Celis pulled on his cloak.

“A-are you okay?”

Alisson shook his head.

“Y-yeah…Just lost in thought…”

Celis’s concern brought him back to reality, and his brow furrowed. He took a deep breath.

“Really? It looks like you saw a ghost.”

“Maybe I did…”

Alisson frowned weakly. The sight of a lavender head of hair in front of him was burned into Alisson’s vision. Blinking, the sight disappeared, and he was left as before, with a view of the rest of the adventurers in front of him.

The rocky plateaus were behind them now. Glistening rivers ran around them, reflecting the orange light of the setting sun. Hills with bushes and trees surrounded them.

“It’s getting dark…”

Patsel muttered, his eyes sharp.

“…We should think about finding a fortified place to hold down for the night…”

Amelathet whispered, her ears up and alert.

The adventurers in front of him and Celis had good reason to be so paranoid as they were now. The expedition had been destroyed. The reality of that fact was only now setting in. Dozens of Five-Stripe adventurers, full teams, dead. Among them Rei and Dane, the once noble leaders of Crimson. The seven adventurers here were all that was left.

Alisson had expected a constant barrage of beast attacks, but ever since they left the safety of the rocky canyon earlier that morning, they hadn’t seen a single creature. The flora here looked alive and well, pulsating in an abundance of life and peace, so then where were all the rotten creatures? Where were the twisted amalgamations of flesh?

With the sun setting, no one was happy to have not encountered enemies. It left a pit in their stomachs. On top of all this, they were heading north, deeper into beast territory and farther away from human lands. Alisson was the one that strong-armed them into it. It was a trivial matter. He’d simply said that the steel capsules on his back – Lavjoure’s maps – Were magic items that pointed toward a shortcut out of the forest. That, and Celis made up some story about another team being pushed north on the spot. A combination of that coming from the stark leader they now saw Alisson as, they dutifully marched forward in his will, without even knowing it. Amelathet took point. Patsel behind her. Cleff and Jachne to the sides, Berein at the center, and finally, him and Celis at the rear, like shepherds.

Humans are so easy to control. They respond to authority so well; They take any information they see as truth when it comes from someone they trust, and their fear keeps them from thinking too much about each other – and their eyes far too worried about what was behind each tree to peer inward at their allies in suspicion.

Really, without Dane or Rei around, it was almost too easy.

But that was the point of killing them in the first place, Alisson reminded himself. With those captains here, the adventurers would never be marching with him and Celis as if they were canaries.

Alisson scoffed to himself. ‘As if’? No. They were.

Alisson nodded to himself slowly. His eyes, however, were quivering, as he stared down into the dirt below, in a perpetual state of shock.

…

Really, Alisson’s been bothering me lately. I was glad to rendezvous with him today and all but I kind of had a gut feeling that I’d see him again. That’s why I was so calm the whole time. But the first thing he does when I see him, is give me a big hug. It made me nervous. It was so unlike him that I at first thought some sort of doppelganger had taken his place.

But, now that it’s a been a few hours, it seems to me like he’s just shaken up. He’s been having these blank stares and stretches of silence, he reminds of myself, and I don’t like it.

All the while I’ve been off put by the state of Crimson. It feels like I’m the most normal one here, and that’s saying something. They were all giving vapid glances to the surrounding area, filled with paranoia and fear. They were terrified. That much was easy enough to tell. Berein though, was completely catatonic. She was shaken up yesterday when Dane died, and she’s yet to really recover. Her eyes are empty, and dull, her step was that of a shell, a walking corpse. With everyone in their states, Alisson included, I felt very uncomfortable.

I shook my head, and the grip on my baselards tightened. My blades are incredibly dull. It’s almost pathetic how little cutting power they have. I’ve lopsidedly been using my baselards to fight beasts, just because slicing causes much larger wounds than thrusting with my stilettos, and considering that most of the beast’s I’ve fought can keep moving after their heart has been impaled, single precise strikes don’t cut it. I seriously think that beasts must have layered nervous systems, multiple brains, multiple hearts. Or maybe they’re like bugs, I’m pretty sure insects don’t have brains either per say, but rather their central nervous system is spread throughout their bodies.

I shook my head. I’m daydreaming again. It’s easy to get doze off with such unsuspecting scenery.

Amelathet held up her hand all of a sudden, and we all stopped. Her ears were twitching.

“Goblins. A lot of them. North by northwest. Bout a klick out.”

I sighed in relief. I thought for sure we were going to be ambushed or something.

“Ferris, take Amelathet, you’re our force recon.” Alisson whispered.

“I’m on it.”

I nod.

“Jachne, Cleff, I want a perimeter around this bank, Berein, Patsel, shoot anything that moves…”

Amelathet and I move out ahead of the party as they dig into a defensible position. I’m wary for anything as me and Amelathet slip through the forest undergrowth. Amelathet’s ears twitched again.

“East by northeast now.” She muttered. “They probably have us surrounded in a wide ring.”

I was hesitant to even move with how quiet the area was. No chirping, no roars, no wind, only the running water of a couple rivers and the crunch of sticks and grass below by boots.

Creeping around the stump of a tree, I saw movement off in the distance, and froze. Amelathet was breathing down my neck, her eyes sharp.

“There there…do you see them? Disgusting bastards, aren’t they?”

“I can smell them well enough.” I replied, my nose pricking.

There were groups of Goblins scattered before us. I really couldn’t call them Goblins, they were far too deformed, some weren’t even humanoid. They were a far cry from the ones I saw near Edringrad. Those at least looked like they could’ve been human. These though, not one bit. Scattered amongst the groups, they carried blades, bows, but mostly branches and bones, sharpened into weapons.

They were all moving with a purpose, all converging straight toward us. Multiple different groups that was. This was no attack, this was a coordinated assault.

This is probably why we didn’t encounter any other beasts – They were all stopped by the Goblins. I remembered the sight of Goblins fighting off beasts in Edringrad, and of how outmatched they were. These ones probably wouldn’t have had a problem though. There were no discernable classes either. None that I could see. Where exactly their leadership comes from seems to be a mystery for now.

I flicked my head to Amelathet and we retreated without incident. We managed to backtrack to our party without encountering any goblins, and I was quick to report.

“We’re encircled. Had to be at least a dozen different groups, each thirty or fifty strong.”

“And that’s just in front of us?”

