A/N This is the last of the three for the day :)

Ser Loran looked at the loot drop equally puzzled, barked, “Grab it. We have no time to puzzle this out. The rest of the rift will be on us any second.”

Marcus scooped up the saffron-hued orb the size of a marble, stowing it in his belt. Meanwhile, the shrieks and roars of unseen creatures echoed through the forest. Their respite was over.

“Mount up!” Ser Loran commanded. He half-lifted James onto Starfall, ensuring the boy wouldn’t slide off. Elia guided her mare to Joey’s side, while Marcus adjusted his seat on Betsy. Jackson spurred his shadowy horse, vanishing ahead to scout.

The group thundered away from the clearing, hooves tearing at the twisted soil. The wave rift’s gloom pressed around them, and stunted trees whipped past. James gripped Starfall’s saddle horn, leaning heavily against Ser Loran’s back, delirium threatening to drag him under.

They’d barely galloped two minutes before the first wave ambushed them: a pack of bramblesnatches and twisted wolf-beasts, Level 12 or so by the shout of Ser Loran. They sprang from behind uprooted stumps, snarling in an unholy chorus.

“Form up!” Ser Loran hollered. He guided Starfall in a wide arc, brandishing his blade. In the blink of an eye, he decapitated the nearest wolf-thing with a precise slash. “Marcus—cover the flank!”

Marcus roared back, shifting his grip on the sword. With a flash of mana, the blade extended to nearly three meters in length. He swept it in a broad circle, felling two more beasts in a swirl of gore. One tried to scramble up Betsy’s flank, but Marcus hammered it with the sword’s pommel.

Elia flung arcs of wind to destabilize the bramblesnatches, letting Starfall and Betsy crush them under iron hooves. Joey clung to her waist, eyes wide, but no immediate foes reached them. Jackson flickered in and out of shadow, knifing any stragglers. Within seconds, the group broke free of the ambush, leaving a few shredded creatures behind.

James’s head pounded. He felt each jolt of Starfall’s gallop as a spike of agony. His vision doubled momentarily. Even the mild infusion from the potion wasn’t enough to quell the burnout from that massive beam. He vaguely registered Ser Loran’s rumbling encouragement: “Stay awake, boy.”

Somehow, they pressed on, forging deeper into the rift’s labyrinth. That wave was only the beginning.

They managed to find a narrow pathway that wound between twisted stands of trees, though every so often the ground quaked, forcing them to swerve around fresh sinkholes. The wave rift was intensifying. This realm wanted them crushed.

James drifted in and out of focus, aware of hot, stinging pain in his shoulder now that he was no longer hopped up on adrenaline. Elia, riding just behind, offered him occasional sips from a waterskin. He felt a small surge of gratitude—none of them had abandoned him, though he worried he was dead weight.

After a few frantic minutes, Jackson reappeared, guiding them to a shallow gully sheltered by collapsed trunks. “We can regroup here for a second,” he said tersely. “But keep it short. The exit’s further north, beyond a ridge. Maybe seven more minutes. The creatures are zeroing in.”

Marcus slid off Betsy, wincing at a bleeding cut on his thigh. “James, how’s your head?” he asked, voice rough with concern. He fiddled with a small cloth, trying to bind the wound.

“Fuzzy, everything is in and out of focus” James admitted. “I—I can’t channel essence again. Not soon, at least.”

Elia frowned at the trees overhead, as though searching for a hidden threat among the rattling branches. “We might not have a choice,” she murmured. “If something bigger than that pack hits us, we’ll need everything we can muster.”

Joey dismounted, arms shaking slightly from the tension. “James, we’ll protect you,” he said in a quiet vow. “You did enough.”

Before James could respond, Ser Loran lifted a hand, eyes narrowing with a furrowed brow. “Jackson. You’re sure the exit is up that ridge? I see no other path.”

Jackson nodded, though his posture was uneasy. “Yes. But something large is on the move. We should go.”

No one needed further urging. They remounted. Ser Loran turned to James, voice barely above a whisper: “Stay with me. Don’t pass out.”

James only managed a faint nod.

They resumed the gallop. The next wave arrived with guttural snarls: a dozen squat, bipedal creatures sporting rocky hides. Their spines glowed with runic lines, and they hurled sharpened fragments of stone from a distance.

“Level 15, weak swarm creatures” Ser Loran barked. “Elia, can you break their line?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

She grit her teeth. “Yes. Wind or water… let’s see.” Twirling her staff, she coaxed a swirling gust that kicked up dust and debris, forcing the creatures to stumble. Then she conjured a spear of water, lancing one in the chest. It collapsed, stone shards clattering from its claws.

Marcus enlarged his sword again, letting Betsy thunder straight at the cluster. “Hah!” he roared, cleaving two at once, rocky plating shattering under the strike. Another tried to fling a stone at Joey, but Marcus’s extended blade whirled around, slicing its arm clean off. The party pushed through in a hail of stone chips and wind blasts.

Still, a rogue fragment nicked Elia’s shoulder. She hissed, nearly dropping her staff. Ser Loran, in front, parried a thrown shard aimed at James’s head, scattering it in a flurry of sparks. Starfall powered through, hooves scattering the broken stones. The majority of the creatures lay dead or dying behind them.

They rode on. James’s delirium deepened; the constant jostling made him nauseous, and the swirl of raw essence still churned in his channels. His limbs felt too heavy. Now and then, the world blurred. He clung to Ser Loran’s waist, forcing his eyes to stay open.

