Chương 2210: Chapter 20.5: Recognition

"What in the hells…" Wade breathed. Bren's eyes narrowed sharply. I barely processed any of it because energy suddenly flooded back into my limbs with terrifying intensity. Not healing exactly. More like my body refusing collapse through sheer stubborn violence. The returning strength did not restore what the bite had taken. My left hand remained slow, two fingers barely closing, and each pulse sent warmth leaking through the torn sleeve. What returned was the ability to account for the damage without obeying it.

Wade lay beyond the stream roots with one arm pressed across his ribs. Bren's shield had split down the centre. The sword was gone beneath black water and leaves. I still had the axe, one working shoulder, and the few steps between the Stalker and both men. The Stalker attacked again. I met it halfway. Guarded Blade surged forward instinctively now that fear and pain had burned away hesitation. The swordless movement still carried the skill's rhythm beneath it: spacing, recovery, controlled positioning.

I ducked beneath the creature's first swipe while wrenching the axe free from my back. The world sharpened. Not calmer. Sharper. Rain. Mud. Movement. The Greywash Stalker lunged again. I stepped inside the strike. Something aligned. The advancement settled through me with startling clarity. ABILITY ADVANCED Guarded Blade has advanced from Iron (mid) to Iron (late).

You now better understand tight exchanges, controlled recovery under pressure, guarded movement without a blade in hand, and how to preserve structure when a stronger opponent collapses distance. Your defensive movement can now remain functional through severe pain, unstable footing, and forced close-range pressure. No frenzy. No explosion. Understanding. The fight suddenly made sense. The Stalker's movement patterns sharpened visibly while spacing and timing aligned instinctively beneath my feet.

Every previous sword lesson with Bren clicked together at once into cleaner structure. The beast attacked again, claws scything low across the mud, but this time I controlled the exchange. I shifted sideways instead of retreating, forcing the creature past me before driving the axe haft hard into its injured forelimb. The Greywash Stalker staggered awkwardly through the mud. Bren used the stumble rather than chasing the beast.

He dragged Wade behind the broadest root, planted the broken shield across the opening, and called the creature's turn a heartbeat before I saw it. The Stalker favoured the forelimb my sword had opened, but only when it thought we were watching the other side. Even wounded, it hid weakness. I shortened my grip on the axe and gave it the angle deliberately, leaving enough space for the expected correction. Opening. Axe Strike surged upward violently.

The heavy blade crashed across the Stalker's shoulder deep enough to split scarred muscle nearly to bone. Blood sprayed hot through the rain while the creature screamed for the first time. Not enough. Still moving. The Stalker twisted back toward me despite the wound, eyes bright with fury and something worse than fury. Recognition had not left them.

It looked at me now as though the bite had taught it something, as though the wound closing badly beneath torn flesh had answered a question neither of us had known was being asked. I roared wordlessly and stepped into the final strike. The advancement hit like collapsing timber. Power settled brutally through muscle, grip, shoulders, hips, and stance simultaneously while the axe suddenly felt impossibly natural in my hands. ABILITY ADVANCED Axe Strike has advanced from Iron (mid) to Iron (late).

You now better understand committed killing blows, full-body alignment, brutal follow-through, and how to drive heavy force through resistant flesh, bone, armour, and dense material. Your axe attacks can now reach stronger Iron-quality effect when delivered with proper footing, commitment, and sufficient opening. Every movement aligned beneath raw instinctive certainty. The final swing landed clean.

The heavy blade split downward through the Greywash Stalker's skull with enough force to bury itself in the roots beneath. Silence followed. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Rain tapped softly against leaves overhead while steam rose from blood pooling darkly through the mud. The Greywash Stalker twitched once. Then stopped moving. For several long moments nobody spoke.

Bren broke the stillness by tearing the least filthy strip from beneath his cloak and winding it above the bite. The pressure should have made the wound open again. It did not. Blood soaked the first turn, spread more slowly through the second, then stopped short of the knot while I watched. Wade saw it happen from the roots. He looked away from my arm and towards the dead beast, as though one of them might provide a less dangerous explanation for the other.