Alisson asked, frowning. I nodded. He clicked his tongue, but turned to the rest of the adventurers with a stern look.

“We’re initiating a breakout maneuver. Stick close and move fast – The quicker we can breach their lines, the less concentration of enemies we’ll have to deal with.”

With that, Alisson turned north, and swiped his hand forward. The group set off at a quick pace.

“You served in the military or something?”

Jachne whispered, probably in response to Alisson’s bravado and trained commands.

“It’s a noble’s rhetoric.”

Amelathet quipped back.

“Tangos dead ahead!”

Patsel shouted, a formation of goblins coming into vision.

“Break through them.” Alisson said in monotone.

We blitzed right into the group. Crimson fought ferociously; The group of Goblins were eviscerated within seconds. Amelathet weaved around a Goblin, cutting off its head with her falchion. Jachne impaled two of them with quick thrusts of her spear, and blocked another with her large board shield. Cleff threw an axe straight into the skull of one. Patsel fired off a trio of arrows, each meeting their marks. He swiped up his arrows after we ran over the corpses.

With that we blew through the first obstacle. Berein, me and Alisson didn’t even have to do anything.

I heard whistles in the wind.

Without thinking I threw a scroll to our right. It exploded into a purple barrier, blocking a crescendo of arrows aimed for our party.

“Light them up.”

Alisson ordered to Patsel, who was already notching a couple enchanted arrows, his sights set on a hill to our right. I was expecting Berein to be doing the same, but, she still looked as catatonic as before.

Before I could say anything, Patsel’s arrows caused a doublet of quaking explosions to our right, blowing away whatever archers were aimed at us.

I heard the stampeding footfalls. When I looked to my backside, I saw a wall of flesh chasing us down.

“Berein!”

I grabbed hold of her shoulder, and shook. Her eyes widened and she looked at me with a crazed stare.

“Behind us.”

She peered back as she ran, and jumped in fright.

“Now!”

She shook at my words. After a moment, she lifted her staff. By the time she did so though, a trio of explosions rumbled behind us, clearing out our pursuers. Patsel looked back at Berein with sharp eyes, his bow emptied.

Only seconds later did more Goblins crop up all around us. They outnumbered us by at least a factor of ten, just from a rough glance, and worse yet, they were in our way. If we didn’t get through them, then more would come from our backside.

“This is our test-! We break them here, we escape home free!”

Alisson rose Enhérejär and slashed forward at empty air. Surprisingly, the adventurers were emboldened by Alisson. Well, he is a Field Marshal after all…But being able to rally humans is really something.

As the adventurers broke up to meet the opposing wave of Goblins, I stood back to guard Berein and Patsel. Patsel was quick to fire off a barrage of his arrows. I’d never seen him fire so quickly. Three or four arrows he’d grab out of his quiver with one hand, and then he’d empty out his hand a mere couple seconds later. All of the arrows he fired were imbued, and the initial ranks of Goblins were blown to smithereens.

I was almost in shock of how much firepower he’d laid down. I reminded myself though that him and Berein were both in the same boat – Very powerful, but very limited in their ammunition.

The battle was going well. Goblins weren’t a beast that was hard to defeat on their own, and that’s why we’re fighting in a very loose formation – Each adventurers can afford to take on multiple threats. But, things aren’t as easy as they seem. Patsel is using a hell of a lot of his arrows, imbued and not. Explosions rumble frequently in our vicinity. Berein too has joined in, finally contributing her mana.

Every so often, Goblins would slip through our invisible perimeter, and reach me and the support members. I dealt with them as quickly as I could, slicing through their large leathery bodies with my tiny blades as best I could manage.

“Tch! They just don’t stop coming!”

Cleff exclaimed, stumbling back toward Patsel, a large wound in his shoulder.

“Hold firm! If we lose our cohesion, we’re dead men.”

Alisson ordered sharply, with not a scratch on him.

We we’re incrementally gaining ground, but the Goblins weren’t letting up. More and more groups showed themselves as we cut them down, it felt like we weren’t doing anything.

A particularly large Goblin leapt at me, Berein stepped forward, and blew it away with a single spell. Not even its blood remained to hit the ground. I looked to Berein, but she looked shocked, like she was surprised of what she’d done.

As the battle progressed, more and more injuries mounted. Not on me, Alisson, or the support, but on the frontline adventurers. Patsel fired less and less arrows, healing more, which meant that there was both less firepower going down range and less fighters to hold the line. Almost everyone was using items by this point, even Alisson was deploying scrolls now.

“Tch-! We can’t keep this up forever!”

Patsel shouted to Alisson, his hands over a massive wound on Jachne’s chest, she’d been skewered by the full length of a branch not seconds earlier.

“Prepare a barrage-! Use everything if you have to, we’re not going to be overwhelmed!”

Alisson ordered after jumping back for a moment of respite. I looked to Jachne and Patsel. The Jachne adventurer has been very useful this engagement, with her shield and spear she was by far the bulk of our defensive power.

I withdrew one of my three Zeslowaffen scrolls, and activated it across the length of each of my baselards. They sprung to life in a virulent sheen of purple.

“I need to join the front.”

Patsel nodded to me sternly, and without another word I dashed forward into the fray.

These weapon enchantments are amazing. It only took a single swing to figure that out. Whereas before it felt like cutting through a watermelon with a pocketknife, I’ve suddenly transitioned to swiping an infinitely sharp blade through water. It wasn’t hard to blitz through the Goblins. As opposed to the other adventurers, I took the fight to the Goblins, blitzing through as many as I could, trying to thin the heard.

I was however met on all sides with opposition, and I now heard an angry gurgle at my backside. By the time I turned, an axe came flying into the skull of the Goblin who had raised a rusty sword to impale me with. I grabbed the hilt of the axe and threw it back toward Cleff, who was chopping off a head with his other axe. He caught the one I tossed back to him, and slammed it into the skull of a nearby Goblin in the same action.

Alright, alright…Everything is going well. We’re spread out by quite an uncomfortable margin, but we’re holding our ground, with the support of scrolls and magic bombardment from Patsel and Berein. I stood behind Jachne, in the shadow of her massive shield. She rapidly thrusted forward at oncoming Goblins with her spear, and bashed away one with her shield. To which I drew a stiletto and leapt out from behind her to impale through the head without incident. A couple explosive arrows covered my retreat.

