Chapter 257 257: dabbas defeated
Jelo raised his guard.
The Daba advanced—and something slammed into its jaw from the right with enough force to snap its head sideways.
Atlas.
His fist was coated in dense compacted stone, drawn up from the ground beneath him in the fraction of a second before impact—a gauntlet of earth that extended past his knuckles and connected with the combined weight of his body and everything he'd pulled. The Daba staggered two full steps.
Then Ken came from the left.
His shadow had extended across the ground in a wide flat sheet—and in the half-second the Daba was off-balance, that shadow rose. A wall of solid darkness surged up directly in the creature's path, cutting off its recovery angle and forcing it to stop or collide with the barrier.
It stopped.
Atlas was already moving again—both hands wrapped in stone now, ground fracturing under his footsteps as he pulled more material into his form—and put two consecutive strikes into the Daba's chest. The fractured plating cracked further. It made a sound that wasn't quite pain but was close to it.
Jelo exhaled.
"The other one?" he managed.
Atlas let the stone dissolve back into the earth. A bruise was forming along his jaw. "Down. Ken's wall cut its angle after I broke its footing."
Ken said nothing. He was watching the Daba they'd just intercepted with flat focused attention. His shadow remained partially raised—a curved barrier between them and the creature, ready to expand or redirect at a moment's notice.
"Get up," Ken said, not turning toward Jelo. "We hold it."
Jelo got up.
Mira was pushing herself upright nearby—one hand pressed to her ribs, one blade still gripped, expression tight with controlled pain. She met his eyes and shook her head once. I'm out. He acknowledged it and turned back.
Atlas and Ken had control of the Daba. Atlas was maintaining front pressure—earth gauntlets reformed, footwork measured, moving differently from how he'd fought in Tongen's drills. One controlled retreat when the Daba surged, buying angle, then coming back in from a better position. The correction applied without thinking.
Ken worked the edges. His shadow shifted constantly—part of it extending as a low wall to cut movement options, another thread wrapping his off-arm as a dense shield. When the creature tried to break right the shadow wall rose to redirect it. When it tried to break left Atlas was already there.
Containing it perfectly.
What they needed was a finisher.
Jelo reached inward.
The ESS was critically low. He could feel the edges of it—how thin the reserve had run, how each ability had drawn from a well that was nearly empty before the fight began. Dragon Claw was still available but output would be reduced at this level. Skilled Guard would hold for maybe one more significant hit.
He thought about Infernal Dragon Surge.
It sat deeper in his arsenal—more demanding, higher cost, but catastrophic on delivery. Draconic essence condensed and released as a dragon-shaped surge of destructive energy. Piercing force combined with explosive fire. Lingering burn on impact.
At 100 ESS, using it was a risk. Not of failure—of total depletion. If he spent everything on the Surge and the creature didn't go down, he'd have nothing left.
He ran Assess one more time.
The reading confirmed what the fight had already shown—enhanced variant, above standard, but damaged. Atlas and Ken had done real work on it. The plating across its chest was fractured. Its movement carried a slight drag on the right side where Ken's shadow wall had forced two hard redirects against its own momentum.
It's close.
One committed strike.
He looked at Atlas. Caught his eye. Gestured left with two fingers—the gap that kept opening as the Daba tried to break right against Ken's wall.
Atlas understood immediately. He drove forward, stone gauntlets hammering in rapid sequence, forcing the creature to commit both arms to defense and lock its attention fully front-facing.
Ken's shadow wall rose high on the right. Sealed.
The left side opened.
Jelo moved.
He activated Ember Step—warmth pooling in his legs, ground igniting at the contact point, and then he was moving. Not running. Something faster and more absolute than running. The directional burst carried him across the gap in a fraction of a second, closing ground the Daba couldn't track in time.
He channeled everything into his right arm.
Draconic essence rose—not ambient fire but something deeper, carrying the full weight of what his system could still reach. It moved through his arm like current through wire, infusing muscle and bone with condensed heat, the air around his hand distorting with the temperature gradient.
He released it.
Infernal Dragon Surge.
The shape was unmistakable—a dragon-formed projection of destructive energy that drove into the Daba's left side with full piercing force and erupted on impact. The explosion was heavy rather than loud. A deep concussive release that shook the ground under all four of them and pushed a wave of superheated air outward in every direction.
The Daba went down.
Not staggering. Not stumbling. Down—hard and total, its body hitting the earth with finality, the fractured plating glowing faintly with residual heat.
It didn't move.
Jelo stood over it.
His arm trembled slightly—not injury but cost. The Surge had taken nearly everything remaining. He was running on the last edge of reserve now, depletion pressing back in from all sides.
But the creature was down.
He straightened.
Atlas let out a slow breath. "…That was the most alarming thing I've ever watched you do."
"Good alarming or bad alarming?"
"Just alarming."
Ken had already moved to the first downed Daba and crouched beside it, examining the extraction point with precise attention. "Crystal's intact."
Jelo crossed to the second. He crouched and extracted both crystals carefully. The standard variant's heart pulsed with dim steady light. The enhanced variant's pulsed brighter—warmer—radiating heat against his palm even through the extraction process.
He held them both.
Then the system activated.
[System Notification]
[Two Daba Hearts acquired]
[Energy cores detected: Standard variant × 1 | Enhanced variant × 1]
[Recommendation: Consume both immediately]
[Current reserve: 100 / 1000 ESS]
[Warning: Continued operation at current reserve risks systemic failure]