled essence. Each breath let Essence Siphon skim a little of that bleed back into him. He felt the pulls as faint steadiness at the core, the sense that his circulation stayed strong even as he spent.

  The Centaur tested him with something different. A blue arrow snapped out and Kaizer ducked it cleanly, but the shot wasn’t meant to hit him. It struck the ground behind him and a line of essence flashed along the earth. A heartbeat later the patch of ground Kaizer had just stepped over erupted in a concussive burst, raw force punching into his back and hurling him forward.

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  Kaizer hit hard. Shoulder slammed stone. Ribs took the impact and pain lanced hot enough to blur his vision. He rolled on instinct, claws digging into dirt. An arrow thudded into the spot where his head had been a heartbeat earlier.

  He came up on one knee, spitting dirt, breath pulled tight.

  “You’re slow,” the Centaur called. “Too angry. Too loud.”

  Kaizer bared his fangs. “Fight me!”

  “I am.”

  Kaizer forced his body to answer. The rib pain didn’t fade. It sat there as hard pressure that made every deep breath cost more than it should. He kept moving anyway, spear low, shoulders tightening without thinking, guarding the injured side.

  A barbed arrow came next.

  It came straight and quiet, timed for the moment Kaizer stepped over a root. He shifted, but the rib pain stole speed from the movement. The arrow drove into his thigh and stopped dead.

  Impact. Bite. Then the barb caught when he tried to move.

  Kaizer staggered, foot slipping, the shaft bouncing against muscle as his stride broke. Blood hit hot and fast, soaking fabric and running down to his boot. His breath punched out through his teeth. The Centaur didn’t rush. It watched him wobble.

  “There,” the Centaur called. “That’s what nine levels looks like.”

  Kaizer grabbed the shaft, braced, and ripped it out.

  The barb tore on the way free. Pain flashed white and wet. More blood poured out. His leg buckled for half a step before he forced it straight again. He cut sideways behind a thick trunk and forced his breathing down while an arrow thudded into bark where his ribs would have been.

  Kaizer yanked a strip of cloth from his pouch. Two turns around the thigh. Pull tight. Knot hard enough to bite. The bandage darkened immediately. It didn’t seal the wound, but the flow slowed from a pour to a steady leak.

  A monkey shrieked and dropped onto the trunk, claws scrabbling for purchase.

  Kaizer stepped out and drove the spear through its chest. The body slid down the shaft and fell. He tore the point free, drew one controlled breath over the corpse, and felt Essence Siphon steady the pressure in his core. Then he pushed back into the lane, jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.

  The Centaur’s laughter drifted through the trees. “Bandages,” it called. “Good. Do you have enough?”

  Kaizer ran on the injury.

  Each stride was a dull hammering up his thigh, the bandage tugging against torn flesh. His foot didn’t answer as cleanly. His timing on the push was a fraction late. The Centaur noticed and punished it with calm precision. A snare shot hit the ground ahead and the thread whipped toward Kaizer’s bad ankle first. He saw it and adjusted, and the shift made the wound flare so hard his throat tightened. He tore free anyway. The effort stole metres.

  A burst shot flared near his feet, heat licking up his shin. He took the edge of it and kept moving, smoke and sweat mixing on his skin. Another arrow snapped past his face, close enough to force his head down. The Centaur kept cutting him up and counting the seconds.

  The beasts came in hard.

  A lean cat-thing slid out of brush low and fast, aiming for his hamstring. Kaizer stabbed it through the shoulder, kicked it off the point, and tore out its throat with claws when it came again. A boar-thing charged from the front, heavy enough to end the chase by knocking him off balance. Kaizer pivoted and drove Triple Thrust, three tight strikes that ended it before it reached his legs. The moment the third thrust landed, monkeys dropped from above and latched onto his spear arm, claws digging under his fingers and ripping at his grip.

  Kaizer roared and ripped them off with his hands. One crushed against a tree. One split open under his claws. Blood slicked the haft. Sap mixed with it. Everything slid.

  “Fight me!” Kaizer shouted, voice raw. “Stop running!”