The sight of the Goblin horde thinning brought a wary smile to my face. It was then when I heard Amelathet shout,

“Berein-! Get down!”

I turned just in time to see Amelathet tackling Berein to the ground. They were in the middle of clearing a dozen meters away, and Patsel was right behind them. I quickly saw what had caused Amelathet’s action; A crescendo of arrows had been fired at them from the brush, from where exactly I couldn’t make out.

Thanks to a combination of Amelathet tackling Berein, and Patsel leaping backwards, all of the arrows missed their marks. Patsel was already drawing his bow at the brush, probably seeing enemies that I didn’t.

I was about to look away, confident that they were fine, when I saw the hands of Goblins reach out, and grab onto Patsel.

It was then that I noticed our formation. At the head were me and Jachne, to our sides, Alisson and Cleff…But, we didn’t have a rear guard. Amelathet was all that was behind us protecting our support.

Patsel, in his haste to evade the arrows, had leapt backwards, and placed his backside right against the thick cover of a large bush.

His eyes widened as he tried to turn, already reaching for the dagger on his hip. Amelathet scrambled to her feet, and dashed to his aid. A single arrow slammed into her side, and she dropped like a lifeless doll, falling forwards. Another couple arrows were fired at her and Berein, one of which struck Berein in the back, casing her to scream out in pain.

“I’m there!”

I said in response to Alisson’s quick glance, already knowing what he was thinking. I ran as fast as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough.

Patsel was struggling fiercely, kicking his legs and stabbing backwards into the Goblins grappling with him. A branch soared through the bush, and flew right through Patsel’s back. His eyes widened and he let out a scream, but he didn’t stop struggling. I was only a dozen meters away – halfway there. I prepped spells as fast as I could.

The Goblin with the sharpened branch stabbed repeatedly into Patsel, I could see blood soaking his frontside, but yet Patsel still didn’t stop struggling. It was when a Goblin revved back their hand, and stabbed straight into Patsel’s belly, that it seemed the archer froze up with deathly wide, empty eyes. The Goblin pulled their hand along Patsel’s abdomen until it ripped through his entire frontside.

Pastel’s entrails fell before him onto the ground in thick bright pink globs. Only then it seemed that his body loosened, and his struggles stopped. He was pulled into the brush the next second.

As my spells came flying into the brush, so too did a few from Alisson. They sunk into the green flora with seemingly little affect. Now next to Amelathet and Berein, I could see that Amelathet was reaching up with a hand toward where Patsel had last been, her eyes open wide and her face twisted in horror. I didn’t have the time to heal either of them – I needed to get to Patsel.

I dashed forward, but when I came near to the brush where Patsel had been dragged off, another goblin came through, gurgling at me, and already swinging a branch. I was caught off guard by this, and the branch slammed straight into my side, and I was sent off my feet, rolling across the ground. I scrambled up and lunged forward with a stiletto into the head of the Goblin who’d swung at me, then sidestepped and slashed at them with a baselard. The goblin fell, but not before another crescendo of arrows came howling in from Sidonia knows where. One of them, I felt it clearly, punched straight through my plate and straight into my leg. Another deflected harmlessly off my pauldron. Nevertheless, I fell to one knee, clutching my thigh. Before I could yank the arrow out of me, another Goblin appeared from the brush, then two more by its sides.

I gritted my teeth, and prepared to fight against my body’s wishes.

A sharp crack accompanied by a bright purple needle soared into the head of one of the Goblins, killing it instantly. I got to my feet, and half stumbling, lunged forward into the closest one, dicing through it with my baselard. I had to sidestep with only one leg, as the other was almost deadweight. With a last slice, the Goblin’s massive leathery head was lopped off as its body fell past me. In its wake, the third Goblin was already thrusting at me with the tip of a sharpened branch.

Thinking fast, I grabbed hold of the branch, and guided it past myself, sidestepping at the same time. In the next moment, another sharp crack sounded as another thin purple needle shot through the head of the Goblin who’d tried to impale me. Its body fell lifelessly to the floor in the next second.

I saw for a split second Berein on a knee, aiming a smoking staff toward me with a surprisingly determined face.

I stumbled back toward my team, and fell to my knees once more, the pain getting the better of me. I cringed my eyes, grit my teeth, and then gave the arrow lodged in me a firm yank. I gasped out but managed to hold in my pain. I immediately started healing myself.

“Go-! Please! Go-! Go! Save him! Go!”

When I looked, I saw Amelathet looking up at me, bawling her eyes out. Her hands were weakly shaking at me, like she wanted me to pull her up. I reached over her, and yanked out the arrow that was lodged in her side. I noticed an orange viscous liquid at its arrowhead. I tossed the arrow away and put a healing scroll onto Amelathet’s wound.

With the arrow removed, Amelathet suddenly sprung to her feet, sprinting toward the brush at an incredible speed, right out of my grip.

She only took a few steps when she fell face first into the ground, her legs unstable. She got to her knees, and shaking, tried to get up to her feet, but once again fell forwards.

“What are you doing!?”

I hissed at her.

“You can’t go off on your own, especially like that!”

She looked back at me, her face covered in tears.

“I…I have to…”

She broke town into uncontrollable weeping.

Another Goblin came through the brush, but almost instantly Berein shot it with a spell, killing it and letting its heavy body hit the ground a mere meter away from Amelathet.

Having healed myself enough, I slapped a healing scroll over my thigh and got to my feet, shrugging off the pain thanks to the painkilling properties of the regeneration spells. I quickly hobbled over to Amelathet, who was still trying to get to her feet, and grabbed her shoulders and started dragging her back to safety.

“Wha-! What are you-!”

She couldn’t even get out the words amidst her sobbing.

Another Goblin came through the brush, which was again killed with a spell from Berein.

“What’s going on! What happened!”

I heard Alisson’s voice behind me. Having dragged Amelathet to where Berein was, I was about to let go of her when I realized that she was still struggling to go, so I kept her held tight.

“They got Patsel.”

I replied quickly.

The formation was now much tighter, a mere meter behind me Jachne now stood with her shield up, and a couple feet behind me to my sides were Cleff and Alisson.

I looked to Berein. She met my eyes.

“Hold her.”

She nodded, and took hold of Amelathet from me. Amelathet was not struggling with her usual strength – Even Berein could hold her down. Whatever that orange crap was on that arrow that hit her had evidently sapped her of strength, seeing as though she couldn’t even stand.

