Chương 132: Chapter 105: Corrupted Endurance

The demon came through the birch trees without breaking enough branches for its size. Black plates slid over red movement beneath its chest while the frost-boar cooled behind us in a ruined heap of hide, tusk, and steaming meat. A body that large should have cracked deadfall and made the ash jump beneath every step. Instead, it entered with the soft wrongness of something borrowing weight only when weight became useful, four limbs carrying it low until the clearing gave it room to rise onto the rear pair.

Its forearms hung long enough for the hooks to brush the snow-blackened ground. Veinfinder caught the internal channels before my eyes settled on the body. Dark mineral lines carried pressure through flesh too dense for ordinary blood, each one converging around a concealed cavity behind the visible chest. The creature had been built around something I could feel more clearly than I could see. Talia drew first, and the movement showed how tired she already was because it remained perfect.

Her blade cleared leather while her feet crossed and unwound through the ash, heel behind heel, retreat becoming entry and entry turning sideways until she stood beside the demon's shoulder after its first reach closed on empty air. Grapevine Footwork had sounded decorative when she named it. Here, it looked like a vine entering every crack in a wall constructed to exclude it. Her first cut opened the upper arm from plate to red underlayer.

Black-red fluid struck the nearest birch in a thick line that resembled spilled wine under the poor light. The wound closed as her blade withdrew. It did not heal. Healing required flesh to rebuild what had been lost. The demon tightened around the damage and refused to let the opening remain. Talia saw the distinction. The amusement left her face by less than a finger's width.

"That is rude." The demon looked beyond her towards my chest. The Heartwood Bird had become hot enough to press through shirt and coat. Its jaw plates separated, revealing no tongue, only smaller hooked structures moving against one another like fingers searching inside a narrow space.

"Heart," it said. The word sounded assembled rather than spoken. Talia struck before the final sound ended. Her stance narrowed, her shoulders settled, and Duelist came over her like a stricter version of herself, removing every movement that did not serve line, timing, or denial. The blade entered behind the knee, withdrew before the joint answered, then crossed the same fault twice more. A lesser creature would have lost the limb.

This one folded the damage inward and pushed wine-dark pressure through the channels Veinfinder showed beneath the plates. The knee straightened despite the opened tissue, and the demon stood on the leg with almost no loss of speed.

"That is not ordinary endurance," I said, bringing the Woodsman's Axe forwards.

"No." Talia gave the answer none of its usual polish. Her gaze remained fixed on the dark circulation beneath the plates.

"It was purchased." The phrase landed badly in her mouth. For one breath, she looked less surprised by the demon than offended by something she recognised inside it. Then the creature swept a forearm towards her, and whatever explanation had reached her died beneath the need to move. She dropped beneath the hook, crossed backwards through root and ash, then returned along a different line and opened the same arm farther.

Bronze pressure entered cleanly with each cut, but the demon's endurance turned injury into delay. It bled, tightened, shifted its internal pressure, and continued. I entered behind her strike with Ironwood Strike. The axe landed where two plates had separated, and the ability showed the seam, the support beneath it, and a sacrificial layer designed to take force without transmitting damage deeper. The edge entered, struck harder material beneath, and stopped.

The demon turned before I could free it, dragging me through the ash by the haft. I released one hand, stepped with the pull, and drove my shoulder into its side rather than allowing the movement to tear the axe away. Loadbearer distributed the strain through my back and hips, while Labour-Hardened kept the wrists and shoulders together long enough for me to wrench the edge free. Talia used the exposed forearm as a step.

She crossed the demon's back and drove her sword into the opening between the neck and chest plates. The surrounding armour buckled, but the body tightened around her blade while the red channels beneath it swelled like muscle filled past its limit. She twisted free and sprang away. Her breathing had become audible when she landed, and one foot slid half a handspan farther than intended.

The demon convulsed and drove its shoulder into her before she recovered, throwing her against a birch hard enough to crack the trunk. Talia landed on her feet, although one hand touched the ground before she rose. Months earlier, her speed had looked like distance collapsing around her.

Hunter's Eye now held enough of the movement for me to see the labour inside it: the hip turn carrying her away from a direct retreat, the crossing step that denied the creature's reach, and the narrow recovery required before each new line. Understanding the technique made her look more dangerous, not less. It also made the cost visible. Each perfect movement consumed something her body was no longer returning quickly enough. The demon opened its chest.

