Donny slunk forward, licking his lips. Some part of him felt a little thrill at what he was about to do.

It was to be expected. While he didn’t want to like watching the lifeblood drain out of a person, some part of him enjoyed it.

Something stepped out of the cloud of lingering aspect energy. Defying all reason, the beast of a woman stepped towards him, lazily dragging a heavy ball and chain. While some parts of her revealing armor were smoking, she seemed relatively unharmed.

He didn’t know how it was possible. How could anyone be that strong to resist so many concentrated aspect skills from a bunch of Coppers?

Her attention slid to the departing Archers. Not bothering to face them, she snapped out an arm covered in rime frost.

Aspect Skill: [Fenrir’s Frozen Chains]

Thick, icy chains launched into the Archers with blurring speed. The chains caught most of the Archers by the neck, and a couple by the torso.

The viking yanked and hauled them across the cave nearly ten yards, dropping them to her boots. “Surrender, or—”

The Archers didn’t wait to let her finish. Struggling against the chains that spread slowing frost over their bodies, they tried to fire off more aspect skills at close range.

The clouded debris of so many aspect skills going off hid what happened from Donny’s vision. When it cleared, the Archers were crumpled, motionless on the ground.

Runes streamed from their bodies, flowing into the viking.

She looked disappointed, as if she didn’t expect it to be so easy, then she grew very bored. “Is that it? You’ve spent nearly two months at this and this is all you have to show?” She dismissed the claw weapons. “I crave a challenge, and you aren’t it!”

Fear seized his heart as she flashed a fanged grin. No one looked like that. No one but the Dreadwolf.

Of course, the Emerald-eyed Demoness would shack up with the Dreadwolf. Who else could stomach each other’s company?

They likely did all sorts of depraved things with each other. Sacrificing their victims to dark gods was the least of their crimes.

“Rather than continuing with those nasty thoughts,” the Dreadwolf said as she shoved him into the wall, then pinned him with a single hand. His boots dangled in the air. “You’re going to tell me what you used to find us. And the names of all your allies.”

“Or what? You’ll kill me, anyway.”

“You stupid, stupid man. There are so many things worse than death. And I would know, because I can bring you back from the dead.”

“Impossible! You’re not a necromancer! I’ve seen–”

“Oh, I’m so much worse. I’m the Valkyrie in Red.” Silver energy fumed in her wicked eyes. “Don’t you know? Your soul will be mine to do whatever I please. My commands shall be binding law. For eternity.”

It could be all a lie. But did that matter when nothing was impossible in this new reality?

If he was wrong, then the risk was everything.

The mounting fear overtook him. It didn’t take long for Donny to tell the Dreadwolf his every secret until something sparked her anger and she accidentally pressed a little too hard.

Darkness engulfed his whole world.

Donny went somewhere else. A place painted in monotone shadows, enveloped in echoing susurrous whispers.

Gone was the fear. In fact, all emotion was a distant memory.

I’m dead, he realized with certainty. For some reason, it didn’t bother him much. He was beyond the fear, the pain, the anger. All that remained was a strange sort of peace.

He waited to be claimed by the nightmarish Valkyrie in Red.

Instead, someone else appeared through a doorway. An impassive raven-haired woman in black armor.

She regarded him, held up a clipboard, and said, “Donny? Party of fifteen? Right this way. Oh, let me take care of that for you.”

The Reaper raised her glittering scythe of starlight and severed Donny’s soul from his corporeal vessel.

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“Hold!” Allen shouted as the destruction blossomed out from where the Mage’s body would have been if it wasn’t a smoking crater. “I think we got him!”

As the smoke drifted away, the Mage walked out of the crater, lightly dusting his opulent jacket. “I must say, I was very curious how much I could deflect as a High Copper, and I am very impressed.”

Golden eyes swept across the tired Mages. He caught one raising her wand and wagged his tanned finger at her. “Tut-tut. Let’s not have that.”

He stabbed his wand out and the air ripped as if somebody had just unzipped reality itself. Wriggling appendages, glittering like obsidian, twisted out of the dark rent in space and flailed at Jennifer.