“I’m going after him.”

I said briskly, flourishing my baselards. It had only been about ten seconds since I last saw Patsel, he couldn’t have gotten far.

Alisson nodded to me.

“Be careful.”

I dashed forward in a blur. Another Goblin came through the brush. I sidestepped around it and pushed it to the ground, and kept on going my way. I heard Goblins all around. Evidently the ones that had let off the front of the battle were now at our backside. I cut my way through the thicket as quick as I could. A couple times the horrendous face of a Goblin would suddenly pop into my view, but I quickly bobbed away and kept on running.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Within a few seconds I made it through the thicket. There was a bloody dagger on the ground, and a dozen Goblins within mere meters of me. There was a discernable blood trail. I was quick to follow it, shoving Goblins out of the way and stabbing and dicing though them when I needed to.

The trail of blood eventually ran cold, and I couldn’t find another trace of Patsel after that. I was only left at the end of the trail, staring with wide eyes into the dark forest before me. The image of Patsel when I last saw him flashed through my mind. Of his spilled entrails and deathly pale face.

He’s…he’s probably already dead. I’ve been in a state of denial now that I think about it, but, he’s…he’s gone. The Goblins don’t need him to be alive to eat him, and certainly not to steal his weapons. I suddenly remembered his dagger.

I turned and slammed my baselard into the side of Goblins head in anger at my ally’s death. I dashed back to Alisson’s position, and on my way, picked up Patsel’s dagger, to my relief it was still there.

Also to my relief, the adventurers were in the same state more or less that I left them. Amelathet was shaking, now silently crying in Berein’s grip, both of them on the ground, and around them were Alisson, Jachne and Cleff, their weapons up and corpses of enemies around them, but no immediate threat.

Amelathet snapped her weak eyes on me with a glint of hope. After a moment though, seeing the state that I returned in, her face twisted in even more anguish, and she started crying aloud again.

“…So?”

Alisson asked over Amelathet’s sobbing.

“He’s…in a better place.”

I slowly say, tiptoeing on my words in the presences of Amelathet. I hope that she gets the impression that I found him dead – If she can accept that, she’ll be in a much better state.

“Show me! Shou-ho-ho…me…”

Amelathet struggled, but Berein wouldn’t let her go.

“There’s no point.”

I say.

“It’s better if you didn’t see him, better to have your last vision of him be the best it can be.”

Alisson looked at me, apparently surprised. I knelt near Amelathet, and extended Patsel’s dagger toward her. She looked to me, and with hazy eyes looked to the blooded blade, tears still flowing from her eyes. She reached out to grab it, but her arms weakly fell before she could.

I suddenly realized that whatever had poisoned her was not wearing off.

…

Night had officially dawned on us. Although the forest was behind us, one couldn’t tell due to the darkness. I could only see the vague outlines of my teammates in front of me; the large caricatures of trees passing by didn’t look much different. We don’t know exactly where we are, but Alisson wanted to keep moving due to the Goblins and the lack of a good place to hold down for the night.

The land here is flat, there is no grass or sticks or dead leaves, just gravel and the occasional tree. Because of the obstruction going on, there was either a very heavy canopy far above us, or a thick layer of cloud and fog.

The team had moved in silence since we ran from the Goblins with our tails beneath our legs. Amelathet hasn’t recovered; both mentally and physically. Me and Berein have been hoisting her over our shoulders for the past hour. After the Goblins had vacated, beasts started to attack us again, which was relieving. Now however, ever since we entered this area of twilight, there hasn’t been much of anything. No sounds, no smells, and no life. I can only wonder where the hell we wandered into in the darkness. The lack of beasts as the team now knows full well is a bad sign, and here we’ve come from one uncanny situation to another.

I thought at the least we’d have a break, but the beasts made sure that we were deprived of such a luxury.

All because of a simple misstep – a simple lapse in thought about our formation at the hands of the whole team, - Patsel was now dead. Amelathet kept on thinking it was her fault, due to her not being able to reach him in time; now she was lifeless, like a corpse yet still breathing. Her range of mobility and physical condition had only weakened as time had gone on. Without Patsel, we have no idea what’s happening to her. I’ve been putting healing spells into her from my mana supply, but it’s seemingly fruitless.

The slow, shallow breath of the far-off wind was all that I heard other than our footsteps on the gravel below.

“I’m telling you…We’ll be alright for the night!”

Cleff said to Alisson in a rushed whisper.

“This isn’t a place to mosey about.” Alisson replied sharply. “We should be going faster through this area if anything.”

He gave a dull glance at me, carrying Amelathet. I suddenly wondered if he would’ve rather I left her there.

“If anything we shouldn’t be here at all! Why the hell are we going deeper into Freigat!?”

Cleff hissed.

“If you’d rather turn around and try walking through what destroyed this expedition in the first place once more, then please, go ahead.” Alisson slowly brought a sharp glare to Cleff. “Turning around now would only lengthen the time we spend here…It’s faster to simply go through and out the side as my Guides say.”

Cleff stopped walking, and he looked to Alisson with anger.

“And what exactly are those magic items of yours?”

“If I dare show you, you may be blinded for life. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

“Why should I trust you, huh!? You and your little sister there used those attack spells that no one here knew about – Care to explain the secrecy? You might know what you’re doing, but we sure as hell don’t!”

Jachne stepped over to Cleff and laid a hand on his shoulder. She slowly shook her head. Cleff’s eye twitched, but after a long moment he turned and started forward once more. As the group set off at our usual pace, I noticed Amelathet’s ears twitching.

She hadn’t spoken a word since night had fallen, but she was definitely still conscious.

“Alavier. I think we should put up flares.”

Alisson looked to me out of the corner of his eye.

“And why should we expose our position?”

“Because whatever beasts are here can probably see and hear us just fine without light.”

Cleff looked to me with an ugly expression, like he was looking at a rookie fresh off the boat.

“You kidding me?”

He spat. I just frowned at him in response, ignoring him. Alisson, seeing Cleff’s reaction, looked to me and slowly shook his head.

Another ten minutes passed in absolute silence.

“Ba…ba…-teps…ing…”

I heard an almost inaudible mumble. I suddenly realized it was Amelathet. I flicked my head to Berein and we both stopped. I knelt closer to Amelathet and put my ear to her quivering mouth. Her ears were still twitching.

