The wyvern's chest expanded, frost gathering in its throat.

Its golden eyes were locked on Tess.

Gabriel saw it happen as if time had slowed. Saw the creature's ribs spread wide, saw the temperature drop further as absolute cold built in its maw, saw Tess frozen in place with nowhere to run.

Something inside him snapped.

Not broke. Snapped. Like a chain under tension finally giving way.

The red smoke didn't seep from his skin. It erupted.

A wall of crimson fog exploded outward from Gabriel's body with enough force to crack the frozen ground beneath him. The wave spread in all directions, filling the ravine, thick and choking and violent.

The wyvern's head snapped toward him, its breath weapon redirecting on instinct.

Gabriel was already moving.

His eyes had changed. The red irises bled outward, consuming the white entirely until only black remained with crimson pupils burning at their centres.

The smoke wasn't fog anymore. It solidified as it moved, forming shapes around his body. Claws that extended past his fingers, sharp and real enough to carve stone. Armour plating across his chest and shoulders that caught the dying light and reflected nothing back.

His muscles didn't just strengthen. They changed. Bulged beneath his torn clothing, veins standing out like cords as power flooded through him.

The wyvern exhaled.

Frost spread across the ravine in a wave of killing cold.

Gabriel ran straight into it.

The ice formed on his skin, his armour, his hair. The smoke around him froze and shattered like glass, falling away in crystalline fragments.

He didn't slow down.

His fist, still wrapped in the remnants of solidified smoke, drove into the wyvern's jaw.

The impact sounded like a boulder striking stone.

The wyvern's head snapped sideways. Teeth cracked. Blood sprayed from its mouth, black droplets that froze before hitting the ground.

Gabriel didn't stop.

He moved like something feral, all instinct and violence. No technique. No strategy. Just overwhelming, brutal force aimed at destroying the thing in front of him.

His smoke-claws raked across the wyvern's chest. The scales that had turned aside steel parted under his attack, splitting like cloth. Black blood welled from the wounds, steaming in the frozen air.

The wyvern staggered backward, golden eyes wide with something that might have been fear.

It swept its tail in a desperate arc.

Gabriel caught it mid-swing.

His hands closed around the appendage, smoke-claws digging deep into flesh. The wyvern's momentum should have carried the strike through, should have broken bones and sent Gabriel flying.

Instead, he held.

Muscles in his arms and shoulders bulged as he stopped the tail's movement completely. His boots carved trenches in the frozen ground as he was pushed back, but he didn't let go.

The wyvern pulled, trying to yank its tail free.

Gabriel pulled harder.

The creature's hind legs actually left the ground, its massive weight lifted by pure strength that shouldn't exist in something Gabriel's size.

He slammed the wyvern sideways into the ravine wall.

The impact shook loose snow from the peaks above. Rock cracked. The wyvern's body left a crater in the stone where it hit.

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

The wyvern's good wing came up, batting him aside with desperate force.

Gabriel hit the ground and rolled, coming up in a crouch that looked more animal than human. His breath came in ragged gasps, each exhale producing clouds of steam that froze instantly.

The smoke around him pulsed, darkening, trying to reform despite the cold.

Across the ravine, Tess had pressed herself into the crevice, watching with horror on her face. She'd seen Gabriel fight before. Seen him use the red smoke. Seen him kill.

This was different.

This wasn't Gabriel fighting.

This was something wearing Gabriel's face.

The wyvern recovered faster than it should have given its injuries. It surged to its feet, damaged wing dragging, blood pouring from a dozen wounds, and roared.

The sound was physical. A wall of noise and fury that slammed into Gabriel and made his ears ring.

He roared back.

The sound that came from his throat wasn't human. It was something between a scream and a howl, layered with tones that shouldn't come from a human vocal cord.

They charged each other.

The collision shook the ravine.

Claws met smoke-claws. The wyvern's talons, each one long as Gabriel's forearm, raked across his chest. They punched through the smoke armor, through his Ironscale breastplate, through flesh and muscle to scrape against bone.

Blood sprayed.

Gabriel's own claws found the wyvern's neck. He drove them deep, tearing, ripping, trying to reach the vital vessels beneath the scales.

They grappled in the center of the frozen battlefield, neither giving ground, both trying to kill the other through sheer savagery.

The wyvern's jaws snapped at Gabriel's face. He jerked his head back, the teeth missing by inches, and drove his knee into the creature's chest.

Something cracked.

The wyvern's other claw came around, catching Gabriel's shoulder and spinning him sideways. He used the momentum to swing his own strike, smoke-wrapped fist hammering into the wyvern's wounded wing joint.

The creature screamed.

Not roared. Screamed. A sound of pure agony that echoed off the peaks.

Its chest expanded again, ribs spreading impossibly wide.

Gabriel saw it but couldn't move in time. He was too close, too committed to his attack.

The wyvern exhaled directly into his face.

The cold was absolute.

Beyond freezing. Beyond anything Gabriel had experienced. It felt like every molecule of warmth was being ripped from his body all at once.

His skin froze solid. Ice formed on his face, his neck, his chest where the wounds were still bleeding. The blood froze mid-flow, turning to red ice that crackled and split.

