Amalia ripped into the flesh, her teeth grinding into the skin ultimately removing the meat from the bone. Her display was nothing but ferocious. Weak-willed people would shudder at her actions. Blood dripped from her jaw, she wiped it away with her bare hand. The rest of her squad looked appalled, mortified and even disgusted. She grabbed another leg of ham and continued to eat, She washed down the leg with the oh-so-sweet alcohol that Beka was pretty famous for.

Elizabeth turned to the squire, he had no sort of tell for any emotions towards the display. They had been sitting at an oval table. The entire eatery was empty save for the party. Seems when a holy knight enters a building not a whole lot want to be around them, especially other soldiers.

“Does she eat like this often?” Elizabeth whispered.

She must’ve said it too loud because Amalia answered. “You’ll never know when you’ll get your next meal as a knight of the church.” She took a long drink, slamming the mug on the table and continued to speak. “Indulge.”

The squire didn’t pull his eyes away from his meal, he added to the statement. “As I’ve worked my entire life to be a knight, I’ve never been in more danger than now.”

Elizabeth looked back into her plate, as a mage, she’s been stationed mostly in cities that had such basic services come as a guarantee. Her thought was interrupted as a hand grabbed the honeyed slice of meat right from under her nose.

“If that’s so, you wouldn’t mind if we’d share, haha!” The fire mage started to laugh, just a moment ago he was eating as slow and reserved as Elizabeth.

“Hey!” She angrily shouted. She grabbed onto his thigh; the frost chill began to travel up his leg it quickly spread all over his body, in seconds he was literally statue holding onto a frozen piece of meat.

She smirked after all revenge is best cold. It was short-lived, the statue fractured and cracked. Almost as quick as he was frozen he was free. He began laughing while heating the flesh. “Nice trick little girl.”

“How!? She demanded.

“Haha, once I felt your little chill, I increased the heat around my body.” He tore into the piece, the juices flew everywhere. “You froze the air around me.”

“Wha-” She forgot about him being a fire mage. She also didn’t think he was that intelligent, His quick-wit definitely put her to shame. Well, it wasn’t like she was all the hungry anyway. Her previous lavish lifestyle didn’t really leave her a lot of room to increase her stomach storage. She did, however, have enough room to drink.

She stared out into the window. She saw a slight glimmer of light. A female barmaid had approached the table. Before she even brought the next round of foods and drinks, the window burst open showering everything with shards of glass and wood. The table flipped and broke into several pieces. Every person was shocked. The barmaid could do nothing but shriek in terror.

A black creature struggled to get to its feet. It hissed and thrashed about sending shrapnel everywhere around the room.

Amalia unsheathed her blade, the squire did so too. The creature was skewered by Amalia blade, electricity arched from the blade and the chitin. It traveled through the creature’s body effectively stopping its heart.

Another one jumped into the smashed window, it hissed into the crowd of mages, shortly after jumping onto the corpse of its kin. The Barmaid was grabbed by the neck and thrown out the window. Her body flew like a ragdoll as it fell, her fate became unknown as her fall wasn’t heard.

“What the hell!” Vincent the fire mage, exclaimed. This was the first encounter for him. He raised his hand and tried to aim for a target, The only problem, he might cause friendly fire.

“Above you!” Elizabeth yelled, Her frost froze the ground beneath his feet causing him to fall. The creature that went for a kill clawed just inches from his head. He angled his palm and fired a fireball into the creature’s abdomen. The chest ruptured spilling the innards out, the creature slumped to the ground. Once the creature laid unmoving he looked at Elizabeth, his face told her all the thanks she needed.

The squire was put on the defensive as he blocked incoming swipes from the creature’s claws. His sword would only block so much as they were much stronger, every time he’d intercept an attack he was being pushed closer and closer to the window, The squire wasn’t dumb, he could clearly see what the creature was doing. Regardless of his knowledge, it was still working.

Agustav came from the back and crushed it in between his rock covered fists. The black blood splattered onto his face and the surroundings. The squire was not amused with the blood on him.

“Hah! I haven’t had this much fun in years!” He shouted.

The squire just rolled his eyes, doing so he saw a claw out of the corner of his eyes.

“August-!” He tried to call out, but it was too late the damage was done, he was pierced in between his shoulder blades. He was slowly raised from his feet, the creature hissed at its victory. He gasped and sputtered trying to clear his lungs of the blood. The squire yelled as he charged the beast, in a second it used Augustav’s bleeding body as a hostage, The squire stopped charging, all he could do was watch the creature exit through the window.

Another claw came for him while he was standing there, he engaged unable to save his comrade.

“Elizabeth!” Amalia called out. “Seal the window!” sweat began to bead on her face, humans were one thing, but these creatures possessed strength easily strong enough to break bones, holding them back was a strenuous task on its own.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Hearing her order and carrying it out were two very different tasks. Out of all the mages, she had the least amount of creatures to cut through, even then her mastery was related to water, she was one of the best crowd controlling besides Augustav.

“Are you crazy!?” A creature noticed her voice and turned around to fight, She dodged the attack and froze the ground just a few inches away from the creature’s leg. The creeping ice spread it’s frigid grasp onto its leg, limiting its mobility.

“Do not question my orders!” She yelled back. It wasn’t clear whether her anger was directed from the insubordination or the fight after all she had been busy fending off two attackers at once. She promptly decapitated one only to have it replaced by another.

