Radeon was deep in the forest when the commotion rose behind him. He did not rush back.

His sight was not the normal zoom of a regular cultivator. It slid past trunks and brush and distance like the world was made of thin paper.

Even through the uneven ground he saw the camp's shape break apart, people scattering, crates and bundles thrown wide.

He did not care about the scattered goods.

His hands were not idle.

Campion was locked in with a massive pit frog, nearly the same size as the bison, a clay green brute slick with slime like wet moss.

It bounced and twisted, dodging Campion's charges with springy contempt.

Radeon needed its sweat glands. That was the whole point of coming this far.

The frog was not alone. Its partner came at Radeon, a smaller thin grey male, half the female's size, skin dry and pulled tight over a gaunt frame like it had been wrung out by its own lust.

Bone spikes jutted from its hide. Its eyes were ferocious, the look of a thing that would die before it yielded.

It shot toward Radeon in a straight savage line.

Radeon shifted his weight and kept one eye on the camp.

Fay had flushed the taming qi out of herself and climbed onto the boar's back.

Her shield rose and fell as she pounded the beast's skull. Her blows did not land clean.

The boar's fat and qi turned them aside. The boar squealed and thrashed and kept thundering forward all the same.

Fay stretched her whip out to ten meters and cinched it around the boar's neck.

The bristles along its throat flared. It rampaged harder, pain making it stupid and strong.

Fay went down on the boar and called the wolves over with her free hand.

They went in. She bit down on her own whip. The wolves mimicked her. Then all of them tugged at once.

For a moment the boar slowed. People managed to dodge clear. Carts stopped being crushed.

Then Fay saw the change.

The boar drew in air in huge grunting pulls, swelling its chest like a bellows.

It tucked its legs and turned itself into a rolling ball of black bristle and speed.

Even Radeon blinked at that.

The ball tore across the camp. Men fled. Deer stamped and screamed, startled by the rolling bulk.

Their hooves churned the ground. Antlers and horns bulldozed wagons as panic spread.

It turned into a shitshow of drunk men and startled animals.

Fay's whip bit into her palm. The wolves yelped, gums bleeding as they were dragged by paws and feet.

She barked orders anyway.

"Lend me your bucks. Hand me some ropes. We could pull this off."

What came back was scorn and sneer.

"Call your master over, little girl," a man shouted.

"Yeah, like back when those huge crawlers attacked, you could not even take down one," another voice chimed in.

Radeon saw Fay stiffen. Not from fear. From the hit. She swallowed it and kept her eyes on the beast.

The boar did not wait for their argument to finish. It kept rolling, flattening whatever it touched.

Fay pulled her whip free. She set teal flame over her skin and tried to push it down the length of the whip.

It died within a meter, vanishing like a candle in rain.

The shouting got uglier.

"Do something."

"Call your master."

Fay shut her mouth hard. Radeon saw it. The way she bit down on her own panic.

She shortened the whip until it was only a meter long. The wolf skull still hung at its tip.

Fay steadied her breath, then lashed the whip. No crackle.

She lashed again. This time the whip cracked true.

Then she lit herself up again, and this time she copied the wolf.

She shaped the flame like a throat shaping a howl.

A ball of teal fire burst from the wolf head and streaked straight into the boar's face.

The boar roared. Not rage. Pain. It bucked and rolled in a wild search for relief, slamming into tents. Canvas flew. Poles snapped. Fires scattered.

The camp turned on Fay like a pack finding a wound.

"Dirty wench. Can't even handle a plain old boar."

"Pay up. This is on you."

Radeon watched Fay take it. He watched her flinch once, small and human.

Then he watched something in her settle into place, like bone knitting wrong and hard.

Her face went still. Her eyes sharpened. Whatever had broken did not stay broken. It remade itself into something colder.

This was what Radeon had been waiting for.

Campion came out of the trees like a living wall and charged straight for the boar.

The beast startled, eyes flashing. It tried to suck in more air, readying that rolling trick again.

Bison and boar collided.

Muscle hit muscle with a sound like timber breaking. Both beasts skidded and staggered away.

Radeon did not idle. He was already moving, following the boar as it lurched and half leapt over a wrecked cart.

Threads snapped out from his fingers and whipped toward the beast, winding for a bind, but the boar was surprisingly agile.

It jerked aside, then blew a violent gust from its snout that shoved Radeon back a step and peppered him with grit.

Radeon's mouth twitched. Amused. Interested.

The miners saw him arrive and mistook restraint for play.

"Finish it off quick. What are you waiting for?"

"Are you gambling with our lives?"

Radeon did not spare them a glance. He simply rotated the Breath of the Wild Taming Arts, not to pacify the boar, but to read it.

The beast answered with rage. Territorial. Proud. Too full of itself to accept anything that dared encroach on what it deemed its own.

It was already near the center of the camp, and every breath it took promised another round of crushed tents and broken legs.

So Radeon led it away. He pulled back toward the forest, giving ground on purpose.

The boar followed, eager to chase, eager to punish. In front of them, the carriages that had not moved and the tents being raised got chewed up in seconds.

That only made the miners angrier. They thought Radeon was being petty, making a lesson out of their fear.

Radeon did not explain.

He slipped along a treeline and hid Campion behind it, just long enough for the boar to commit.

Then he signaled.

Campion burst out from the side and slammed into the boar's ribs.

The crack of snapping bone rang through the trees. The boar rolled once, then fell hard on its other side, legs scrabbling in the dirt.

It tried to rise and could not. Its face twisted in something ugly and almost human, tears and snot mixing at its snout.

The boar had spiritual intelligence already. It understood exactly what had just happened to it.

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