Sebastian did not know that Nero was speaking about him on the southern ridge.

That was probably for the best.

He had enough problems without imagining Nero with firelight in his eyes, soot on his cheek, and that terrible Sahan smile that made cruelty look like a family heirloom.

The northern flank held.

The words had become a rhythm in Sebastian’s head, quiet and practical beneath the noise of the field.

For now, the pheromone readings stayed within an acceptable range.

The beasts were moving in predictable clusters, and his team’s formation remained clean, spread in a defensive fan along the ridge above the dead groves. The infected zone dipped below them in uneven folds of gray soil, fungal-stained roots, old drainage trenches, and thorn trees stripped bare by rot. The air was cold enough to bite through the collar of his field coat, but beneath it lay the sour heat of corrupted flesh.

Sebastian stood near the northern marker with his long black hair tied back, gloves dark with mud, and his sidearm untouched on his hip.

He had not needed it yet.

That was good.

The first wave had broken against the outer line seventeen minutes earlier.

Six beasts. Standard corruption. Heavy fungal plating along the spine, poor coordination, limited adaptive behavior. Dangerous, but not clever. His alpha agents had handled the first two. Irena had driven the third toward the trench with a clean pheromone pulse that collapsed its movement. Sebastian had taken the remaining three from a distance.

He had lifted his hand, let his pheromones thread into the organic rot swollen inside their bodies, and commanded the matter to fail.

The first beast burst behind the rib cage.

The second folded at the joints as if its tendons had forgotten the shape of motion.

The third took two more steps before the fungal plates along its skull ruptured outward in a wet, black spray.

Hendrik had known exactly what he was doing, placing Sebastian here.

Sebastian had known that too.

Irena came to stand beside him, tablet in hand, face half-hidden behind her field mask. "Outer cluster cleared. No casualties. Two agents report mild pheromone strain."

"Recovery patches?"

"Administered."

"Good."

Her gaze flicked to him. "And you?"

Sebastian looked toward the dead grove. "Balanced."

"I did not ask what you want written in the report."

His mouth curved faintly. "Balanced with moderate exertion."

"Better."

A low vibration moved through the ground beneath them, not from beasts but from the distant southern burn. Smoke lifted beyond the ridge in a dark smear against the morning sky.

Irena looked south. "Saha is making noise."

"Saha often does."

"This sounds like fire."

"That also sounds like Saha."

Her eyes slid toward him. "Nero."

Sebastian didn’t answer too fast.

"Yes," he said at last.

Irena watched him for half a second, then returned to the tablet. "South pushed forward, then corrected formation. Relay support is being reinforced."

Sebastian looked at the valley ahead. "Of course it is."

Nero hadn’t gone north. He had not left a note. He hadn’t made a formal update something personal and edged. He’d lived up to his promise.

He was simply strengthening the relay.

For the campaign.

For everyone.

Sebastian could almost believe that if he tried very hard and ignored the parts of himself that had not been born yesterday.

"Second movement," a scout called over the local channel. "Dead grove. Smaller cluster. Four confirmed. Possible fifth."

Sebastian lifted his hand.

His pheromones flared, cold and controlled, spreading across the field in a disciplined line. Not as thick as Arion’s command pressure. Not as wild as Sahan fire. His was quieter, more surgical, sinking into exposed organic matter and listening for the weak places.

The beasts came through the grove. Fast. Wrong-footed.

The fifth was larger than expected, fungal growth bulging beneath the throat, the jaw hanging at an angle that should have made movement impossible.

"Hold," Sebastian said.

His agents held.

The beasts crossed the first marker.

"Now," Sebastian said.

The line moved.

Two alpha agents stepped forward in perfect rhythm, releasing pressure in short, controlled bursts that drove the first three beasts toward the trench lip. The creatures stumbled, claws cutting grooves through the mud, jaws snapping at empty air as their corrupted instincts followed the strongest scent and found only a trap.

Irena fired first.

The shot cracked across the ridge, punching into the throat of the nearest beast. It reeled.

Sebastian closed his hand.

The rot inside its chest ruptured.

The second beast tried to turn, but one of its agents caught it with a hook-blade beneath the shoulder and dragged it sideways just enough for Sebastian’s pheromones to slip into the exposed fungal seam along its spine.

The beast folded.

The third fell to ordinary gunfire before Sebastian had to touch it at all.

’This is easy. I don’t need Nero to shield me.’

The thought came so cleanly that relief followed it before guilt could.

He could fight, command, and hold a flank without white-blond hair flashing in his peripheral vision, without that bright Sahan laugh splitting the field after every impossible strike, and without the old, unspoken pressure of being protected by someone he had never asked and never stopped.

The fourth beast broke the formation.

It came low through the dead grass, dragging one useless hind leg, faster than its damaged body should have allowed. Irena shifted her stance, but Sebastian was already moving his hand downward, two fingers curling.

The ground beneath the beast shivered.

Roots, rotted leaves, exposed tendons, and fungal cords.

The beast burst from beneath, its own corrupted mass turning against it in a black spray that painted the mud.

Sebastian exhaled.

The fifth came last.

It did not rush like the others. It paused at the edge of the grove, blind, milky eyes rolling beneath swollen lids, throat mass pulsing with a sick, wet rhythm. The fungal growth there opened and closed like gills.

"Filters tight," Irena snapped.

"Hold fire," Sebastian said.

"Sebastian—"

"Hold."

He felt the team obey.

He felt their tension too, alpha pressure held carefully behind teeth and training, every one of them waiting for the moment his calm became arrogance.

Sebastian stepped one pace forward.

His pheromones slid out again, precise and thin as wire. They touched the beast’s throat mass and met resistance, thick and layered, the corruption braided through living tissue like it had learned to hide behind what remained of the host.

The beast lunged.

Sebastian did not move, but his fingers snapped shut.

The throat mass imploded.

The force tore inward first, collapsing the fungal structure before it could release whatever pressure had built inside it. Then the beast’s chest followed, ribs cracking inward with a wet, brutal sound. It dropped three meters from the second marker and slid through the mud.

Irena was silent for half a second.

Then, "Clean." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Sebastian lowered his hand.

His pulse was steady.

His pheromones remained sharp but not frayed. Cold threaded beneath his skin, the familiar aftermath of controlled force.

He looked at the bodies across the grove line and felt the relief again.

This time, he let himself have it.

’I can take care of myself.’

"Report," he said.

The comm officer answered quickly. "Second cluster down. No casualties. No particulate release from primary target. Collecting a drone sample from the throat mass."

"Good. Keep up the good work."