The arrow caught one of the parasites, which went down screaming. Philippa pulled out the next three arrows and shot them simultaneously at the creature right next to it. And again. And again. And again. She was in a trance. Every single shot was perfect, despite the darkness. The parasites started looking around in irritation before the next arrow hit one of them. One of the worms made a great leap forward and slapped against the glowing wall, the other creatures only now realizing the magical boundary and leaping against the wall in fits and starts.
Nervos, Aletta pulled Ben further back. Cale's instruction echoed in her head. She was to keep her distance from the creatures at all costs, and now she realized why. They were blind and only reacted to mana.
"Just how many are there?"
Philippa was not used wasting her arrows like a madwoman, but Cale did not let the number of pieces fall below twenty. Disgust overcame her as the fat worms stuck to the wall and tried to bite through it with their round, spiny mouths.
"Probably about 200 of them. They come out of the dead womans body. As soon as they find mana to absorb, they start to get bigger, so you should kill them quickly and without hesitation before their they overwhelm us with their sheer numbers and mass.
"What are they anyway?"
Ben had joined the conversation. Aletta and he stood almost directly under the glassy platform of Cale's magic, watching as the archer surprisingly hit every shot. None of the other three had expected Philippa's skills to be this good.
"Calyfaren. Calyfaren babies, to be precise. The mother must have killed the two humans and placed her eggs inside them. I also suspect it was her who killed the Morvosio."
Immediately, everyone felt sick. Ben held his hand in front of his mouth as if he was about to throw up while Aletta could not stomach it and started retching right away. Philippa also felt her stomach turn, but continued to concentrate on her task. She understood very well why only she could really act. Or should. She realized that Cale would be fine on his own, but he had the task of taking care of their safety while keeping an eye on the situation.
"We can't do it this way, there are too many", muttered William to himself, clutching his weapon and watching closely as the creatures moved. He wanted to help Philippa, because on the inside he was afraid that the barrier would fall.
"William, stay here", Cale directed, but it was too late. William shot through the shimmering wall and punched through the mass of monsters. Instantly, all the worms in the area began to pounce on him.
"Is he insane?"
Philippa was shocked by the black-haired mans action before she focused on keeping the monsters at bay from him. Cale's words run wild through her head. He had to have a reason for giving her the task of killing the creatures. But had he expected something like this to happen from the beginning? Why did he remain so calm?
For a moment, she dared to look at Cale, but her body froze into ice. Cale's eyes glowed golden and his dark hair flew seemingly weightless, his clothes also slowly lost their shape and began to glide in the air as well. But what frightened her the most was the expression on his face.
It was pure rage.
Aletta's hand tightened around Ben's arms as she watched the black-haired boy being doused by black worms behind the glowing wall. Philippa had her hands full killing the creatures in his immediate vicinity, while he himself kept breaking free from the ceiling.
"Don't take another step, Ben."
Cale's brusque warning made Aletta realize that the swordsman had just taking a few steps toward the Igrikum. Little did he know that Cale was already working on an idea to approach the problem differently. He had put his Igrikum around William like a second skin only a few seconds after William had been overrun by the creatures, to protect him. He had actually hoped to start a lesson for the group, but William threw his plan in disarray.
"What are you doing? He's getting himself killed!"
Ben's words were loud and vicious, but at the same time full of concern. Nevertheless Cale ignored him completely and used his magic to pull Aletta to him in the air. Visibly surprised, she cried out briefly before standing on the invisible platform in the air.
"Aletta, I need some of your Holy Mana."
Cale did not turn to her, he merely extended a hand to her, in which he also held an arrow and continued to concentrate on the action before him.He was on the verge of outright obliterating each and every creature. While he knew that Calyfaren fed on mana, he was confident that he could take them out with his Igrikum faster than they would react. His only problem was that he didn't want to reveal this form of his ability to the group. Not while he had other ways and the situation was under control.
Aletta didn't think twice. She took the special arrow with her delicate hands, closed her eyes and began to use mana transfer. It took a moment to see that Aletta had combined her Holy Mana with fire in a glowing flame. Silently, she let go of Cale and looked in amazement at the burning arrow in front of her.
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"Philippa, the mass is large enough. Use the arrow and light it up."
"Are you mad? You are going to burn him alive!", Ben interjected, reaching for his sword. He couldn't believe Cale was planning to burn the Calyfaren along with William.
"I really don't have the nerve to explain that to you right now", Cale threw back coldly. His golden eyes flashed from under his dark hair as he turned to Ben and gave him one last warning. "Stay back. Otherwise, I will force you to."
Reluctantly, Ben paused. He trusted Cale, he had trusted him back then and he did trust him right now. But what was the mage up to? Was he really going to put his friends life in danger just to get rid of the creatures? Wasn't there no other, less dangerous way?
"You'd better take care of Aletta."
Surprised, the big man watched as the heavily breathing healer slowly fell to the ground and took her in both hands.
