“Circle! Now!” Axel called out. Everyone besides Geron instantly fell into position. Geron stood where he was, scanning for movement. The room shook, and dirt fell from the ceiling and walls. It was as if something was pushing the dirt away…as if something was burrowing out of the dungeon.

A hole appeared. And then two holes.

Charlie lost count as all around them new holes formed, each one varying in size and shape. He remembered Geron’s words earlier. “…run the other way if you ever see them fully grown, Charlie.”

“Geron?” Tirille called out.

“He’s fine. He’s watching the baby. Focus on your positioning. Your feet are too close together. You’ll fall,” Axel said.

Tirille let out a breath and adjusted her stance. Samantha readied a hex. Roan ran the edges of his daggers together, sweat already beading at his brow.

“Orb, should we help?” Charlie asked.

“No! Not unless you have to. We don’t know how they’ll react if they realize you aren’t a normal baby. They might see things the same way the knights do.”

Charlie winced. “Okay.” It reminded him of their run in with Talmot in Troa. He had called Charlie an abomination. Charlie still didn’t even know what that word meant. But he remembered the animosity behind it. He remembered the fearful expression. Would Geron and the others see him the same way? Would they be right too?

The chittering came to a halt. The holes in the wall finished forming. “Hey Geron?” Roan called out before the battle started.

“Hmmm?”

“I just need to know. Can we… eat these things? Or do they taste like shit?”

Geron smiled. “They definitely taste like shit.”

“Guys, what the—” Tirille started.

The chorus started again. But it was different this time. More ominous. “Sha sha sha sha sha sha.”

Charlie looked up.

“Sha sha sha sha sha sha.”

“Sha sha sha sha sha sha.”

Silence.

A single creature made the first move. “Sha!” The six-crow shot out from a hole in the right wall of the room. It aimed directly for Roan, long claws as dark as night outstretched to strike him down.

Roan whistled. He flicked his wrist, and a dagger sailed toward the quick-moving beast. It glanced off the creature’s cheek and veered away. Right into one of the other holes. Roan cursed. It was too late to throw another one. He held an arm out to catch the creature with his bare hand. A gleaming dagger was ready in the opposite hand to stab its target. A moment before the crow’s beak clashed with Roan, the creature was forced to a bloody halt. A large katana penetrated the creature’s torso. It coughed, sputtering a dark liquid from its beak. Its claws scrambled. Desperately trying to free itself from the blade before finally succumbing to death. It sank deeper onto Axel’s blade.

Axel glared at Roan.

Roan sighed. “Yeah, that one is on me. Sorry bout that.” He eyed the hole his first dagger had flown into. “Don’t suppose I’ll be seeing that one again. Was a gift from mum.”

“So sorry to hear that,” Tirille responded with a hint of sarcasm.

“That’s alright, mom is a real bit—”

“Sha sha sha sha sha sha.”

“Get ready!” Axel shouted.

Charlie looked up at Geron. He was unusually quiet. And why wasn’t he in the circle?

An explosion of black erupted as the other six-crows shot into the room. It wasn’t immediately obvious how they moved as quickly as they did. The creatures had only a single wing, and yet, it was like they were flying. They raced with the speed and ferocity of a magic attack. Their screeches, shrieks and shas were disorienting.

Charlie looked from one direction to the other, trying to follow the fighting. Axel cut down one crow after the other. Roan’s daggers flashed left and right. His moves were almost acrobatic. Charlie watched as he stabbed one six-crow as it attempted to skirt past him and attack Axle from behind. Roan rolled forward, grabbing another creature from the air and snapped its neck. All before falling back in line.

Tirille, surprisingly, was still unarmed. Her palms shot out, solitary powerful strikes that brought down the creatures, whether they were attacking her directly or maneuvering in her vicinity. A particularly large six-crow rocketed forward at her, a sharpened beak ready to assault her when it met her palm head on. The impact crushed the creature’s head. Despite her small frame, Tirille was stronger than she looked.

Vicke, who Charlie hadn’t paid much attention to until now, moved quickly. He pulled arrows from a holder on his back and shot them into the swarming birds.

Samantha was a goddess of lightning. Targeted strikes struck at opponents who stood passively on the edges of the battlefield. Charlie wondered why Samantha was targeting them, rather than those that proved a more immediate threat. She chained her hexes, one after another, in such a way that she directed a single, powerful bolt of lightning throughout the room at high speeds to take out several dozen targets at once.

It was awe-inspiring.

Charlie had worried they wouldn’t be able to handle it. But they were doing more than that. The way they fought made it seem like they had faced these exact same circumstances a hundred times before. Like they fought six-crows every day of their lives and this was nothing more than a normal afternoon for them.

