The aftermath of battle left crystalline blood formations glinting like cursed rubies across the clearing. Griffin adjusted his fractured diagnostic lenses, their augmented reality overlay flickering as he studied Kael's mana signature - a pulsating golden helix that defied all known magical taxonomies.
"Arcane lineage," the scholar-mage muttered, watching spectral equations dissolve against Kael's corrupted biometric readings. "Or worse."
Finn's vibro-blade hummed through the dawn mist as he harvested emerald cores from the Howlers' cranial cavities. "Two for the prodigy," he announced, tossing polyhedron crystals that left ionized trails through humid air. Kael caught them absently, the cores' fractal patterns briefly resonating with his Starweave Robe's defensive matrices.
Breakfast became an awkward ritual. Griffin nibbled nutrient tablets from his survival kit while Finn devoured protein bricks with mechanical efficiency. Kael grimaced at the military-grade ration bar's chalky texture, its "cheese" flavoring triggering sense-memory warnings from his neural implants.
"Sabertooth's den lies beyond the quartz monoliths," Griffin stated, gesturing toward distant crystalline spires piercing the canopy. His data-glove projected a holographic map riddled with blinking threat markers. "Estimated engagement window: 43 minutes."
Finn's combat armor sealed with hydraulic hisses. "Time to earn our fee."
The trek through Woma's heart unveiled the forest's true nature - bioluminescent lichen pulsed in time with unseen leylines, while metallic growths on ancient oaks rearranged themselves into cryptic geometric patterns as they passed. Kael's staff illuminated strange glyphs etched into basalt formations, their angular scripts matching the Codex Aeternum's forbidden pages.
"Stay clear of the resonance zones," Griffin warned, pointing to areas where air shimmered with temporal distortion. "Last survey team reported chronal displacement events near..."
A thunderous roar shook the forest, its subsonic frequencies triggering involuntary panic responses. Ancient defense protocols flooded Kael's bloodstream with adrenaline analogs as the Codex's pages began glowing crimson.
Finn activated his blade's containment protocols, golden combat aura forming phoenix-wing pauldrons. "Showtime."
The Sabertooth emerged through a curtain of quantum mist - a six-ton amalgam of organic brutality and arcane augmentation. Obsidian-reinforced fangs crackled with contained plasma, while its segmented tail housed what appeared to be relic-tech missile pods.
Griffin's diagnostics shattered completely. "That's no Tier V specimen! The academy's records never..."
Kael's neural interface flared with tactical overlays as the Codex overwrote reality's parameters. Ancient battle hymns whispered through his bones, their lyrics etching fire-runes across his retinas.
The quartz monoliths parted to reveal a geothermal anomaly - a cavernous maw where stalactites dripped molten silica like crystallized tears. Griffin's data-glove pinged urgently as they crossed the threshold, its holographic display flashing warnings about ambient temperatures reaching 62°C.
"Atmospheric refraction patterns match Sabertooth spoor residuals," the scholar-mage confirmed, sweat already darkening his thermal-regulation robes. The cavern walls pulsed with arcano-thermal veins resembling superconducting circuits, their crimson glow intensifying with each step deeper into the earth.
Kael's Starweave Robe activated cooling runes as the trio progressed. Strange harmonic vibrations resonated through their bones - not mere tremors, but something predatory purring through the bedrock.
The cacophony hit them first.
Plasma detonations echoed through obsidian corridors, accompanied by the shriek of monomolecular claws against reinforced steel. Finn's combat sensors identified seventeen distinct energy signatures before they rounded the final bend.
Reality fractured.
In the cavern's heart, a cyber-augmented Sabertooth roared with enough force to liquefy nearby quartz formations. Its opponent defied all tactical projections - a lithe warrior-girl wielding twin photon katanas that left afterimages burning in retinas. Her armor shimmered with adaptive camouflage, its surface momentarily replicating the Sabertooth's own obsidian plating during an evasive roll.
"Contract poachers!" Finn snarled, his blade's containment field spitting angry sparks. The warrior's combat style matched black-market enhancement modules he'd seen in underground arenas - illegal neural boosters granting microsecond reaction times.
Griffin's fractured lenses finally gave out. "That's no ordinary mercenary! Her energy signature..."
Kael's Codex burned against his chest as spacetime distorted. The warrior-girl's blade passed through the Sabertooth's phased-reality torso in a shower of chronal particles. For three impossible seconds, predator and prey existed across multiple temporal planes, their battle unfolding simultaneously in past, present, and future.
Finn's combat computer bluescreened. "What fresh hell is this?!"
The Sabertooth's relic-tech missile pods detonated in recursive time-loops, each explosion birthing smaller replicas that swarmed like techno-organic wasps. The warrior-girl's adaptive armor shifted to pure neutronium density, her blades carving relativistic paradoxes through the onslaught.
Griffin collapsed against a pulsating wall, hands clutching his temporal stabilizer implant. "We're witnessing a causality breach! That weaponry shouldn't exist until..."
Kael's neural interface overloaded with combat protocols older than civilization. The Codex's pages turned autonomously, their glyphs rewriting local physics into a battle hymn from the Godswar Era. Unbidden, his staff channeled primordial energies that made reality itself whimper.
As spacetime stabilization protocols engaged, the temporal storm coalesced into a single frozen moment - warrior-girl's blade hovering millimeters from the Sabertooth's primary core, both combatants locked in quantum superposition.
Finn spat blood from bitten lips. "Well kid? Your magic mojo got a fix for this?"
The Codex answered in flames that burned without heat.