Allen turned and raised his bow to fire, but his fingers suddenly went numb at the horror before him. His mind told him that they were fleshy appendages, tentacles. They should have battered her around, not…not turn her into a bloody mist .

Aspect Skill: [Black Grimoire: Hastur’s Embrace]

Another Mage, Isaac, managed to get a roaring torrent of wind off while the enemy was distracted.

The enemy turned, twisted, and swiped his wand up right as the spell should have shredded him alive. Instead, the scything winds ricocheted off a hemisphere of light that appeared in front of him.

Aspect Skill: [Bastet’s Aegis]

What is that!?

The evil Mage reached out and summoned a black spellbook from the air. Its pages fluttered and the ground behind Allen shook uncontrollably. He heard screaming, and a decidedly wet sound accompanying the shattering of stone and tree alike.

Aspect Skill: [Black Grimoire: Shatter]

Terrified, but undaunted, Allen took aim and released an arrow. He didn’t have the concentration to use an aspect skill with it, but it wouldn’t have mattered in any case.

The Mage flicked his wand and deflected that missile as well.

“Damn, this is way too fun!” the vile Mage laughed.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

An explosion from the cave drew every eye. The layered screams of terror froze Allen to the spot. What was making those horrible sounds? There was no way that Donny’s group was taken out.

Before Allen could piece together what was happening, the Mage was weaving his wand again. “Don’t let him finish that spell!” Allen shouted.

He put action to his words, filling the air between him and the Mage with arrows.

Aspect Skill: [Rain of Death]

It was a simple aspect skill, but effective. Allen kept up the barrage, shouting encouragement to his allies. He had to overwhelm the Mage’s defenses to keep him occupied long enough for his magic users to counter him.

Arrow after arrow met a flashing hemisphere of deflecting magic as the Mage slowly walked toward him, his wand swooping back and forth like he was conducting an opera. Why wasn’t anybody killing him? Where was his support?!

Allen’s muscle memory allowed him to continue firing, but his stamina was draining fast. He glanced around, and only then did the true horror of his enemy set in.

He was alone. Everybody else was dead.

There was a perfect circle of destruction behind him. The Mage must have positioned the spell perfectly to avoid him being hit by it. Trees as hard as stone, were strewn about the battlefield alongside broken bodies and shattered boulders.

Allen dropped his bow with just enough stamina left for another skill. He summoned his [Hunter’s Knife] and rushed the Mage. Using his superior speed, he feinted, then thrust the knife into the Mage’s eye.

With a deft twist of the Mage’s hand, Allen found himself sailing over the man’s head. His arm snapped painfully as it was wrenched around in the socket. Allen’s body followed suit, twisting around until he came to a sudden and jarring rest against the ground on his back.

His mind reeled as he tried to follow what had just happened. A glint of steel in the starlight dragged his thoughts back to the present.

The last thing he saw was his own knife falling through the air toward his eye.

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Timothy watched in open-mouth awe as Mel spun her strange, bladed weapon, deflecting the first arrow to the side. She didn’t bother to deflect Timothy’s skill.

His streak of light got within a few inches of her before she suddenly blurred. She moved so fast that his eyes couldn’t track what she had done. His brain struggled to piece the two scenes together.

She had been standing right there , deftly blocking an arrow, but still vulnerable to the rest.

Then she just disappeared, and the two Brawlers were clutching mortal wounds from friendly fire. Attacks that had been aimed at the Demoness until she vanished.

Even with the flames illuminating and outlining her form, he couldn’t keep track of her. What did it matter that she was visible when she moved so fast that she was little more than a streak of color?

“On the left!”

“No, the right!”

“She’s above us!”

“Stop her!”

A gurgling scream to his right turned Timothy around. He let loose an area-of-effect attack, burning his own dying ally in an attempt to catch Mel mid-stride. Which was fine in Timothy’s eyes. Not that he was a cold bastard, but because he knew that Kate had her [Fire Monk Mask] on.

The flames would hardly hurt her.

The ground erupted in a tornado of flames that scorched what was left of the burning forest and consumed the dying Archer.

Aspect Skill: [Inferno]

He watched in horror as her maskless mouth was stretched wide in terror as the flames took her.

