Blake quickly realized that Mingel hadn’t been the only creature stalking him. One day, when he killed a howler and circled back to try to catch its echo, he found a footprint in the mud. It reminded him of a cat’s paw, but it was the size of his head.

  After that, Ethbin did the searching for him, extending his senses out in a massive radius through the mists.

  Blake had promised the pavilion he would be out here for a while, so hopefully they wouldn’t be getting too concerned, but he was starting to worry that he’d been out here too long. Besides, the rations he’d been throwing to River were slowly running low, and they wouldn’t last for much longer. She preferred rice and barley, especially if it had a little bit of salt on it, and rejected pretty much any meat. After all, she was a deer.

  As he walked, he asked Ethbin, “How exactly do I capture an echo?”

  It’s good practice for your killing intent, Ethbin replied. You must target an echo with the intent. It will freeze. The echo usually lacks a mind of its own. Once you’ve frozen it with your killing intent, you can absorb and socket it.

  Blake had flipped front to back through the echo compendium, but there hadn’t been anything about how to actually absorb an echo.

  I’ll teach you when the time comes, Ethbin said. For now, practice your killing intent.

  “How?”

  It’s difficult to teach. It’s a pressure you exert on a target. You must resonate your spine meridian and truly focus your intent to destroy an enemy. Like I said, you should not fight someone who you are not willing to kill. Once you are willing to kill, they will feel it.

  “So experimentation.” Blake let out a long sigh. “Alright, then. I’ll keep working.”

  It helps to have a focus. You have used touches of killing intent before—like when you defended River from the pistilwalker, or when you defeated the spiker.

  “That’s true…”

  I haven’t lied to you yet, have I?

  Blake stroked his chin. “Okay, okay. I think I can work with what you’ve given me.”

  That evening, he stopped at a small, jumbled neighborhood and found an old playground. To get himself out of the water, he laid atop the monkey bars. Once he’d dried his boots off a little, he began setting his trap for the glasstooth squirrels. Over the past few days, he’d been fashioning a cage out of wood and twigs. It would hold long enough to keep a squirrel in overnight.

  The Glasstooth Squirrels were carnivores, so he baited the trap with howler meat and left it in the attic of a nearby house and returned to the monkey bars to sleep. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than nothing.

  In the morning, he checked his trap, and sure enough, there were three white-furred squirrels trapped inside. They all had two tails and true to their name, sharp teeth made of glass. Their pelts and teeth were the most valuable part, so Blake gave them all a quick death then stored their bodies. He would earn bonus points for removing their furs, but he hadn’t learned how to prepare a pelt yet, and there really wasn’t enough time to learn now.

  It only took a few seconds after tucking the squirrels away in his backpack for Ethbin to say, Watch out. Your second follower is getting closer.

  “What is it?”

  Difficult to tell. But I’d bet you’ve found your lightstalker. It won’t attack if it thinks you know about it. And we want to bait it out. Turn your back to the west—

  “Which way is west?”

  To your right. And then keep working—make yourself look busy.

  Blake walked around the city until he found a place that seemed suitable to fight a big cat. He might have been good at climbing, but there was no way he was better at it than a cat, so he found an old roundabout that hadn’t sunk completely. There was plenty of open space, and he didn’t have to worry about attacks from above.

  He knelt down in the center, beside a rusty street sign, and rummaged through his backpack. River emerged from between a few buildings, likely seeing his backpack open and expecting a snack. Blake kept his head down, pretending not to be paying attention to his surroundings, and casually tossed a clump of rice onto the overgrown grassy patch at center of the roundabout. River lapped it up.

  Then he cracked open the echo compendium. Lightstalkers were strong, and the more powerful they got, the higher chance of leaving behind an echo was. But most importantly, they belonged to a category of echoes that granted the ‘Galaxy Serpent’ set.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “That’s nice,” Blake said. “But they clearly don’t know what it does. Even they say it’s rare to gather enough echoes of the set.”

  You didn’t believe me?

  “The galaxy has changed a lot since you were last awake. I hoped—”

  Roll to the side. Now! Ethbin shouted inside Blake’s head, interrupting his thoughts.

  Blake obeyed without hesitation, and a moment later, claws swished through the air where he’d just been sitting. Metal shrieked, and the old street sign snapped and cracked. Rolling, Blake pushed back up to his feet. He tucked away his echo compendium and drew his staff, then pointing it at the lightstalker.

  “Hey there, kitty,” he whispered.

  There was no point in reasoning with it. It was well on its way to becoming a fiend. It was a panther with a coal-black coat, but it was at least a head taller than him. Horns stuck out the back of its head, folded back like a cat’s ears, and a pattern of gray scales covered its forehead, Its eyes glowed orange.

