Bayler kept himself in motion, trying to outrun his thoughts. Trying to lose himself into the blood-splatters, the crunching impacts, the motion and the fury of fighting. It was something he’d done even before the world had ended, but now, now the dance was more satisfying than ever.

And there it was, the pang of guilt.

He loved to fight. Killing, he didn’t mind at all.

Was his brother the same way, deep under that weak, soft exterior?

He brought his fist up, catching a hound by the throat as it lunged at him. It was an instinctive movement, clean, efficient. He threw the beast down onto the street and caved its chest in with his lantern. His backswing dashed open the skull of a second one trying to creep around him.

Was he responsible? In the strictest sense, his brother was only alive thanks to him, only had the chance to do this thanks to him.

But that way was madness. He couldn’t be responsible to every butterfly effect he’d set in motion, every chain of events he’d touched.

The world was just too unpredictable for a human to shoulder that much weight.

But still…

A twang and a crossbow bolt flew past his shoulder, curving through the air in an impossible arc to plant itself through a hound’s eye. The beast was dead before it hit the ground.

It opened a brief window in the pack’s coordination, and Bayler descended in that moment of weakness, tearing the pack apart with a surgical ferocity. It was incredible how calm he felt as blood spattered across his face and snapping teeth were brought short an inch from his flesh, swatted aside at the last second. How perfectly at peace he felt in that moment.

But still.

It was his brother. How could he pretend he wasn’t at fault, when he’d all but raised Joseph. When he’d covered for every mistake the idiot had ever made. Made him into the man he was.

His lantern swung in great arcs of blue fire, billowing out in brilliant eruptions of flame each time he made impact. With each death the fires grew higher and hotter.

Another hum of the bowstring. Another blur of motion that ended in another kill, a bolt burying itself into a throat. This time it cut off an attempt to creep around Bayler and pincer him, and with the distraction removed, he was free to dive deeper, crashing against the enemy, sweeping them back with fire and fury.

They made a good team. Bayler didn’t like or trust Pike, and vise versa, but results spoke for themselves. The distant fire kept his flanks clear as he demolished everything before him. Between the two, the hounds were corralled, bombarded with sprays of fire and held back by superior reach, superior strength, an enemy they couldn’t kill except by overwhelming force.

And then it was over. Too quick. Bayler was left panting, his heart rising against the walls of his chest, his mind spinning from the blur of violence. All around him, corpses. In the background, Pike was firing again and again, cutting down the last of the hounds as they fled in all directions- they knew they had encountered a superior predator.

Blood dripped down Bayler’s bare chest, but it was all from old wounds. Half his stitches had pulled open. But there were no new wounds. He was surrounded by a ring of corpses, but the space beneath his feet was clear. An oasis in the carnage. They had died without even touching him.

Cold fire burned inside his chest. The mana flame had begun to revolve, to spread outwards through his veins like when he earned a Blessing. He could feel currents forming in the flames, a spiraling whirlpool forming in the space opposite his beating heart, sending rhythmic pulses through the lines of energy that spanned his body.

Not for the first time, a voice spoke into Bayler’s head.

|| You have learned the Mastery, Battle Meditation - Black - 0% - In the heat of war you achieve cold balance. In rage, you find peace. When you act to kill, your emotions will be suppressed and converted to power, bolstering your natural strength and resilience by up to 5%. ||

That was new. It wasn’t unwelcome either. If he had two pressing needs, they were to get stronger, and to get his mind off Joseph and back to the problems at hand. Finding a solution to both was a damn nice turn in an unusually bad day.

Best of all, this wasn’t another Blessing. Those seemed to come with strings attached. This felt - Bayler didn’t know how he knew, but he knew - like something that belonged to him. Something born between Enniac’s vicious education in Mana and his own emotion.

Trawling his fingers through the cold, knee-deep water, he drew up a fistful of mana beads as the corpses melted away into light and ash. Four this time - it helped that he wasn’t half-dead and exhausted past a proper search.

When he looked back up, a stag made of silver light stood on the opposite side of the street. It turned its majestic horned head, as if it sensed his eyes, and met his gaze. As clearly as he knew anything, Bayler knew it wanted him to follow as it turned and galloped away, hooves gliding over the top of the waters.

He looked back, but there was no time for the others to catch up. He had to go now. The need to follow pulled him like a fishhook in his soul.