6.

My choice of words may be confusing. After all, we beat a D ranked beast days ago, right? Yeah, no. One, the alpha was grievously wounded when we killed it. Two, fighting a humanoid was entirely different from fighting a beast.

Winds chimed and slowed, allowing me to duck under a wide swing that would’ve otherwise been too fast. The guandao passed over my head, taking a lock of my hair with it. Close. If I had fastened my hair at the top, I’d be rocking a bob cut.

Not discouraged, I jabbed towards the boy’s neck, the Thirst trying to dig in and hunt for blood and flesh. The mimic wouldn’t be able to dodge in time. Yet there was none of the widening in the eyes like you’d expect from a human. But maybe it knew it was safe.

The tip of my spear clanged against a hard surface an inch away from the boy’s throat. I frowned. A see-through pane had formed in the air, blocking me.

‘Get back!’ Boris’s voice came from my right, silent yet hard.

He charged into my view, shield-slamming the guandao-user before he could reposition and swing again. They tumbled to the floor, and Boris started smashing with his buckler, the mimic desperately defending his face with his bare hands.

I glanced behind me. Hero was channelling, playing a combination of the accuracy debuff and movement slow. My eyes whirled to the front. Three of the mimics were staying back, around thirty feet. One had a bow and arrow; the other had their hands outstretched in front of them—that must be the one who conjured the pane. The backline’s vanguard was a sword wielder. A long sword, which meant his reach was greater than May’s.

May didn’t care and charged in, a red hue suffusing her limbs as she sped forward.

An arrow was knocked. Maura spun in the hands of the pane conjurer.

My lips tutted. May was fast. But that also meant none of us could keep up with her. I had to go and cover her.

‘You got him, Boris?’ I said, already moving and not waiting for an answer. The grunt he gave me was enough.

Then the bowstring went off. If there had been doubt that the mimic’s arrows were enchanted, there no longer was. The bolt launched with a shrill cry, the wail of a banshee or some other unbegotten creature.

Hero’s high note was even louder. The arrow veered off course, but the difference in rank was too much, so the angle was too little, and the shouting arrow screamed that it wanted May’s head on the pike. The red haze that was May came to a stop. Her sword sung to intercept—

But a pane formed right in front of her hips, stopping her swing before it could ever gain momentum. My breath hitched. She’d lost all of her speed, and she wouldn’t be able to regain it fast enough to dodge.

I jumped and threw my own weapon, but I was barely halfway across the gap between us. It’s not going to make it in time, I thought in horror. That’s when the ground beneath May turned to mush, a pool of brown smudge covering the area beneath her left foot, and May sunk into the floor—just enough for the arrow to pass overhead and dig into the ground behind her.

My neck turned while I was still in the air. Boris had his hand on the floor and grinned. The mimic he was pinning down slapped the smile off his face, and Boris returned to wrestling.

Thank God.

I landed at the same time as my cursed spear, which followed the arrow’s lead and drilled into the floor. May was already moving again, and I dashed forward with all the speed I could muster. The attention of the pane wielder was on me because multiple of them formed in front of me, trying to get me to trip and slowing my advance. However, Hero’s technique apparently worked on these, too, because they always came into being a little to the side, giving me enough time to dodge. Within moments, I reached my spear and plucked it from its perch without stopping.

I glanced ahead of me. May faked the longsword wielder, pulling short her swing and jumping back. I frowned in confusion before she formed a lance in her free hand and threw it towards the archer, stopping them from lining up another shot. But the panes were once more on point, creating a wall that halted the destructive purpose of May’s conjured weapon. Then the archer’s bow aimed straight at May’s throat.

A look behind me told me Boris wasn’t in any position to create another mud pit (he was starting to lose against the mimic), and I quite literally panicked. Throwing my spear would give the same result. I was closer to the fight, yet not enough to stop anyone. So what did I do?

Hero’s tune shifted. Instead of a mix, it became a song of low and sad notes. I couldn’t see how his maura enveloped the archer, but I could feel it.

I bit my lips and hurtled myself forward harder. We just had to hope it was enough. So, I angled myself to arrive at the flank of the three mimics’ sole frontline. Meanwhile, I kept an eye on May’s movements. Whether or not Hero’s technique would be enough would not be answered in this lifetime.

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My brows scrunched as a vertical line split the air at the side of the archer’s head. At first, I thought it would be another pane, but I didn’t understand why the mimic would form a construct there. Then, the line expanded, the sides turning into a curve suffused with a blue hue, and a circle big enough for a cannonball to fit through opened up. There was an image visible through the portal—one that was quickly swallowed up by an iron ball with spikes crashing through.

What?

The flail rammed directly into the mimic’s face, who was turning to see what was going on. One of the spikes dug into an eyeball, and the resulting pop was disgusting, with puss and blood squirting everywhere. Luckily, the head was separated from the neck with the force of the blow, not allowing me any more of the gruesome sight.

The severed head and weapon crashed into the hedge on the other side of the road, where thorns immediately rushed to snatch the face from the flail. But the chained ball pulled back into the portal as quickly as it had come, the head letting go in the middle of the air.

There was a moment of silence, even among the mimics, where everyone tried to grasp what had just transpired. The archer’s headless corpse falling to the floor signalled the end of that pause.