  The Centaur answered calmly. “Catch me.”

  Kaizer’s breath came heavy. His leg throbbed. The bandage was soaked again.

  He ducked behind a rock outcrop for a heartbeat and fumbled a small vial from his pouch. He didn’t hesitate long enough to bargain with himself. He uncorked it with his teeth and drank.

  The effect hit quick. The sharp edge of pain dulled. The tremor in his hands steadied. His vision cleared. His breathing found a cleaner rhythm. He spat the empty vial and shoved off the stone.

  “Good,” the Centaur called. “Drink. Spend. You’ll run out.”

  Kaizer didn’t answer. He moved.

  And as he moved, his steps changed.

  He felt essence circulating dense beneath his ribs. Without thinking, his control bled into motion. Feet landed cleaner. The push off his back foot became sharper. His balance corrected faster. He stopped wasting energy on ugly movements that jarred his injured leg. He started using the ground.

  He used trees to break line of sight. He used dead beasts as barriers. He forced the Centaur to shoot with intent instead of habit. Each time the Centaur tried to shape his path, Kaizer cut a different line. Each time it tried to wound, Kaizer pressed close enough that the Centaur had to move.

  The arrows came a fraction slower.

  The snare threads were thinner.

  Kaizer tasted blood and smoke and held onto the rhythm change with cold focus. The Centaur didn’t look worried. It still had distance. It still had control. But Kaizer could feel the thinning cadence.

  It kept feeding him beasts.

  Kaizer kept taking their essence in controlled breaths.

  He wasn’t winning yet.

  But he wasn’t being drained the way the Centaur thought.

  The Centaur adjusted again, and this time it aimed to take something from him that couldn’t regenerate. Kaizer cut through a stand of young trees, forcing a tighter lane, and the Centaur let him. The next arrow came in low, skimming the ground, deep blue essence trailing behind it. Kaizer read it as another snare and stepped wide, trying to keep weight off the bad leg. The shot wasn’t for his feet. It hit his spear haft.

  Wood cracked with a sharp report. The shaft jolted in his hands. The spear didn’t break cleanly, but the impact sent a fracture line running along the polished wood, a weakness he could feel every time he tightened his grip. Kaizer’s eyes flashed and he surged anyway, rage punching through his chest.

  “That got your attention,” the Centaur called.

  Kaizer threw a dagger without thinking. The blade spun through the lane, essence coating it in a thin wrap, and the Centaur tilted its head and let it scrape armour. Kaizer threw another. The second forced the Centaur to shift its bow hand. That was all he wanted. A half-step. A fraction of timing stolen.

  He pressed, spear tip up, claws ready, and for the first time in long minutes he closed enough to threaten flesh.

  Then the Centaur punished him for committing.

  A shot snapped out and struck Kaizer’s vest strap near the collarbone. The arrow punched through leather and bit into him, pinning strap to skin. Kaizer felt the tug steal his shoulder. The spear dipped for a heartbeat. Pain flared under the strap where the arrow had caught, and blood ran warm down his chest.

  The lane filled with bodies at the same time. Two beasts rushed in, a horned thing low and heavy and a lanky predator with teeth too long, both aiming to force him to stop and deal with them while the Centaur reset distance again.

  Kaizer snarled, planted, and tore the strap free.

  Leather ripped. The arrow tore out with it, leaving a shallow gouge at his collarbone. The vest shifted loose on his shoulders immediately, weight wrong, balance thrown. He didn’t have time to re-buckle. He drove the spear through the horned beast’s neck and felt the cracked haft flex under impact. The second beast came in and Kaizer met it with claws, ripping down through its face and jaw, then stepped through its collapse and kept moving.

  Another monkey dropped for his dagger belt. It latched onto the pouch, small hands yanking and twisting. Kaizer felt the tug and turned, too late. The monkey ripped the pouch free and bolted up a trunk with it, shrieking, a blur of brown and teeth and stolen gear.

  Kaizer’s breath hitched. He reached for a dagger and felt the empty space where the pouch had been. Anger surged up his spine hot enough to make his hands shake.