“Why isn’t Geron fighting? Why aren’t the creatures attacking us?” Orb asked.

Charlie’s head shot to a tilt. The crows were acting as if they weren’t even here. He looked up at Geron. He watched, studying the moves of his friends. Geron was unmoving. Unblinking. If Charlie didn’t know better, he would think Geron had been secretly turned into a statue.

“Geron?” he tried to say.

“Gah!” Charlie shrieked instead.

Geron looked down, a smile on his face. “It’s okay buddy. Don’t be afraid. You’re safe with me.”

And Charlie believed him. He felt safe. But was it really okay? Was it okay for him to sit back and watch the others fight? Sure, they didn’t seem to be struggling, but—

Well, now they did kind of appear to be struggling. The fight was turning fast. The six-crow swarmed into the room. Axel and the others were having a hard time maneuvering because of the sheer numbers of corpses at their feet. The creatures flew from wall to wall, pressing off and flying back through the room. They didn’t seem affected by the loss of their brethren. They were completely and totally fixated on taking down their prey. Despite their heavy casualties.

“Orb, can we use your sentient ability on them? Would that stop them from attacking?” Charlie asked.

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“I can’t target groups. Just one. And it takes a lot out of me. I’m not sure it would make a difference.”

“I can’t help them or they’ll notice! But if you turn one sentient, maybe that’ll help.”

“How?”

“I dunno!” Charlie pouted. “You never wanna use your ability.”

In place of nonexistent eyes, Orb rolled himself. “Fine. Pick one out.”

Charlie started scanning the flying masses of Six-Crow. One crow pushed another out of the way and unintentionally sent it heading straight for Geron. Charlie’s eyes widened. Geron held out his hand. As soon as the creature made contact with his open palm, it disintegrated into ash.

“What… just happened?” Orb asked.

Charlie shook his head, wide-eyed.

He looked up, and one of the six-crow caught his attention. It was one of the ones waiting along the wall. Samantha had been targeting them with her powerful hexes, but this one somehow was still alive. One of the last few crows still clinging to the walls. It was smaller than the others. It pulled a six-crow that flew past it into the wall and tried to push it back into one of the holes. The other six-crow shrieked, freeing itself and rejoining the fight. The six-crow on the wall cawed after it. Not just after that one, it cawed in general. Like it was trying to get the attention of the other crows. They ignored it.

What exactly was he doing? Charlie wondered. The creature looked around the room. His six eyes looked watery, like it was on the verge of tears.

Or maybe that was just Charlie’s imagination. Still, he found himself fascinated by the creature.

“That one!” Charlie said.

Orb looked at it. “You sure? That one looks kind of weird. He’s small too.”

Charlie nodded. Orb complied.

Sentience!

The creature’s eyes glowed a bright shade of blue. It looked around the room as if it was seeing for the first time. Finally, it fixated its gaze on Charlie, as if noticing him for the first time.

It flew straight at him.

It dodged Roan’s fury swipes, evading even as two other crows went down in the same attack. It sailed over the backs of other crows, narrowing, dodging a lightning bolt that skated past. Geron noticed it and held out his hand again. The creature flew right toward it, but at the last second, dodged much faster than it had shown itself capable of before.

It stared at Charlie, merely an inch from his face. The blue shade in its eyes was already fading, replaced by the more usual black as it studied Charlie. Charlie didn’t dare move.

Geron gasped. “What the—” His hand swung down in a rapid chopping motion, but the creature was gone just as quickly as it had come. Geron wheeled around, watching the creature shoot from the room and down the hallway they’d entered from.

“Samantha! Vicke!” Geron called out, stepping to the side, and motioning down the hallway after the fleeing creature.

Vicke notched an arrow, lined up his shot, and let it fly.

Thew. It shot through the air.

Samantha, not one to be outdone, sent a casual, but powerful bolt of lightning through her emerald hex. It quickly caught up to and then surpassed the arrow. Charlie panicked, and for the second time, heard those words in his head. They were strange and familiar at the same time.

When your enemies flee, let them. There’s enough pain in the world as is.

The six-crow sensed the attack and tried to dodge, but it was too late for it to react. But…not too late for Charlie.

Dungeon Manipulation!

A wall of rock shot up a second before the attacks landed. The lightning and earth met, and a loud explosion filled the dungeon. Debris filled the air.

Axel looked up at the explosion. “Geron! It’s time!” Axel called out.

“Already?” Samantha said through gritted teeth.

Geron didn’t respond verbally.

For the third time, his hand lifted before him.

For the first time, a hex formed.