“…urry…”

Was all I heard. I looked to her, but all I saw were dull eyes and a blank expression. I couldn’t tell if it was her mental condition from Patsel that was causing her to act like this, or if it was that orange tipped arrow.

I looked to Alisson, my lips tightening.

“Amelathet hears something.”

Everyone looked to me and Amelathet with an audible whoosh, their eyes wide in terror at my words. Alisson clicked his tongue.

“Here. Jachne, help me carry her, we need move faster.”

Alisson and Jachne, who’re much stronger than me and Berein, both grabbed hold of Amelathet instead. With their strength, they lifted her off the ground and now the group moved at a much quicker pace. Berein was directly behind them, and me and Cleff were behind her.

Cleff opened his mouth to say something, but I shot him a glance and put a finger over my mouth.

He nodded sternly.

After only a minute of our accelerated pace, Amelathet started shaking her head, letting out small groans.

Nothing had really changed in the environment. It was still quiet, the wind still howled in the distance. But the deep well in my stomach and the cold sweat on my face was something that I only now noticed. It was some sort of primal fear that I had never felt before, logically I was wondering what I was in such panic over. I felt the familiar creeping pricks of paranoia on my shoulders, and it took all I had to not turn my head back, because I knew that doing so would only offer a temporary relief from my sudden fear.

“Ba…behind-!”

Were the last words of coherence from Amelathet that I would ever hear. When I heard her, I found myself in realization of some sort of wave, a torrent, a maelstrom at our backs. If I didn’t run as fast as I could, I would be devoured. I don’t know what the hell is going on exactly, but I know that running is our best bet. If we can just get out of whatever this place is, we’ll be home free. Whatever is threatening us, is not something we can fight. That much seems to be true from my gut.

As I was thinking this, Cleff suddenly turned into a blur, and then disappeared with a yelp. I kept on running for a moment before I realized that he’d tripped. I turned and deployed my small magic light that I used for reading, both to see him and also so that he could see us. Getting split up here is not ideal to say the least.

My light splashes over the gravel ground for all of a few feet , but I could still see Cleff just fine. It looked like he’d fallen face first, his hands out over his head – If he had tripped, then why didn’t he instinctively protect himself with his hands?

I remembered the blur that Cleff had turned into in my peripheral vision. Him tripping wouldn’t have caused him to crash to the ground so quickly…

When I came to that conclusion, I saw Cleff look up at me with wide eyes. Then, he was suddenly jerked backwards into the darkness. I couldn’t see his lower body, but the terror was plain on his face. I dashed to him, and extended my hand. He reached up, but before I could grab him, he was pulled backwards, and into the darkness, completely out of sight.

“W-w-shit!”

I could hear him scream out in horror.

All the while I stood with wide eyes staring back at the black void beyond my light for a long second.

Something, something just…

I quickly swallowed the knot in my throat, and turned to Alisson, backpedaling, trying to get away from the darkness, not realizing that I was holding a damn light that made it creep closer as I did.

“Flares!”

I shouted back toward the group simply. Within seconds, I heard the whiz and pops of a couple Heff-Sha flares, both by scrolls and by Berein.

The flares soared high into the sky, and popped in explosive burning white lights, like they were moons. Each one illuminated an area of thick gas around it, clearly what was the result of our bad visibility. They spewed light onto the gravel. The light raced all around, and for a split second, I could see Cleff again, before he was pulled further into the darkness. But then, the flares stopped expanding as their radius of light was exhausted. My eyes cringed from the sudden brightness.

“Do we go back?”

Jachne asked quickly, her eyes wild. Alisson gave a quick glance down to Amelathet, and shook his head. There was no way we could pursue Cleff with Amelathet in tow. We would need to split up.

I say, screw that.

Thinking quickly, Berein tilted her staff back toward Cleff, and fired off a flare horizontally. It flew at least a hundred meters before activating, very close to the ground. The sight it illuminated was damning.

That wave that my gut told me about, it wasn’t some ethereal phantom of my mind, not some imaginary response of fear; It was a very real wave, a physical, silent, decrepit tide. Within the mass, Cleff was no where to be seen. He was already gone.

They were each about as big as me, as tall as my hip but as long as a horse. On their long, eight legs, each one was deftly silent, and still, when the light of Berein’s flare ran across them. Each one’s numerous eyes were locked onto us, and it was then that I realized why I had the feeling of being watched by several thousand pairs of eyes – Because I was. They were hundreds, thousands, of large spiders to be precise, all of them piled atop one another, as if they had been clawing over each other to get to us. They came in various shades of white to black, and of various sizes. There were two that stood out the most from the rest. These two beasts were familiar. They were those same massive spiders from weeks prior, the ones that stood stories high on innumerable thin legs, like massive daddy-long-legs. Only now, Berein’s flare illuminated all but their legs, I couldn’t even see their main body, suspended high in the cradle of limbs far above in the darkness.

It didn’t make any sense, this was an open area, this wasn’t some underground tunnel, why were there so many spider-like beasts of all things?

After a blink of an eye, the world resumed in motion, and the wall that was once still and eyeing me down, was now rushing toward us, still silent in their chaotic approach. I turned back to Alisson, about tell him that there was no way in hell that we were going to get Cleff back, when I saw that he had his back turned to me already. I saw past him, a third massive spider, one of its legs was peeking out of the darkness right in front of us, mere meters away.

In a moment of pure animal instinct, I immediately drew one of my two Reysarke scrolls. As I lifted it up and toward where I felt the main body of the spider to be, a flare was sent up alongside my action by Berein. It cleanly illuminated my target as I activated the spell.

Alisson too was in motion, having cast four flame strike scrolls all in the same window. The flaming spears sunk into the spider’s relatively small main body, before my Reysarke scroll activated, vaporizing the massive spider within the blink of an eye.

“Go! Move it!”

Alisson shouted immediately thereafter, and the group scrambled through the legs of the now dead spider. Jachne had lifted up Amelathet’s limp body with one hand onto her shoulder, and due to her size, looked only like she was carrying a sack of potatoes.

As we blitzed forward, the corpse of the spider fell beside us as the swarm of beasts closed in. I had to look to see how close they were, because they didn’t make any noise.

“Berein!”

“Right!”

