My skin burned.

Even if it was just a fleeting memory, I remembered my childhood. I knocked over a teapot running around in the kitchen, and its scolding hot contents poured on my clothes, resulting in a similar sensation I felt now.

At that time, my brother jumped to catch the pot without thinking and burned his hands rather seriously. I recall crying a lot, but not because of my injuries. My skin only got a little red thanks to the thick clothing I wore, not even an itch the next day, but Nat's hands needed medical treatment for an entire week. He never complained, but I was extra careful from that point onwards, mostly for his sake, not mine.

The current situation mirrored this perfectly. Ember's red dress or my uniform must have given away our position, but Nati was the first to reveal herself, rushing to protect me from the enemy barrage. Sure, they burned, and if I wasn't wearing this magically enchanted uniform they would have cut clean through this reinforced body, but it was nothing compared to what she got, trying to protect me. Why did this always happen like this?

I do something stupid, and my brother gets punished for it. I felt terrible and launched a counterattack. My target was clear as a day, I pulled out the short sword I got from the dwarven smith and dashed for the beholders. The enemy was well organized though.

One of the beholders blinked, the one with the smaller eyes floating around it, and the minotaurs blocked my way. Another row of monsters was already attacking, and disarming them wasn’t as easy as training with the orcs back in the village.

They were slightly larger, to begin with, and armed with enormous weapons. We only did a little fencing before, most of my training focused on unarmed combat, and how to defend myself against foes larger than me.

These guys were larger, but I was trying to slip through them and attack. When my movements were restricted by the thick undergrowth, dodging their slow and heavy swings was rough, but poking their thick skin with my sword turned out to be even more difficult.

The ogre and the hobs engaged with them as well, but we faced two dozen minotaurs at once, each of us fighting at least three at the same time, not counting the ones that blocked my way towards their floating comrades, or the ones that began to flank us.

The beholders fired one beam after the other, but most missed thanks to the raging chaos. Our magicians couldn't get a clear aim either because the minotaur meat shield closed their path.

Those creeps weren't limited to firing those annoying beams either, they appeared capable of any kind of magic, from barriers to force fields, that also slowed me down, trying to break through towards them.

They deflected Omerta's chain lightning that wiped out the bulls at the roadblock so easily, sucking up all the electricity, as if they just wanted to recharge their batteries. The answer was more beams, deflected by Gitaut's magic. Nati was hit multiple times and visibly struggled with the pain they inflicted on her, but she seemed fine otherwise, just slow to respond.

The moment she cast it, Ember's firewall was blown away by another defensive magic. The situation quickly turned into a draw, except they seriously outnumbered us. The heavy double axe came down on me like a meteor, and even though I held my sword up to deflect it, my arms were almost torn out of their sockets.

The monsters growled, their muscles rippling under their short-furred skin, but I wasn't so easily intimidated. I kicked between their legs, and the axe fell from those massive hands. I stabbed my sword into their torso, but it just got stuck between the insane muscles.

The battle around me was bloody and desperate, and it seemed like the enemy had the advantage in discipline. We only practiced one-on-one combat, and our formation had no clear leader, while the bulls knew exactly how to work together, forming an impenetrable wall even though they used no shields. They utilized their numbers advantage to separate and overwhelm each of our fighters, while their casters blocked most of our back row's magic attacks.

I desperately tried to rip off my sword from my first victim's body before another axe came crashing down on my neck, when Nati finally got herself together and launched one of those air cannons at my fresh opponent. It didn't do as much damage against the beast as the beholder before, but it pushed them away just enough to ensure my safety.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The next attack was lightning, but it got absorbed by the floating eyes. I didn't waste time and finally freed my sword then swung it at the throat of the closest minotaur.

Its blood splattered in every direction, and warm droplets landed on my face too, but the urgency of the situation kept propelling me forward, only to find myself at arm's length from another brute.

The beholders were just behind him, and I thrust my blade at the eyeball closest to me, but it got swept away by the bull between us. His axe caught me by surprise, nearly slicing my torso in half, but the edge wasn't properly aligned, so it acted more like a wide club, throwing me back into the jungle.

