The smoke was different this time.

It didn't billow or drift like fog. It surged outward with violent purpose, forming shapes as it moved. Claws that looked almost solid. Armour plating that caught what little light remained. Something between smoke and matter that responded to Gabriel's will without conscious thought.

The wyvern's head snapped back toward him, frost breath redirecting.

Gabriel was already there.

His fist, wrapped in solidified smoke, drove into the wyvern's jaw with enough force to snap its head sideways. Teeth cracked. Black blood sprayed from its mouth and froze before hitting the ground.

The creature staggered backward, golden eyes wide with something that might have been surprise or fear or both.

Gabriel didn't stop.

He moved like the smoke itself, each strike carrying weight that shouldn't exist from someone his size. His swords became extensions of the crimson fog, cutting deeper than steel alone ever could.

The wyvern's scales parted under his blades like cloth.

Black blood flowed freely now, steaming in the frozen air.

The creature roared and swept its tail in a wide horizontal arc meant to cut Gabriel in half.

He caught it.

The smoke-claws wrapped around the appendage and held. For a heartbeat, man and monster were locked in a pure contest of strength.

The wyvern's muscles bulged, its tail thick as an ancient tree and capable of shattering stone with casual strikes.

Gabriel's arms trembled with the strain.

The smoke around him pulsed, darkening, solidifying further into something that looked almost like scales.

He pulled.

The wyvern's balance broke. Its hind legs actually left the ground as Gabriel hauled the massive creature sideways, using its own mass and momentum against it.

The wyvern crashed into the ravine wall. The impact was loud enough to shake snow loose from the peaks high above, sending small avalanches cascading down around them.

Gabriel released the tail and lunged for the creature's throat.

The wyvern recovered with impossible speed despite its wounds. Its good wing came up, batting Gabriel aside like an insect.

He hit the ground hard but rolled to his feet in one fluid motion, already moving forward again.

The smoke stayed with him now, not leaking away or dissipating but clinging to his skin, responding to his intent, becoming part of him in a way it never had before.

Across the ravine, Tess shouted something. Gabriel couldn't hear it over the roaring in his ears, couldn't process anything except the fight in front of him.

The wyvern charged with its head low and jaws open wide.

Gabriel met it head-on.

They collided with a sound like thunder rolling through the mountains.

Claws raked across Gabriel's chest, tearing through his Ironscale armour and the flesh beneath as if neither existed. His blood sprayed across white snow, steaming and red against the pristine surface.

Gabriel's blades found the creature's neck.

Both weapons punched deep, angled upward toward where the spine should be.

The wyvern's forward momentum drove the swords even deeper.

Gabriel held them there, grip locked, as the creature's immense weight bore down on him. His boots slid backward through snow and stone, carving twin trenches in the frozen ground as he was pushed back by sheer mass.

Ten meters.

Twenty.

His back hit the ravine wall with enough force to crack the stone behind him.

The impact drove the air from his lungs and sent fresh pain screaming through bones that broke and healed and broke again under the sustained pressure.

The wyvern's jaws opened impossibly wide, frost gathering deep in its throat where fire should have been.

Gabriel couldn't dodge. Couldn't move. His swords were buried to their hilts in the creature's neck, his hands locked around the grips, his entire body pinned between wyvern and wall.

The wyvern exhaled directly into his face.

Cold hit Gabriel like a physical blow strong enough to kill.

His skin froze instantly, ice forming on his face, his exposed arms, spreading across his chest where the armour had been torn away. The cold went deeper than flesh, reaching for his organs, his blood, trying to freeze him from the inside out.

The smoke around him shattered like glass.

Gone in an instant, unable to exist in the absolute zero of the wyvern's breath.

Gabriel's grip on his swords weakened as his fingers went numb.

His arms wouldn't respond to commands anymore.

The cold was inside him now, freezing his blood in his veins, turning his muscles to useless ice.

