Sasha thrust her flaming spear at the monster’s face, driving it back so that it couldn’t lunge with its cruel yellow beak or disembowel her with its scissor-claws. It seemed to have an instinctual fear of fire, or she wouldn’t have been able to keep up at all.

The creature was fierce and far too fast to defeat with such a straightforward attack. But it pulled back long enough to circle around, buying her another few seconds of life.

Beside her, Trapper was facing off against two of the feathered horrors at once, sword meeting claw in a frenzy of blows. The veteran hunter was holding her own for now. But she was already hard-pressed, and the battle had just begun.

This was the worst scrap that Sasha had been in since she joined the crew. She wasn’t sure that they would all be walking away from this one, assuming that anyone survived at all.

There weren’t even supposed to be any monsters in the region, let alone ones this strong. But everything had been thrown into chaos by the anomaly. The crew had thought that they would have more time before anything nasty began roaming this close to town. An assumption that might well be the last mistake they ever made.

There was a very real chance that Sasha was about to die, trapped inside a body that wasn’t her own. Buried on a planet that was light-years away from the world of her birth without ever seeing her family again.

Everything would be different if this engagement were a true hunt, and the monsters their intended prey. Trapper’s skills were best when she had time to prepare them on the ground of her choosing, and worst in a situation like this. A blind ambush where their opponents had fallen on them unaware. If they had been given even a few seconds to prepare, Trapper’s crossbow and Riller’s poison arrows could have helped to even the odds.

But Sasha didn’t have time to indulge in what-ifs at the moment. Not if she wanted to keep her blood inside her body. She had just enough time to cast her gaze across the battlefield, bracing her weapon and raising her shield, ready for when her opponent came darting back into range.

Riller and Jumo were fighting shoulder-to-shoulder, trading blows with a fourth monster, while Lucky and Blue, the crew’s trained beasts, were engaged with the fifth. The fight had only been going on for a handful of heartbeats, but Sasha already considered it a miracle that no one had taken a serious injury.

The first monster to appear had almost decapitated Lucky. But Trapper leapt in front of it at the last possible moment, silver blade flashing in the sunlight as it caught the creature’s claws. Then she had disengaged, scoring a wound along the monster’s body that sent a spray of inky blood flying into the air, accompanied by a furious caw.

That cry marked the beginning of a frantic melee. Only their training and time spent together had kept the crew from being overwhelmed already. But when fighting weapon to claw against powerful monsters they’d never seen before, creatures who specialized in close range combat, it was only a matter of time before someone was killed.

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Their only hope was that the deputy manning the wall saw what was happening and came running to the rescue. Even in a best-case scenario, they were going to have to hold out for several more minutes before anyone from town could arrive. Sasha was filled with a grim foreboding that help wouldn’t make it in time.

She stuffed that thought into a box and locked it away. Shut out the electric adrenaline cracking in her veins. The stench of rancid meat riding the breeze. Everything except the spear in one hand, the shield in the other, and the creature she needed to kill.

It’s too soon to lose hope. We have to hold them off for as long as we can. The problem was, in addition to being stronger than they were, the monsters were faster too. If the crew turned to run, the creatures would chase them down and fall upon them from behind, creating a situation even worse than the one they were in now.

All such thoughts were driven from her mind a bare second later, when the monster she was fighting came rushing back in. It darted in low, trailing shadows like smoke that made its movement hard to follow. Sasha adjusted her shield and lowered the end of her weapon, trying to get the flaming tip aligned with its face.

But the creature was ready for just such a move. It reached out with both arms, parrying her spear with one set of claws, and pulling her shield down with the second. Then it reared back, ready to lunge with its beak and pierce her chest like an arrow.

Sasha tried to leap out of the way, but it was already too late. Her efforts were laughable in the face of the creature’s overwhelming speed.

The monster’s beak streaked for her breastbone, so fast that its serrated edge became a ragged yellow blur. Before she had time to draw another breath, she would feel it tear into her flesh before perforating her heart. A fatal blow by any accounting.

In that moment, time seemed to slow down, giving Sasha a final moment to reflect on what was likely to be the last second of her life.

She could feel the sunlight on her skin. Smell the perfume of wildflowers on the breeze, contrasting with the acrid stench of death. She traveled through space in a glacial procession, although even slowed down, the monster moved fast.

It tipped its head up as it completed its strike, adjusting its aim to home in on her heart.

Just before its beak sliced into her flesh, she saw something arrive from the periphery of her vision. A tide of darkness moving even faster than the monster lunging to end her life.

Sasha had just enough time to wonder what was happening before the shadows morphed into the figure of a man. A man holding some manner of weapon between his hands, arced over his shoulder and poised to strike.

While she watched on, entranced by the slow motion scene playing out before her eyes, a stray thought flitted across her mind. He’s actually kind of hot.

The monster was moving at an incredible rate, but the man moved faster still. She could sense mana flowing into his arms, as he activated a skill in time with his swing. It multiplied the speed of his attack, transforming his weapon into a glossy black blur.

The blade came down over her head in a midnight flash, shearing off a few hairs in passing. It went streaking toward the monster’s jaws, just as time resumed its full course.

Before anyone had time to process what was happening, the man’s skill-bolstered swing struck true. His weapon parted the creature’s beak and carved deep into its face. It sliced straight through its skull with a hollow thunk, erupting out the other side in a great spray of stinking blood the color of coal.

The monster’s body plowed into her, knocking her to the ground. But the blow that would have claimed her life never came.

It seemed that Sasha wasn’t going to die after all. At least not yet.