Nyx didn’t hesitate.

  Before she could spend too much time in her own mind, her wings snapped back, and she rocketed towards the fox. Claws held to her side, ready to rush forward and crush whatever she struck.

  The vitiate beast leapt to the side, barely avoiding her first arm, snarling all the while.

  Nyx’s wings tried to slow her before she hit the ground, but she’d been too committed to the blow. Her hands and knees struck earth together. Her claws took the blow easily, yet her arms collapsed behind them. She tumbled, head over ass. When she finally got her footing, her knees bled, but that wasn’t her biggest problem.

  The fox’s foaming jaw snapped for Nyx’s neck. She reactively raised her arms, only for the horrid sound of teeth crunching on chitin to ring in her ears. Instead of whining or retreating after what had to be a painful bite, the vitiate grew vicious. Its head jerked and twisted, scraping its teeth along Nyx’s hand.

  She threw her other arm forward, but the fox saw it immediately and leapt away. Not without leaving a dozen scratches from its claws on Nix’s chest and arms.

  Her claw struck empty air.

  Putrid foam and saliva clung to her chitin, but she didn’t take her eyes from the beast that now circled her. She shook her wrist, clearing most of it. The fox growled, bubbles inflated and popped through the foam dribbling from its mouth.

  Nyx was new to fighting, but she really shouldn’t open her defences like that. As much as her wings and claws demanded they be used to their fullest extent, she couldn’t throw everything behind them and expect results. She couldn’t let her mutations direct her actions. Nyx controlled them; not the other way around.

  Her wings, claws, and eye were all strong. Too strong for the limited ability of her body. If she were to listen to every instinct they screamed at her when she fought, her body would be crippled before even the fox could kill her.

  She rose to her feet and glared at the beast.

  It didn’t take kindly to the burning observation of her third eye, and immediately dashed forward.

  Ready this time, Nyx beat her wings and leapt over the vitiate fox. Her arm came down, and snipped. The feeling of flesh squishing beneath her fingers felt great, but as soon as the satisfaction came, she suppressed it.

  The beast howled as it tumbled. Its speed carried it into a series of rolls before it stilled after half a dozen metres. Nyx had cut cleanly through the beast’s lower spine. She clicked her tongue. It had been the neck she’d been aiming for; trying to synchronise the timing of both mutations was going to be a challenge.

  Unsurprisingly, the vitiate’s crippled state was only temporary. As Nyx watched, the glowing purple blood flowed back into the wound, sealing it and reconnecting the spine. The fox’s veins grew twice as bright. Now, even through flesh and bone, the glowing silhouette of its heart shone in the fox’s chest.

  If the beast was feral before, it was undeniably savage now.

  Violet blood seeped into the foam flowing from its jaw as the fox’s growls grew louder. Its pupils dilated and fixated on Nyx. Each thump of its heart pumped an intense purple glow all across its body. Soon enough, every vein and artery in the creature’s body overlaid its form; the light shone through.

  Nyx’s consuming eye never stopped observing, yet on top of the creature’s resistance being far greater than K’tan’s, it healed everything it lost.

  As soon as the fox’s spine knit itself back together and it regained control of its hind legs, it threw itself forward faster than Nyx could react. Ten metres became zero in the blink of an eye. She beat her wings and swung her claws, but the vitiate beast sailed over them easily.

  She was already moving back, but not fast enough. Fangs sunk into her shoulder. The teeth of the beast buried itself in her flesh for a mere instant before they were out… only to slam down again.

  Three more times the rabid beast bit down into her shoulder before her claws smashed into its sides. The snap amputated both forelegs. Despite that, the creature continued to tear into Nyx’s arm. Her eye burnt into its head, and claws cut into its side, but the fox continued its mauling unabated.

  Her back hit the ground, and finally she had a reprieve. The vitiate beast was flung over her head and without its front paws, it could do nothing to stop its head slamming into the soil.

  Ignoring the agony in her shoulder, Nyx threw herself at the creature. Her claws came forth and ripped into its flank while the purple blood was already closing up its shredded side and regrowing limbs. The fox twisted, trying to snap at her face.

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  She’d been expecting it this time.

  Her pincers clamped down just as the vitiate slammed its teeth into her chitin. The entire lower jaw was cleaved free. The fox fumbled for a moment, trying to bite into her despite no longer having the complete jaw to do so. Nyx shoved it off, ready to finish it before it could recover again.

  The violet light flowing from the beast was intense now. Its heart thumped a dozen times a second, and only seemed to build power with each moment.

  Then, she noticed the wounds stop healing. Nyx struck forward with her claws, but she was too late. The purple heart shone as bright as the Great Iris for an instant, before it exploded.

  Her arms raised to cover her face and her wings swept around her body. The blast of violet energy slammed into her.

