The creature processed the two of them. Evaluating. Learning.

---

"Do you know what makes this fascinating?" said the bearer as she repositioned for the next exchange.

Davan didn’t answer immediately — he was reading the creature’s next attack angle with all the attention he had.

The bearer continued anyway.

"It doesn’t yield."

The creature charged — spiritual limbs covering the left flank, physical body toward Davan.

"F5 doesn’t affect it. Entropy degrades it from inside but doesn’t stop it." The bearer dodged the right spiritual limb with the movement of someone who had spent twelve minutes memorizing exactly when they arrived and from where. "Everything wears down eventually. Everything yields to Entropy given enough time."

[F6 — distributed degradation — seventh pulse]

[Second creature — accumulated degradation: 127,400 total inside exoskeleton]

"Except this." The bearer looked at the creature with something in her eyes that wasn’t fear or urgency. "They’ve been facing two Fragment bearers for twelve minutes and they’re still standing, responding as if the fight had just started."

Davan blocked the physical impact with the Dominion field.

[Davan HP: 121,400 → 98,200]

Twenty‑three thousand two hundred.

"That just makes me want to kill it more." The bearer said it with the same neutrality with which she would have said any field observation. Not with rage. With the unconcerned certainty of someone who has decided that an interesting problem deserves a definitive solution.

Then she looked at Davan.

"Don’t you think? Facing something that doesn’t respond to Dominion, that doesn’t yield to Entropy — that’s amazing."

Davan looked at her from where he had landed against the wall.

[Davan HP: 98,200]

[F6 Bearer HP: 108,900]

Both below a hundred thousand.

The creature with 1,547,600 HP still standing, processing the next exchange.

"No." Davan getting up. "I find it problematic."

"Both things can be true."

Davan processed that.

"We need the new contact point."

"I know." The bearer extended the entropy field over the creature’s exoskeleton — reading the distribution of accumulated degradation, searching for the zone where internal structural disorder was greatest. "Give me twenty seconds."

"We have twenty seconds if I contain the next attack."

"Then contain."

Davan expanded the Dominion field to maximum radius — not concentrated, expansive. Dominion pressure filling the corridor from all angles, creating resistance on the physical plane that slowed without stopping.

Not enough to stop a level‑200 creature.

Enough to give twenty seconds.

The bearer’s eyes on the creature’s exoskeleton.

Reading.

Calculating.

The accumulated degradation from seven distributed entropy pulses created an internal map of the material that no Soul Sight could see but that F6 read like temperature — the zones of greatest structural disorder glowing in that perception as hotter points than the rest.

"Right rear joint," she said. "The density is lower because it’s the point of greatest mobility — the system keeps it flexible, and flexibility has a cost in resistance."

"How much?"

"Enough for the combo to cause ninety thousand instead of seventy‑one."

Davan evaluated the angle.

The right rear joint was accessible only when the creature was fully extended in a frontal charge.

"I need it to charge directly at me."

"Yes."

"And you need to be at the right rear point when it does."

"Yes."

"That means you can’t dodge when the spiritual limbs reach you from that angle."

The bearer looked at him.

"I know."

"You’re going to take the hit."

"I know that too."

The twenty seconds ended.

The creature emerged from the expansive Dominion field — the pressure hadn’t stopped it but had slowed it enough for the field to last.

Reorienting.

Toward Davan.

"Ready?" said Davan.

"Whenever you are."

Davan activated [F5 — Directed Suppression — maximum intensity — toward the creature].

Not to damage it — to make the creature absolutely prioritize him. For F5 to be so intense on the plane that the creature couldn’t read anything else.

The creature turned completely toward him.

The bearer moved toward the right rear flank.

The creature’s spiritual limbs arrived from that side.

The bearer didn’t dodge.

[F6 Bearer HP: 108,900 → 71,300]

Thirty‑seven thousand six hundred.

Still standing.

With the entropy field already concentrated on the right rear joint point.

"Now," she said.

The creature in full frontal charge toward Davan — physical limbs extended, right rear joint exposed.

[F5 — Concentrated Dominion — right rear joint]

[F6 — Concentrated Entropy — same point — accumulated degradation channeled]

BOOM.

[Second creature — F5+F6 combined damage — right rear joint: 94,600]

[Second creature HP: 1,547,600 → 1,453,000]

The right rear joint gave way — not collapsing yet, giving way. The exoskeleton plates at that point partially lost cohesion, the regeneration system prioritizing that zone above everything else.

The creature stopped.

Not because the damage had stopped it.

Because the regeneration system redirecting resources to the right rear joint produced the same effect in behavior that localized damage shock produced in biological systems.

Two seconds of involuntary pause.

---

Davan looking at the result.

The bearer looking at the result from the rear flank with ninety‑four thousand six hundred damage to the point and her own HP at seventy‑one thousand three hundred. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"Ninety‑four thousand six hundred," said Davan.

"Yes." The bearer evaluated the right rear joint. "And that point’s regeneration is going to be slower than the front zones because the internal degradation I accumulated there interferes with the repair process."

"How much slower?"

"I don’t know exactly. But each subsequent combo at that point is going to cause more damage than the last because the regeneration system can’t keep up."

Davan processed that.

[Davan HP: 98,200]

[F6 Bearer HP: 71,300]

[Second creature HP: 1,453,000]

Still 1,453,000 HP.

"We’re still too slow," said Davan.

"We’re still too slow," confirmed the bearer. Without frustration. With the certainty of someone who has the problem catalogued and knows that cataloguing it is the first step to solving it. "But each exchange teaches something the previous one didn’t."

The creature emerged from the involuntary pause.

Reorienting.

Evaluating the two significant damage points — left lateral flank and right rear joint — with the logic of something that learns that certain angles cost more than others and adjusts coverage accordingly.

Covering the left flank.

Covering the right rear joint.

Leaving the front and the right flank without additional spiritual coverage.

The bearer saw it.

Davan saw it.

"It’s covering the points we attacked," said Davan.

"And leaving the front and right flank without extra coverage." The bearer looked at the accumulated entropy distribution in the exoskeleton. "The front has high density — the combo there will cause less."

"The right flank?"

The bearer evaluated.

"Medium density. No nearby joint." Her eyes on the exoskeleton. "But there’s something interesting."

"What?"

"The degradation I accumulated in the previous seven pulses — part of it migrated to the right flank through material conductivity." The bearer. "The right flank has internal degradation that the creature doesn’t know it has because we’ve never directly attacked it."

Davan processed the implication.

"Attack where it doesn’t expect damage, with internal degradation already present."

"Yes." The bearer, for the first time in the fight, had something in her tone that wasn’t just neutral cataloguing. Something more like what she had said before — the desire to finish what she had started. "Ready?"

The creature charged.

Both adjusted.

The corridor with the marks of twelve minutes of fighting on its walls — cracks, impact marks, the floor with the kind of damage that only level‑200 entities leave in enclosed spaces.

And the second creature with 1,453,000 HP learning.

And Davan with 98,200 HP learning faster.

And the bearer with 71,300 HP — having taken thirty‑seven thousand of damage without dodging because the angle required it — looking at the creature with her eyes that had something beneath the normal color, thinking exactly what she had said.

Fascinating.

And she wanted to kill it.

Both things at the same time.