  “Why the hell do they call you a lightstalker?” Blake whispered. “There’s nothing light about you.”

  Its whiskers twitched, and its nostrils flared as it drew in a breath. Tendrils of shadow flowed toward its mouth, and the very light seemed to seep from the fog around it. Everything around Blake dimmed.

  “Okay, sorry, that’s why.” It ate light.

  You can’t reason with it, Ethbin said. They only become lightstalkers when they begin transforming into fiends.

  “I’m just buying time.”

  For what?

  “To get myself ready mental—”

  Before he could say mentally, the lightstalker pounced forward. Blake whipped his staff to the side, using an Augmentation technique. His staff cracked into the creature’s snout, barely deflecting its jaw. If he hadn’t reforged his muscles, he wouldn’t have had the strength to even move the lightstalker an inch.

  Its teeth snapped shut just beyond Blake’s shoulder with a boom as loud as a gunshot. A claw-covered paw sliced the air, sharpness gathering on the tips of its claws just like Mingel had done with her blades.

  “Why do all the cats end up attacking me?” he groaned, narrowly leaning away from the claws. He spun back along the central island of the roundabout, not willing to cede the high ground yet. “Ethbin, how strong is it?”

  Foundation three.

  “Ah, a walk in the park.”

  You don’t mean that.

  “Well…”

  The lightstalker pounced again, and Blake rolled back, sliding down the side of the roundabout’s central mound until he reached the cracked road. He jumped up to his feet, then swung a Black Palm into the side of the lightstalker’s head. A surge of black lightning snaked up from the ground, hitting the beast in the horn.

  A pattern of icy crystals covered its horn, making it brittle, but the lightning didn’t snap it off entirely. It did, however, send the beast sprawling to the side. It crashed into the sign and snapped off what remained of the metal, before tumbling down to the opposite side of the roundabout.

  Blake did everything he could to boost his own strength. He flooded raw Honour into his Bone Meridian and Muscle Meridians, he boosted himself with his basic Augmentation technique, and he flooded his muscles themselves with Honour. They were reforged. This was what they were supposed to do, wasn’t it?

  It was hard to get a grasp on how his body was actually going to respond when he moved—until he did.

  He sprang forward fast as an arrow and struck the lightstalker in the weakened horn, shattering it and flinging the beast back into the center of the roundabout. It yowled in pain and pawed at its head, and Blake pressed the attack. He lunged forward, driving his staff down atop its head while striking from below with a Black Palm.

  The lightstalker’s head snapped down, and the pulse of lightning surged from below, knocking it back up and sending the beast flipping head over tail. It landed on its back in a daze, but when Blake charged in again, it lifted a clawed paw and slashed him across the gut. He tumbled to the side, skidding across the pavement.

  Before the pain from the wound could truly take hold, Blake glanced at River. She’d retreated to the edge of the roundabout. She really wasn’t in danger, and he couldn’t use her to springboard his killing intent off of.

  But she could heal him. He triggered her echo skill, and the wound he’d just taken knitted itself back together. Enhanced muscles sealed, and skin wove back overtop.

  He glanced around, hunting for the lightstalker, but there was no sign of it.

  Then…

  Above! Ethbin called out.

  The lightstalker perched atop the roof of a house, and it pounced toward him.

  Blake spun to the side just in time, but the cat’s paws boomed into the pavement, creating a shockwave and shattering the concrete. Blake gave it a glare. He almost shut his eyes, but he focussed his spine and the Honour channels in it.

  Honour flowed free. There was so much of it available. This monster was stronger than him, and River granted him worth. He pushed the Honour into his spine and focused on the lightstalker, then applied a cold surge of killing intent to it.

  It simply flowed out his body in a wave, and the beast stood still. Blake wasn’t protecting anyone this time, but he simply knew he wanted to kill the beast ahead of him.

  And it knew he wanted to kill it.

  If it wasn’t a fiend, it probably would’ve run. But its eyes still blazed bright orange, and it had lost its mind. All it craved was destruction, and it had no self-preservation instincts.

  Blake strode toward it, twirling his staff to build speed, and the monster snapped out of its daze after a few seconds.

  But not fast enough to avoid his staff cracking on its back. It fell face-first to the pavement. Opening its jaw, it tried to bite him, but he wedged his staff into its mouth and bent it back, snapping its jaw. Then he gave it one final Black Palm-enhanced smash atop the head.

  The beast fell still. Its body deflated and rolled to the side.

  Its echo, however, remained standing.