Four black plates separated around a cavity filled with crimson-dark tissue. No ordinary heart beat inside it. Several smaller chambers contracted in sequence around a black central vessel, each connected to the limbs through mineralised channels. The visible sternum was a shield rather than a centre; every strike against it had been carried sideways through ribs designed to survive breaking. Talia stared into the chambers for one breath too long. Recognition emptied her face, followed by something closer to guilt.

"Blood-wine work," she said. The words meant little to me and too much to her. The demon reached towards my chest. I caught the wrist with the axe beard and pulled across my stance, trying to turn the hook away from the Heartwood Bird. The movement would have worked against an arm built around ordinary leverage. Its forearm rotated within the armour while the elbow remained fixed, plates moving independently until the claw changed direction inside my grip. One hook struck the Heartwood Bird.

Heat burst through my chest hard enough to turn my breath into a sound I did not choose. Dark lines appeared beneath both forearms before the demon cut flesh, and pain travelled towards the ring fingers as though the body had found old doors there and begun opening them from the wrong side. The demon froze with the claw against the relic. Its entire frame tightened around the contact.

"Found." Talia's sword passed through the wrist before the second sound could form. The severed hand remained hooked inside my coat for one breath before dropping into the ash. The demon screamed through every opening in its body at once. Talia staggered after the cut, not because the strike had been poor, but because reaching it in time had consumed more than she could hide. Duelist made the cut exact. Grapevine Footwork carried her through the angle. Neither returned the breath spent getting there.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. She stood with the blade low and one shoulder rising too quickly. Blood from a cut near her temple had already reached her jaw.

"If it touches that again, we both have a worse morning." I tore the severed claw from my coat with fingers that did not feel entirely mine.

"You knew what it was."

"I knew what it resembled."

"That is not the same."

"No." Her eyes moved once towards the open chambers. Anger reached her face before she forced it away.

"This is uglier." The demon struck with the damaged limb before she could move. Talia crossed her blade against the impact, but the force carried her through the opened frost-boar and into the slope beyond. The creature followed her, abandoning me after contact with the Heartwood Bird confirmed what it wanted. I struck the rear leg.

Ironwood Strike found the structure beneath the repaired wound, where the outer plate had tightened badly around stolen tissue and left a load line that no longer matched the original body. The axe opened the joint, and the repaired haft cracked near the socket. The demon collapsed on one side, twisted, and tore the weapon from my hands. The Woodsman's Axe turned once before landing beyond the boar. The head remained attached, but the old repair had opened into a dark mouth beneath the eye.

Talia returned before the demon regained its footing. Another grapevine pattern carried her through the ash, almost failing when the left foot dragged behind the crossing step. She cut the damaged leg free at the joint I had opened, then drove the point through a rear plate and into the first of the smaller heart chambers. The chamber ruptured around her blade and re-formed behind it. Talia swore quietly, not from fear but recognition.

Her face turned towards the wine-dark pressure filling the wound, and guilt hardened into anger.

"Grandfather, you vain old butcher." The demon caught her by the throat before she could withdraw. Its body rose around her, three legs holding the weight while the open chest tightened. It drew her towards the cavity as though intending to replace what she had pierced with something still living. I reached the Woodsman's Axe and closed both hands around the cracked haft. The weapon had one committed strike left before the repair failed.

Ember Blade narrowed along the edge, kept away from the socket because spreading heat through the head would finish what the Deep Ironbacks had begun. Veinfinder held the demon's channels open before me. Hunter's Eye showed how the plates shifted to protect the central vessel, while Ironwood Strike exposed the deeper lie beneath both. The demon was not merely armoured. It had been constructed around misdirection. The chest chambers existed to receive attacks and survive them.

The sternum carried force away from the centre, while the true structural heart hung beneath the spine where anger and habit would never aim first. I stopped aiming at the heart. The axe entered beneath the rear shoulder, where four internal supports crossed before carrying pressure towards the concealed vessel. Ember softened the first plate. Ironwood Strike entered the second and found the crossing beneath. The failure travelled through connected shell, tissue, reinforcement, and bone.

The haft split between my hands, but the axe head continued, opening the demon from shoulder to chest and rupturing two false chambers before the support beneath the spine failed like wet timber under flood pressure. The demon released Talia and folded towards the damaged side. ABILITY ADVANCED Ironwood Strike has advanced from Copper (mid) to Copper (late). You can now better recognise concealed structural centres, sacrificial layers, reinforced failure paths, and deliberately redirected force.

Aligned strikes can carry failure through multiple connected materials when the complete load path is understood. The broken axe head remained inside the demon's opened structure, attached to too little haft to recover before the plates began closing. The Cinderline pressed across my back, still locked behind its Bronze requirement. Talia had fallen beside the severed leg.

