Beast Taming: My Beasts Grind, Die, and Respawn

About a hundred and forty students had come to watch, more than Rank 30 usually drew and fewer than Jin had feared.

Doyen stood near the medical gate after checking Glitch’s healed flank. Across the ring, Flint shook once, and fresh quills rasped beneath its mineral plates. Glitch felt the movement through the floor and answered with a low rumble.

"Standard ladder rules," the adjudicator said. "Surrender, incapacitation, ring-out, or stoppage. Begin."

Glitch walked to the center and set his feet.

Flint came out along the eastern edge without approaching. The Jackal was low and broad, grey-brown, with overlapping mineral plates ridging its back. It moved at a comfortable trot beyond Glitch’s reach while Dalen watched the angle.

At his first command, Flint sent one quill into the floor two meters left of Glitch’s shoulder.

Forty centimeters of dark mineral remained standing upright in the poured stone.

The arena had started changing.

The first three minutes cost more than Jin had budgeted.

Flint fired in ones and twos from constantly changing angles. About half were genuinely aimed at Glitch, including two that came toward the seam between his shoulder and neck plating. Jin moved him for both, and each miss landed where the movement sent it.

The first closed a lateral route Jin had already intended to sacrifice. The second struck near the eastern edge of the diagonal he needed, four meters from the far mouth.

Anything except that lane.

He adjusted on the next survivable shot.

[Harden]

Glitch held. The quill struck the plating over his ribs, skidded away, and buried itself behind him where it did not affect the approach. Glitch made his opinion of the impact audible.

The trade worked, and it hurt. During the next two minutes, Glitch accepted four glancing shots to keep worse misses from entering the diagonal. One cut the seam above his left foreleg and drew blood without lodging. Harden remained active longer than Jin liked, consuming stamina every time Flint forced another choice.

By the fourth minute, thirty-one quills stood in the floor.

Dalen had not repeated a firing position. Each time Flint planted, Tremor Sense gave Glitch the weight shift and rough direction, but the advantage ended at release. The quills crossed open air beyond the skill’s reach. Jin had to watch the Jackal’s flank, judge the emerging line, and decide before the projectile covered the distance.

Twice he called a shift too early. Dalen saw the movement, altered the final angle, and planted a quill closer to the diagonal than Jin wanted. Once Jin called hold, then changed his mind. Glitch began to brace, received the correction, and took the shot across the outer edge of his plate while moving. The impact was shallow, but the hesitation cost more balance than either clean choice would have.

Jin did not correct the next command. An imperfect decision executed completely was better than two decisions fighting inside Glitch’s body.

Jin knew where twenty-nine were. A northern corridor remained open from the center, two dead pockets had formed on the west, and Flint owned the eastern edge. Between them ran Jin’s diagonal: eleven meters long, a little under two meters wide, with four quills crowding its far mouth but none across its center.

Dalen noticed during the fifth minute.

Flint stopped targeting Glitch and fired three shots directly into the far end of the diagonal. The quills narrowed its exit until Glitch would have to pass through nearly shoulder to shoulder with the mineral shafts.

He’s seen it.

Jin surrendered more of the northern corridor to preserve what remained. He held Glitch through a shot he should normally have dodged because moving would have driven the miss across the center of the approach.

The quill entered the left hip seam and stayed there. Glitch’s next step landed unevenly.

[Glitch — penetrating wound, left hip seam]

Then Flint came close.

The Jackal broke from its circle, entered four meters, and fired twice at near-point-blank range before Glitch completed a turn. One quill skidded off Harden. The other slipped behind the shoulder plate and remained lodged when Flint escaped east along the barrier.

Jin had expected Dalen to build from safety. The brief entry forced Glitch to spend strength before the approach was ready.

Glitch’s turn pulled at the hip wound, sending a hard pulse through the bond. Eight minutes had passed. He was bleeding from three places, Harden had consumed a large share of his stamina, and the exit from the diagonal was narrowing.

At nine minutes, Flint braced.

The contact reached Glitch through the floor before Jin recognized the posture: all four feet planted, weight lowered, the deep setup Dalen used before a heavy spread.

Jin looked across the arena. The northern route was closed, Flint controlled the eastern edge, and the western pockets ended in spike lines. Only the diagonal remained, with four quills clustered at its far mouth and Flint preparing to put a spread through its length.

Waiting would let Dalen finish the arena.

"Glitch, the cluster. Full Acid Breath."

Glitch poured maximal Acid Breath into the bases of the four embedded quills.

The full-output burst lasted two seconds. A raw scraping sensation entered the bond immediately, separate from the wounds. Corrosion dulled the mineral, pitted the shafts, and softened the poured floor around them until three toppled. A gap roughly a meter and a half wide opened at the far mouth.

Flint released the volley.

"Go."

Jin sent one compressed direction through the bond: the diagonal, the opening, everything Glitch had left.

Glitch committed.

He needed nearly a second to build proper speed. The spread reached him during the first three meters.

[Harden]

Four quills struck. Two skidded from the shoulder plates. A third entered behind the right foreleg, and the fourth drove into the left hip close to the first wound.

Glitch kept moving.

He crossed the lane with two fresh mineral shafts standing out of him and never attempted the turn that would have emptied his momentum.

Dalen reacted at once. His command carried sharply across the arena, and Flint broke east along the barrier. Starting from a deep firing brace cost it the fraction of a second Glitch needed.

The Jackal accelerated quickly. It could not create enough distance before one hundred and forty kilograms reached the far opening at full commitment.

Glitch hit it going forward.

There was no new skill in the collision. He simply arrived with all his mass moving in one direction and struck an animal that weighed perhaps a third of what he did. Flint hit the barrier, rebounded, and tried to recover before Glitch closed the remaining distance.

The Jackal fired once more at point-blank range. Its quill skidded off Glitch’s chest plating. Flint twisted for the narrow gap by the barrier, but Glitch put his weight across its shoulders and pinned it to the floor.

"Stoppage," the adjudicator said. "Astor."

Noise broke across the seating in one startled wave. It lasted until Glitch stood and the nearest spectators saw what was lodged between his plates.

He did not take another step. Four quills protruded from the gaps in his armor: one behind the shoulder, one behind the right foreleg, and two at the left hip. His sides heaved, his throat made a sound Jin disliked, and the bond held pain, effort, and enormous satisfaction in equal measure.

The throat.

Jin was already crossing the floor.

Dalen checked Flint first. The Jackal was winded and bruised but moving cleanly. By the time Dalen straightened, the medical team had entered the arena.

"Flint’s fine," he told Jin. "Nothing broken."

Jin kept one hand on Glitch’s neck while Doyen approached the first quill. "Good."

Dalen looked at the diagonal, then back at Glitch. Whatever else he meant to say could wait. He stepped out of the medics’ path.

Glitch leaned into Jin’s hand without taking his eyes off Flint, still entirely satisfied with the result.