“There is an unspoken rule to fighting monsters several classes higher than the average enchantment grade you and your party possess. One grade above? Fine. Just don’t get sloppy. Two grades above? Run. For the love of Zadalk, just run.”

- Professor Boaz Redmoor

We ran. It wasn't just because Azuris screamed that the fight was against a Wyvern. No. That would've sucked, but with the five of us, we could've managed to at least repel the wyrm.

It was the creature it fought that gave my frantic sprint away from the fight the energy it needed to make not-dying a viable option. The others didn't recognize it. It was insanely rare in these parts, so much so that many didn't fear it as they should. But I knew it, as it was the reason Kaelin grew to such high levels of fame during his first year. He killed one of them during his first Hunt.

A Zengo.

Behind us, the wyvern clashed with the lupine monstrosity. I didn’t know enough about the northern province’s wyrms to accurately identify the draconic creature. But any of them were nasty and cruel creatures. When fully grown, they evolved past the epic-classification and reached the mythic-tier. I stole a glance behind me to make sure they weren’t following us. The two forces of nature collided again with a whirlwind of teeth and claws. The wyvern, which had scales the color of sand and eyes as red as rubies, snarled and recoiled as the Zengo disappeared. The sound of space ripping apart preluded its arrival as the beast reemerged directly above the winged monster.

My steps slowed once their large forms were at a manageable distance away from us.

“What should we do?” I asked Azuris.

“What do you mean?!” Lizzy cut in. “We run! We can’t take those…those…things!”

“Why not?” I asked, my words coming out as a hiss as I tried to recover my breath. Azuris' expression hardened as he took in the situation.

“Are you sure?” His eyes studied mine for any doubts or hesitation. He found none. After my initial shock, the golden opportunity that had plopped into our laps was too good to pass up.

“What aren’t you two saying?” Lizzy demanded in as loud a whisper as she dared.

“It could work,” I answered, grateful at least he saw what I did.

“We’d have to be fast,” he prodded.

“Am I dead?” Lizzy huffed, folding her arms across her small chest and adjusting her spectacles. “Either of you understand this charade?” She asked of Elio and Gwyn. Elio grinned knowingly.

“An honorable fight awaits us! The Shadow Lord is with us this day!” He whooped, totally ruining our stealthy location. Fortunately, our prey were too preoccupied with ripping each other apart to notice.

“If everything goes according to plan, honor won’t have anything to do with it,” I muttered softly, which got a short bark of laughter from the tiefling.

“And we’ll be two enchantments richer,” he replied smoothly. I nodded with a small grin and turned to my friends. I relayed my insane plan. They all stared, shocked and unnerved, though I wasn’t sure if it was because of my genius or their concern with my mental stability. Either way, I took it as a compliment. When each of us knew what we needed to do, we rushed back toward the monsters brawling in the woods.

Blood the density of molasses coated the surrounding plant life. The ichor of the two beasts dripped from their respective wounds like fountains halted by time. To my surprise, the Zengo bore the brunt of the injuries, with one of its black orbs punctured and oozing from a lucky rake of the wyvern’s claws. The wyrm was not unscathed though. Long lines of exposed flesh where scales once resided marked the length of its snake-like body. Its two wings, each tipped with claw-like appendages, were dotted with holes that bled freely.

We reached them unnoticed. It was understandable. Why would two deadly warriors bother themselves with insects like us? I was sure that if it just us against the senses of just one of these creatures, they would’ve seen through our stealthy approach easily. I prayed a silent prayer of gratitude that they didn’t take us seriously.

The wyvern pounded its wings and gusts of intense wind far stronger than was natural whipped toward the Zengo. It growled softly and then took a step backward. As it did, the tearing sound I knew to be a sign of its domineering power, echoed in the clearing. Though it moved away from the wyvern, the strange portal that sliced through reality opened its second entrance behind the wyvern. Thus, with a single stride, the Zengo was at its enemy’s back. It didn’t waste the brief disorientation. It jumped and lunged, giant canines slick with blood as they veered for the dragonkin’s neck.

The reptilian monster was accustomed to this trick now, however, and ended the gale it conjured. It rolled along the ground in a tight circle, its barbed tail racing toward the soft skin beneath the Zengo’s jaw. The lupine dodged to the left, narrowly avoiding the swipe. I got closer, ready to intervene on Azuris’ signal. I scooted along the underbrush near the fight as both creatures fought for dominance and survival.

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Several painfully tense minutes passed. Right when I thought it would end in a stalemate, the wyvern baited the Zengo into a lunge at its exposed belly. It fell for it. The wyrm pivoted with supernatural speed and then used the leverage offered by one of the largest trees in the clearing to dive backward. Its body was now entirely parallel with the ground for a breathtaking moment. It easily twisted and got its entire tail around the neck of the Zengo.

The lupine gagged and tried to bite at the beast, but it was useless. It slammed the wyvern against tree after tree, each one enough to squash any mortal like a bug. But it was all in vain. With a garbled howl, the Zengo fell. A flash of metal glinted in the sun, and I moved with every ounce of speed I could muster. Gauntlets out and at the ready, I reached the panting wyvern. Now, in front of it, doubts started to creep into my mind like wyrmlings of their own.