“Down!” Jackson suddenly hissed, reappearing to slash a vine overhead. Massive reptilian forms skulked among thick roots—a group of scaly-limbed lizards sporting glowing ridges along their spines. "Level 15's!" He shouted

No chance to circumvent them. The lizards lunged with spitting roars. One tackled Betsy’s flank, nearly toppling Marcus. The swordsman roared in pain as talons raked across his forearm. Another lizard angled for Elia’s mare, jaws snapping. Elia whipped up a swirl of water around her staff, slamming it into the creature’s face. It reeled back, hissing.

“Hold on!” Ser Loran bellowed, dismounting mid-motion to engage two lizards at once. His sword flared, each slash executed with uncanny dexterity. James, barely coherent, caught a glimpse of Loran pivoting on one foot with a grace that seemed almost like a dance. The knight’s blade soared in precise arcs, severing scaly limbs and drawing blood in neat lines as though painting the battlefield red. The lizards hissed and snapped, but Loran’s footwork was mesmerizing, reminiscent of a calligrapher’s sweeping brushstrokes.

A memory surfaced: Loran had once mentioned his “talent” was painting. It had seemed incongruous for a grizzled knight. Yet here, each stroke of his blade was an elegant flourish, each pivot an artful pivot. The battlefield was his canvas, and he was the artist. Within seconds, two lizards lay thrashing, missing limbs or heads.

Jackson took advantage, darting in to finish the stunned creatures with vicious dagger thrusts. Meanwhile, a third lizard pinned Marcus’s sword, its maw lunging dangerously close. But Marcus growled, pushing essence into his skill—his blade grew again, jerking free and smashing the lizard’s snout. The monster recoiled, giving Marcus the chance to behead it in one savage swing.

Winded, the party forced themselves forward. Elia’s mount stumbled as she guided it around a half-fallen trunk. Joey, clinging on, gave a strangled gasp. At last, they broke free, the dead lizards left behind in gruesome heaps. Jackson vanished to scout again, returning quickly with a grim nod. “That ridge is just beyond that ravine. Hurry.”

They galloped, stumbling over the uneven ground. The wave rift’s distortions grew more pronounced. In the canopy overhead, twisting vines glowed an eerie green in the eternal twilight. The forest moaned with each quake, as if the realm itself were fracturing.

By now, James was slumped fully against Ser Loran, head throbbing. He’d used every scrap of {Strategic Tranquility} to keep from blacking out. His body was slick with sweat, and his chest felt too tight to draw deep breaths. “S… sorry,” he mumbled, half delirious. “I can’t… fight again.”

Ser Loran’s voice, though tense, carried an undercurrent of gentleness. “You’ve done enough. Just hold on.”

Hoofbeats hammered the earth. The group emerged from behind a cluster of half-toppled pines and found themselves at the base of a ridge. The slope rose sharply, covered in brambles. James squinted, seeing faint flickers of what might be a swirling portal at the top. Hope fluttered in his chest—maybe they were nearly free.

But then, a new roar split the air, deep and resonant. Larger shapes stomped into view at the ridge’s lower edge: hulking, two-legged beasts with heavily muscled arms and thick horns cresting their heads. Their eyes glowed with savage cunning. Six of them, possibly more behind the gloom. They brandished jagged clubs of bone or twisted root.

“Minotaurs?” Elia breathed, color draining from her face. “Or some corrupted variant.”

Marcus coughed, struggling to catch his breath. “We can’t… can’t handle them head-on. They're level 21.”

A hush of dread settled over the party. Jackson emerged from the shadows, face grim with darting eyes. “We have no choice. The exit’s up there. If we linger, the rest of the wave converges from behind.”

Ser Loran drew a long breath, the caked blood on his armor a testament to the gauntlet they’d run. “Then we break through. Marcus, Elia—do what you can. Jackson, try to sneak around and get a {backstab} off.”

They advanced, forging up the slope. The monstrous minotaur-beasts roared a challenge. Ser Loran and Marcus took the front, Jackson flitted around to flank, and Elia clutched her staff, eyes narrowed. She summoned a swirl of water around her wrist, shaping it into a thin, high-pressure jet. With a sharp thrust, she sliced across one beast’s forearm, forcing it to drop its club. Marcus lunged, sword extended, and tore open its chest.

A second minotaur hammered the ground with its club, sending shockwaves that nearly toppled Starfall. Ser Loran leapt from the saddle, meeting the creature’s monstrous blow with a precise parry. The force visibly reverberated up his arms, but Loran twisted, footwork painting arcs in the trampled earth. His sword flashed, cutting tendons in the beast’s leg on the downswing. It toppled with a furious cry, and Loran finished it with a thrust to the throat. Blood sprayed his gauntlet, but he pressed on.

Jackson knifed a third from behind, though it cost him a glancing blow to the ribs. He winced, staggering, but stayed silent. Meanwhile, Elia conjured a small flame at her palm—her budding fire affinity—and using the magma core in the (Baeardic Containment Device) she super heated the small flame into a inferno. She slammed it into another minotaur’s chest staggering it as it roared in pain, then Marcus’s elongated sword cleaved it from shoulder to hip in a gruesome arc. The air reeked of blood and scorched fur.

When the last monstrous minotaur crashed, the party gasped for breath. James, delirious, wasn’t sure how they’d survived. The slope above beckoned behind them, the forest roiled with more howls. Time was nearly up.