I stood breathing hard above the corpse while blood still dripped steadily from my ruined arm. The wound remained terrible. But not terrible enough. Wade stared openly.

"That should've taken your damn arm off." Jory would have been panicking already. Bren simply watched quietly. Finally the older guard stepped closer and examined the partially closed bite wound beneath the rain.

"Energy surges happen near breakthroughs sometimes," he said slowly. Wade frowned immediately.

"That wasn't normal." Bren did not look away from my arm.

"No. But neither's ranking pressure." His eyes lifted toward my face.

"How close are you?" I swallowed hard.

"Axe and blade just advanced." Bren's gaze sharpened.

"Together?" I nodded. Bren glanced once toward the dead Greywash Stalker beside us.

"That'll do strange things to a body." The explanation sounded reasonable. Almost. Yet the older guard did not fully sound convinced himself. I looked down at the wound again. The flesh still bled. Still hurt. But the torn muscle had already partially sealed where the bite should have left exposed bone. Wrong. The Greywash Stalker had noticed it too. That frightened me more than the pain. Wade pushed himself upright with a groan and immediately regretted it.

"If we're done pretending that was explainable, can someone help me before my ribs decide to leave?" Bren moved first, though his gaze stayed on my arm a heartbeat longer than necessary. Together we dragged Wade clear of the brush and checked him quickly for wounds that would kill faster than complaints. Bruised ribs. Torn shoulder. A cut along the scalp that bled heavily enough to look worse than it was. Wade swore throughout the entire inspection, which Bren seemed to take as a favourable sign.

The dead guards remained above us in the roots. The dead Stalker steamed in the rain. Nobody said what all of us were thinking: that the beast had been too intelligent, too deliberate, too much like the scout that had watched the camp from the tree line. It had not simply attacked the hunting party. It had tested us, separated us, stored bodies around its territory, and recognised something in my blood before dying beneath my axe.

"We take what we can carry," Bren said at last. Wade stared at him.

"From that?" Bren nodded.

"Hide. Claws. Teeth if we have time. Proof for Talvek if nothing else." I looked at the Stalker's corpse, then at my torn arm. Skinning stirred somewhere beneath the pain, hesitant but present. The thought of cutting into the creature that had just bitten a chunk from me should have sickened me. It did. But the eastern camp needed materials, Wade needed better straps, and Merris had taught me enough to know that leaving value in the mud was another kind of loss. I knelt beside the corpse.

My left arm throbbed badly enough to blur the edge of my vision, so I worked mostly one-handed at first, using my knee and the axe haft to hold tension where fingers could not. Bren watched the trees while Wade sat against a root pretending not to hurt. The useful sections were not the easiest ones to reach.

Scar tissue crossed the shoulders in overlapping plates, thick enough for shield bindings if I could keep the grain intact, while the long forelimbs carried tendons that might hold more strain than any scavenger hide in camp. I cut around the bite-dark muzzle last. Several of its teeth had fractured against my arm, and one remained caught inside the leather bracer among threads of my own flesh.

I wrapped that piece separately, because Talvek would want proof and because I did not want the tooth against my skin for the walk home. Rain soaked everything. Blood washed across my boots. The Stalker's hide resisted the blade viciously, dense and layered, but Skinning answered the difficulty in small grim increments. Cut. Hold. Separate. Preserve. Do not waste what nearly killed you. By the time we had enough hide bundled for carrying, dusk had begun thickening beneath the Greywash canopy.

The forest around us felt emptier now, though not safer. I tied the final strip with shaking fingers and stood slowly above the ruined carcass. Something shifted beneath my ribs. Not rank. Not yet. Pressure. The same climbing pressure I had begun recognising before every threshold, but incomplete, suspended somewhere between wound, exhaustion, and advancement. Guarded Blade and Axe Strike had reached Iron (late). Toolsmith already sat there. Timbercraft and Labour-Hardened had passed beyond.

Skinning tugged at the edge of understanding with the Stalker hide bundled against my pack. I was closer. Bren saw my face and understood enough.

"Not here," the older guard said quietly. I nodded once. We began the slow walk back toward Dunmere through mist, rain, and the hanging dead.