  “Thief,” he spat, and hurled the remaining dagger from his belt. The blade took the monkey through the ribs mid-leap. It tumbled, hit branches, and crashed to the ground with a wet thud. The pouch bounced once and came to rest near Kaizer’s foot.

  He didn’t bend for it. He couldn’t. Another arrow hissed through the lane, deep blue light trailing, and Kaizer threw himself into motion again, wounded leg protesting, cracked spear shaft flexing, vest hanging loose and scraping his ribs where it had shifted.

  The Centaur’s taunt drifted back, amused. “You brought toys. I brought time.”

  The sound from the encampment rolled closer, thicker now, heavy with panic. Kaizer caught a glimpse through the trees as the lane opened for half a heartbeat. Canvas lay flattened. Poles snapped. People ran in knots, tripping over bodies and debris. Monsters flowed in through gaps that used to be corridors. Someone screamed a name and the scream ended abruptly. Smoke crawled low between the tents, choking and grey. Elira’s section held in flashes, a line of spear points and braced bodies working in rotation, but the rest looked like a mouth closing.

  Kaizer’s teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. He almost turned. Almost.

  Another arrow cracked stone at his feet and forced him back into the chase.

  He kept moving. He kept forcing the Centaur to shoot to control him instead of shooting to kill him. He kept taking controlled breaths off the beasts that died in his lane, letting Essence Siphon skim just enough that his core stayed dense and steady. He felt the fight changing. The Centaur was firing less. It still hit when it wanted, still placed shots perfectly, still used beasts to force Kaizer into ugly movement, but the constant flood thinned.

  Kaizer followed the thinning cadence and pushed harder, not with speed, with pressure. He cut angles that forced the Centaur to move sooner. He chose lanes that narrowed the Centaur’s retreat options. He stopped chasing the exact path the Centaur offered and started chasing the path the Centaur wanted to keep.

  Another beast tried to stop him, a wendigo again, antlers tangled with bone and rope. It opened its mouth and that hollow call scraped the air. Kaizer didn’t hesitate. He drove the spear into its skull, ripped free in one motion, then tore its throat open with claws and kept moving. The body hit the ground and Kaizer didn’t look back.

  “Better,” the Centaur called, voice still calm, but sharper at the edges now. “You’re still late.”

  Kaizer’s leg was slick with blood under the bandage. His ribs hurt every time he breathed deep. His vest hung wrong, the torn strap letting it slide. His spear shaft flexed in his hands, the crack a warning that the next committed thrust could cost him his only reach. His frustration sat in his chest like a living thing, clawing for release.

  “Stop talking,” Kaizer shouted back. “Stop running and fight!”

  The Centaur laughed softly. “You want honour. I want results.”

  Kaizer bit down on the rage and forced it into focus. He could feel the way his control was shifting into movement now, not as a conscious choice, but as a habit forming under pressure. He placed feet cleaner. He used small changes of angle to save his injured leg from the worst of impact. He started to read the Centaur’s lanes earlier, cutting across them instead of following them, and each time he did it, the Centaur had to spend an arrow to correct the line.

  The Centaur didn’t look worried. It still had distance. It still had the bow. It still had beasts in the forest to throw at him. But the rhythm had changed, and Kaizer could feel the mistake widening.

  It kept feeding him beasts to slow him.

  Each beast bled essence when it died.

  Kaizer kept taking controlled breaths and staying in the fight.

  He wasn’t winning. Not yet. He was still behind. Nine levels behind, with injuries stacking, gear slipping, spear cracking in his hands.

  But he could feel the point where the Centaur would have to choose between keeping Kaizer at distance and finishing the encampment faster. It was doing both, and it was starting to pay for it.

  Kaizer held onto one plan through the pain, through the taunts, through the constant reset of distance.

  One bite.

  Not to kill. To slow.

  He ran after the Centaur with a limp, a cracked spear, and fury tight enough to cut, and he kept forcing the chase deeper into the forest, deeper into lanes where the Centaur’s control would have to spend more and more to stay clean.

  The hunt dragged on, and Kaizer began to shape it back.