  The next thing she knew, she was lying on her back, looking at foliage.

  To her sides, her wings lay limp; the feathers were in disarray and blood seeped through. Nyx lifted her head to look for the fox, but only found a crater with the surrounding underbrush destroyed.

  Not finding danger anywhere, her head slumped back to the ground. Her aching wings curled around her front, and she hugged them unconsciously. There were a dozen tiny shards embedded in them. She yanked one out, hissing away the pain, and found a small purple glass. A crystallised fragment of the strange blood that flowed through the vitiate.

  Nyx brushed her damaged feathers, and found there was an ever so slight purple glow to the veins that ran through them. Startled, she lifted her head again, and discovered the same violet tinge beneath her skin surrounding the numerous bite marks along her shoulder and upper arm.

  “Lovely,” she groaned to the air before quickly moving into action.

  As her claws scraped out a ritual circle into the earth around her, she discovered that on her chest, her eye-gem’s own glowing veins fought off the purple that encroached upon it. The crimson-violet of her mutation overpowered the lighter hued purple of the invading vitiate blood.

  They explode? Nyx thought, indignant. Why would anyone neglect such a detail?

  She’d heard these creatures were good for teaching junior harbingers. She’d known about the regeneration. It made them a difficult fight. But why had nobody ever mentioned that they explode? It seemed like something that ought to be shared.

  The ritual for toxin removal begun as soon as she let some of the blood flowing from her shoulder splash over the circle and began the hymn. It was highly unlikely the ritual would have worked under normal circumstances… but like with the healing one, her blood empowered it to its limits.

  As expected, the purple vitiate blood receded from her veins.

  It dribbled down her wings and arm, crystallising as it fell to the earth. Her first visit to the Biovault this life, and she’d already been infected. Well, at least she had a convenient method to clear it out. Not so many had that luxury.

  That was also the reason most didn’t veer into the depths of the Biovault. Get an unlucky bite without a decent enough detox ritual, and you were doomed the same feral fate as all the beasts here. What made it worse, was that the deeper you went in the forest — beyond where the vitiate infected the trees — you needed far stronger rituals to keep yourself safe.

  Nyx doubted her current ritual — even boosted by her blood — could extract the vitiate of any greater density.

  Once the last droplet crawled out of her veins, she scrawled the circle for the ritual of wellness and begun that as well. As her wounds sealed, she sat up to watch the forest. Nothing remained of the fox besides the crystallised shards of blood embedded in tree trunks.

  Her wings hugged her tight again, thankfully having recovered enough that she could squeeze them without pain.

  Even if the beast exploding had been a shock, the battle had been an important learning experience. It was her first time fighting with her mutations working in conjunction. The chest eye was easy; it could burn away at her enemies independent of what she was doing with the rest of her body.

  But her wings and claws… she needed to work on them.

  They were both incredibly beneficial, as without them she could never have taken down the vitiate fox. The problem was her inexperience. The instincts that seemingly came packed with the mutations could not accomplish all the things she wanted in that fight.

  She had no instincts for using the mutations in conjunction.

  Her primary example was that effort to leap over the fox and pincer its neck. She’d missed by nearly a metre. It was mostly an issue with timing, but if she had hit her mark then, the fight would have been over before that purple blood overcharged its heart.

  Nyx considered whether it would be better to simply get used to using her mutations, or pushing forward for more vitiate beasts to fight. Until she managed to get her hands on a better detox ritual, she couldn’t risk being bitten or scratched by any stronger infected creatures. But then again, she would learn much quicker by attacking more of the beasts. Considering her goals, the decision was obvious.

  She could fight now — and rather well, if she could say so herself — but it didn’t help her main concern. Nyx needed a weapon to hide the claw marks she was almost certain to leave behind in her fights. Thankfully, the fox exploded. Nobody who happened across her would need to believe her stretch of a story that she’d killed the beast with the tiny ritual dagger she held on her.

  Only a blade could explain her battles, so guns and many of the Fleshsmiths’ stranger weapons wouldn’t cut it. Not that there was much desire to use them.

  But blades weren’t exactly cheap, and her allowance from the Rearing Ward was a mere pittance. Unless she wanted to wait a few months — which she didn’t have — she would need to discover some way to make money for herself. But how?

  Nyx’s eyes fell on the crater across from her.

  Ah. That could work.

  It wouldn’t be much, and she would have to slaughter dozens — hundreds — but she already intended to fight the beasts. If she could kill the beasts without damaging the hearts — or letting them explode — then they would sell.

  Probably.

  The harbingers who usually hunted the creatures never found any value in their corpses, but most who came here probably already had the backing of a cult anyway. They didn’t need whatever loose change they could get from lugging some beast parts back with them. Nyx did.

  Hopefully, they were valuable enough to get everything she needed.

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