Cameraman Never Dies

The Flux Core pulsed behind him, rhythm steady as a war drum. Ether screamed as it was sucked into the vortex, a river of invisible energy that tugged at his bones and begged his blood to follow.

The air was saturated with the scent of ozone and decay, thick enough to cling to his tongue like wet ash. Every breath he took felt borrowed.

Then it stepped out of the trees.

It was no hallucination. No whisper of madness or trick lights of flux.

The monster was real.

Seven feet tall. Hunched. Its back arched like a drawn bow, and its spine jutted through skin that looked like cracked leather stretched over broken stone.

Its chest bore a jagged, glowing scar shaped like a spiral — not inked, but seared into its flesh as if the zone itself had branded its chosen. The scar pulsed faintly with the same cadence as the Flux Core behind it, glowing like molten metal, throbbing in sync with the flux's hunger.

The glow shimmered like embers beneath skin, a steady beat of fury and command. The flesh around it was puckered and torn, suggesting the brand had been burned deep enough to touch bone. Veins of shadow clustered near the mark, as if the flux had woven itself into the muscle.

Wisps of ether curled around its limbs like tendrils of smoke, drawn inward but never consumed. Black veins ran like wildfire through its arms and neck, throbbing as though its entire body beat with one slow, monstrous heart. Its eyes were voids, flat and depthless, reflecting nothing and devouring light.

Even in this vacuum, some ether lingered, not freely, but caught in unstable eddies near the core, like air pockets around a drowning whirlpool. The flux leaked tiny ripples of energy around itself to lure life in, a bait for the desperate. It was a trap, and Judge had walked right into it.

This monster, Judge knew, could use ether. The core gave it power, and if he was to win, he needed at least a bit of ether.

'Aim for the core on its chest,' He thought as he readied himself.

Judge knelt, hand to the mossy floor, and he shaped the scraps into something barely stable. A whisper of a void, not a full principle yet, but the beginnings of one.

Skin along his face split open, silent cracks forming as ether drained from him.He could draw small amounts of ether from around him, but that meant his body did not have enough to sustain itself.

His left cheek peeled in thin, bloody lines. His vision blurred. His body shook, hollowed by the absence of what it needed to live. Pain spread and lit his nerves like live wires.

But he made the pocket. A space of absence. And for a moment, he drank. A trace of ether surged through him, barely enough to hold together the fraying edges of his consciousness; the cracks stopped, but they never healed. His skin stayed ruined. But he could stand.

Flux monsters weren't born. They were made.

Any creature left too long in the heart of a flux zone risked becoming one. As ether-starved bodies sought to survive, they were remade by desperation and exposure. With no mind left to guide the limbs, instinct became scripture.

They became siphons. Parasites. Their own minds collapsed under the strain, replaced by the will of the core. This one had endured longer than any Judge had seen. Its posture was not wild or desperate, but proud, as if the creature belonged to the zone now. As if it ruled it.

This wasn't a predator. It wasn't a random horror.

This was a Cataclysm-class — a monster that could raze towns to rubble if it ever left the zone.

There was memory in its movements. Echoes of tactics. Perhaps once, it had fought to survive before it lost everything. Maybe its instincts had adapted over decades, refined by the flux and perfected through endless combat. It was no longer mindless. It had adapted, learned to fight with the fury of a beast and the precision of something more.

Judge moved first.

He didn't think. Hesitation was death.

He dashed right. The monster moved left. Anticipating. Predicting. The construct of ether it summoned lashed out like a jagged whip. Judge ducked under it, but the tip caught his cheek and tore a line of fire across his face. Blood hit the moss. He twisted, ignoring the pain, and countered with a slash to its thigh.

A hit. But pointless.

The blade only glanced off. The flesh wasn't flesh. It was like cutting into cooling lava, semi-molten and alive. The creature hissed — not in pain, but irritation. It brought down its fist with impossible speed.

Judge barely raised his arm in time. The force shattered his guard. His shoulder collapsed with a sickening pop, and he was hurled through the air, smashing through a tree trunk that splintered like glass. The wind was knocked from his lungs.

He rolled. Crawled. Got to one knee. Every breath was a fresh agony.

The creature didn't pounce. It walked. Each step cracked roots and left smoldering footprints. Ether coiled from its body like vapor from boiling water. Judge saw faces in the tendrils — memories, maybe. Screams swallowed long ago.

He clutched his sword. Funneled what little ether he could from his earlier-created void into his legs. Moved. Slashed. Fast. Desperate.

The monster caught the blade.

Not with its hand. With another blade — a construct of solid ether, jagged and raw. It parried like a trained duelist. Judge staggered back, shock racing down his spine. This wasn't just strength. It was skill.

It had learned.

He threw himself backward as the ether blade cleaved a boulder in half. He ducked low, jabbed forward — a feint. The monster didn't fall for it. It stepped aside and slammed its knee into his gut. Ribs cracked. He tasted blood.

He went defensive, dodging, weaving — but every movement slowed. His reflexes dulled. His vision blurred.

Then came the roar.

A pulse of ether exploded from the monster, raw and blinding, ripping bark from trees and flattening undergrowth. Judge was flung like a rag doll, his body smashing against stone. His ears rang. Something in his spine gave way. He lay there, breath shallow, barely able to move.

It was coming. He could feel the heat of its presence. Smell the flux boiling off its skin.

Then something desperate in him rose. One last play.