Timothy turned around, raised his staff, and was struck so hard that he blacked out for a moment. He slammed into a tree, jolting him back to consciousness just as a hand darted out and pinned him by the neck to the tree.

“I’ll ask this just once,” Mel said. Her eyes glinted green, just like the stories said! “Why are you disturbing my peace?”

“Y–you killed families and friends!” Timothy choked out. “You can’t just walk free from that. You don’t get to wash your hands of all the blood!”

To his surprise, Mel slowly lowered him to the ground. Now that he was standing in front of her, he realized how small she really was. He practically towered over her, and yet he felt small in front of her. Like a mouse staring up at a cat contemplating his demise.

She looked like she was struggling with something.

This is my chance, Timothy thought to himself. He wasn’t going to beg for his life. Neither would he let her toy with him.

Timothy reached into his inventory as Mel’s gaze fell upon him again. He pulled out a [Greater Explosive Flask] and flooded his mana into it just as she said, “Listen, I’m sorr–”

Light and sound washed over him, and Timothy knew no more.

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Gwen pillaged the bodies, finding an assortment of trinkets. Some weapons that were too small for her desires. That wasn’t a bad thing. Weapons could always be turned into scrap.

Most of what she found was rune coins.

Using that legend never fails to get something good, she thought wryly. The lie worked too well, though Dark Valkyries could actually do that stuff. They typically took villains and used their power for their own ends.

The information was more useful by far. The [Vile Missive] was further proof of their involvement.

Too bad I lost control when he talked about Mel. She wasn’t sure why it was becoming difficult to be level-headed about Mel’s problems.

She was a Magi. She didn’t need to be protected at all times.

But why do I feel like that? As if one wrong move, and she’ll be gone forever?

A profound sense of unease passed through Gwen at that thought. Her heart raced as if she was in the middle of battle without any of the fun parts.

Her mind blanked to numbing silence.

Gwen blinked.

Unable to remember what she was worrying about just then, Gwen went about her business.

Using [Insight of the Wolf], Gwen tracked the weaving trails of her friends, feeling restless and dissatisfied. Without meaning to, she went after Mel.

Maybe another plateau beast will be a challenge?

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Thomas looked at the arrow lodged in his shoulder. “Huh. One got through.”

He looked down at the body, giving himself a metaphorical pat on the back. Even though he didn’t have an explicit skill for hand-to-hand combat, all Magi were skilled martial artists. It was one of the few things that carried over from one Worldshard to the other, whereas magic might be entirely different.

People’s bodies were almost always the same.

Except that one time you were a rock, Thomas thought with a grin. That was a weird trip.

The arrow in his shoulder didn’t seem to be poisoned, so he left it where it was. He didn’t need his left arm right now, anyway. Thomas dropped into a deep crouch and took the knife out of the man’s eye.

“Painfully poetic,” he muttered, wiping the blood off the blade on the man’s leather tunic. “Probably should’ve asked what you were doing.”

Thomas’ eyes fell on the broken bodies and he mentally chastised himself. Mel taught him that weapon scrap ritual, didn’t she? Then again, with all these bodies to provide extra blood, she could use her title to get more scrap.

He sighed again. Thomas really didn’t want to haul all the bodies back to camp.

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“That didn’t make a particularly flattering noise, Mel,” Gwen said, tying on a [Fire Monk Mask] to deal with the smoke.

Mel’s vision was covered in red. As soon as she had seen what the Mage was doing, she had done something she never could do before. With a surge of High Copper mana, she had instantly altered her [Sanguine Coat] until it formed a protective shell around her.

The bloody coat’s durability was thrashed, but there was a handy supply of blood painted all over the rocks and trees around her.

Mel altered her [Sanguine Coat] again, dismissing the mask and hood. She turned to Gwen, still wearing a [Fire Monk Mask] to breathe through the smoke that filled the forest.

The fire was growing out of hand. It was already beyond anything that Mel could do to stop it. She drew out blood from the gore stains of her would-be assassins to recover her [Sanguine Coat].

“Now we both know what a coat made out of blood sounds like when it’s buffeted by explosive winds,” Mel said with a forced grin. “Come on, help me loot these bodies before they turn crispy.”