May’s sword engaged its longer cousin, and before the pane conjurer could do anything else, a portal opened below her chin. It wasn’t the flail this time. Though I couldn’t quite see what had taken its place because it went too fast, what looked like a blue shard wedged deep into the skull of the mimic.

The battle was finished quickly after that. Another well-timed portal strike—the flail this time—combined with May searching for an opening led to the demise of the longsword mimic. Then May and I circled back, relieving Boris from his enemy, who had nearly thrown Boris off of him.

Our breathing calmed a little as the sounds of battle faded. And Hero’s tune finished. Yet we remained vigilant. The four of us stood in formation, waiting to see if the flail would come for any of us.

‘No need to be scared,’ came a voice.

And I jerked in place. I recognised it.

A portal opened up in front of us. This time, its size was enough for a person to step through. And a person did step through—four of them, to be correct.

Kate was at the head, her initiate robes twirling as she strapped the chain around her wrist, hauling the blood-dripping flail closer to her. Behind her were the two brothers. Twins, to be precise. Both had an easy smile on their lips, spears still fastened to their backs. They were handsome, I had to admit. They looked like they could model for a magazine.

Last through the gate was a boy I only had quick memories of—glances caught when I found him staring. This was the short boy from Monstrography. He had a smooth face, which was quite unremarkable, so what caught my attention instead was a beaded necklace he wore with a carved ivory pendant as the centrepiece, depicting some sort of golem carrying a boulder. Strange, to say the least. But then he also carried a figurine that looked like the pendant on the belt strapped to his middle. The thing was the size of a teddy bear, with its skin the colour of ice.

‘Kate,’ May said, raising her back and exiting her fighting stance. ‘So, it was you. Thanks for the help.’

‘Don’t mind it,’ the towering girl said.

The gate closed behind her as the leering boy fully stepped through. My eyes went to the twins, who had maura thrumming around their hands. Had they created the portal?

Kate slung her weapon over her shoulder. She looked to the side and kicked the corpse of the guandao mimic. White smoke rose from all over—the body was disintegrating.

‘Nasty creatures,’ Kate said. ‘We ran into a pack of them earlier on the road behind this hedge.’

She motioned to the wall on our right with her chin.

‘None of you got injured?’ May asked incredulously after nearly dying two times in a minute.

Kate shook her head and tapped her flail with her nails.

‘All four of them were support-type hunters. We managed to catch two of them off-guard together with Dale’s shards.’

She glanced at the leering boy as she spoke, which meant he must be Dale.

Catch off-guard, huh. I could believe it. That portal, together with her flail, was nasty. She could attack from everywhere. I breathed out slowly. This group was an issue.

‘Shards,’ I said. ‘As in ice shards?’

Dale inclined his head.

‘Dale Van Damme. A hunter of ice, as you so brilliantly predicted.’

Kate slapped Dale on the back and chuckled.

‘Cheeky, isn’t he? You’re both water hunters, so I hoped you could get along. Maybe you can learn from each other during the test.’

May smiled.

‘The shrimp’s an introvert, so that may take a while.’

The low, thrumming strain on muscles gave and snapped when the jokes started, and faces turned easy. But I kept my eyes on Dale for another moment. Maybe I imagined it, but his chuckle after Kate said we could teach each other wasn’t genuine. Then there was his brilliantly comment. That was far from a compliment.

Their whole squad was a red flag (I hadn’t forgotten Fahim’s comment, and neither had May). But May motioned for us to get closer. So, I let my spear collapse into an incoherent blob and stored the cursed water in my waterskin.

‘We were following the map north when we were forced into the mimics,’ May said.

She eyed the corpse at our side, which was now wholly gone except for the head.

‘The marker that looks like a tree, right?’ Kate said. ‘We were headed the same way.’

‘A tree?’ May said.

Kate held out her hand. One of the twins pulled out a white map and handed it to her. May, Hero, and I drew closer, Boris choosing to stay some distance away and instead watch our surroundings.

Kate tapped near the centre of the map, where a marker stood. Now that we had taken a closer look, it did look like a tree.

‘You know where we are relative to it?’ Hero asked, looking up.

Kate’s fingernails, which I noticed were painted black, moved across one of the roads and fell on an indiscriminate object. ‘That’s the fountain in front of us.’

I peered. No matter how I turned my head, I couldn’t discern it as a fountain. May produced our map and studied it. Further down was a bend in the road, which was where the map cut off. Viewed like this, the locations could indeed match. If this was really where we were, though, the other landmarks were pretty far away from us, including the tree. There were also many shrouded pieces of land in the roads leading towards the tree. Maybe multiple roads led there?

‘You think the tree is important?’ May said.

‘Has to be,’ Kate said. ‘It’s bigger than all the other markers and near the garden’s centre.’

May glanced at me, Hero, and then towards the vanishing corpses of the mimics before turning back to Kate.

‘I propose we travel together. That way, we can better take care of the mimics. What do you say?’

‘I was waiting for you to ask!’ Kate slapped May on the shoulder. ‘If we find any rejects on the way—’

Kate smiled. It sent a chill crawling through me that I couldn’t quite explain.

‘—we’ll trash them,’ May finished eagerly.

And so our bond was sealed. Let’s hope not our fate.