The stones were flying.
Each impact rang like a broken bell in Dylan’s flesh. The first caught him at the temple, the crack of bone against rock echoing through his skull. His vision reeled, a black veil dropped, but before he could even blink, a second stone slamd into his ribs, sending him staggering back with a strangled groan.
There was no ti. Not a second to catch his breath, not a heartbeat to let his stigma react. Julius didn’t wait. Julius didn’t let anything slip.
Another volley ca, sharp and precise. The first shattered his forearm raised in defense, bone snapping like a twig. The next tore into his shoulder, ripping flesh and blood in a muffled explosion. A third smashed into his thigh, nearly nailing him to the ground. Dylan wavered, but did not fall.
He wanted to scream, but the air was gone. He wanted to regenerate, but Julius gave him no escape.
"Faster, boy!" growled the colossus, his voice drowned by the murderous whistle of stone.
Each rock flew as fast as a bullet. Dylan wasn’t a soldier for nothing—he knew that speed. Every throw compressed the air, every shot thundered like dry lightning. It was a rain of lead.
Blood stread into his eyes, blurring his vision. He blinked, a beat too late—a heavier rock smashed into his jaw. His head snapped sideways with a sickening crack. The world spun, and he nearly collapsed to his knees. But Julius was already loading another stone, heavier still, and when it left his hand, it split the air with the sa fury, the sa velocity as a rifle shot.
Dylan forced his eyes open, despite the pain, despite the bone jutting from his arm, despite the lesions tearing across his body. His legs trembled, but they still held.
All this pain, Julius inflicted it with a precise purpose.
Every broken bone, every ripped piece of flesh, was not re punishnt: it was a lesson carved into him by stone.
Regenerate, yes. But regeneration devoured spiritual essence. And on a battlefield, to run out of essence was to sign your own death. No matter how well his stigma could patch him back together—if he relied only on that, he’d be shredded to pieces before ever facing the real enemy.
"Dodge!" roared Julius, hurling a stone that scread like a musket ball.
Dylan saw the trajectory.
It was there, clear, sharp. His senses, sharpened since his awakening, caught the stone like a fla cutting through the dark. For a single heartbeat, he knew exactly where and when it would strike.
But his body... his body refused.
His muscles cried out, his bones shrieked. He tried to leap aside, but his legs dragged as if drowned in lead. His mind raced ahead of him, his instinct outran the stone—and yet his flesh lagged behind. That infinitesimal delay translated into searing pain as the projectile crushed his shoulder, hurling him sideways in a spray of dust and blood.
A guttural groan tore from his throat. His awakened senses already caught the next rock in flight, but his heavy arms barely lifted, his ragged breath too short to fuel an escape.
Now he understood. Julius wasn’t trying to break him. Julius was forcing him to shed this weight—to align body and spirit, so neither would move without the other.
The next stone ca. He saw it. He knew it. But could he, this ti, move in ti?
The stone arrived.
His mind scread the movent long before his body even flinched. Everything in him shouted: left, now. His lungs burned, his torn muscles protested, but he pushed. He pushed as if his life hung on this one heartbeat.
And his foot moved. Too late, too slow... but it moved.
The rock skimd past so close its burning friction tore a lock of hair from his head. It exploded against the ground, a puff of dust and gravel slapping his face. Dylan, off balance, nearly collapsed, hands in the dirt, heart pounding like a war drum.
He had dodged. Awkwardly, miserably, by grazing death within milliters... but he had dodged.
A rough, broken laugh crawled from his throat, strangled with blood. His grey eyes glead with a wild, almost childlike spark. He wanted to raise his head toward Julius, to show him he had done it.
But Julius gave him no ti.
Another stone already whistled. Dylan saw its arc, its trajectory, the precise spot where it would cave his chest. He tried to repeat it, to twist his body again, to force his legs to drive him away. But this ti his body betrayed him. His muscles, saturated, answered only halfway.
The rock slamd into his sternum. All the air in his lungs vanished in an instant. He dropped to his knees, mouth gaping in silence, unable to breathe. His fingers clawed the ground like a drowning man clinging to water.
A third stone smashed into his thigh, pinning him to the dirt. A fourth grazed his jaw and shattered a tooth with a vile crunch. Dylan tried to dodge again, but every move ca too late, as if he were running behind his own mind.
He had seen every stone. He had known. But knowing wasn’t enough.
The world beca a storm of rock and agony, and Dylan, caught in its heart, fought against the unbearable truth: he still couldn’t make what he saw... match what he could do.
So Dylan gave up on charging straight at Julius. His legs trembled, his ribs scread, but he forced his body to pivot and launched himself at an angle. He darted between the trunks, breath tearing from his throat in ragged gasps.
Julius’s response was imdiate. Stones flew, deadly trajectories pulverizing everything in their path. Each trunk Dylan took as cover exploded in a crash of splintered wood, shards and sawdust raining like blades. Dylan leapt, rolled, crouched behind fragile shadows of trees—refuges that vanished with the next impact.
Yet in this chaos, he bought himself a few seconds. A handful of heartbeats where his stigma, ravenous and violent, chewed through his spiritual essence to nd fractures, knit open wounds, inflate crushed lungs. Not enough to heal—but enough to keep him standing.
He ran on, a wounded ghost slipping between trees, his breath whistling in the dark. Julius tracked him with a predator’s calm, hurling his projectiles with the rhythm of an executioner.
A massive stone split the air behind him. Dylan felt it before he heard it. Instinct slapped him—danger, death, now. In his desperate montum, he dove with all his weight, earth ripping his bare arms, dust scorching his eyes... but the rock swept just above his back, shattering a tree ahead in an explosion of splinters.
Gasping, face pressed to the dirt, Dylan trembled—but a feral smile stretched across his blood-streaked lips. He had survived again.
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