I stood in the center of the cavern, my main knife finally unsheathed. The weight of the steel felt right—solid and honest. I didn't rush. I did exactly what I had been doing since the first moment I stepped into this rift. I waited.

  The two bulls circled me like twin moons of obsidian and emerald. Their hooves scraped the stone, a jagged, uneven rhythm caused by the limps I had already gifted them. I watched their eyes—those hollow black voids. They were communicating without sound, adjusting their angles, trying to find the precise moment to crush me between them.

  I realized then that their coordination was their greatest weakness. They wanted to hit me at the exact same moment. If I could line them up perfectly, their own momentum would become my greatest ally.

  I centered myself, my boots gritting against the cave floor. I waited for the tell—the lowering of the heads, the tensing of the haunches.

  They charged.

  The silver bull came from the left, its hooves ringing like hammers. The green bull thundered from the right, a low, mossy blur. I stayed absolutely still until the heat of their breath was a physical pressure against my skin. Then, I didn't just dodge; I pivoted on a single heel, a movement as sharp as a snapping twig.

  The two massive forms collided with a sound like a mountain breaking in half.

  The silver and green hides slammed together, bone and muscle gnashing in a chaotic tangle. They recoiled, their heads snapping back as they staggered, dazed by the force of their own aggression.

  I started the count.

  One green banana.

  The silver bull’s legs buckled, its head lolling to the side.

  Two green banana.

  The green bull let out a wet, wheezing sound, its silver-eyed counterpart leaning heavily against it for support.

  Two and a half.

  That was my window. The rhythm had broken, and for two and a half seconds, the world belonged to me.

  I moved. I wasn't a street rat anymore; I was a painter standing before a fresh, dark canvas. My knife was the brush, and their blood was the only paint I had left. I lunged forward, my movements fluid and stripped of any wasted energy.

  I reached the silver bull first. I didn't stab blindly. I targeted the soft, exposed seam beneath its jaw where the metallic hide met the throat. I felt the blade slide in, the resistance of the flesh giving way like wet parchment. I didn't stop to admire the work. I spun, using the momentum of the first strike to carry me toward the green one.

  I slashed across its side, tracing the line of its ribs with a clinical precision, reopening the wounds from my earlier throwing knives and deepening them until the mossy green fur was stained a deep, dark crimson.

  By the time the third "green banana" would have started, I was already five steps away, my knife held low and dripping. The bulls were still shaking their heads, trying to find the ghost that had just carved its signature into their hides.

  They were bleeding now. The canvas was starting to fill up.

  "Just a puzzle," I whispered, my voice steady despite the adrenaline. "Just a pattern I haven't finished solving yet."

  The rhythm was absolute. Every collision offered exactly two and a half green bananas of stillness. It was a window of time that felt like an eternity when I was moving, but a heartbeat when I was waiting.

  I became a ghost in the spray of silver and green. Each time the bulls slammed into one another, I was already there, my boots light on the grit, my main knife moving in a blur of practiced, desperate precision. I didn't go for the heart—not yet. I went for the tendons, the soft skin behind the knees, and the long, unprotected stretches of their flanks.

  Red lines began to dot and puncture the obsidian hides, crisscrossing like a map of my own survival. I was weaving between them, a needle threading through the gaps in their rage. Every time they shook off the daze and lowered their heads to charge, I was already circling to their blind spots. Duck, dive, carve.

  With every puncture, I could feel it—the rush.

  It wasn't just adrenaline anymore. It was the "feel" of the Rift. I could feel the way my mana reacted to the shedding of their essence, the way the air in the cavern seemed to thin as their life force drained into the stone. Every time my blade bit into the silver metallic hide or the mossy green fur, a jolt of static electricity hummed up my arm and settled in my chest.

  I was painting a masterpiece of geometry and violence.

  The silver bull was slowing down, its right leg dragging a heavy, metallic furrow into the ground. The green bull’s breath was a wet, rattling whistle that echoed off the blue mushrooms. They were stumbling now, their synchronized charges becoming ragged and desperate. They weren't a mountain anymore; they were just two dying animals trying to catch a shadow.

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  My overcoat was heavy with the mist of the cave, but I didn't feel the weight. I didn't feel the exhaustion in my lungs or the sting of the sweat in my eyes. All I felt was the pattern.

  Collision. One green banana. I lunged, my knife sinking deep into the silver bull's shoulder, twisting to widen the gap.

  Two green banana. I spun, my blade tracing a deep, horizontal crescent across the green bull's throat, narrowly missing the windpipe but opening a fountain of dark, steaming blood.

  Two and a half.

  I was out. I was five paces away before they could even blink their hollow black eyes.

  Victory wasn't just a possibility anymore. It was right there, shimmering in the mist just beyond their broken horns. I could see the end of the puzzle. I just had to make the last few marks on the canvas.

  The final collision was the loudest yet, a bone-deep thud that lacked the metallic ring of the previous strikes. It was the sound of failing meat and shattered resolve. This time, as the two masses of silver and green recoiled, they didn't just stagger. They stalled. Their legs splayed outward, hooves trembling against the grit as they struggled to find the strength for another reset.