She forced herself upright using her sword, then crossed back towards the demon while one hand rubbed the bruising already darkening around her throat.

"It will restore the supports," she said.

"The chambers are feeding them."

"How long?" Her attention remained fixed on the pulsing wine-dark channels.

"Longer than they were ever meant to." The answer carried anger towards someone who was not in the clearing. When the demon pushed itself upright, she entered beneath its damaged reach and cut two channels feeding the false hearts. The wounds tightened behind her blade, but more slowly than before. The stored pressure was being spent. I caught the cracked axe haft and forced the remaining wood sideways inside the wound.

Ironwood Strike followed the weakened internal supports, not enough for a second advancement but enough to deepen the damage until the demon could no longer redirect all of it. The creature threw itself towards me. I stepped aside, let the forward weight open the structure around the embedded axe, then dragged the broken haft across the complete path I had already found. The central reinforcement tore. ABILITY ADVANCED Ironwood Strike has advanced from Copper (late) to Bronze (early).

You can now carry recognised structural failure through layered ranked materials, redirected supports, and deliberately concealed load paths. Complete understanding remains essential. Incorrect assumptions may propagate failure through the weapon, surrounding material, or wielder. EQUIPMENT REQUIREMENT SATISFIED Eisenfeld Cinderline Falchion may now be equipped through Ironwood Strike, Bronze (early). Ironwood Strike compatibility established. Ember Blade compatibility remains unavailable.

The Cinderline unlocked across my back. Strength entered through the weapon before I drew it, abrupt enough to shift my balance forwards. The broken axe remained inside the demon, and I let it go because the living problem had not finished charging for the lesson. The falchion cleared its sheath cold. The red-gold cinder-brass ran from guard towards the forward edge without any answering glow.

I had bought the weapon for Ember Blade, but Ironwood Strike had made it usable first, leaving the conduction line dormant beneath the dark steel. My first cut was wrong. The body still expected an axe, so I committed too much shoulder and drove the edge down into a plate already moving away. The blade bit more deeply than the Woodsman's Axe could have managed, then pulled the recovery wide enough for the demon to knock the flat aside. Talia struck the hand twice, once at the wrist and once through the palm.

Her movements remained cleaner than mine while blood darkened one side of her face and each breath pulled against the damage at her throat. Grapevine Footwork carried her around the ruined reach, but the steps had shortened. Exhaustion had begun taking precision from her body while Duelist refused to permit the blade itself to become less exact.

"Stop chopping," she said as the demon turned towards me.

"It is built to be split."

"Then use the sword to finish the split." I changed the grip and followed the line she had opened. The Cinderline's continuous edge entered beneath the shell and remained inside the structure longer than an axe could. Instead of striking towards the hidden vessel, I drew the blade across the failure path. The first support separated. I turned through my hips, allowed the curve to continue, and opened the second without withdrawing completely. The weapon felt wrong. The cut worked.

The demon recoiled with red movement visible beneath the black plates. The Cinderline remained dark, its value lying in its ability to survive the resistance and carry force through a longer cut than the axe could have held.

"Blood heart," the demon said. It lunged past the blade and drove the severed wrist towards my chest. The Heartwood Bird answered before the stump reached it. Heat exploded through the Crimson Setting Fragment and into my blood, outlining both arms with veins dark enough to show beneath the skin. Talia intercepted from the side. Her sword entered beneath the jaw and emerged behind the skull while the hilt turned the head away from me.

The demon dragged her through the ash, and her feet crossed in the vine-like pattern again, no longer to attack but to keep herself outside the open chest. She shouted my name without a joke attached. Veinfinder followed the dark channels towards the true vessel. Ironwood Strike marked the broken supports, while Hunter's Eye showed the opening Talia had created by forcing the head aside. The Cinderline wanted a level cut rather than the downward blow my body preferred. I gave it one.

The blade entered through the open flank, passed between the ruptured false chambers, and reached the black vessel hanging beneath the spine. Resistance gathered around the edge, then failed along the complete structural path established by the axe, Talia's cuts, and the drawn falchion. The vessel split. The demon stopped moving before the rest of the body understood it had died. Talia tore her sword free and rolled away as the full weight collapsed.

She landed on one knee because both feet had finally become too much to ask. The creature struck hard enough to expose roots beneath the ash. Black plates opened and closed several times while wine-dark fluid filled the channels and cooled towards something darker than blood. Talia remained on one knee for three breaths, her sword point resting in the ash. She had never been effortless. She had been spending herself faster than she could afford and making the debt look graceful. Then someone clapped from the ridge.