The wyvern pulled back, extracting itself from Gabriel's blades with a wet sound.

He fell forward as his legs gave out.

The swords slipped from his grasp and clattered on the frozen stone.

The ground rushed up to meet him.

Everything was cold.

So impossibly cold that even breathing hurt.

The wyvern stood over him, breath still misting with frost. One wing dragged completely useless now. Black blood poured from the deep wounds in its neck and chest. But it was standing.

Gabriel wasn't.

He tried to push himself up. His arms wouldn't move. The ice had spread across his entire torso now, creeping toward his heart with malicious intent.

His healing was fighting the cold, fighting hard.

Fighting and losing.

The wyvern's claw pressed down on his back, pinning him against the frozen ground like an insect in a collection.

Gabriel's vision blurred at the edges.

Through the haze, he saw Tess scrambling down from her perch, running toward them with her sword drawn and terror on her face.

No.

He tried to speak, to warn her away, to make her run.

Nothing came out except frozen breath.

The wyvern's head turned slowly toward her approach, tracking her movement with predatory focus.

Its chest began to expand again.

Gabriel's hand twitched against the frozen stone.

Just once.

His fingers scraped forward, searching for purchase, for anything that might help.

They found the hilt of his sword lying just beyond his reach.

The metal was so cold it burned against his palm.

He gripped it anyway.

The wyvern's attention was fully on Tess now, watching her run, calculating the distance, preparing to freeze her solid the moment she came into range.

Gabriel's eyes opened fully.

Black with crimson centres that burned like dying stars.

The smoke returned.

Not gradually. All at once.

It erupted from Gabriel's body with enough force to shatter the ice covering him. The frozen shell exploded outward in chunks, razor-sharp fragments that embedded themselves in the ground and the wyvern's leg.

Heat poured from Gabriel's skin, steam rising where ice melted instantly.

The wyvern felt him move and tried to turn back to face the real threat.

Gabriel was already moving.

He drove upward with everything he had left, sword leading, all his remaining strength and will focused on a single point.

The blade punched upward through the soft flesh under the wyvern's jaw.

Through its mouth.

Through the roof of its mouth.

Into its brain.

The wyvern's entire body went rigid.

Its golden eyes widened, then began to dim.

Gabriel twisted the blade and pushed harder, driving it deeper until the hilt pressed against scales and he couldn't push anymore.

The wyvern's legs buckled.

It collapsed forward, its immense weight falling toward Gabriel.

He threw himself sideways, pulling the sword free as he rolled.

The creature hit the ground with a sound like a mountain falling.

It twitched once.

Twice.

Then went still.

Gabriel lay on his back in the snow, staring up at the darkening sky, his chest heaving with ragged breaths that hurt with each inhale.

The smoke had dissipated again, leaving him feeling hollow and empty.

Tess reached him moments later, dropping to her knees beside him.

"Gabriel!" Her hands hovered over him, not sure where to touch, where it was safe. "Are you—"

"I'm fine," he lied.

Nothing was fine.

His body was a map of injuries that were healing but leaving echoes of pain behind. The cold had retreated but its touch lingered in his bones.

And the voice in his head was screaming now, louder than it had ever been.

Complete the trial. Complete it. Complete it NOW.

Tess helped him sit up. They both stared at the wyvern's corpse, at the massive creature that had killed so many hunters before them.

"We did it," Tess said quietly. "We actually did it."

Gabriel pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly.

He walked to the wyvern's body and placed a hand against its side. Still warm despite the cold, despite everything.

"The heart," Gabriel said. His voice sounded distant even to himself. "I need the heart."

Tess stared at him. "Gabriel..."

"I need it." He pulled his remaining sword and moved toward the creature's chest. "Help me or don't. But I'm doing this."

Tess watched him for a long moment, horror and understanding warring on her face.

Then she drew her own blade and moved to help.

Together, they began cutting into the wyvern's chest.

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