The rhinoceros accelerated faster than its weight should have allowed. I sent several dozen soldiers towards its eyes, but the beast lowered its lids and charged through the cloud. The first impact destroyed half the decoy.
Each death answered with a brief stab in my temples. While the swarm was small, I could bear the pain.
Lily reached the rocks. The passage was too narrow for the rhinoceros, but the beast had no intention of following her inside. It drove its horn into the base of the stone wall.
Debris rained down from above.
"It'll bring the passage down!" Lily shouted.
I divided the swarm. One group settled over the beast's lips and nostrils, forcing it to hold its breath. The second crawled beneath the folds of skin around its forelegs. Styx held back.
Lily could have taken shelter deeper inside, but she remained at the entrance. Her light spirit answered faintly from beneath the roots. The girl raised her palm, and a pale glimmer flared across the rhinoceros's face.
The beast jerked towards the light. Its horn struck a different support.
"Again," I shouted.
"He has almost nothing left."
"Then don't waste the light on damage. Just show it a target."
Instead of a bright flash, Lily made a tiny point of light beside its eye. The rhinoceros turned its head, exposing its left foreleg. She did not defeat the beast for me, but she gave Styx the second she needed to reach its skin.
The rhinoceros thrashed its head, crushed mosquitoes against the rocks and kept battering the wall. Numbers could not overcome its armour. But every strike exposed a thin strip of skin beneath its foreleg.
I waited for the third swing.
"Now."
Styx entered the vulnerable spot and released her venom.
The rhinoceros took two more steps. Its forelegs buckled and its horn ploughed through the earth. A slab of stone broke loose above, but Lily rolled clear of the passage in time.
The System reported that essence had been acquired and offered ascension.
This time I did not confirm at once.
The soldiers covered the carcass. The swarm's hunger was stronger than before, and Lily's spirit lay nearby. His light had almost vanished. I drew the mosquitoes away from the creature and allowed them to feed only on the rhinoceros.
Styx settled on my palm. Impatience came through the bond, followed by an image: four red wings, height and a sound that cracked stone.
"Is that what you choose?" I asked.
She struck my finger with one leg.
I confirmed the ascension.
A red shell closed around Styx's body. Her old wings cracked inside. Seconds later the cocoon opened, and a creature the size of a small bird rose above my palm. Four scarlet wings held her aloft without any visible movement. Blood-crystal armour covered her abdomen.
The Queen of Scarlet Wings.
She gave a thin cry. Cracks spread across the nearest stone, and every soldier dropped towards the ground at once.
Lily pressed her spirit to her chest.
"Did you know she was like this?"
"This morning she was a mosquito."
Lily decided I was joking. I did not correct her.
Her light spirit survived, but their bond was damaged. I helped carry him to the exit from the zone. On the way, Lily looked at Styx several times. Not with fear, but with wary curiosity.
Styx watched her in return.
Lenny was already waiting for us at the central arena. He had managed to tell everyone that the owner of the dead egg had run away from their meeting.
When I entered the arena with a mud-covered Lily behind me, the spectators assumed she had rescued me.
Lenny smiled.
"At last. Show us what was worth keeping us waiting for."
I released Styx from behind my collar.
The laughter in the stands did not die at once. People saw her wings and armour, but they still recognised a mosquito.
Leon Li sat in the upper tier. The Void Dragon lay beside him: a black beast with a narrow head and eyes like holes in the night sky.
Leon was not looking at me. He was looking at Styx.
The dragon raised its head as well.
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