The mist clung close to them, growing into a thick fog. Levi squinted ahead, struggling to see the next tree. He glanced at Isa. She walked on, confident of the route. Shrugging, he followed her.

Something splashed nearby. He whipped around. Something flickered in the water near them, not a shark fin, but large enough to be one. It vanished before he could get a good look at it. He flicked his fingers and called the Triple Shark to investigate. It swam over, but found nothing but a strange scent on the water.

Another splash. This time on the opposite side of the path from the Triple Shark. Levi glanced over, but as expected, by the time he turned, there was nothing but a faint shadow vanishing into the depths.

“Don’t let them know you’ve noticed,” Isa said quietly. She kept her eyes ahead, not deviating an inch from the path.

“No?” He glanced at her and quirked a brow.

“They’ll retreat and attack later, and we might not catch them later. Better that they ambush us now.”

Levi nodded. “Aye-aye, loud and clear.”

She glanced back at Colin. “Come between us. They like to snatch the weaklings from the back of the party.”

Colin’s eyes widened. He scurried up, passing in front of Isa, while staying behind Levi.

Levi whistled and gestured. The slombie stumbled to a halt, waiting for Isa to pass it, then staggered on once more.

“Good thought,” Isa complimented him.

“I have one, every now and again,” Levi replied.

“A good idea?”

“A thought.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but not without a hint of a grin. They continued along the path. Levi followed the flags, though Isa occasionally corrected him from time to time. The splashes grew louder and more numerous. From the left and the right both, the water grew agitated. Small waves lapped against the deep mud of the path. Occasionally, fins broke the surface of the water, only to vanish again.

“There’s no way they think we don’t know they’re there,” Levi muttered.

“They’re dimwits,” Isa replied.

“Ah. That clarifies everything.”

The splashing grew to a fever pitch. Fins churned the water. It sloshed wildly against the muddy shore, washing over their shoes. Levi drew his swords. Isa clawed her hands. Slender, catlike claws emerged from her fingertips. The Triple Shark stood at the ready. It paced in the deep water, waiting for the signal to wreak carnage.

A chilling shout pierced the air. A slick-skinned frogman with big, wide eyes, a horizontal slit of a mouth, slender limbs, and fins on his forearms and calves burst out of the water. He blocked their path and shot his tongue at Levi.

Levi sliced the slimy appendage out of the air. The frogman staggered backward, gripping his mouth with both big floppy hands. Chasing after him, Levi cut his throat before he could recover.

He turned and snapped his fingers. The Triple Shark bolted in, chewing through the frogmen’s backlines as the frontlines leaped out at the party. Levi charged toward the Triple Shark’s side, catching the frogmen in a pincer attack. The slombie staggered toward the other side, joining Isa in fighting back the frogmen’s encroachment of their narrow solid ground. Colin glanced left and right, watching both fights and positioning himself out of the frogmen’s reaches.

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The frogmen swarmed Levi. He fought them off with all six hands, wielding his swords and throwing punches with the swordless arms, but there were just too many of them. One jumped at him. He cut it down, but the frogman behind it was already closing in. It grabbed his arm. The Armalgam swept its blade down, severing the frogman’s hand. Two more frogmen immediately leaped up to take that frogman’s place, while two more closed in on either side of Levi. They grabbed the Armalgam’s arms and weighed them down. Levi swept his sword at them, cutting one away, but another grabbed onto the Armalgam in the next instant. The remaining frogmen charged him, and he was forced to focus all his attention on fighting off the ones trying to grab his arm. He had no more time to free the Armalgam. From the back of the swarm, a frogman leaped and landed on Levi’s face. It wrapped damp arms around his head and hugged tight, screaming in something like a language.

“Fuck!” Levi threw his sword point-down into the ground and grabbed it with both arms, only for the rest of the frogmen to grab onto him. He went down in a pile of froggy flesh. Teeth gnawed at his flesh, and deceptively sharp claws cleaved deep into his limbs. He fought them off with all his strength, but they were at least as strong as him, if not stronger.

Perfect for the Armalgam, he thought, but the thought fell immediately by the wayside. First, he had to survive this encounter. He could think about upgrading his aberrations later.

In the water, the Triple Shark tore through frogmen at first, but then the frogmen rounded on the shark. Used to hunting the catsharks, they barely paused at the need to fight three at once. They shredded the catshark with claws and teeth, until there was little more than a bloodslick in the water where the Triple Shark had been.

With Levi down, the frogmen advanced toward Colin, claws bared menacingly. Colin backed away one step at a time, refusing to break eye contact. The frogmen stared back, as best he could tell. Their eyes pointed at either wall, and their pupils were long, horizontal bars, so he wasn’t quite sure where they were looking. He kept his staff high, still desperately healing Levi. As long as his mana drained, Levi was still alive, deep in that ball of writhing limbs.

The closest frogman lunged at Colin. Shouting, he jumped backward and swung his staff at it. The wooden construction bounced off its slimy head. It blinked, then reached out again. Unnaturally long limbs unfolded, and long webbed fingers grasped at Colin, seeking to draw him in.

Black and red flashed. The frogman froze, its head gone. For a moment, it stood there, reaching for Colin; in the next, it stumbled. A shadow appeared behind him, and Isa drew Colin close. Her cloak flapped around them protectively. “Don’t you dare lay your unclean hands on him.”

“Isa! Thank you,” Colin said.

“Hmm.” She vanished once more, and the other frogmen approaching him vanished in a blast of gore.

Colin stepped forward, pointing. “I’m fine, now. Levi needs your help.”

She gave the pile of frogmen a derisive look. “Levi can help himself.”

Colin eyed the pile of swarming frogmen uncertainly. “Uh, are you—”

The pile trembled. Green-and-black energy flickered in its depths. From within, something rotated furiously, slicing two extended blades into the frogmen at the ground level. The frogmen flew back, thrown by the force of the spin, to reveal the Armalgam rotating in place at top speed. Levi crouched atop it, clutching onto the monstrosity with both arms, legs tucked under him. The remnants of the death-energy bolt wisped around him, black smoke clinging to his hair.

The Armalgam slowed to a halt. Levi slumped drunkenly off it, falling to all fours, then the floor. He was covered in cuts and gashes. Blood, mud, and swampwater stained every inch of him.

“Levi! Are you okay?” Colin asked, terrified.

He burped loudly, then grimaced. “Ugh. I’m gonna puke.”

The frogmen lunged. Levi’s eyes clarified in a heartbeat. He jumped upright and lunged for the blade he’d stuck in the mud, yanking it free. Still dizzy, he stumbled as the frogman flew at him. Without bothering to recover, he swung his sword, putting all his off-balance weight into it. The blade cleaved through the frogman wholesale. Blood and intestines flew. Levi staggered to its far side. His feet slipped and slid on the mud, and he lurched toward the water.

A frogman leaped out of the water, reaching for his ankles. Levi laughed. He swung the blade down, cutting its hands off. “Don’t try, bud.”

Gold light glimmered his body, and his wounds began to heal. The light wiped away his nausea and his dizziness. He stepped back from the edge, swirling his blade. “Come at me, frogdudes! Give me your arms!”

Dead frogmen rose from the banks, their eyes blank, their claws bared.

Isa sighed. “He’s never going to shut up about the arms, is he.”

Colin shook his head. “I don’t think so, no.”