The Ultimate Regressor System

The three remaining Bora circled tight, bellies tucked low and horns angled outward.

Lucas felt the weight of the standoff settle heavy in his chest even through the adrenaline still burning through his veins.

"We separate them," Eleanor said, voice low and eyes tracking the beasts’ defensive formation. "They’re strong together. We break them apart, we stand a chance."

"Easier said than done," Mark muttered, flexing his gauntlets. "They’re not exactly volunteering to split up."

"Then we make them." Lucas rolled his shoulders, [Ignition] flickering weak but present around his knuckles. "Mark, you’re the wall. Draw one off and keep it locked on you. Eleanor, hit and run... don’t let them predict your angle. I’ll take the third head on, keep it too busy to help the others."

"Head on," Eleanor repeated, unimpressed. "That’s your whole plan?"

Lucas shrugged. "Do you have a better idea?."

Eleanor stayed silent for a moment before shaking her head.

Lucas smiled. "Thought so." Lucas then turned to the beasts. "We don’t have a better option honestly. Our hits aren’t landing hard enough for a direct confrontation. We separate them, we wear them down, then we finish them one at a time. That’s basically the whole strategy."

"Fine." Eleanor exhaled, rolling her shoulders, stone already beginning to gather along her forearms. "But if any of us gets surrounded, the other two drop everything. Understood?"

"Understood," Mark said.

"Understood," Lucas repeated. "Ready?"

They didn’t wait for an answer. Mark broke first, roaring wordlessly as he charged the nearest Bora, gauntlets slamming into its lowered head before it could fully brace, forcing it backward a step and, more importantly, forcing its attention fully onto him.

The other two beasts hesitated, torn between reinforcing their packmate and holding position, and in that half moment of confusion, Eleanor darted in low and fast, earthen gauntlets cracking against a second Bora’s flank before darting clear again, refusing to give it a stationary target.

That left the third for Lucas.

He didn’t hesitate. [Ignition] roared weak but usable around both legs, and he propelled himself forward in a burning, low sprint, driving a flaming kick into the creature’s foreleg the instant it turned to track him.

The impact staggered it, and Lucas followed immediately with a second kick, then a third, using the momentum of fire and motion together since his fists alone weren’t landing with the kind of force he wanted.

The beast shrieked in frustration as he started circling the beast in a wide, deliberate arc that kept it constantly turning, constantly reacting, never quite able to plant itself long enough to properly strike back.

The Bora lunged, horns sweeping low, and Lucas barely twisted clear, feeling the wind of the strike against his ribs, close enough to remind him exactly how little margin his weakened body actually had left before he met a messy death.

He circled wider, forcing the creature to keep turning and keep tracking him, denying it any stationary moment to plant its stance and retaliate with full force.

Every kick cost him more than it should have — muscles burning, breath ragged, [Ignition] guttering weaker with each use like a candle running low on wax or more realistically, the fact that the fatigue was creeping onto him faster now...

But he kept moving, kept forcing the exchange onto his own terms rather than the beasts’.

Across the field, Eleanor’s hit and run tactics were producing results faster than either of the others.

She never stayed in range long enough for her opponent’s defenses to fully lock onto her, striking soft joints and retreating before the creature could commit to a counter, wearing it down through sheer relentless attrition rather than raw power.

"Come on!" she snarled, driving one final blow into the Bora’s exposed throat as it overextended chasing her retreat. The blow blew into its throat, forcing through tissues and the creature’s shriek cut off into a wet, final gurgle before it collapsed, twitching, into the churned dirt.

One down....

Eleanor didn’t pause to celebrate. She was already sprinting toward Lucas’ fight, as he gauntlets started reforming fresh from the earth as she used her ability.

"Neee a hand?" she called, already closing the distance.

"Always." Lucas ducked another swipe, breathless, legs burning from the effort of sustained [Ignition]. "This bastard’s a lot faster than I thought. Watch the—"

The Bora reared, and Eleanor’s stone wrapped fist crashed into its exposed flank at the exact moment Lucas’ flaming kick caught its opposite leg, the combination forcing an off-balance stagger that neither of them alone could have managed.

Meanwhile, Mark’s fight had taken a turn nobody expected.

His Bora, larger and more stubborn than the other two, had refused to fully commit to any single strike, content instead to grind him down through sheer repeated impacts, horns scraping against his raised gauntlets reinforced with [Bastion’s oath] again and again, each hit costing him a little more stamina than the last.

Mark’s arms had started to shake with the effort of absorbing blow after blow, [Bastion’s Oath] straining harder than it should have needed to against a creature that, in any previous fight, wouldn’t have posed nearly this much trouble.

"You are SO much more annoying than you have any right to be," he growled, ducking under a horn sweep that would have opened his shoulder to the bone. "I have killed bigger things than you, you know?"

The Bora didn’t seem impressed by the claim. It lunged again, and this time, mid-block, Mark made a decision that startled even himself.