Elizabeth extended her foot, shattering the leg of the creature. It had been a miracle that she wasn’t cut up on its way down to the floor. Using its pincer-like arms it attempted to pick itself up as it was still eighty percent combat effective. She hands over top of its skull, it began freezing. Even if it remained alive prying its head from the ground would most likely sever its jaw from the body.

She used a combination of small frame and ice paths to increase her velocity towards the window.

A few times she managed to dodge the passive swipes of incoming scythe-like claws and reach her destination. She pressed both hands up to the side of the wall to stop her acceleration. The frost began to expand from her hands. It didn’t take long for her to fill the side with a sheet of ice. In fact, she even caught one as it climbed the frame. The team at this point just had to mop up the stragglers that remained in the room, which effectively didn’t last long.

“What in the fuck were those?” Vincent asked. He approached Amalia and her squire.

Amalia pierced the skull, of her combatant while the squire assisted her in the other. She sheathed her sword and pushed her hair out of way. “It’s what we are here for.” She said plainly.

Vincent got real close to her face. “I was under the impression we were dealing with something that wasn't… This!” He kicked the corpse of one of the creatures to emphasize his point.

She looked him deep into his eyes, she grabbed his throat. Reflectively he tried to grab her arm but was stopped midway. She had sent a strong-enough current of electricity to lock his muscles.

“Are you going to just walk away?” She asked. “If this city is filled with these monsters, who’s going to stop them?” She tossed him back.

As soon as his muscles were back under his control, the sudden relaxation made him fall to the ground. Elizabeth went over to him and put a hand on his back, mostly to check if he was still alive. Amalia turned back to the frozen window, the creature’s were chipping and biting the ice.

“That won’t hold for long.” The squire said. Looking at Amalia

“Vincent, if you want to save lives. You will stand.”

At first, he was hesitant, but he stood.

~^~

Rinae overwatched the swarm chipping at the ice. She contemplated flying over and absorbing the magic-induced barrier. She readied her wings for a quick flight to the window. She leaned over the edge of the building to get a flying start but stopped as a light began to grow brighter from the from the window.

The light shot out like lightning; she took off beating her wings as fast as she could, the spot she was standing at was instantly vaporized.

She looked back to the window, most of her younglings were nowhere to be found, they had disappeared without a trace. Amalia was standing in the massive hole in the building, she had been staring directly at Rinae, The male next to her said something but Rinae couldn’t hear, her wings were simply too loud. She raised her palm, a light began to arc, she fired.

Rinae dodged, just barely. The bolt frayed wildly hitting her wings; she plummeted to the ground just around the corner from the building. Luckily she wasn’t far and suffered no falling injuries.

But she landed in an area that was guarded. Several at first were taken by surprise by the sudden female.

Elizabeth and Vincent came running from across the street, they yelled to the guards, “Kill it.” And “Don’t let it get away.”

Lucky for them, she had no intentions of running. Ten out of the twenty guards unsheathed their swords, the other ten pulled out crossbows. The swordsmen charged her, yelling the entire way, She continued to stay in the same place, to her these guys showed no importance, the real prize was the two in the back.

The soldiers began to slow to halt when two black masses appeared from her back, each hanging over her left and right shoulders. Each had the common reaction to seeing a monster appear from out of nowhere. With just a head movement she unleashed them into the crowd. Claws and metal clashed together and for the first time, normal humans were holding up against them.

“Damn it.” Rinae heard Elizabeth yell. She turned to her and began walking. Elizabeth had to take a few steps back, the emotionless stare pelting her was terrifying.

“To hell with it!” Vincent jumped in front of Elizabeth He readied his palm, “Archers! On my command!” He called out, all of them stacked in line, aiming their bolts at Rinae “Fire!” He let out a series of fireballs that were followed behind by the crossbow men’s shots.

Rinae may have been stopped from flying, but she wasn’t done from using them to her advantage, she once again moved them in rapid succession. The fireballs began to lose speed and heat while the bolt’s trajectories were altered.

She stayed on the ground, with her wings flapping, the wind barrier made it almost impossible to reach her...almost.

Elizabeth knelt to the ground and touched the street, ice formed and traveled towards her, the ice being colorless made it nearly impossible to detect. The two met in the center. “Got it!” She yelled. The ice raced up her leg, disabling her. It continued to climb until she could no longer move her wings, it didn’t take long for her body to be encased in an icy prison. And with that the battle was over, it seemed as though the two younglings lost control over themselves and devolved into a feral state, without any true guidance they were easily killed by the guards.

“The hell.” Vincent approached the frozen Rinae. “This one almost looks human!”

“Yeah, it does…” Elizabeth kept her distance. Even frozen, her emotionless stare was disturbing.

However the victory was very short-lived, Rinae absorbed the magic within the ice, her clawed arm defrosted enough to penetrate his flesh, His eyes widened and his mouth opened, he wanted to scream.

she ripped out his magical organ. He fell to the ground, the crowd around didn’t know what to do. She had effectively countered just about everything they attacked with.

“Is that thing a demon!?” Just that comment alone was enough to drop the moral of all the troops.

“Don’t waiver, you outnumber it!” The voice was none other than Amalia. “Good work, Elizabeth.” She looked down at Vincent. “Take him and go,” she said. "Squire go with her."

His breathing was shallow and fast, but he was alive. With Elizabeth leaving the fight, it was now only Rinae and Amalia. The two saw each other as both prey and predator.