The streets of Coren were filled with the sound of screaming.

Alva sprinted as fast as she could down the main road, one of many trying to avoid the flood of monsters that had emerged from the cathedral. Young or old, man or woman -- in a crush like this, it didn't matter who you were. You were just another body, operating on survival instincts alone.

Someone behind Alva fell, their screams quickly fading away. They'd been caught -- she couldn't bear to look back. The last time she'd done that, she'd seen a creature with a long, prehensile tongue suck a man's blood out through his ear. That image would live in her nightmares forever.

If she lived long enough to have any more nightmares.

Her body was locked into a state of utter panic -- jaws clenched so tight it felt as if her teeth would shatter, all running form forgotten as she flailed down the street, her eyes so wide and bulging she could feel the cold against the insides of their sockets. Her body knew it was about to die, and wanted to get all the living out of the way while it still could.

How many more seconds until she was killed? A giddy, hysterical laugh lashed out of her throat, swallowed by the wind. Two seconds? Three?! Would she die straight away, or would they eat her luxuriously?! Would she see?! Would she see?!

She swerved around the corner -- and hesitated, for just a moment, when she saw what was approaching from the opposite end of the street.

A line of men and women, their faces grim, bodies concealed beneath cloaks of leaf and branch.

Alva had never left the city of Coren, but she knew the garb of the Grinhe when she saw it. They'd certainly served as the boogeymen in enough fairy tales. Had they done this, then? Had they unleashed these monsters?

She heard a wet growl from behind.

The moment of thought passed. She'd delayed too long. They were upon her.

Alva whirled around, screaming incoherently as her killer leapt, the beast that would eat her looking like a twisted, inverted hound. Drool splattered from its thrashing tongue as it opened its creaking, sideways jaws. Soon, very soon, those jaws would close again like a vice around her skull --

-- but an expertly placed arrow, thudding right into the eye of the beast, slew it in one hit. The animal dropped to the ground before Alva's feet, looking now more like a sad piece of meat than a fearsome monster.

She gaped at it, then at the Grinhe. The one who had saved her -- a young woman with leaf-green hair and hard eyes -- lowered her handheld crossbow.

There was a man in the center of this group, obviously the leader, a small old fellow -- the gap between his wide hat and cloak providing only the view of a single vigilant eye. None of the others spoke as he stepped forward.

He strolled past Alva -- earning a wince from her -- and tapped the dead dog-thing with his foot, turning it over to get another look. His eye narrowed before he turned back to his comrades.

"These are monsters," he said. "They are eating people. They are to be slain. That is all there is."

Without even a moment's hesitation, weapons were pulled from countless scabbards and sheaths.

Apparently, it was as simple as that.

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Lily panted, her breath tinged with static, as she stared down at Garth's battered form. She'd really done a number on him. His robes were shredded and charged by the lightning that had ripped through them, and his face and chest were heavy with healthily growing bruises. If the Prester hadn't had Aether, he would have doubtless died long ago.

She tried to stagger backwards -- only to be surprised as the speed of the motion almost sent her smashing into the back wall of the room. Her body was capable of more than it was used to. She could feel it -- the strength gained by absorbing Raiju -- coursing through her body, increasing in fervour every second.

Would it stop at some point, or would this just continue until her body was ripped apart? She had no influence on it. All she could do was wait and see.

"Lily," gasped Ted. "You okay?"

Her gaze drifted over to her companion, slumped over in the doorframe. He had a healing glyph on himself, too, so he wouldn't die -- but even so, he seemed curiously far away. She could see his bioelectricity dancing through his body like the wild tendrils of a jellyfish.

"I'm fine," she mumbled, looking down at the glyph that hovered over her own chest. Even more than Raiju, this had been what saved her -- it had given her the tiny bit of strength she'd needed to reach out and become something more.

The sounds of screaming still echoed from outside, matched by the roaring and snarling of inhuman mouths. She looked to Ted.

"You're hurt," she said. Even her own voice seemed far away now, unfamiliar, but her concern was clear.

Ted nodded, wincing as the handles of the knives in his back brushed against the wall. "It'll take something more than that to kill me," he chuckled. "I'm a big boy."

"Do you need fresh air?" Even with the worry Lily felt in her heart, her voice seemed curiously monotone. When she'd incorporated Raiju into herself, had she tempered her own affect somewhat?

She didn't know, and there was no way of finding out. There was nobody to ask -- she was willing to bet this process was unprecedented. If there was anyone who could have explained, it would have been Prester Garth, but he was in no situation to talk, what with the smoke pouring out of his mouth like a chimney.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Wouldn't hurt…" Ted replied.

Her brow furrowed. He'd taken so long to respond -- or was she just thinking faster than before? Had her brain adjusted to match her lightning speed? Idly, she reached down to the ground and tore free a chunk of the stone floor between two sparking fingers.

Then, she dropped it. Gravity claimed it quickly, and the rock fell at normal speed. Had she been imagining it?

"Lily?" Ted called out. Now his voice was tinged with concern. "Are you alright?"

Oh, right. Fresh air.

Lily turned around and opened the wall with a bolt of lightning from her palm. The barrier exploded outwards, raining stone and glass on the roof below and exposing the room to the welcome sunlight.