He grabbed the creature’s horn....

"Oh, this is a terrible idea!" he shouted, hauling upward with everything and every last bit of strength his body could grant him, using the horn as leverage to wrench the beast’s entire head skyward, forcing its front half to rise off the ground in a desperate, off balance stagger.

The Bora shrieked in fury, thrashing against the unnatural angle, and Mark held on with both hands, boots digging deep furrows into the dirt as he fought the creature’s own weight and momentum, pulling harder, muscles screaming, until the beast’s front legs finally left the ground entirely and it tipped backward, exposing its unarmored belly to open air for one glorious, vulnerable second.

"ARGHH!"

Mark released the horn and dropped, driving both fists into the exposed underside with everything he had left.

"Thats! For my hands!" He struck again, the impact echoing across the field. "And that’s! For ruining my morning!"

The creature convulsed, shrieking, and Mark hit it a third time, harder, until the shrieking finally cut off into silence and the Bora went still beneath him.

Two down.

Mark rolled off the carcass, chest heaving, staring at his own trembling hands like he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d just done what he’d done.

"I am never doing that again," he wheezed to nobody in particular. "That’s insane. Nobody should let me do that again..."

That left the last one — Lucas and Eleanor’s opponent, wounded now, staggering and trying to maintain its balance, but still dangerous, still guarding its belly with the same defensive instinct that had made this fight so much harder than any of them had expected.

"It’s learned," Eleanor said, breathless, circling opposite Lucas to keep the creature’s attention split. "It’s not giving us the opening."

"Then we make one." Lucas caught her eye across the beast’s hunched, defensive stance. "Same as before. I start, you finish."

Eleanor looked at him... "You sure your legs can take another hit like that?"

"Nope," Lucas admitted. "Doing it anyway."

The Bora tracked between them, head swinging low, clearly aware it was now facing two opponents alone and unwilling to commit fully to either. It feinted toward Eleanor first, testing, and she gave ground just enough to avoid the strike without retreating far enough to lose her position.

"Great." Lucas deadpanned. "It knows it’s outnumbered. Smart. Real smart..."

"Then we force it."

Lucas closed the distance himself instead of waiting for the creature to commit, driving a weak but present burst of flame around both legs and closing the gap in a single, burning stride, forcing the Bora to react to him directly rather than continuing its cautious standoff.

The Bora lunged toward him, and Lucas met the charge head on this time, driving a full force, flame wreathed kick directly into the underside of its jaw as it committed to the strike, not enough to fall it outright, but enough to snap its head backward, causing its whole body to jet upward onto its hind legs for one brief, precious second— it’s belly exposed to open air.

"Now!" Lucas shouted.

Eleanor was already moving, blade of living flame igniting bright as she slid low across the churned dirt, beneath the creature’s rising bulk, and drove her sword upward in one clean, brutal arc straight through its unarmored underside.

The Bora’s shriek cut off entirely, its whole body seizing before it crashed down, motionless, in the dirt beside Eleanor as she rolled clear from underneath it, blade extinguishing as she came up onto one knee, chest heaving.

Three...

Silence fell across the ruined stretch of street, broken only by ragged, exhausted breathing.

Lucas’s legs finally gave out beneath him, and he sank down into the dirt without any energy left to spare, chest heaving, and every muscle screaming at once.

A few feet away, Eleanor collapsed onto her back, blade extinguishing as she stared up at the grey sky, and Mark simply toppled sideways off the last Bora’s carcass, groaning as he hit the ground.

For a long moment, none of them said anything at all, just three exhausted bodies sprawled among the wreckage of a fight that had cost far more than it should have, the ruined street around them littered with craters, scorch marks, and three unmoving carcasses that had very nearly outlasted all of them.

"Okay," Mark wheezed, staring at nothing in particular. "Okay. We did it. We actually did it."

"Barely," Eleanor managed, breathless.

"I grabbed a monster by the horn and flipped it upside down with my bare hands," Mark said, sounding somewhere between traumatized and deeply proud of himself. "I don’t know what that says about me. Ask me again tomorrow, I gotta make sure this ain’t a dream..."

Lucas let out a tired, wheezing laugh despite everything, staring up at the same sky, arms and legs too heavy to consider moving anytime soon.

Every part of him ached in a way that felt punishing, the particular soreness that came from a fight that felt like it was survived rather than won

[Ding!]

[Bora class entities have been defeated.]

The notification hung there, calm and simple, nothing like the sheer, grinding effort it had taken to earn it, and Lucas huffed another exhausted laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"Six words," he said, staring at the crimson screen in front of him. "Six words for that entire mess."

"System’s never been big on gratitude," Mark said, still flat on her back in the dirt. "I’m really not getting paid enough for this..."

"Again, you’re not getting paid at all." Eleanor looked at him without standing up.

None of them moved for a long while after that, content to simply lie there among the wreckage, breathing, ALIVE with three carcasses sprawled across the street, a testament to yet another battle they had somehow survived...