The passage continued deeper once the last of the Wraithkin had dissolved, the walls narrowing and widening in irregular pulses as they walked, the violet residue growing steadily thicker against the stone. Ant kept his hand near Soul Render's hilt without consciously deciding to, the adrenaline from the last fight refusing to fully settle even as the immediate threat receded behind them.
I can feel it building, Mahkir said, after they'd been walking for several minutes in relative quiet, his amber eyes fixed somewhere ahead of them that Ant couldn't identify. Whatever this is. Magic, or something close enough to it. It's stronger further in than it was at the entrance.
Kalsar mentioned Kithren feed on this, Ant said, sending the thought through the bond rather than speaking it aloud. Does that mean you could?
I expect so, Mahkir said. However, I wouldn't consider it. It feels wrong. Corrupt and twisted. While I might get stronger, I have a feeling that if I tried, what came back out would not be me.
Ant decided to keep that revelation to himself, relaying only Mahkir's thoughts about the residue getting stronger.
Kalsar nodded without looking particularly surprised. "That tracks with what I've seen before," he said, his eyes moving along the tunnel walls as he spoke. "Residue tends to concentrate toward the centre of a vortex. Whatever's strongest down here is probably going to be closest to wherever the original pressure built up. Makes sense your Kithren would notice it getting heavier the deeper we go."
Ant fell into step beside Maren, glancing at her Kithren padding along a few paces ahead, four-armed, broad-shouldered, moving low and careful in a way that suggested more caution than confidence after the chaos of the last fight. He noticed faint bruising along one of the creature's shoulders, dark against the grey hide, souvenirs from the earlier collisions that hadn't fully faded.
"Has he levelled at all," Ant asked. "From that fight?"
Maren shook her head, something faintly rueful in the gesture. "Not yet, no. He's getting experience, genuinely good experience, I think, but Mahkir's just doing so much of the actual damage in every exchange that Axel barely gets a look in. He gets enough to matter, eventually, just not enough to push him over a threshold on his own." She glanced ahead at her Kithren, something protective crossing her expression. "And that's not his fault, honestly, it's mine. I've barely trained him properly. This is way more my failing than his."
"Where did the name come from," Ant asked. "Axel."
"Oh, Axel." Her voice warmed immediately, still fond of it even after all these years. "He came with the name half-formed already, if I'm honest, and I just finished it off. Felt right the second I said it out loud."
The conversation didn't get much further before Kalsar's voice cut through it, low but no longer quite as hard as before.
"My Kithren's just picked something else up ahead," he said. "Different signature to the last three, stronger, from the feel of it. Might be worth slowing down and getting ready before we walk straight into whatever it is."
Hands found weapons without anyone saying so. Maren's easy expression sharpened into something more focused, and Ant found his hand back on Soul Render's grip almost before he'd registered moving it there.
"Okay, given what we just saw," Maren said, already talking before she'd fully worked it out, "I think the smart move is obvious, actually, regardless of what the levels say. Mahkir's clearly stronger than his numbers suggest, so, Axel should hold whatever this is, tank it, keep it controlled, and Mahkir just focuses entirely on damage. There's no point spreading the effort evenly if one of us is doing so much more of the actual work anyway."
I like this plan, Mahkir said, with an immediacy that suggested he'd have voted for any plan that put him at the centre of it.
Ant relayed the agreement, and the new Wraithkin came into view a moment later, resolving out of the dark ahead of them.
It was considerably larger than the last three, roughly the size of a horse, its shifting form somehow denser than the smaller creatures had been, edges holding together with a stability the weaker Wraithkin had lacked. Its eyes burned a deeper red, four points of light rather than two, tracking all of them at once with an unsettling, deliberate patience.
"It would be considerably more useful," Maren muttered, eyeing it with real frustration at being denied information she badly wanted, "if these things had chips. At least then we could scan it properly. Get some idea of what we're actually dealing with before it's already trying to kill us."
Something about the comment sparked an idea Ant hadn't quite reached on his own. He focused inward, directing the skill at the creature ahead.
Appraisal.
The response came back almost immediately, sparse in a way that surprised him.
Level 4 Anomaly detected. Warning: High Defence.