The smoke around him didn't just dissipate. It shattered. Exploded into frozen fragments that rained down like crimson snow before vanishing entirely.

Gabriel's enhanced strength fled with the smoke.

His knees buckled.

The wyvern's claw came down on his shoulder, talons punching through frozen flesh and pinning him to the ground.

Gabriel tried to push up. His arms wouldn't respond. The cold had penetrated deep, freezing muscles, freezing blood, turning him into a statue from the inside out.

His vision blurred at the edges.

Through the haze, he could see Tess scrambling down from her position, running toward them despite knowing it was suicide.

No.

He tried to shout the word. Tried to warn her away.

Nothing came out except frozen breath that fell as ice crystals.

The wyvern's weight pressed down harder, grinding him into the frozen stone. Its golden eyes, dimmed now with exhaustion and pain, stared down at him without mercy.

It had won.

Gabriel's body wasn't healing anymore. The cold had stopped that. His wounds stayed open, blood frozen in his veins, organs beginning to shut down from the temperature.

He was dying.

The black in his eyes began to fade, red seeping back in as whatever had taken control released him.

His fingers twitched against the frozen ground. Once. Twice.

Looking for his swords. For anything.

They lay meters away, half-buried in snow, impossibly far.

The wyvern shifted its weight, preparing to finish him. Its jaws opened, showing teeth stained with its own black blood and Gabriel's red.

Tess was still running, still shouting something Gabriel couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears.

The wyvern's head turned toward her approach.

Its chest began to expand again.

One more breath. One more wave of killing frost. That's all it would take to end her.

Gabriel's hand found something in the snow.

Not a sword.

A fragment of ice. Sharp-edged. No longer than his palm.

His fingers closed around it despite the cold burning his frozen skin.

The wyvern's attention was fully on Tess now, tracking her movement, calculating the moment to exhale and freeze her solid.

Gabriel's healing kicked in. Just a fraction. Just enough for his muscles to respond.

He drove the ice fragment upward with everything he had left.

The shard punched into the wyvern's leg, into the joint where it couldn't be protected by scales. Not deep. Not fatal.

But enough.

The wyvern flinched, its weight shifting, its focus breaking.

Gabriel rolled.

The creature's talons scraped across stone where his chest had been, missing by inches.

Gabriel came up onto his knees, breathing hard, ice still covering most of his body.

His sword lay just ahead.

He lunged for it.

The wyvern's tail lashed out, catching him in the ribs and sending him sprawling sideways.

More bones broke. His healing fought to repair them even as the cold tried to stop it.

Gabriel hit the ground and kept rolling, coming up with his sword somehow in his hand.

He didn't remember grabbing it.

The wyvern charged, limping badly now, one wing completely useless, blood pouring from dozens of wounds.

Both of them were dying. Both of them knew it.

This was the last exchange.

Gabriel raised his sword, both hands on the grip, and waited.

The wyvern closed the distance in three massive strides, jaws opening wide.

Gabriel didn't dodge.

He stepped forward into the attack, inside the range where the jaws could close, and drove his sword upward.

The blade punched through the soft flesh under the wyvern's jaw. Through its mouth. Through the roof of its mouth.

Gabriel pushed harder, using his legs, his back, every muscle screaming as he drove the weapon deeper.

The sword's tip burst through the top of the wyvern's skull.

The creature's entire body went rigid.

Its golden eyes, already dimmed, began to fade entirely.

Gabriel twisted the blade.

The wyvern collapsed forward, its massive weight falling toward him.

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

The creature hit the ground with a sound like thunder.

It twitched once.

Twice.

Then went still.

Gabriel lay on his back in the snow, staring up at the darkening sky. His chest heaved with breaths that hurt worse than the wounds covering his body.

The ice was melting now. Slowly. His body temperature rising as his healing finally overcame the cold.

But he felt hollow. Empty. Whatever had taken control during the fight, whatever had given him that strength, was gone now.

Leaving only exhaustion and pain.

Tess reached him, dropping to her knees beside him.

"Gabriel." Her hands hovered over him, not sure where to touch. "Don't move. Just... don't move."

"It's dead." His voice was rough, barely recognisable.

"I know." Tess looked at the wyvern's corpse. "We killed it."

"No." Gabriel's eyes closed. "I killed it."

The distinction mattered, though he couldn't explain why.

Tess helped him sit up after a few minutes. His wounds were already closing, flesh knitting back together in ways that made her look away.

They both stared at the wyvern. At the massive creature that had killed so many before them.

At the thing Gabriel would have to cut open to complete the trial.

"The heart," Gabriel said quietly. "I need the heart."

Tess looked at him. Really looked. At the way his eyes were still more black than they should be. At how his hands shook. At the expression on his face that said he knew exactly what consuming that heart would do to him.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

Gabriel pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly. "No."

He walked to the wyvern's body and placed a hand against its side. Still warm. Still real.

"But I'm doing it anyway."

Tess stood and drew her blade. "Then I'll help."

Together, they began cutting into the wyvern's chest, neither speaking about what would come after.

The sun touched the horizon, painting the ravine in shades of red and gold.

And somewhere deep inside Gabriel, the voice began to whisper again.

Soon. Soon you will be complete.

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