Her foot shifted back a hair. This fight was unimportant. She needed to get away.

Don’t! the demon’s voice ripped through her and arrested her movement. If you run now, they will chase. You must kill them if you wish to live.

She wanted to scream. What the hell did he know? It was his fault she was here. If he hadn’t startled her she would have slipped around them without a sound.

He might be right though. Bears were known to chase down fleeing prey but to back down against hikers who made themselves big and stood their ground.

She was pretty sure Wind Step would get her out, but what if she was wrong? What if they were better trackers than the Herald had been? Could they follow her back to her camp?

Didn’t rats have flexible skeletons? A lot of animals, as long as they could get their skull through a hole, could wriggle their way in. She was pretty sure that was true.

They would definitely be able to get into the crack she’d used as her previous camp. Would she be able to find a cranny they couldn’t fit in?

What would she do if she couldn’t? Fight them?

What was she thinking? He was probably trying to get her killed. Why would she listen to a word he said? He wanted to possess her after all. Why would he care if she lived or died?

Could he possess a dead body? What about one half-eaten by rats?

She grit her teeth.

Focus: 158/207

There wasn’t time for this indecision. She needed to act and it needed to be now.

Run?

Fight?

Run?

Fight.

She needed to fight. She couldn’t guarantee her safety any other way.

And if she was going to fight, she needed the combat skill.

Skill Earned: Wind Blade (lvl 1) (Wind)

[Through study of the winds, you have discovered how to shape them into a weapon of your Will. None can stop the wind.

Condense the air into blades with your Focus. Direct with a melee weapon or send them at your targets with your Will for an additional Focus cost.

Association with the Concept of Wind increases the speed of the blades and allows for greater control of shape and direction.

Modified by Wll.

Mana Cost: 5 (melee), 15 (ranged)]

The corners of Cass’s lips quirked up in a strained smile. This was better than she’d hoped for. An automated version of what she’d achieved with Elemental Manipulation at a fraction of the cost with a ranged option all packaged together for her.

She activated the skill, feeling the ease at which her Focus corralled an appropriate disk of air into a slender blade on the end of her staff, invisible to her eyes but vibrating madly to both her Atmospheric and Mana Senses. It covered only the top third, and extended past another quarter the length of her staff, transforming her staff into a glaive.

The skill sung in anticipation. Staff Mastery joined the chorus. There was no moment like the present, she dashed at the nearer of the two rats, the level 12 one.

Her Wind Blade sliced through fur and flesh, cutting a wide gash and deepening the existing wound into a terrible, fountaining chasm of blood. Blood splattered, exploding off the vibrating air before it stilled as the effect ended.

The rat screamed and thrashed at her, its jaws snapping wildly.

Cass stepped back, listening as Staff Mastery reminded her to take advantage of her longer reach. Reach made even longer by the blade of air at the end of her staff.

Level 15 decided enough was enough and charged her again from the side. Whether it was incensed by the screams of its pained companion or simply driven to madness by the blood in the air, Cass could only speculate.

She summoned another Wind Blade, cutting a long gash in its snout as it tried to knock her over. It recoiled, confusion and madness at war in its eyes. The confusion won out, it scurried back a step, crouching as if to pounce just out of range of her staff.

Wind Blade has increased to level 2.

Level 12 picked up the slack, bounding at her again.

Cass stepped back, slashing her staff at it. The rat changed directions at the last second. The invisible section of her Wind Blade caught its shoulder as it scurried out of the way, but the wound was shallow.

They were clever enough to respect the danger her staff represented and quick enough to dodge out of the way, but not fearful enough to cut their losses and run.

But, she didn’t need to be close to hit them anymore.

She summoned another blade as she dragged her staff parallel to the ground. It flew off her staff, flying over the stone floor.

It slammed into the two rats. Its edge had dulled over the distance, rolling off their dense fur but it still hit with enough force to stagger the smaller of the two.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Was the blade too wide, the power distributed too much across its length?

Level 15 leapt.

No time to speculate, she just had to keep trying.

She swung again, her feet planted before the charging rat, ignoring every shred of good sense that said she should get out of the way.

The Wind Blade was smaller this time–more compact. It cut with ease through the rat’s fur, leaving a long tear down its back.

Wind Blade has increased to level 3.

But the rat didn’t slow its charge.

Cass tried to dodge. She couldn’t move fast enough.

There wasn’t time to try anything else.

The rat tumbled into her. Cass raised her staff in a block. The two fell in a terrifying pile of fur and teeth, Cass pressed to the stone floor by the monster’s enormous weight.

Its mouth snapped in her face. She caught its neck on her staff, pressing it away from her face with all her might.

The rat snapped again, thrashing its head around the stick. Her staff caught in the crook of its mouth, vile spittle spraying over her face as it tried to gnaw through the wood.

She tried to form another Wind Blade to knock it back. She could feel her Focus filling the skill and running down the length of her staff. She tried to corral it in the center, to build the blade beneath the rabid mouth of the rat above her, but she couldn’t get it to stabilize there. The blade would only form on either end of the staff.

Wind Blade wouldn’t work here.

There had to be something else she could do.

She couldn’t run. Wind Step wouldn’t activate if she was held in place by another force. And even if she could, then what? There was a reason she hadn’t run earlier.