Mid run, Berein pointed her already effulgent staff back toward our aggressors. They had long since run out of the range of the first flare that Berein had fired, but that didn’t matter. The target was so large, it was impossible to miss. Berein fired one of the largest barrages I’d ever seen come from a single mage. The ground beneath me rumbled and I almost tripped as dozens of spears and balls and spikes of blooming energy flew through the air to detonate and cut through the horde at our back.

A considerable amount of dust was kicked up from the spells, and even reached all the way back to us within only a few seconds. Out of the newly formed dust storm behind us, a single leg from one of the larger spiders came soaring toward us. It hit the ground with a thunderous explosion, right in the middle of the group, sending me tumbling to the ground, completely disorientated. In a daze, I managed to find which way was up, and rose up as fast as I could on shaky legs. Dust and smoke swirled around. I could see the vague figures of Jachne and Amelathet nearby.

When I rose, I heard a familiar whiz that sent terror through my veins, and cleared my mind quite quickly. The rapid crescendo of built up air releasing.

Without another second to brace, I felt hot tears open up on my back and on my legs. I desperately held back a scream of pain with a grunt, my eyes cringing and my mouth open wide in a silent wail. There were now multiple long black spikes impaled in my body. Where the beast that had fired them at me was, I didn’t know. Against the wails of my body screaming at me to lay down and sob aloud, I ferociously fought to stay upright, and dug around in my cloak, throwing a scroll forwards. Seconds after I had been hit by the spikes, another, larger crescendo followed. Thankfully the barrier scroll deployed in time. The black spikes were stopped in their tracks, the purple film dulling in brightness, already about to give out.

Jachne was over me the next moment. She’d dropped off Amelathet’s seemingly lifeless body by my side and had raised her shield over me protectively; Not before forcefully slapping one of her own healing scrolls over me.

“Are you alright!?”

Jachne asked in a panic.

I could feel them near, the mass of beasts, even though it’d only been a few seconds, was the closing the gap.

“I’ll be alright-! Somehow-!”

I say, wincing, the healing scroll attached to my shoulder very literally being my lifeline.

In the next second, a shadow beyond the barrier leapt toward us, and I quickly recognized it as a large white spider, and not a shadow. It lunged toward the barrier, clamped onto it, and then forcibly headbutt it, shattering the thin purple film. In the same moment, a third barrage of spikes had been fired, even larger than the last.

Seeing the danger, I utilized every last piece of willpower in my body to stand. As the mass of spikes came soaring toward us, I threw another barrier spell forward, and Jachne impaled the white spider through the head with a quick thrust of her spear.

My barrier spell went up just in the nick of time; It stopped the large majority of danger. But, it didn’t catch all of the spikes. A couple slipped through.

I found my arm swinging backwards, my body quickly following it. In the next heartbeat, I felt and saw the spike that had flown through my forearm, cleanly piercing my gauntlet and pinning me to the ground. This time, there was no muffling it. I screamed against my pride, my brain burning from the intense sensation, I was almost drooling from it, the horrendous pain I felt in that moment. All I could do in the next instant was sit there, frozen in pain and shock.

A couple spikes had also hit Jachne. One grazed her leg, and two hit her shield, one of these had cleanly pierced, and had impaled her shoulder. Despite this, she stood over me.

That, wouldn’t last.

Again, a large white leg came soaring out of the darkness, with the speed of a foil(1), but with the mass of a building. The barrier that had only deployed in seconds prior was shattered, and the white leg, pierced cleanly through Jachne. I saw it right in front of my eyes, amid the dust and darkness, how she stood holding up her shield.

The leg had gone right through her and her shield.

Now that it was only inches away from me, I could that there were small black hairs on the spider leg. These were now vibrating. Within an instant, they extended and peeled outward, through Jachne’s flesh. She didn’t even have the time to scream. Her body was turned inside out before my eyes; her skin ripped from its bone, her powerful muscle crushed like paper, leaving liquids and mucus of shades of white, green, and yellow through her body.

Amidst all the pain I almost didn’t realize what had happened. I could only stare with wide, quivering eyes at the sight before me. The shadows behind the reach of light once again thrust forward at me. A dozen large spiders, the prelude to an even larger wave, appeared.

Jachne, being in their way, was the first target. A mere meter from me, they wrestled over each other onto her still standing corpse, and ripped apart the already cut flesh for themselves. Blood and vicera splattered everywhere because of this, but within a matter of a few seconds, there was nothing left of Jachne’s corpse. The spiders pulled her apart with their large fangs, and then retreated back into the shadows with their prizes. The white leg that had impaled Jachne was completely picked clean, there was not a single piece of Jachne left other than blood.

The black hairs on the white leg before me began to twitch, and point toward me.

I was grappling with the spike in my forearm, desperately trying to inch away from the massive spider. I could barely think.

The white leg before me lifted up, and the spider mass around me collapsed into the light, mere seconds away from engulfing me and the disabled Amelathet. Through the dust swirling the air, a sudden heat boiled around me, and my vision fell white and my ears rang. For a moment I almost forgot my pain as thunderous quakes resonated though my chest and my skin burned as if I was but an inch away from the sun. For a moment, with my sensations all filled only with heat, I thought I’d died, without pain to remind me that I was alive.

I didn’t realize that it was a magic barrage until after my vision cleared and my pain returned. More lights had been deployed and I saw before me the wasteland of dead, sizzling and destroyed spider corpses. The large one that had been aiming to impale me was still looming above, but its main body was destroyed, and so it slowly fell to its side.

More were coming out of the shadows. The light spells only illuminated but a hundred meter radius. Despite the sight I had, the magic barrage probably didn’t put a dent in the mass around us.

Into my vision came Alisson with Berein under one arm. She was bleeding, but still had her staff out, wafting with the smoke of a freshly fired barrage. Alisson had blood flowing from his forehead across his face, and there was a large splash of red over his right thigh. He practically tossed Berein next to me and Amelathet, and flourished Enhérejär.

Another wave of enemies were already taking the place of the ones that had been threatening me seconds earlier. While I desperately pulled at the spike pinning me down, Berein propped up her staff over her knee, and started preparing another barrage.

We had one fighter left. And an infinite amount of flesh coming toward us.

I peered up to Alisson.

…

Worthless! Irredeemable! Inexcusable!

