CHAPTER 50: THE HANGING ONES (3)

"Watch out!" Grief’s voice cut through the clash like steel.

"Huh?" Yennefer’s head snapped up, just in time to see the Sanguivore hurtling toward her, talons outstretched.

"Fuck....!" The curse ripped from her throat, but her body betrayed her. The sudden ambush locked her muscles in place, nerves seizing like ice in her veins. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even raise her grimoire.

For a heartbeat, she was nothing but prey.

Just as the Sanguivore’s fangs were a breath from Yennefer’s skull,

a streak of shadow ripped through the air, so fast the eye could barely follow.

SHHHHK!

The monster’s momentum carried it the last inch, but what hit Yennefer wasn’t a predator.

It was a severed head.

The grotesque thing crashed against her shoulder, jaws yawning wide, yellow fangs still dripping with venomous spit. Yennefer shrieked and flung it off, the head skidding across the stone with a wet scrape.

A colossal thud shook the tunnel behind her. She spun, just in time to see the Sanguivore’s twitching, headless body collapse, wings spasming, before it toppled lifeless beside Anna Mary. The ground trembled with the weight of its fall.

"What the...?" Yennefer whispered, her voice trembling.

"L-Lord Stephan?" Grief stammered, blade half-raised against the Alpha.

"Stephan?" Yennefer echoed, turning toward the voice of battle.

And then she saw him, emerging from the gloom, calm as death itself. Stephan walked forward in steady strides, one hand buried casually in his pocket, the other dragging the Ossuary sword behind him. Its edge gleamed in the torchlight, still wet with the blood of the beast he’d felled without breaking a sweat.

"Grief!" Stephan’s voice cracked through the tunnel like a whip. "What did I tell you to do?"

Grief’s jaw clenched. She forced power into her arms and shoved, breaking the Alpha Sanguivore’s grip and driving it back. The beast hissed, wings thrashing, the gale of its flaps blasting grit across the stone. Its glowing eyes snapped toward Stephan.

"You said I should protect Anna Mary and Yennefer, my Lord," Grief answered, steady but tense.

"And what are you doing now?" Stephan shot back, his tone sharp as his blade.

"Apologies, my Lord," Grief said, bowing her head. "I miscalculated. The second one caught me by surprise."

Stephan’s gaze didn’t waver. "You understand if I hadn’t arrived, Yennefer and Anna Mary would already be corpses?"

Grief’s fists tightened. "It won’t happen again, my Lord."

"Good." Stephan’s grin spread slow and cold. "I’ll take it from here."

The Alpha beat its wings, the air thick with dust and the stench of blood, yet Stephan stood calm in the storm, Ossuary sword at his side like it belonged there.

Stephan’s here... Yennefer thought, her chest tight. How the hell did he get here so fast?

Her cheeks flushed despite herself. She didn’t know why, whether it was relief, adrenaline, or something else, but just seeing him sent a strange warmth through her. Around Stephan, the suffocating terror lifted. He made the darkness feel safe.

"Okay then," Stephan said, his grin sharp, eyes narrowing on the towering beast. "Let’s see how you perform against someone your own size."

The Alpha Sanguivore’s hiss tore through the tunnel, shrill and venomous, shaking dust from the ceiling. Its wings snapped wide, filling the space with the sound of tearing leather, each beat pushing a choking gale through the passage. Its long talons scraped sparks off the stone as it lunged forward, maw yawning open like a pit of knives.

Stephan didn’t flinch. His hand slid from his pocket, Ossuary sword tilting lazily in his grip, its blackened edge gleaming with faint, hungry whispers of soul-fire.

He leaned back, the claws slicing through empty air inches from his chest. The beast’s wing came sweeping around, a wall of leather and bone meant to crush him against the stone, but Stephan slipped beneath it, his boots skimming lightly across the ground. The Ossuary sword trailed at his side, untouched.

The Sanguivore snapped its jaws, fangs crashing down with the strength to split bone. Stephan tilted his head, letting the bite slam shut just past his ear. Hot saliva splattered across his cheek. He didn’t blink.

"Come on now, I thought you were the big bad bully," he muttered. "I’m sure that you can do better."

The monster shrieked, furious now. It whipped around, slashing and tearing, its wings stirring the tunnel into a storm of grit and broken stone. But no matter how it raged, no matter how fast it struck, Stephan was already gone, a step to the side, a lean backward, a casual sway as though he were moving to music only he could hear.

The Sanguivore’s claws tore grooves into the stone floor. Its wings battered the walls, chips of rock raining down.

And Stephan just grinned.

To Yennefer, it was unreal, his movements weren’t frantic, weren’t panicked. He wasn’t surviving. He was mocking it, dancing just outside the edge of every strike, not a single wasted motion.

The Alpha faltered for half a heartbeat, chest heaving, disoriented by the utter failure of its assault.

Stephan’s eyes narrowed. His grin widened.

"Now you’re starting to bore me."

Stephan’s clenched his left hand into a fist.