Geron’s hex.

It felt like the universe spoke through Geron when he chanted.

“Broken Hex Bane.”

Charlie shivered as magic poured into the room. The powerful, ominous hex wasn’t any larger than most. But it radiated true power. Simply being near it felt like the magical equivalent of sun rays touching his skin. The hex was colorless, translucent, except for a black outline that made it just barely visible. The hex cracked. Shattering into a hundred pieces. It was unlike any hex Charlie had seen in this world so far.

It was another level of power. Something he wasn’t even aware was possible until he’d witnessed it at this very moment. Hundreds of tiny, similar hexes replaced it. Each of them formed next to one of the six-crows that still flew around the room. The hexes affixed themselves to the strange bird beast. Despite their maneuvers, and quick flitted flying, the six-crow couldn’t rid themselves of the magical binding.

At once, each of the tiny hexes erupted into pieces, just as the larger one had. At once, each one of the six-crows fell to the dungeon’s floor.

Dead.

Devoid of life.

Empty.

Soulless.

Broken.

Roan fell to his knees. Dozens of scratches marred his body. “Was wondering when you’d use that overpowered trick of yours.”

Samantha brushed stray hair out of her face. Sneaking a concerned glance towards Tirille, who seemed to be holding up well enough. Vicke was sucking in deep breaths of air. Axel stood there with crossed arms. He’d sheathed his blade as soon as he’d called out the order. He’d clearly seen this technique before.

“Whatever you do, Charlie, don’t piss Geron off. Pretty please,” Orb said. Charlie smiled.

Roan noticed. “Well, at least the kid thinks this is funny.”

Tirille scoffed. “Funny? He’s probably traumatized. That baby is going to grow up to be a serial killer or something. This was a terrible idea. And what the hell was that hex Geron? Why didn’t you tell me you could do something like that?” She paused, a thought striking her. “Why didn’t you do it sooner?”

Geron sighed. He held up a finger. “Because it’s a technique that I can only use a single time before needing to recover. It excels in combat situations like this, where numbers aren’t in our favor. But, once I use it, we’ve lost our get out of jail free card.”

Tirille listened intently. She mindlessly pulled at her lip, contemplating his words.

Charlie perked up. “Orb, did you hear that? If we can find that card they lost, we can get Merlin out of jail! This is perfect!”

“Charlie…it’s a metaphor. He doesn’t really have a card like that.”

Charlie blinked. “I know that… obviously. Were you even listening? He doesn’t have it because he lost it.”

Samantha knelt down beside one of the six-crow corpses. “Wait, a moment…” she said. She traced a finger in the space between the corpse’s eyes. Her lips pursed. “This isn’t an adult.”

Roan scoffs. “You know how long Geron’s been hunting hex beast? I think he would know the difference.”

Samantha glared at him. “Geron didn’t study in the capital. I did. Their eyes move slightly during maturation. It’s subtle, but noticeable if you know what to look for. Also, their wings have a set number of feather rows embedded along them. These only have four. If there were five, I could say maybe, but four isn't enough. These aren’t adults. They’re on the way, but not quite.”

“That’s good then, right?” Vicke asked, inspecting the corpse over her shoulder.

Samantha wagged a finger at him. “Now Vicke, as much as you brag about your education, shouldn’t you know this?”

Vicke blushed. “Well, I… History of Hex Beasts wasn’t exactly my strong suit.”

Tirille smirked at him. When Vicke saw her, his nose flared in response.

Axel shot them both a look that made them look away. “So, what are you saying exactly?” he asked.

Samantha stood. “To be honest, I have my concerns. If they aren’t adults, they won’t have traveled from another dungeon or nest. That means they were born here. The dungeon was found and reported almost immediately. We accepted the job a few days later.”

“It’s been about a month since first report. This is really fast in terms of clearing a dungeon, isn’t it?” Tirille asked.

Samantha nodded. “The problem is six-crow take six months to mature fully. But these are over halfway there. If they had survived, and continued growing at this rate, they would have easily grown to be as two or three times bigger than normal adult six-crows. That’s bad.”

“How bad we talking?” Roan asked.

“Bad as in either this place is swarming with excess magical energy, or we aren’t dealing with the caliber of dungeon we were expecting.”

Roan groaned and let his head fall back. “Great. So, this dungeon is more dangerous than what we’re prepared for.” His eyes drifted to Axel.

Axel stood there, arms crossed, facing the path that would lead them deeper into the dungeon.

“What is it?” Roan asked.

“This early, and we’ve already encountered a swarm.” Axel paused. “That means that whatever’s waiting for us at the end of the dungeon is powerful. Very powerful.”