Nick summoned his arctic clarity to quell his urge to panic, only to discover that it was hard to call on it again so soon. Just a hint of icy lucidity rose to the forefront of his mind, but it was enough to maintain focus amidst the incredibly stressful situation.
Where can I get a good view of what’s going on? He started scanning the tower above his head. There!
Concentrating with everything that he had, he activated force acceleration for half a heartbeat and leapt into the air. He went sailing up a good fifteen feet before hitting the wall, landing almost where he’d been aiming for.
After a hasty scramble for purchase, his fingers wrapped around an imposing statue that reminded him of a feline gargoyle. He grabbed hold tight and then spun around to face the clearing. Knowing that every second was precious, Nick started surveying his surroundings, now able to peer out over the crowd.
To his relief, he didn’t see any of the black fog rolling into the clearing, at least not yet. But an inky tsunami was advancing across the marsh, devouring the world of light as it came.
Judging by its rate of advance, we should have a good ten minutes before it gets here. Taking in the only good news he had found in the grim situation, Nick sighed, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. If the blackmist had overtaken them now, it would have resulted in mass casualties, stripping team Earth of their ability to find a door and enter the tower.
While it was a bright spot in the midst of a black moment, what Nick saw next was almost as bad.
The mystery of the rumbling was solved in that instant. Because emerging from the marsh and heading his way fast, a great and lumbering beast appeared. A massive red reptile covered with a spiked turtle shell. The same flame-breathing monstrosity that Nick and Sophia had barely escaped before arriving at the tower.
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To Nick’s abject horror, the river king had arrived on scene.
The powerful beast had undergone some dramatic changes since Nick had last laid eyes upon it. Most notably, a fifty-foot spear of black wood was protruding from the top of its blood-splattered shell. Cracks and gouges scarred the length and blood was leaking from a dozen different places.
It was clear that the massive predator had run into something even worse than itself out on the marsh. It had narrowly escaped after taking a critical wound, driving the beast mad with pain in the process.
Nick knew that the colossal spear had to be related to the shadow hunt that the System had mentioned. If their advance had already taken them past the river king’s territory, the hunters in the mist were closing fast on Darkstone Tower, likely just behind the great wave of blackmist.
He was certain that the lord of the hunt and its fell host would arrive within a matter of minutes, precipitating a bloodbath and obliterating the forces still outside the tower.
But well before that happened, the river king’s charge would overtake the back of the crowd, and the stricken beast was more than capable of decimating team Earth all by itself.
The closest people had noticed the creature’s arrival. Their panicked screams went up another octave when they realized that not everyone would get away before it plowed into them like a runaway freight train. A few brave souls were firing off spells, trying to slow the turtle-dragon down, although their efforts would buy team Earth a few seconds at most.
Run faster. Nick willed the people fleeing in front of the beast to pick up the pace, knowing there was no way that everyone would make it to safety in time. Even if he wanted to help, he had no chance of fighting through the press of bodies before the slaughter began. Even using force acceleration to get there, Nick would burn through his mana before he crossed a fraction of the distance.
He didn’t like it, but he needed to go stake out a door and hope that his friends found him, before the last portal swung shut, trapping them on what would soon become a killing field.
That was the moment when a woman wearing full plate mail slipped in the mud and fell, horror writ clear upon her face. Before she had time to rise, the river king was there. The warrior scrambled back onto her feet and tried to run, but the powerful creature was far too quick.
She took two panicked steps before its jaws snapped shut around her torso, sheering through her thick steel plate like the skin of an apple. The giant beast stopped long enough to chew and swallow. It spat out a mangled pauldron, then kept right on coming, heading straight for the thickest part of the crowd.