Back to Kai.At the moment, he was bent slightly forward, hands braced against his knees, panting as he stared at the dead beast lying sprawled on the scorched ground before him. Its massive body twitched once… then went completely still, dust slowly settling around it like the world itself was finally catching its breath.Kai sucked in air through his teeth and straightened with effort.“Damn…” he muttered hoarsely.It had taken him far more effort than he wanted to admit. Not minutes. Not a quick burst of brute force. Hours. Actual, painful, brain-melting hours of fighting, dodging, recalculating, punching, retreating, and repeating the whole miserable cycle again and again.He rolled his shoulders, feeling the lingering ache deep inside his bones.This took longer than yesterday, he thought bitterly. At this rate, tomorrow I’ll be fighting a rock and it’ll still take me half a day to win.He glanced at the corpse again, then snorted quietly.“At least you had the decency to die,” h