Tristan slowly backed away from the unconscious Fire Kern. The freak of nature had a ludicrous amount of firepower. If he hadn’t exhausted himself in his anger, everyone would be dead now. Tristan had figured out why he was so destructive, and it came to the trait all tier fours had, essence infusion. Normally, it was beneficial to the recipient, however, fire was nothing more than simple combustion.
If that could be infused into someone or something, it would be insanely destructive. Tristan's knee to the face would have resulted in him losing a leg if the man had any essence left. Thankfully he did not, and Tristan got to keep his leg. As he took a step back so did the warrior behind Eve. They circled around, poised to dash back to their respective hostage.
Once they reached the halfway point, they both made a dash for their team members. The warrior knelt beside Fire Kern and took his pulse. A relieved breath told him the man would survive. Eve and Bruce were relatively fine, with some burns here and there, but for people who traded blows with a mobile house fire, they got off pretty lightly.
Eve looked at him with watery eyes, which made Tristan really uncomfortable, he had no good experiences with crying women, “Is everything OK?”
Eve nodded, sniffling a little, “Yeah, thank you.”
Tristan was not sure why she was thanking him, he had failed to get rid of Fire Kern. He did not doubt that the man would be back, and worse, Tristan had felt it when his kern started cracking. If the man managed to break his kern and survive, he would both be stronger and prepared for them.
Bruce tried to stand but collapsed as soon as he put weight on his leg, he groaned, “I don’t know if it's sprained or broken, but I won’t be running. You need to leave me.”
Tristan rolled his eyes, “No you just need to be carried.”
Bruce grimaced, “This is embarrassing.”
Eve left to cut Clive free while Tristan helped Bruce get a piggyback ride. Tristan looked around to see if they had forgotten anything, but what was not burning had a film of ash and debris covering it. He did not notice anything, so he turned his attention to Fire Kern. The man was still out cold, but more importantly, he had a piece of wood sticking through his leg. He would not be able to chase them down any time soon.
Tristan hefted Bruce with a grunt, he was not in the best shape either. He had aches all over from tanking metal spikes, punches, and daggers. His essence reinforcement did not do anything for his skin and did not create a perfect defense. The missing tooth was proof enough of that, he would have to get a replacement. All of these were problems he would deal with later. They started walking from the warehouse and out into the night.
“What will we do about the ghost crabs?” Clive asked.
It was still dark and they would be difficult to see coming, however, Tristan was not particularly worried. Sure they were bleeding, well he was bleeding, everyone else seemed fine, but he had gutted a man and killed another. Fire Kern was still bleeding all over the floor, if the crabs were to be attracted anywhere, it would be to the warehouse. He held no illusions that the crabs would finish off the elite warriors. Bottom-tier mythical beasts were considered a chore not a threat to people like them.
To Clive, he answered, “Remember, Eve is both healthy and in possession of a powerful tier three artifact sword. So long as we don’t get swarmed, she can take care of it.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Clive looked relieved, though it was hard to tell in the dark. Eve on the other hand seemed uncomfortable. She looked at her sword, it was a very deadly weapon, but when she needed to use it, she had been too inept to actually do anything. Both Bruce and her had been taken down by a single man, and he had done more damage to himself than either of them.
“I don’t think I can,” Eve said. She did not want to promise something that she was unable to fulfill.
Tristan simply scoffed, “You’re telling me that you can’t stop a dog sized opponent with one of the greatest weapons in the caldera. My four-year-old sister could do it, so you can too.”
“But when I tried, I failed,” Eve’s voice cracked near the end.
Frowning, Tristan spun to look back at her. Bruce tensed at the sudden motion, but he ignored it. Tristan was not good with people, and even worse with women. He only had experience with adults and not immature ones either. They had acted more as mothers or older sisters than peers.
“What do you mean?” Tristan asked, confused.
“I couldn’t do anything to Regis, then I was used as a hostage,” Eve lowered her head in shame.
Was this woman being serious? Tristan could not understand her train of thought, “Let me get this right, you think that you can’t fight a dog sized crab because you failed to cut a man who is one of the top ten fighters in the caldera, while he was throwing napalm at you?”
“No,” Eve mumbled, her eyes were hurt when she looked up, “You’re making me sound stupid.”
“That’s because what you said is stupid,” Tristan turned from her hurt expression, “If you can’t fight for yourself, you should go back to Kerri, he seemed more than ready to fight for you.
Tristan focused on the road ahead. He did not like saying that, but it was true, he refused to drag a deadweight behind him. If Eve was not willing to push past her insecurities to survive, then she needed to stay out of the way. He told himself that it would be for the better if she left, Eve was not cut out for war.
“That was harsh, you shouldn’t have said that,” Bruce chastised.
“Really, if I need to fight, you get to walk,” Tristan said, “Eve can’t carry you as long as I can.”
It was night and Bruce knew that they could not slow down for him. If he was forced to walk, the group would be forced to leave him behind. He decided that it would be more prudent to keep his mouth shut.
It did not take long for the ghost crab cycle to start back up. First came a few small ones. Tristan and Clive had no issue stomping them into the ground. This invariably drew a slightly larger one that Tristan took care of. Every fifteen minutes or so a larger crab would arrive. Eventually, one that was too large to stomp arrived.
It was a tier two crab and it was missing one of its scythe claws. Tristan only had a moment to identify it before Eve jumped at it. She was pissed and chopped with all her strength. The tier three artifact sliced cleanly through the crab, each side falling away. That should have been enough, but Eve evidently did not think so.
“Stupid,” She hacked at it again, “Stupid,” she swung again, “Don’t mock me!” She gritted out as she beat the crab with her sword.
Tristan pondered whether or not to stop her. Normally he would leave a crazy woman with a sharp object alone, but he got the distinct feeling that Eve was talking about him. Tristan took a moment to set Bruce down, his reinforcement would not stop a tier three blade, so he wanted to be able to move.
“I’m not useless,” Eve chopped again. She was mumbling now, her teeth gritted and blood spattering her sooty face.
“Eve?” Tristan approached slowly, the same way he would an angry dog. An angry dog with a three foot blade that could cut him in half.
She didn’t react. Instead, she had focused on a second crab that was unfortunate enough to arrive. The crab tried to reverse as soon as it cleared the corn stalks and saw what happened to the first crab. Eve had enough reach to kill it.
Before she could derail herself in whatever this bloodlust was, Tristan yelled, “EVE!”
It was probably a foolish thing, to yell in the middle of enemy territory. Thankfully, it got Eve to react. She flinched back and then looked at her hands, covered in crab pieces. She took a few steps back in horror.
Tristan was right behind her and was able to catch her as Eve scrambled back in panic, “This isn’t me, I don’t want this. This isn’t me.” Eve looked up at him, “What is wrong with me?”
Tristan was very confused. Eve had flipped on and off like a gas light and he was getting mental whiplash trying to keep up. He decided that when he got back to the mine, he would ask Grace to explain why Eve was acting so fragile.