He couldn't help but look at the whole scenario from the outside. His childhood friend was fighting with all his might against the sheer mass of opponents. He watched powerlessly as Philippa reached for the burning arrow the mage handed her, drew her bow, and after a deep breath, fired her shot.
A low, shrill sound split the air as the arrow shot forward and in the next second it was as bright as day. Screams could be heard, the screams of a woman calling for help, the same screams that had lured them out from the camp. The creatures burned and panicked, the swordsman was trying to get out of the flames before he realized they weren't hurting him at all. William watched in horror as the parasites were burned alive one by one before not even their ashes remained. He distanced himself a little from the glowing mountain of flames and realized that the flames that had hit him and the creatures were not ordinary flames.
The whole thing took a few minutes, but Cale had already begun to release the barrier and floated to the ground with the nervous Philippa next to him. His eyes wandered to Aletta, who was looking at him with tired eyes.
"You did well", he said to Aletta, placing his hand on her forehead. He replenished some of her mana with his own, which made Aletta breathe a sigh of relief before she fell asleep in Ben's arms, exhausted. Using mana transfer was not a difficult act in itself, but passing on such masses of Holy Mana was a complete different story and Cale knew that well. "You too Philippa, thank you. You did a wonderful job."
His statement filled the archer with pride. She knew full well that he was serious about his statement and just because it came from Cale, a magician from Altona and an experienced Anuxer at that, she was incredibly excited. Cale had perfect oversight the entire time and he knew exactly what creatures they were up against. He knew not to let the parasites get too close to them, so he set his barrier. He had Ben healed and made sure Philippa had the best position she could ask for with his flying platform. He also knew that the worms would take a while to understand that they were being attacked by normal wooden arrows and that without a magical origin they would have trouble locking on to the enemy.
Cale was an expert, after all, he had a lot of experience fighting with these creatures. He made sure that all group members were safe and at the same time deviced a plan to defeat the opponent efficiently. The dark-skinned woman realized one more time who she was facing. Cale, whose experience, surpassed that of the groups by lenghts, and on top of that, was incredibly good with magic, even better than the healer herself, according to Aletta.
Inevitably, she cast a disappointed glance at the swordsman.
William, who was slowly walking towards the group, could not appreciate the jumble of emotions. Ben looked at him with wide eyes filled with concern, while Philippa gave him the cold shoulder and seemed almost disgusted by him. But what confused him most was Cale's look. His look was dead, as if he had no feelings at all. But this time he couldn't keep his mana properly in check. Cale's mana was quivering with rage.
"Keep your distance", the mage ordered, withdrawing all of his mana down to the last drop. With it, the Igrikum that had protected William from the worst. William stopped at Cale's command, knowing full well that Cale was doing his best not fall victim to the rage. He watched as the mage held an activated fire crystal in his free hand before throwing this at the two human corpses with much gusto, silently watching as the two dead adventurers burned.
"From now on, I forbid the use of mana for any of you. Especially you, William. If I see anything even remotely different from that, pray to the gods", he orderd, before turning to William. "You will follow us now with a distance of 10 meters back to camp, undress completely there, wash and afterwards I will examine you carefully for injuries."
"Why?", William said irritatedly and looked at Aletta, who lay asleep in his friend's arms. She seemed so small and helpless compared to the giant, who was constantly afraid of hurting the weak. Like a big brother holding his younger sister.
"Why? You're seriously asking me WHY?", Cale loudly snapped back. His hands clenched into fists as he tried not to lose his temper. But he was hard up against the edge. He was really on the verge of giving William a sermon in front of the entire crew, the likes of which he had never experienced before. He hadn't been this angry in a long time, especially not at his friends. The only thought that kept him in check just then was the fact that all of them were bloody young. Inexperienced children. Naive kids. They had no idea how dangerous life was and accordingly couldn't judge what they were capable of doing as a group and what they weren't. "Because you let the parasites get to your skin, William. If even one of the creatures bit you and placed their eggs inside you, you become their new nest. If you use mana, it will only cause the creatures to grow inside your body, and the only one who knows about the human body well enough to see the mana current has sacrificed her Holy Mana to help you. If we hadn't been careful, our group could have ended up like those two Anuxers."
Cale pointed his finger at the flame, a good three meters high, which was in the process of burning the remains of the humans. Cale hadn't given a thought to seeing if he could learn their identities. He didn't care. He didn't care about these two people, even if they had really needed help and it hadn't been creatures screaming. He also didn't want to check if there were still Calyfaren eggs in their bodies, he just wanted to burn them and be done with the whole thing.
But he couldn't. They couldn't bring closure because the group faced the danger of suffering the same fate. William had done something that put himself and the others in danger, and Cale had no pleasant way to protect them if the Calyfaren hatched. On the one hand, the situation bugged him, but on the other hand he would take advantage of this incident.
That much was certain.