“Alisson…”

He didn’t register the soft, pleading voice of his apprentice. He stepped forward, his eyes sharp and his mouth curved into a wild scowl of anger.

The first of the enemies approached. Alisson dashed forward, and impaled it through the head with the full length of Enhérejär. A dozen more came from either side of him, and another dozen from behind. Alisson charged forward in a blur, swiping Enhérejär forward, the blade splitting and impaling droves of enemies before retracting upon his retreat. Just as those eight-legged abominations were about to reach Berein and Celis, he turned and charged back, doing the same to them.

Like a fly he flitted back and forth, grunting like an animal as he desperately held off as many as he could, using scrolls and spells liberally. He didn’t evade, he simply attacked, and retreated. Within seconds his body count had reached dozens high, but that was nothing in the face of thousands.

As the seconds passed Alisson grew ever angrier.

Is there nothing I can do!?

He tightened his grip, slicing a spider in two before sidestepping and impaling three with quick thrusts. He growled aloud, furious, as if he were an animal, as he shifted to another set of spiders that were about to envelope his allies.

Then, Berein fired. It cleared the enemies in the distant vicinity for a few seconds.

“Alisson!”

He heard his apprentice. He looked back to her with wide, furious eyes.

He saw for himself what he had caused, as if his renewed fighting spirit was just an excuse to look away from the scene. His apprentice, trying to stand but covered in wounds and blood, and his subordinates from which he was responsible, tattered near her.

His mind suddenly shot to the sight of Celis being eaten beside him, that terrible hallucination of the prior day.

In that time that he simply looked back, more enemies flooded about. Alisson grinded his teeth.

…

Alisson, with one last twitch of his eye, looked away from me, and toward the oncoming mass. He held Enhérejär out by his side.

The area flashed with light, and my eyes cringed to a close. When I opened them, Alisson had ears atop his head, and tails swishing before his back.

But Berein and Amelathet-! Tch, no, he’s right. I began to stand, as with Berein’s help, I managed to pull the spikes out and unlodge myself in Alisson’s few second frenzy.

Enhérejär started to glow red. Before long, it shined virulently with red, like its blade was made of a crimson beam rather than a solid. The beasts were mere meters away.

Alisson, his Opensen activated, sliced forward with a Pictunee imbued Enhérejär. The result was a sharp, undulating beam of death that spewed from the tip of Enhérejär. I could see that his tails were wafting a faintly red color as well, glowing with warmth. The tips of his tails were bubbling, like they were ready to burst open at any second.

The beam didn’t last long. Although it sliced through everything in its path, it path was small and short. Enhérejär must’ve focused Alisson’s mana. That was probably everything he had, even more than he should be able to use, actually.

Alisson, his mana spent, turned toward me and Berein and Amelathet, still with a scowl, however now his eyes seemed lifeless. He dashed toward us, sheathing his simmering blade. Just barely on my feet, he scooped me up with a single arm. His tails wrapped around me tightly.

“W-wah!?”

With his other hand, he grabbed the scruff of Berein’s neck, and hoisted her body onto his back with a heavy, deep, and honestly terrifying growl.

Alisson was stronger with his Opensen, but that doesn’t mean he should be able to…

Interrupting my thought, Alisson grabbed Amelathet as well under his arm. With another animalistic grunt, Alisson started forward. I could hear his breath, heaving and ragged, but the apparent anger coursing through him was far more prevalent.

“Alisso-!”

I tried to wiggle out of his grip; but I realized that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with him. With all the wounds on my body, he knew that I was as good as incapacitated like Amelathet was, even with the healing scrolls on me. Berein was, well, not physically able; And there was the problem he was left with.

You selfish idiot! You should’ve just left us behind!

The spiders were already gaining on Alisson. He was fast, even towing the three of us. His Opensen must be been even more powerful than I thought. Enhérejär suddenly sprung up, and wrapped around Berein.

“…Mana.”

He croaked. Berein looked to him.

“Flares! Into my blade! Now!”

He suddenly shouted. Berein jumped but quickly grabbed hold of Enhérejär with a free hand. Within a few seconds, Enhérejär seemed to brimming with color. Half a dozen bright white balls shot out of Enhérejär They shot forward and ahead of us high into the sky, before bursting into color. These lights were far more powerful than any I could cast.

What they revealed made my heart jump. A head of us, was a rock wall. That’s it. There’s no escape. The rock wall stretched into the sky, and…What!?

The sky is rock?!

We’re not outside!

We’ve been underground this whole time!

“Now firepower! Everything you have!”

Alisson shouted to Berein. Berein sternly nodded. I looked up to Enhérejär, and reached my hand around it too, forming inscripts at my gauntlet, wanting to contribute.

A sudden flash of white shot through my vision when I touched it.

No, metal. Pure, body.

With those words my vision returned. Alright then. I quickly removed my gauntlet, and put my bare fingers onto Enhérejär.

Before I knew it, the spells were yanked out of my hands, like they’d been ripped away. Regardless, I kept on forming them.

Before long, bright white spells of varying shapes and sizes were firing out of Enhérejär toward the beasts at our backs. The amount of firepower we put behind us was tremendous. There were no large explosions, but several dozen, highly accurate, singular spells slammed into the closest beasts. I’m not kidding about their accuracy, they’re superhuman, even the slowest of spells met vital targets, as if each and every single one was predicted ahead of time.

Amidst our frantic defense and retreat, What looked to be the last of the three large spiders came into view behind us. It wasn’t bounding low to the ground like I’d seen other’s of its kind do, above on the surface, but instead it took large steps forward, keeping its body high up; Thanks to the light, its main body was clearly visible.

It raised its foremost leg, toward us. My eyes widened. Evidently, Alisson knew too what was coming. He threw me forward. Thanks to his inertia, I actually went flailing through the air quite far. I heard a crash behind me as I hit the gravel floor face first. I struggled to look up. In doing so I saw something within the rock wall that I hadn’t before. A couple hundred meters away, there was an opening in the wall, leading somewhere. That must have been what Alisson was running to. How he knew it was there before the lights set up, I think is Enhérejär’s doing.

I turned back, and saw Berein falling toward me out of the cloud of dust that had been kicked from the large spider’s strike.

“Go!”

I heard Alisson shout. I didn’t wait to see him, I got to my feet, grabbed Berein’s hand, and dashed to the opening in the wall. She stumbled close behind.