It didn't hurt any less of course, and if I were in my real body I probably didn't survive that. I dropped my sword too and noticed a tear on my uniform, but before the next strike could land on me, Nati threw herself in its way, blocking the heavy axe with her staff.

The wood didn't even splinter, and she stood her ground firmly but couldn't move or cast magic in that position. It didn't matter for her when the distinct ping of her crossbow reached my ear, signaling she fired at the enemy at point-blank range. She held it off-hand, making me wonder earlier why she brought that thing when the spells she cast were more than deadly enough. I got my answer now, watching the enormous beast fall on his back, a bolt punching clear through his muscular body.

I jumped to my feet, looking for my sword, and found it just in time to block the next attack. It was aimed at my brother from her blind spot while she fumbled to reload the crossbow. It was out of the question in this melee, so it was my turn to protect her against the monsters.

Still fighting their first opponents, we did better than the rest of our team when I stabbed my sword into the fourth minotaur's neck in a row. Nati fired an air cannon against the beholder formation, disrupting them just enough to cease their relentless firing, but they still enjoyed the cover of their minotaur meat shields.

A rumbling came out of nowhere, overtaking the battlefield, but it couldn't have been Nati, nor the enemy that desperately fired attacks in every direction. After a glance, I noticed Gitaut's lips silently moving though, the orc shaman was definitely up to something.

Stone spikes emerged from the ground below us, stabbing the feet of our horned enemies, but stopped just shy of the floating eyeballs. They avoided our positions too, and crumbled into dust the next moment. This was my chance though, their formation broke up from this attack, and I plunged forward to end the beholder-trio.

My blade finally connected with one of those eyeballs, and it burst open like fireworks, the static charges released as the creature ceased to exist. Some of them even reached me, which was a shocking experience, but not enough to stop my second swing. It was too slow though, these eyes could float faster than I expected, and turn around too.

The beam hit me right on my chest, and the now familiar burning pain knocked me back. Again, the uniform survived, so it was just the heat from the attack, and I didn't want to think about what would have happened if I wore regular clothes instead. Nati counterattacked before I could blink, summoning flames from her staff this time, engulfing the enemy formation. Their magic defenses must have been disrupted, because both the bulls and the eyeballs caught on fire, one bursting seconds later.

The one with the additional eyes was still intact though, and it seemed the strongest in the bunch. Yet, instead of attacking, it quickly floated away from us, the minotaurs closely following. They were in full retreat now but in an orderly one. The hobs and our ogre gave them a chase, even though they bled from multiple injuries, and our magicians could not penetrate their barrier again.

The flames Ember sent after them weren't as effective as my brother's, and Omerta shouted at the top of her lungs in vain.

"Don't let them escape, they can alert even more monsters!" She ordered our borrowed warriors, while Gitaut yelled the opposite.

"Don't chase them, if you advance too far..." He never finished it.

The fire pouring down from the sky engulfed friend and foe and even took out a good chunk of the jungle around them. It wasn't Ember, I knew she could generate some nasty flames, but these incinerated everything in a split second. No smoke, not even ashes remained. And it came from the sky, not from her staff anyway.

Our ogre, the hobs, the beholder, and the twelve or so minotaur they chased simply ceased to exist. It happened faster than I could process it, and once the flames disappeared, it was all eerie quiet around us. A moment ago there was a battle raging on with cries and yells, now dead silence, and nobody moved, except the wind.

An enormous monster generated these winds overhead, larger than the wyverns I had seen in the village, even though it looked somewhat similar. With each flap of its wings a tornado swept over us.

"A dragon!" Omerta yelled, her green skin almost white now, but Gitaut shook his head again, opening his arms wide.

"It's not... It is much worse." He claimed, raising a solid barrier above our heads. A split second later the creature sent another wave of flames directed at us, but the barrier somehow managed to withstand it. Everything outside of it instantly became nothing, and some of the heat still managed to seep through, making all of us sweat.

Omerta raised a second barrier within the first one, and while a bit disoriented, Nati quickly erected a third before the next fire attack landed.

"What the hell is this, if not a dragon?" Omerta asked, struggling.

"The only thing that's stronger than them... A god."