It’s so huge.

I didn’t have time to debate it anymore. We were committed. I was committed. The vicious creature uncurled its tail and took me in, its red eyes a promise of a slow and gruesome death. I yelled at the beast, my voice hoarse. The orange ribbon in my hair caught the sun in my peripheral, and I remembered the promise I made. Not to the Order of Artemis, but one far more important. The only one that mattered.

I will help you, Kaelin.

This creature wasn’t my executioner. It was my step forward. My step up. A grin formed on my face, and I was grateful none of my friends were around to tell me it glimmered with madness. I would never admit it, but I was starting to enjoy this. The fight. The sweat. The danger. It scared me how little fear I actually felt, especially with a giant monster looming over me.

A forked tongue slithered out from its maw, tasting the air and cleaning off one of its fangs.

“NOW!” I yelled. Elio rushed forward, not at the monster but at me. The wyvern tilted its head in confusion, and I would’ve laughed at the comical sight if not for my razor-focus on what I had to do next.

Please, let me not kill my friend, I prayed right as my ally reached me. He jumped without hesitation into my open palms. I strained but managed to toss him up. Right before his boots exited my hand, I pulsed the kinetic blast from my right gauntlet. He shot up and out, his path through the sky like an arrow. The wyvern’s gaze followed his trajectory, and I used the momentary distraction to close in the distance. I punched forward, straight into a narrow gap between some loosened scales.

To my right, a tomahawk whistled through the air and struck the creature’s eyes, but a second pair of semi-translucent eyelids protected them from the worst of the damage. Still, the wyvern screeched in pain and recoiled back. As it did, the gap I found expanded as its lithe body shifted. What was once a tiny hole in its sand-dusted armor was now wide enough for my gauntlet and then some to fit in.

I didn’t waste the opportunity.

My left hand shot through the opening, the three fangs of the Shardclaw aglow with ice-blue energy. The magical poison injected, I planted my other gauntlet against the beast and activated another kinetic explosion as I jumped. I barreled away, just quick enough to avoid its wild swipe at where I was. I flipped clumsily in the air but managed to reorient myself to prevent landing on my head. I tumbled to a stop and watched as Lysandra and Azuris joined the fray.

Lizzy, wielding an unenchanted bow, sprinkled the monster with arrows. Azuris, for his part, wielded two wicked daggers that gleamed with red light. He was mesmerizing. He danced through the wild contortions of the monster, swerving and flipping like some circus acrobat. I watched, transfixed, as he narrowly avoided an untimely decapitation from one of the wyvern’s winged appendages. He then used the leathery wall of flesh as leverage for a leap that sent him just high enough to clasp one of the beast’s giant horns. One of his daggers fell to the forest floor as he held on for dear life. The beast writhed and clawed at its underbelly where the crystalline patterns spread like a disease across its body.

The wyvern went mad with pain and panic alike before my very eyes. It took to the air, my tiefling comrade still atop its head like some mythical warrior astride his steed. The skybound pounded its wounded wings with a furious beat, but the new weight from my crystalline attack made it sluggish. Still, it rose.

I watched and waited, collecting my stamina for what came next. The wyvern sucked in a breath with a mighty suction and then prepared its sonic blast.

Too late, you overgrown snake.

When the wyrm neared the dense foliage of the trees far above, a limb from one of the giant redwoods descended like a hammer from heaven. Azuris yanked with all his might on the horns of the creature, pulling it off course just enough for the hefty log to spear directly into its left wing. The comparatively brittle bones of the appendage snapped nearly as loudly as the branch itself did, courtesy of one particular disciple of the Shadow Lord. I’d thrown up Elio with one of Gwyn’s enchanted tomahawks, and he’d dislodged one of the many teetering branches the wyvern’s initial descent had created.

The draconic snake fell to the earth like a meteor. Right before it landed, Azuris leapt and used his remaining dagger to carve his way down one of the nearby trees, the sharp blade slowing his descent significantly. It tried to rise up, but Gwyn was on it immediately. She was brutal to observe. Where Azuris was all grace and lithe motions, she was cold and efficient. She easily chopped into its eyes now, and even went so far as to cut off its tongue so that its ichor would choke it up. By now, the crystalline patterns of the Shardclaw's fangs were nearly at its center.

It shivered with pain right before Gwyn strode over and sunk her blade deep into its hide, right in between its ribcage. The wyvern convulsed one more time, then went still. Silence descended on the area.

Gwyn didn’t waste any time. She walked over to where one of the creature’s scales now glowed with a purplish light. She procured it with a couple of strong tugs and cuts with her blades, then removed the wet item. A pulse of magic exited the wyvern, and it seemed like its color turned more gray. More desolate.

I let out a heavy sigh, the adrenaline slowly ebbing from my limbs as I took in our battleground. A laugh began to bubble up. We did it. We actually did it. We took down an Epic-classed monster. Elation and disbelief spread through my mind and the laugh grew. I retracted my gauntlets and smiled broadly at my friends, who looked just as stunned as I was. They started to grin back. Lizzy whooped and pumped her fists into the air.

So, naturally, it was right then that the Zengo rose to its feet, a deep growl escaping its clenched maw.