The temple ruins reeked of blood and old magic. Korrin ignored the stench and tightened his grip on the rusted dagger. The warlock\u2019s corpse still smoldered behind him, but the stone circle pulsed\u2014its summoning unfinished. <\/p>\n
A growl echoed from the portal\u2019s dark heart. The beast was coming through.<\/p>\n
Korrin had one choice. The emerald amulet at his neck, stolen from the warlock, still thrummed with power. He pressed it to his own chest, feeling fire lick through his veins. The magic burned, twisting muscle, sharpening bone. His vision blurred\u2014then cleared with inhuman clarity.<\/p>\n
The beast emerged, all fangs and scale. Korrin met it head-on, moving faster than he ever had, blade flashing. Claws tore his side, but he drove the dagger home. The creature fell, twitching. <\/p>\n
As Korrin stood over its corpse, his breath ragged, the amulet\u2019s glow did not fade. His skin too still burned. The warlock\u2019s power had not left him. And now, he wasn\u2019t sure it ever would.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The warlock is dead. The magic isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fantasy","category-fiction"],"_wp_attached_file":null,"_wp_attachment_metadata":null,"_thumbnail_id":"1126","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}