But what else did she have? It was too late for Dodge or Sprint and much, much too late for Stealth. Staff Mastery said she was already doing her best as far as it was concerned.

Elemental Manipulation might have a solution, but it required at least one free hand, which she just didn’t have. It was already taking all her strength with both hands to keep the rat from pressing her staff out of the way. There was no way she could hold it off her with only one.

What if she braced one end of the staff against the ground? Could she do it? She looked to either side frantically. Level 12 Rat was slinking around to her left, just waiting for an opening. How long did she have until it decided to join its friend?

Cass shook her head. She needed to focus. There had to be something to brace the staff against. There, to her right, a nook in the rock, barely more than a fist-sized depression, but maybe, just maybe, enough to lock one end of her staff in place?

Or the staff would be easily jerked free by the thrashing rat and it would press through her meager defense and rip her head from her shoulders.

But she didn’t have any other ideas, and the other option was to do nothing until it exhausted her strength and it did it anyway.

It was try it now or certain death. Put like that, it was an easy choice.

She angled her staff, seating the end in the nook. The rat slammed its head into the staff, still trying to chew its way through the wood. Still unable to displace it.

Moment of truth, Cass let go of that side.

Her free hand darted out as she cast Elemental Manipulation, summoning fire in the palm of her hand. The largest ball of fire she’d ever summoned sprang to life. She drove it into the side of the rat’s face as it tore her staff from her hand.

It squealed in pain. She pressed harder. She cast Elemental Manipulation again. And again. And again.

Fur burned. Skin melted.

The rat screamed. Cass screamed.

There was just screaming and smoke.

The strength gave out in its legs. All its weight fell on her, crushing her in a way thrashing muscle never could. The thing was the size of a large, broad-shouldered man, and twice as dense.

The level 12 rat slunk forward as it became clear that she couldn’t free herself from beneath the larger rat.

She could feel it sniffing around her ankles. Its breath was hot and humid, slipping through the tears in her pant legs. Its cold nose prodded her bare skin. Stiff whiskers raked over her.

She kicked, but there was no force behind the strike with the majority of her body pressed under the larger rat. The rat retracted a step, gauging how much danger her pinned leg could exert. When it had evaluated it at not very much, it slunk closer again.

There had to be something else she could do.

It sniffed again, taking its time. She wasn’t going anywhere, trapped between a rock and a hard place as she was.

Can you manipulate stone?

Cass blinked, the pain of his voice cutting through the rising fear and pain. She could. But what would that do? She couldn’t move that much stone at once.

But what if she could push things with the stone she manipulated?

She could feel the rat preparing to bite down on her leg. It’d be just as happy to eat her alive as dead. Happier maybe since its meal would keep warm longer that way.

There was no time for doubts.

Elemental Manipulation!

She picked a patch of stone by the larger rat’s shoulder, not far from her right hand. She willed it up. She forced mana into it and pushed, forming a pillar a little wider than a soup can under the rat, propping it up. Not enough to unpin her legs. The corpse sagged too much in the center, the pillar cracking under even this much strain.

The second rat bit down. Cass screamed. It gnawed on the muscle. This was worse than the attacking bites from earlier. This was worse than the clawing and the tearing of the terrorcat. Only the poison of the centipede came even close to the pain of the muscle of her leg being chewed on and ripped out.

Focus! The demon’s voice cut through the pain, one pain jerking her from the other.

She pressed the sensations of her legs away. She could bend her waist a little now. She shimmied and reached, moving her hand into the space created by her first prop.

God, it hurt! It hurt. How could she focus on anything else? There was only pain. Pain and pain and pain and pain and—

Focus! The demon’s voice was almost pleading.

She grit her teeth and did as he said. She focused. Pushing through the pain, physical and soul-raking alike, she activated Elemental Manipulation again. She created a wider pillar, dinner plate sized, wide enough to hold against the rat’s weight she hoped.

It was almost too much for her to manage. She could feel her Focus dropping under the strain. She could feel her mind-bending under the effort. The world spun as she was overtaken by the pain of her leg and the pain of the spell and the pain of her crushed body.

But it was enough. She felt the pressure leave and she scurried out from beneath the first rat. The second bit down on her leg as she went. She felt something tear as she pulled away.

Her vision tunneled on her staff. It lay barely a yard to her left, where it had landed after the first rat had ripped it away from her.

She crawled after it.

The second rat was right behind her. Atmospheric Sense tracked it behind her, its breathing rabid in its excitement over living meat.

She wasn’t going to make it to her staff.

The rat crouched to leap. It would land on her. She would be pinned again. Crushed under its weight. Torn to shreds.

No. She was panicking again. Overwhelmed with the pain and the fear there was nothing else. She was never going to reach her staff in time, but she refused to die. There had to be something else she could use. But there was nothing in reach. Just stone and—

She knew what she needed to do.

The rat was in the air now. If it landed on her, she would die. From the impact. From its teeth ripping her throat apart. From its claws tearing open her chest. But it wasn’t going to land on her.

She activated Elemental Manipulation, she pulled at the stone directly underneath her. She yanked it up and activated Dodge. Her body rolled out of the way as a spike of stone sprung into existence.

The rat skewered itself on the new spike, its full weight and the velocity of the still-rising stone combining into a truly frightening impact.

Cass lay on the ground beside her trap. She was alive.

Brutalized.

But alive.