I needed to run.

WE needed to run. Whatever Ella had done to make us register as the other guards might be enough to shield our seals, but I had no faith that it would hold up if he turned his focus on us. Right now, his attention was on the other Adventurers, but I didn’t know how long that was going to last.

Despite the shattered barrier, the demihumans were alive, but they were in rough shape. Pey Sidi, the Kitsune, had each of her tails pointing at one of her party members, covering them with a green glow as she put her hand over her heart to start healing her own wounds.

Kire dropped on top of her and kicked her through the hole in the prison, dispelling the healing that was being done.

“Let’s not have any of that.” The killer God blocked a pair of knives that Ashur Bae, the Rhastan, threw at his face with his cape.

Draco swung his hammer and connected with Kire’s side, but the God didn’t even budge. Instead, the golden God chopped his hand down and broke the shaft of the hammer in half. He twisted to slap the Minotaur, but vines began shooting out of the ground to grab his hands. The vines were snapping as soon as they latched on, but they were slowing down his movements.

Jore Tye, the Raijin, started playing a tune on his flute. Electricity began to arc off of his party members as they charged the city’s God. Blaze Woe, the Grim, blinked in front of Kire and slashed his face with her armblades, but it didn’t even look like it scratched him.

“Not the FACE!” Black flames shot out of the ground around Kire, burning away all of the vines. He pointed at Shazi and a bolt of black electricity shot out of his hand, burning a fist sized hole in her armor over her heart and leaving a scorch mark before she fell to the ground.

Without the Caster to annoy him, he turned his focus to Blaze and shot a bolt of black lightning at her with his left hand, while blocking a punch from Draco with his right.

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Blaze was able to blink out of the way of the electricity, which hit the building and knocked another hole in it.

“Don’t make me chase you!” The golden God sighed. “You’ll only die tired!” He pointed his right hand at Draco’s face and released another blast of electricity, except this one missed and blew a five foot wide hole in the prison’s outer wall. “Oops.”

Kire grabbed the Minotaur by the right horn and threw him towards the prison, snapping off the horn as he did. The movement turned Kire’s back to us and given what Sipher had said earlier, I was certain that the God wasn’t going to stop us.

I grabbed Sipher and hauled him up to his feet and started running towards the hole. Gall and Nyssa beat us to it and climbed through to the other side. I looked back while Sipher was climbing through and saw the demihumans shimmer, then vanish.

“I WANT THE DUNGEON GATES LOCKED DOWN! NO ONE COMES OUT WITHOUT MY APPROVAL!” Kire turned to glare at me as I climbed through the hole.

The demihumans had used a return stone. It was a fairly expensive item considering the only way to get one was through boss drops. If the alchemy recipe had been discovered, I hadn’t heard of it. What the return stone did was it would take you to the last floor you had visited of a Dungeon in a city if it was used outside the Dungeon. If it was used inside the Dungeon, then it would take your party to the surface. Floor pushers would carry them so that they could pull out of a boss room if things started going poorly. I wasn’t sure how many of them had survived, but hiding in the Dungeon and hoping to find a Tunnel to another city or town would be a lot safer than continuing the losing fight.

I hurried over to the Chaser and jumped in.

“GO!” Nyssa slapped the top bar of the Chaser that she was hanging onto as she stood in the back watching the prison.

“What happened?” I’d forgotten about Lair’s low voice.

“Later!” Nyssa turned around to look at the prison behind us.

I wasn’t sure which was worse. Kire chasing after us and trying to kill us, or him letting us go in exchange for a piece of whatever Sipher had found.

I almost jumped out of my seat when Nyssa sat in my lap. There were only two seats up front and three seats in the back and six of us. There wasn’t enough space for us all to squeeze together in the backseat, though we needed to find somewhere to change soon. Four guards riding in the back of an unmarked, open Chaser would really stand out. Even though we had Sipher with us and somehow it felt like we’d just lost. I looked over at the bandit. I really hoped it was all worth it.