It was raining outside, but that would only make it cooler. Lily smiled as she stepped out into the rain, feeling tiny static jolts where the water dripped against her body.

"It's nice and cool out here," she called back, enjoying the sparks dancing in her palm.

Ted only gaped at the massive hole in the wall. If anything, he seemed only to grow more pale. "I'm… I'm fine back here, I should think."

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Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Dragan kept his distance from the invisible thing as he did his best to think his way out of this. He couldn't see the enemy exactly, but the slight warping of the rain around it was enough to keep him aware of its general location and shape. From that, he could work out a couple of facts:

* The enemy was humanoid -- two arms, two legs, and a head. It was huge, at least fifteen feet tall, and extremely strong.

* Despite that, it preferred to move as a quadruped -- during this entire encounter, it had remained low to the ground, presumably on all fours.

* In some areas, the invisibility effect seemed imperfect -- the refracted light almost folding in on itself. That by itself was nearly imperceptible, but it suggested that the source of the beast's invisibility was the skin. In spots where the skin wasn't smooth and clear, the disguise was imperfect.

"Ruth!" he called out, looking up at the Pugnant girl. "Go for the skin -- if you can tear it, we should be able to get through the invisibility!"

Ruth had jumped up to the next level of the roof, getting an overhead view of their enemy while they tried to come up with a plan. She nodded grimly at that plan, bearing her Skeletal claws and leaping right for the beast with a flare of crimson Aether.

Serena attacked from the other side, dragging twin stone broadswords behind her as she danced through the rain. The enemy swung an angry arm at her, but she simply fell to her knees and slid under the limb, slashing voraciously upwards with her weapons as she travelled.

The beast howled in pain -- and in that moment, Ruth landed on its back, driving her claws deep into the base of its spine. Before it could retaliate, she kicked off again, landing on the wall of the cathedral and fixing herself in place with her claws. As the enemy turned its head to glare in her direction, winding up for a bite, Dragan hit it in the jaw with twin Gemini Shotguns, earning another howl of pain.

Ruth's instincts were right, needless to say. A hit and run battle would be best against an enemy like this. If the enemy had blood, then it could bleed out.

As Dragan had suspected, where Serena and Ruth had cut into the creature's body, gaps in the invisibility were visible, exposing dark red meat and blood. It was as if they'd wounded the air itself.

He grinned to himself. They could do this -- they could win!

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"It seems to me," Enden Los said, his body embedded in the stone wall. "That you are a little bit unhappy."

The tomb had been reduced to a ruin, chunks of stone sarcophagus and former Presters scattered throughout the room. Numerous dents littered the walls, ceiling and floor, and there was barely an inch of the chamber that hadn't tasted the point of one of Los' throwing knives.

This man -- Nael Manron -- was strong. Whenever Los escaped from his grip by becoming Aether, he was simply caught by the strings again a second later. He wasn't so strong that Los was afraid of losing to him, but this was becoming a truly lamentable waste of time.

"Where is Garth?" Manron said, strings squeezing tighter to constrict Los' body. His eyes were dull and dead as ever -- he wouldn't respond to any mockery or banter. His body, like Los', was covered in wounds, but there was no indication that either of them was close to going down.

Enden Los could not waste any more time. He'd heard the strike of lightning once more just a few seconds ago, a sure sign that the shitstain Lily Aubrisher was using the blessed body of a Gene Noble like it was some common pistol.

He had to find her and retrieve his lost light, before Aubrisher could disgrace it any further.

"I have a proposition for you," Los said carefully. In return, the strings only tightened further, cutting viciously into his skin.

"Where is Garth?" Nael's tone of voice remained unchanged, like he was playing a recording on repeat.

"I don't know," Los said truthfully. "He isn't responding to my calls. But let's be honest… you don't really care about the Prester, do you?"

Nael's grip tightened on his shamisen. "Looks like I need to beat you some more."

"I can see it in your eyes," Los said hurriedly. "Your heart isn't truly set on this, is it? You're flailing for a purpose, like a drowning man at sea. Garth is simply the most convenient target -- but what if I could offer you something better?"

Nael hesitated. "Like what?"

"Escape," Los breathed. "You wish to be somewhere else than here, don't you? You desire distance from your pain. I can offer a grand, great escape. An escape from this very planet itself."

He grinned wickedly.

"And all you must do is let me go."

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At last, the wounds were having an overall effect.

Dragan watched as the invisibility of their enemy began to flicker away, revealing the true form beneath. It wasn't a pretty sight.

The skin remained translucent, such that all that was visible were the creature's oil-black skeleton and the network of red veins and muscles that ran throughout its body. Crimson eyes glowed eerily from deep within the sockets, and the movements of the creature were jerking and sporadic -- as though the creature were a puppet being operated by an amateur.

"It's on the ropes!" Dragan cried to his friends as they rushed around it, cutting at the exposed flesh. "Don't let up!" He himself fired off another volley of Gemini Shotguns, aimed right for the eyes.

As the attack hit, the beast reared back -- and then it's jaw snapped open, like a snake getting ready to eat a massive chunk of food. Dragan hesitated. Something was wrong -- this wasn't like the other times it had roared in pain.

The massive black skeleton took a deep breath, and

screamed