Chapter 318: The Roar After Victory

Chapter 318: The Roar After Victory

"Hold," Jin said, and immediately saw Sera notice the brace.

Her hands flared. Mantle adjusted its approach before the final burst, angling toward Glitch’s wounded left foreleg instead of his chest.

"Leg in. Shoulder!"

Glitch drew the limb closer and turned to meet it. Jin moved with him, keeping clear of the line while the tiger closed.

The change spoiled their strongest brace. Mantle struck hard enough to drive Glitch’s forefeet across the intact slab, its claws scraping from shoulder toward chest as lightning spread through the contact.

Harden took part of the physical impact. The shock still convulsed Glitch’s neck and blackened the edges of the plates beneath Mantle’s paw.

Jin felt the pain through the bond. His own fingers curled, and for a dreadful moment he thought he had asked too much.

Glitch caught his footing.

Mantle had not fully extended. Sera called a withdrawal, trying to pull it clear before the lizard could answer. Jin saw the foreleg folding and knew the opening was already closing.

"Across!" he shouted.

Glitch stepped into the retreat rather than striking too early. His horns forced Mantle to lift its head, and the tiger answered with a close swipe that cut across his muzzle.

Blood spattered the grit. Glitch kept his jaws clear of the reaching paw and pressed another half-step.

The tiger could retreat across the broken section behind it or drive through him. Sera saw the same choice. She shifted her hands, gave a sharp command, and Mantle put its weight into the forward attack.

Its left foreleg extended.

The wounded skin beneath the shoulder stretched as the tiger reached, and this time Glitch was close enough.

"Claw. Once!"

Glitch shifted his weight and raised his right foreleg.

He had used that limb to brace and grapple throughout the fight. What remained was the technique Jin had refused to spend against Redoubt, and the strength to drive it home now.

Astral energy gathered along his claws.

Rending Dragon Claw struck beneath Mantle’s extended foreleg, through the area the earlier exchanges had weakened. Glitch’s enhanced strength carried the motion deeper before the tiger could turn away.

Mantle’s leg folded.

The referee’s whistle sounded as its chest hit the floor.

"Match! Medical!"

"Off, Glitch!" Jin called.

Glitch backed away immediately. Mantle tried to gather its good foreleg beneath itself, failed, and remained down. Sera dropped the reinforcement and hurried to it while the referee moved between the beasts. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The sudden absence of lightning left Jin blinking at ordinary arena light.

He was still waiting for another attack when the board changed.

[Semifinal — Confirmed Result]

[Meridian Academy 3 — Sablecourt Academy 2]

[Meridian Academy advances to the Novice Final.]

Jin read the numbers without quite accepting them.

At the rail, Corin had both hands over his head. Nessa was shouting something, and Dray had caught Renn by the sleeve. Marris was already speaking to an official and pointing toward Glitch.

They had won.

Jin looked back at the lizard standing a few steps away. His chest heaved, his left foreleg bled, and scorch marks crossed the plating from neck to sternum. He remained upright, watching Mantle until Jin called him again.

"It’s over," Jin said. "Stay there. They’re coming."

A medical team was entering from their side. Another had reached the tiger, and Jin stepped aside to leave their route clear.

Now that nobody was trying to hit him, his own legs felt horribly unsteady.

He looked for Sera. She had reached Mantle safely and was kneeling where the medics directed her. Jin was grateful she had somebody telling her what to do. He wanted someone to do the same for him before he started making useless noise and getting in the way.

Sera knelt beside Mantle’s head without touching the wounded shoulder.

A medic asked her to keep its muzzle still. She slid both hands against the familiar fur and spoke its name.

The tiger’s eye turned toward her.

Through the bond came a fierce, exhausted impression of the last exchange: it had reached, struck, tried to rise. It had done everything she asked and still ended up on the floor.

Sera bent closer. The blood being pressed from the wound into the dressing frightened her more than any collision had.

"I know," she told it. "You did enough."

Mantle gave a weak, rough cry. The lizard remained in its awareness, an opponent that had kept getting up and answering when it should have stopped. Beneath the anger was distress that made Sera’s eyes burn.

It wanted her to understand that it had tried.

"I saw all of it," she said. "I’m proud of you. You hear me? I’m proud."

The tiger held her gaze. Its breathing eased a fraction beneath her hands, and then the weight of its head settled fully against the floor.

Sera went still.

"Unconscious," the medic said beside her. "Still breathing. Keep talking to it."

She stroked the fur above its eye and repeated its name. For now, that was the only useful thing she could do.

Glitch had turned toward Jin.

There was blood along his muzzle, and his head hung lower than it had during the fight. The steadiness in the bond remained, but Jin could feel how little strength was left beneath it.

"You did it," he said, taking a step toward him. "I’m so proud of you."

The words came out badly. His throat hurt from shouting, and his eyes had started watering without permission. He wanted Glitch to hear them properly anyway.

"You kept me safe. We’re done now."

Glitch lifted his head.

For a moment Jin thought he was looking toward the medical team. Then the lizard drew a breath that raised his whole battered chest, and a roar rolled out across Arena 1.

It carried into the service tunnels and up beneath the tiers, deeper than the cries he’d made during the fight.

Nessa’s runner crouched against the ground. Along the opposite rail, several waiting beasts flinched back toward their handlers. A small companion animal in the lower seats scrambled beneath a chair, dragging its lead from its owner’s startled hand.

The people nearest it stood hurriedly to make room. Farther along, two handlers steadied a hound that had begun pulling toward the exit.

The reaction spread through the nearby weaker beasts in a brief, bewildered disturbance. Above them, spectators fell quiet, turning from the roaring lizard to the animals trembling beside them.

Then the roar ended.

Jin stood with his mouth open. He’d felt the last effort pass through the bond, along with an uncomplicated joy that hurt to receive.

Glitch looked back at him and bared his teeth in that enormous, pleased expression.

Jin laughed once through the tears on his face.

"Yeah," he said. "I saw. I saw all of it."

For that instant Glitch looked like himself again: the beast that expected praise for carrying a feed sack, that sulked when Flicker received a treat first, that always checked whether Jin had noticed.

Then his forelegs folded.

The rest of him followed before Jin could finish calling his name. His body struck the damaged floor heavily, and the bright, steady feeling through their bond vanished into exhaustion.

"Medic!" Jin shouted. "Glitch!"

The team was already moving toward him. Jin ran after them, wanting to get a hand against the plating, hear a breath, see the eye open again.

He took two steps.

A wave of weakness struck from somewhere inside him.

His knees gave way before he understood what was happening. He tried to throw out a hand, but his arm barely moved. The floor hit his cheek hard enough to jar his teeth.

For a second he remained aware of everything: a medic kneeling beside Glitch, the loose strap on somebody’s equipment case, Marris calling his name from much too far away.

He couldn’t draw enough strength together to answer.

Nothing had struck him. Sera was beside her unconscious tiger. The referee had ended the match. Jin had been standing, talking, moving—and now even lifting his head seemed impossible.

He stared at Glitch across the last few meters.

A handler obscured the lizard’s chest. Jin tried to move so he could see whether it was rising. His fingers scraped once against the grit and stopped.

Please. Just let me get there.

Someone turned him carefully, supporting his head. He heard an urgent question, then another voice answering it.

He was still trying to look past them when the light began to fade.

Glitch was only a few steps away.

Jin never reached him.