Black-red sparks ripped across his arm, crackling like veins of molten lightning, burning through his skin but not harming him, soul energy reinforcement, the same terrifying force he had once unleashed against Jack and Morty. The air around him warped under the surge, heavy and electric.

The Alpha Sanguivore lunged, its fangs wide, breath rancid and hot. Stephan ducked low, shadows snapping around him, then exploded upward with an uppercut.

"Eat this."

His fist connected under the monster’s jaw with the force of a cannon. The impact shook the tunnel, stone dust raining from the ceiling. The Sanguivore’s head snapped back violently, its entire body hurled into the air like a ragdoll, wings flailing.

It screamed, but the cry was cut short. Before gravity could claim it, Stephan was already moving.

He tossed the Ossuary Sword high, its black edge catching a glimmer of torchlight. His hand snatched it mid-fall, gripping the hilt in reverse, body corking backward like a coiled spring.

Then he let it fly. AThe blade roared through the darkness like a lightning bolt, a shriek of steel and soul energy. It struck the Sanguivore square in its gaping maw, shattering its yellowed fangs and ripping through its throat.

The force pinned it to the cavern wall with a bone-splitting crack, stone fracturing around the impact.

The beast thrashed, wings beating wildly, shrieking, but its voice was choked, muffled by the steel skewering its skull. Pinned and dying.

The Sanguivore writhed, wings tearing gouges in the cavern wall as it tried to pull itself free. Its guttural shrieks rattled the stone around them, but there was no strength left, just desperation.

Stephan walked toward it, his boots crunching over bones. His shadow stretched long in the torchlight, merging with the monster’s flailing outline as though already claiming it.

He stopped in front of the pinned beast, tilting his head with a mocking smile.

"Not so terrifying when you’re on the wall, huh?" he muttered.

The Ossuary Sword trembled in the creature’s throat as it struggled, black-red sparks crawling along its edge in response to Stephan’s presence.

With a slow, almost casual motion, Stephan wrapped his fingers around the hilt. With one brutal pull, he ripped the blade free in a burst of soul energy, blood and fragments of shattered fang spraying across the cavern. The momentum carried him into a clean, merciless follow-up swing, an arc of black and crimson light that bisected the Sanguivore from skull to stomach.

The two halves of the monster peeled apart, crashing to the floor with wet, final thuds.

Silence followed.

Only the crackle of fading sparks around Stephan’s arm remained as he lowered the sword to his side, its blade dripping black ichor.

Behind him, Yennefer, Anna Mary, and Grief stared wide-eyed. None dared breathe too loudly.

Stephan exhaled softly, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Now that... is how you kill a Sanguivore."

[SYSTEM ALERT]

[Target Eliminated: Sanguivore - "Hanging One"]

[Classification: Tier E Predator]

[Designation: Tunnel Stalker of Magodilin]

---

The beast’s death-cry still echoed through the tunnels when Stephan lowered his arm. His gaze swept past Grief and Yennefer, his expression unreadable, but his eyes fixed only on Anna Mary.

He strode forward without hesitation, then, dropping to one knee beside her, he reached out, brushing the back of his hand against her cheek. The warmth that met his skin made his jaw tighten.

"She’s hotter," Stephan muttered, his voice low and edged with worry.

Yennefer stepped closer, breathing quickly from the fight. "It’s not just exhaustion, she’s burning up. She has a fever. She needs treatment soon or...."

Stephan’s head snapped up, his eyes sharp and hostile. "Or what?" he demanded, his tone cutting.

Yennefer flinched at the challenge but forced the words out. "Or she will die..."

The tunnel seemed to grow colder at her admission. Stephan’s teeth ground together as he clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to hear it, but the truth was undeniable, they had to reach Magodilin.

"Fizzwigg..." he muttered, scanning the shadows. "Where the fuck is that gnome?"

Yennefer looked away, her lips pressed tight. "He ran."

His face darkened. "Don’t tell me... that bastard betrayed us."

Stephan’s grip on Anna Mary’s cheek tightened for a moment, as if he could will the heat away with sheer stubbornness. His eyes flicked to Yennefer, cold and sharp. "Don’t stand there, I need solutions," he snapped.

Yennefer bit her lip but didn’t back down. "Solutions are hard to find when your guide disappears."

Stephan’s head snapped around, his glare cutting through the shadows of the cavern. "That gnome thinks he can run off on me?" His voice echoed, low and dangerous. "If he’s betrayed us, I’ll make sure he regrets drawing breath."

Grief stepped forward, still breathing hard from the fight, her hand gripping her weapon. "My Lord... Fizzwigg may have just fled from fear. He is not strong. He might not have gone far."

"Fear or betrayal, it doesn’t matter," Stephan said, standing up, Ossuary Sword still dripping black ichor. "If he abandoned us in the middle of a Sanguivore nest, then he’s no different from the creatures themselves."

Anna Mary stirred faintly, her breathing shallow and uneven. Stephan’s gaze softened for just a moment as he looked back at her, then hardened again.

"We move," he said flatly. "We find the gnome. We find Magodilin. And if he sold us out..." A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, dangerous and promising. "...then I’ll decorate these tunnels with what’s left of him."