Just as I thought that it was a straight shot to escape, two dozen spiders swarmed out of the darkness of the tunnel opening.

Can’t anything be simple!?

I clicked my tongue, and drew a scroll from my waist. A flare was shot forward in the next second, down the tunnel and past the spiders that had flooded from it. There doesn’t seem to be any other enemies down there other than the two dozen now surging for us. Good.

“Berein!”

“Right!”

I let go of her hand and charged forward, drawing my baselards. I drew two shock spear scrolls, and fired them in quick succession. They slammed into either sides of the swarm of spiders, killing two of them instantly. They then exploded into visible bolts of electricity, that then jumped up and toward other beasts in the vicinity. The spiders unfortunate enough to be near were fried within seconds, they’re bodies slid to a halt, now smoking and charred. Only six remained. I lunged forward, stabbing one through the head. Another immediately lunged for me. I sidestepped it and cut off two of its legs as it passed. Another jumped for me, but a purple needle skewed it midair.

Two dead, one wounded, and three alive. Two of them were still running forward, toward Berein.

I jumped up, twirling over the bounding body of a spider. I locked my sights on the two that had turned they’re backs to me. I shot off two Pictun spells, the last of my mana. One hit the legs of the closest spider, sending it tumbling, while the second spell then impaled it center mass, leaving only one enemy heading toward Berein.

As I was trying to protect Berein, another spider was already lunging for me. A sharp crack, and a thin purple beam killed it instantly before it reached me. I reached out, grabbed onto it’s corpse, and threw it to my side to make sure I wouldn’t be crushed. Another spider, the one I’d wounded, was a meter away, staring at me. I dashed toward it, and it tried to evade by skittering to the side. I was however much faster.

Not wanting to be entangled in its many sharp legs, I jumped up and onto it, and lobbed off its head with both my baselards. I jumped off it turned my sight to Berein, who still had one coming toward her.

The spider had leapt at her, and thanks to her launching a spell to help me instead of herself, she wasn’t able to stop it. Instead of falling backwards in a panic though, she actually stepped forward, into the jump of the beast. She swung her staff forward. Its tip was a sharp fork after all. However, she wasn’t as strong as she’d thought, and her staff did little more than open a wound on a single one of the spiders legs.

Within a second she was pushed to the ground by its numerous legs, and its fangs were already soaring for her head.

Her action, although futile, did buy her time.

I slammed into the beast, and stabbed both my baselards into its head, cutting through its body as I pulled them out. Disgusting goop covered my gauntlets as I stumbled away from the dead creature.

Berein was shaken up, but unharmed nonetheless by it. I pulled her back up, and we wasted no time making a break for the opening once more. This time, nothing came to stop us, and within ten seconds, we were there, home free. When I turned to find Alisson, I could only see a cloud of dust. Within the cloud, numerous lights and explosions went off, accompanied by thunderous rumbles. The dust cleared and I saw him slamming his rapier through the body of a spider with an incredible force. Above him was the same white spider that’d split us up. It had been trying to squash Alisson with it many legs, hence all the dust that had been kicked up. I withdrew my remaining Reysarke scroll, and aimed at the main body of the massive spider.

An undulating beam slammed into it in the next second, killing it instantly.

Alisson, having been holding off the swarm by himself, with the large spider now out of the picture, seemed able to retreat. He picked Amelathet up from the ground and started toward us at an incredible speed. Spiders were hot on his tail.

Speaking of which, his tails were both wrapped around knives, ominously trailing behind him. At the mouth of the cave, Alisson halted, threw Amelathet’s lifeless body in, and then turned to impale a spider that had been right behind him. He jumped backward, keeping his guard up as thousands of spiders neared us from all sides, more of the larger ones looming in the distance, in the shadows. As soon as Alisson was in, Berein fired a crescendo of spells at the cave’s mouth, and the entrance collapsed, kicking up smoke and dust.

With a single flare illuminating the tunnel, we all sat in silence, hearing the crawling legs of thousands of spiders on the other side of the tunnel. My mind suddenly shot to what they did to Jachne – What if instead of body parts, they ripped apart the rocks that were blocking the tunnel? What if they were doing that right now?

On second thought thought, the spiders shouldn’t be strong enough to lift these boulders…but, there is like a thousand of them…if they worked together…

I gulped.

“C-come on…let’s go deeper…”

Alisson looked to me for the first time since we’d entered the tunnel – He’d had his eyes locked onto the boulders with his weapon up.

He nodded slowly.

So slowly, we walked further in, about a hundred meters, all tired and moving like dead men. All of us were out of mana, so we had to use scrolls to seal the tunnel. It seemed like such a waste but…we were all completely dry, and we weren’t going to win against thousands of spiders in our state.

So, as the tunnel collapsed even further in, I let out a sigh as I collapsed to my knees.

Berein did the same, her legs splayed, breathing and shaking heavily. I could see that her stockings were darker than before and I smelt a faint scent of ammonia.

Alisson stabbed Enhérejär down into the gravel, and fell to a knee, dropping Amelathet beside him. He stared forward down the tunnel, his eyes hazy. Until suddenly, his eyes flitted to a close and he fell to his side, onto the floor.

I took his side in a panic, but thankfully, he still had a pulse – He hadn’t just died on his feet. He was just unconscious. His ears and tails faded into a specs of light, and disappeared.

“Is he okay?”

Berein asked, her head loose, and seeming to be about ready to collapse as well.

“He just pushed himself hard, that’s all."

I say, staring down into his face.

Having his Opensen activated, fighting like that, and having to carry all of us, was probably far too strenuous on his body. That, and he was probably completely spent of mana.

With a single weak light, we sat there for hours. Only after an hour were all our wounds healed. We didn’t want to waste scrolls on the smaller ones, so I had to endure with some cuts until I regenerated some mana. All the while Alisson slept soundly. I held him tightly in my grip. Berein was staring into the ground, her eyes dull and her face expressionless. Amelathet giggled here and there. Her eyes had been wide open, and had a faintly orange tint to them. She grasped Patsel’s dagger.

“Dead…they’re dead…he’s dead…hehehe…”

Amelathet muttered at one point, still unmoving.

***

1. A foil is a weapon that was used for training in place of a smallsword or other thrusting weapon. It is very thin and pliable, and only weighs 500g at most. It is used now as one of the three disciplines in sport fencing. (i fence foil!!)