The two remaining Advanced Horrors did not rush Charlotte imdiately.
That alone told her they were dangerous.
Ordinary demons, even strong ones, often moved the mont they sensed weakness. They attacked with hunger first and awareness second. They lunged, snapped, tore, and trusted their bodies to correct any mistake before it killed them.
These two were different.
They spread apart slowly.
One moved to her left, claws sinking into the damp soil with each careful step, while the other drifted toward her right, its long body low to the ground as its shoulders rolled beneath stretched, dark flesh. Their glowing eyes never left Charlotte. Not even once. Their heads tilted slightly, nostrils twitching as they drank in the scent of her new form, her blood, her Myst, and the corpse of their fallen kin beneath her claws.
Charlotte remained crouched above the dead Advanced Horror, her massive were-jaguar fra low and tense.
Her claws flexed against the corpse’s ruined chest as black blood dripped between her fingers.
The shattered core fragnts crumbled beneath her palm as she slowly lifted her gaze toward the two remaining demons.
The air between them tightened.
Charlotte’s tail moved once behind her, slow and controlled, the tip cutting through the darkness like a warning.
The two demons answered with low clicks deep within their throats.
Clicks that sounded like communication.
Charlotte’s golden eyes narrowed.
’Oh, that’s annoying.’
The demon on her right moved first.
It darted forward, not in a straight line, but at an angle, its long limbs carrying it over roots and stones with disturbing speed. Charlotte shifted her weight imdiately, ready to et it head-on, but the mont her body leaned toward the attack, the second demon moved.
It ca from the left, low and fast.
Its claws aid for the tendon area behind her rear leg.
Charlotte’s instincts scread.
She pushed upward instead of forward, launching herself off the corpse beneath her. The right-side demon passed underneath her, its jaws snapping shut on empty air, while the left-side demon’s claws tore through the space where her leg had been a breath earlier.
Charlotte landed sideways against a tree trunk, all four limbs digging into the bark.
The demons adjusted instantly.
Too instantly.
The one beneath her whipped its head upward and spat a wet, guttural hiss before lunging vertically. The other circled behind the tree, already moving to intercept whatever direction she jumped next.
Charlotte clicked her tongue internally.
’They’re cutting off routes.’
She kicked off the trunk.
The wood cracked beneath the force as she shot upward into the branches. Leaves burst around her as her body passed through the canopy, her movents far smoother than they had ever been in her beast-dominant form. This body was heavier, yes, but every ounce of it was built for explosive movent. Her claws caught bark easily. Her limbs compressed and released like coiled springs. Her tail corrected her balance midair before her mind even needed to command it.
For one brief mont, she understood why part of her had always avoided this form.
It felt too natural.
Too right.
The thought vanished as one of the Advanced Horrors crashed through the branches below her.
Charlotte twisted along the underside of a thick limb, hanging upside down for half a breath before dropping behind it. The demon’s claws shredded through the branch she had used as cover, sending chunks of bark raining down. Charlotte swung herself forward, landed on the next branch, and imdiately launched toward another tree.
The forest beca a blur of movent; branch, trunk, root, shadow, and air.
Charlotte used all of it.
She ran along the side of one tree, kicked off before the bark split beneath her weight, and twisted through a narrow gap between two branches just as one demon ca tearing after her. Its wider body slamd into the gap instead, slowing it for the smallest instant.
Charlotte took it.
She reversed direction midair, claws digging into the underside of a branch above her, then swung down with terrifying speed.
Her right hand raked across the demon’s face.
Claws tore through one eye and down across its jaw, splitting flesh and spilling black blood across the leaves below.
The demon shrieked.
Charlotte landed on its back and dug both feet into its spine, claws piercing through the ridged flesh. For a heartbeat, she prepared to drive her hand into its chest from above.
Then the second demon hit her, hard.
It slamd into her side from the neighboring branch, and both of them crashed through the canopy together. Charlotte twisted violently, managing to keep the demon’s jaws away from her throat, but its claws still dragged across her shoulder and upper arm.
Blood sprayed as pain flashed hot across her nerves.
They hit the ground in a violent roll.
Charlotte planted one hand into the soil and used the montum to throw herself free before the demon could pin her. She skidded across the ground on all fours, claws carving long grooves through dirt and roots before she ca to a stop.
The demon she had blinded landed several ters away.
Its eye was already regenerating, slowly, but visibly.
The other demon lowered itself in front of her, blood dripping from its claws.
Charlotte breathed through her nose once, then twice.
Her golden eyes moved between them.
They were good.
Too good.
Not intelligent in the way a true Sync-class demon would be, but they understood spacing. They understood pressure. They understood that Charlotte was faster than either of them alone, so they never attacked alone. One baited. One punished. One drove her toward a route. The other closed it.
It was simple.
But simple things killed when perford well.
The wounded demon’s eye finished reforming.
Charlotte watched the fresh tissue settle.
"Of course," she muttered, though in this form her voice ca out rougher, lower, threaded with a guttural edge. "You ugly things heal too."
The demons lunged together.
Charlotte moved backward this ti, out of intent.
She retreated into denser terrain where the trees stood closer together and the roots rose higher from the ground. The demons pursued imdiately, their long bodies flowing over the uneven earth with horrible ease.
The first ca at her from the front.
Charlotte slipped under its bite, shoulder nearly grazing its jaw, and slashed across its chest. The cut opened flesh but missed the core. She didn’t chase the wound. She pushed off a root and launched sideways just as the second demon’s claws carved through her previous position.
The second claw still clipped her flank.
A long cut opened along her side.
Charlotte hissed through her teeth and kept moving.
The first demon turned.
The second already ca again.
Charlotte ducked, rolled over a raised root, and kicked backward with both legs. Her claws struck the second demon’s face, forcing its head upward as blood splattered across the trunk behind it. The first demon used that exact mont to close in from her left.
It was too close.
Charlotte twisted, but not enough.
Its claws cut across her ribs, shallow compared to what it had aid for, but deep enough to tear through fur and flesh.
Pain burned hot causing Charlotte to stagger half a step.
The two demons pressed imdiately, giving her no breathing room.
Charlotte’s body dropped low as both attacks ca in. One set of claws passed over her head. The other ca toward her chest. She twisted between them, letting the second strike graze across her upper arm instead of her heart, then drove her shoulder into the first demon’s leg to shift its balance.
The demon’s foot slid slightly on blood-slick leaves.
That was all she needed.
Charlotte sprang upward, slamd both hands into the trunk beside her, and launched herself back down at an angle. Her body blurred through the darkness, and before the demon could fully recover, she struck.
Her right hand punched into its chest.
The demon’s armor-like flesh resisted for half a heartbeat.
Then gave.
Charlotte’s claws tore through muscle and bone, burying deep into the core cavity. The demon shrieked and snapped its jaws toward her head, but Charlotte had already shoved her other hand beneath its chin, forcing the bite upward.
She found the core and her fingers closed around it imdiately.
The second demon rushed her from behind as she ripped the core out.
The core tore free in her hand, pulsing violently for less than a second before she crushed it completely within her grip.
The demon beneath her convulsed before dying.
Charlotte didn’t even watch it fall.
She pushed off its collapsing body as the final demon’s claws passed through the space behind her. The dead Advanced Horror crashed to the ground, its regeneration dying with the shattered core, while Charlotte landed against the side of another tree several ters away.
Two dead.
One left.
For the smallest instant, Charlotte thought she had taken control of the fight.
Then the final demon hit her.
It had not missed by accident.
It had forced her to commit.
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