They crouched on the ridge overlooking the camp, the firelight below flickering against their faces.

The night hummed with restless energy, wagons creaking and beasts grunting in their cages.

Arden scanned it all once more, his eyes half-lidded as his senses wrapped through the camp like a net.

"There are seventy-three men," he finally said, his voice low but certain. "Most at vein surge, some weaker. Three at vein bloom, the bandit leader you remember, plus two more.

Two of them also a hybrid, I can feel it in the way their aura stutters.

Rael gave a low whistle. "You count them like they're coins."

"That's exactly how they should feel to you," Arden replied. "Numbers. Not walls."

Nyra leaned closer, brow furrowed. "What about the arrangement?"

Arden pointed with his finger, tracing in the air as if he had the camp drawn before them. "Wagons circle the center, beasts and herbs stacked inside the ring. Guards rotate every twenty breaths, though they've grown careless, they leave gaps along the north where the ridge shadows them.

Their fire pits are clustered here, here, and here." He tapped invisible spots. "If you slip in through the left ridge, they won't spot you until it's too late."

Zephyra's tail thudded once against the dirt, embers scattering faintly from her fur. Left is mine, she rumbled.

Arden nodded. "Good. When the fire spreads, it'll cut their vision. Rael, you take the right flank. Don't fight to hold, fight to scatter. Make them run into Nyra's net."

Nyra adjusted her satchel. "You want me weaving barriers?"

"Barriers, or whatever keeps them tangled. Break their formations. Once their wagons are free, we'll pull them out. Also, don't waste time killing stragglers. cripple, disarm, and move."

Rael grinned, his eyes sparking. "And you?"

"I'm walking in," Arden said simply. "The bandit leader is mine. The hybrid too, if he's dumb enough to stand in front of me."

Silence fell for a beat. Then Rael chuckled. "Bold as always."

"It's not boldness. It's efficiency," Arden answered. He let his gaze sweep over them one last time. "Listen. Stay sharp. My tag will tell me if you're drowning, but I can't appear immediately. Keep yourselves alive. That's the only order that matters."

The words hung heavier than they sounded. Then, slowly, Rael cracked his knuckles, Nyra adjusted her sleeves, and Zephyra's fangs gleamed in the dark.

No one backed away.

And when the time came, Arden moved first.

The camp never heard them coming. Zephyra tore through the left with fire bursting from her maw, scattering flames across the first line of guards.

Screams rose as the night lit up red, shadows lashing across the tents.

Men rushed to respond, only to find Rael barreling in from the opposite side, fists sparking with crackling energy as he shattered their formations, knocking bodies into each other like thrown stones.

Nyra's threads of ice and wind coiled across the ground, unseen until they struck. Bandits stumbled, pinned by bindings they couldn't see until it was too late, her spells cutting their rush into stuttering halts.

Chaos bloomed, and within heartbeats the camp was already breaking apart.

Wagons rattled as beasts inside roared, their cries feeding the panic.

The three leaders had yet to move, but their men were buckling.

Arden, meanwhile, didn't sneak. He strode through the north gap, fire already humming at his palms.

A single guard saw him, opened his mouth to shout, and Arden's flame snapped into a spear that punched clean through his chest before sound could leave his throat. The body fell in silence, fire eating it quietly.

The first of the leaders came quickly. A hulking hybrid stepped into view, his skin laced with faint crimson scales, his breath steaming heat.

His arms bent strangely, claws sliding from his hands, the faint glow of molten lines racing across his chest.

"Irontide," Arden muttered, reading the man like an open scroll. "Strength build, heavy burst. Predictable."

The hybrid snarled, his aura surging as he lunged. Arden didn't flinch.

He called fire into his palm, compressed it until it screamed, and snapped his hand forward.

The flame didn't surge, it folded, compacted into a disk of molten heat that slammed against the hybrid's chest.

The man staggered, his body jerking. Arden's next step placed him at his back.

Flame licked upward, curving into a blade, and with one clean sweep he severed the hybrid's strength at the spine. The body collapsed with a dull thud, embers eating through it slowly.

"Too weak," Arden muttered, flicking the flames from his hand.

That was when the bandit leader appeared.

He came striding through the smoke, armor strapped over his chest, flames crackling along his gauntlets.

His eyes burned with something more than anger, something unstable, the mark of a man who had given himself too far into hybridization.

"Bold of you," the leader called, his voice carrying over the clash. "To come for our wagons. Do you think you can take them?"

Arden's lips curved faintly. "Bold of you to crawl into the light after running from me last time."

The man's face twisted. "Be careful boy, I am not the same as last time!"

"Neither am I," Arden said softly. His aura flared, fire spilling in waves.

The leader lunged, flame gauntlets tearing through the air, scattering sparks as he swung.

But Arden didn't give ground. His own fire met the strikes, bending and reshaping, his control sharper than before. Spears of flame blinked into existence at his command, forcing the leader back step after step.

The clash shook the ground, fire against fire, two battle mages clashing at their peak.

But Arden pressed harder, intent heavy in every strike. He wasn't testing. He was killing.

And then he found his chance. The leader's guard faltered, just a breath. Arden's flame surged, shaping into a lance that drove straight for his chest.

The strike would have ended him.

But it didn't.

Because a blur slammed into place, intercepting the blow.

The third leader revealed himself, a lean hybrid with serrated blades running along his arms and strange devices strapped across his waist. The tools hissed, releasing bursts of smoke and sparks, throwing Arden's rhythm for a heartbeat.

Arden blinked once, then smirked. "Oh right," he said, fire dancing across his shoulders. "I almost forgot about you." He tilted his head, gaze flicking between the two of them. "Fine. I'll deal with you both."

A/N:

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