  I didn't wait for the count. I didn't need the green bananas anymore.

  I lunged at the green bull while it was still dazed, my boots skidding through a pool of its own cooling blood. I reached out, my fingers digging into the coarse, mossy fur of its snout, and hauled its head downward with a grunt of exertion. I wasn't thinking about the beauty of the pattern anymore; I was thinking about the kill.

  I reversed my grip on the knife and drove it upward, buried deep into the hollow black void of its left eye socket. There was a sickening, wet crunch as the steel bypassed the bone, taking the most direct route I could find to the brain stem.

  The creature’s body went rigid for a heartbeat, its muscles locking in a final, tectonic spasm. Then, the light—whatever dim, predatory spark had animated it—simply vanished. The green bull went limp, a mountain of dead weight that nearly pulled me to the floor as it slumped into the dirt.

  The silence that followed lasted only a fraction of a second.

  It was shattered by a yowl so piercing and mournful that it made the marrow in my bones ache. It wasn't a roar of a monster; it was a cry of profound loss. I spun around, my knife slick and steaming in the cold cave air, just as the silver bull found its feet.

  Its black eyes weren't hollow anymore. They were wide, fixed on the dissolving remains of its partner. The silver hide began to ripple with a frantic, metallic hum, the air around it vibrating with the force of its grief.

  There was no pause. No circling. No tactical geometry. The silver bull didn't lower its heads to aim; it simply launched itself at me with a suicidal ferocity that ignored its broken leg and its bleeding flanks. It wasn't charging to protect the Rift. And it was coming too fast for me to dodge.

  The green bull’s body was already starting to turn into that heavy, shimmering leaden weight that preceded dissolution. I didn't have time to pull my knife back into a proper grip. I didn't even have time to breathe. The silver bull was a streak of screaming metal, its obsidian horns aimed directly at my sternum.

  I didn't retreat. There was no space left for a dive.

  Instead, I used the only solid thing left in the room: the cooling carcass of the green bull. As its legs buckled, I slammed my left palm onto its thick, mossy shoulder. I used the beast's dying momentum as a spring.

  I vaulted.

  My feet left the grit just as the silver bull’s horns whistled through the space my torso had occupied a millisecond before. I felt the heat of its silver hide brush against the soles of my boots—a frantic, searing friction. For a moment, I was suspended in the air, a shadow silhouetted against the glowing blue mushrooms of the ceiling.

  The silver bull thundered beneath me, its charge so violent that it couldn't stop. It slammed into the carcass of its twin, the sound of the collision muffled by the green bull’s softening flesh.

  I landed in a crouch behind it, my knees absorbing the impact with a sharp clack against the stone. I didn't give it a second to turn. I didn't give it a second to mourn.

  Before it could untangle its horns from the mossy hide of its partner, I was on its back. I scrambled up its silver spine, my fingers finding purchase in the deep, red furrows I had carved earlier. I wrapped one arm around its thick neck, locking my elbow to keep myself anchored against its bucking, metallic frame.

  I raised my knife.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered, though I wasn't sure if I was talking to the bull or the boy I used to be.

  I drove the blade down into the base of its skull, right where the silver plates met the spine. I felt the snap of the bone, the shudder of the beast, and then the sudden, heavy silence as the silver bull collapsed, sliding with its brother into the darkening mist of the cave.

  I felt their essence flow into me. It felt great. It felt amazing. It felt solid. It felt like the best thing I had ever done. As the bulls had faded, I saw the rift’s reward distortion and claimed it. Nine tier one mana stones, one black obsidian horn with a silverish green tip, and…an egg?

  ***

  “Cindy,” I said, my voice dropping into a low, dangerous register that made the porcelain of my mask vibrate. “I want you to answer this very honestly. What are the chances that isn’t a beast egg Wren is holding?”

  The silence that followed was heavy. I could hear the rapid-fire clicking of Cindy’s [Jester] interface as she ran the scan through her guild-link. The blue light of her HUD reflected in her eyes, dancing with a frantic energy.

  “Near-zero; according to my [AI]’s calculations,” she replied, her voice stripped of its usual playful lilt. “The odds of that being a common drop or a geological anomaly are 0.00002%. So, if you want my opinion, it is the same as yours. He is holding a beast egg.”

  I didn't move. I watched the boy on the screen reach out a trembling, blood-stained hand to touch the shell. He had gone through the entire encounter without a single scratch, dancing through a Tier 1 Boss room like it was a choreographed gala. The Rift had responded to that perfection with something it should not have been capable of producing.

  “Cindy,” I whispered, my gaze fixed on the pulsing veins of mana visible beneath the egg’s surface. “How many beast eggs has this specific rift created since its creation?”

  Cindy didn't even have to look at her records this time. The data was already screaming at her from the display.

  “Including that one? The one Wren is holding right now?”

  “Yes. Cindy. Including that one.”

  She swallowed hard, the sound audible in the quiet room.

  “One.”