Orvan had been busy during the night indeed, apparently. There were monsters of all shapes and sizes, each one of them dead.

The grass around the castle was drenched in blood, and the acrid smell of metal filled the air. Big creatures and small ones laid atop each other, cut apart and limbs mangled. Some seemed to have been clearly severed, others crushed, or burned, or beaten down in a myriad of other ways.

My mouth fell open and moved like that of a dead fish. Matt just kinda stared at the carnage, then chuckled. “Holy fuck,” he said. “Man’s not called an archmage for ‘nuffin. Crazy old bastard.”

Then he gingerly began stepping forward, trying his best to avoid the large puddles of blood. When he found no more way forward, he simply shrugged, and platforms of plum blossoms coalesced in the air for him to step on.

Liam soon reappeared next to Matt, climbing from the other man’s shadow, and Marie simply vaulted over the carnage. Which was a very, very mighty leap. Emilia snorted and waded through, staining her boots red, and Ann created a small platform of mana, hovering us across. The blood simply slid off a shield of divinity the twins created.

From the outside, it all looked even more insane. The monsters had never stood a chance. There wasn’t even a scratch on the castle walls, the arcane sigils on the stone growing brightly.

Luckily, the mess wouldn’t stay around too long. Decay on Eden went a lot faster. Something about the energies in the air devouring any non-protected matter. It made the wards on a city even more important. Generally, it wasn’t a strong effect, and only really targeted things with little to no energy of their own, leaving even living plants alone, but sick children were sometimes at risk.

Dead bodies, however, had no such protection, and would begin to quickly disintegrate if not stored on a person. Which also meant that alchemical parts had to be processed quickly, to create a stable final product.

It was something I didn’t know too much about, but Ann loved the subject, and occasionally I would listen to her ramble. She usually chided me for tuning out and just listening to her voice. I smiled at the thought and squeezed her hand. She kissed my check, and my smile grew wider.

“Alright, everyone!” Marie interrupted the moment. “Let’s move on out!”

At her words, everyone fell into formation. Despite how close the castle was, we were now back in the wilderness, and we needed to respect that.

For a moment, I thought I caught a glimpse of Orvan seeing us off from the top of his spire, but he disappeared as soon as I saw. I shook my head at his antics, then focused. We needed to travel for just a few days to get to the nest.

- - -

Day after day drifted by. Sometimes, I would chat with Cass a little. Ask her about things, tell her about things. Most of the journey was spent inside my own core, journeying through the golden shores. Whenever Ann squeezed my hand, I got back out, and ready to fight.

There were a few monsters we had to battle with, but nothing fancy. We managed to avoid most large threats thanks to Marie and Liam. And soon, we got to the nest.

Monster nests could take on all shapes and sizes, depending on what lived and bred and spawned there. This one, apparently, belonged to brix. Large mantis-like things who spun webs of crystalline wire. They would glide along the surface of the sharp threads, and use their sickles to make you dodge.

Then, if you touched one of their deadly little traps, you’d get cut up badly, sometimes end up entangled, and also get hit with a healthy dose of poison. They used small spells, their veins shaping circles in their scythes, which allowed them to use mana to conjure up the deadly substance.

Oftentimes, newbies would get cut and start running away, not knowing that the venom spread through their body, until they slowed, and then fell asleep. It would slow your bloodflow down to a stop, making sure no oxygen reached your muscles or brain. The first symptom was sleepiness, and after a few more minutes, you were dead, unless you burned it out with the power of your choice.

I grimaced at the sight.

“Fuck,” Matt said, summarizing all our thoughts. “This is the nest Lurelia wants us to clear?” he asked, turning to the twins.

Reya simply nodded confidently, while Eric gave a defeated shrug. “Seems it.”

“What’s the game plan?” Emilia asked, facing Ann and Marie. Those two were the brains of the operation.

“We need to disable the webs,” Ann stated, which got a nod from all of us. In that space, I could see her running through a few plans already. “I’m thinking I could use a firestorm spell. Snap a bunch of thread, burn a good chunk of poison. Won’t be perfect, but it’s the best large-scale disabling method I can come up with.”

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“Good, we do it that way. Emilia, you’re up front. Twins, make sure to keep buffs and heals ready for her. Any stray threads might cause damage, so keep your eyes on the group,” Marie ordered, and the two nodded. “Matt, Fio, you’re on offense, as always. Liam and I’ll take care of support. Ann, how much will you have left in you after the firestorm?”

“Not much,” she admitted.

“Then you’re on barriers,” Marie said, receiving a frown. “Don’t give me that look. You said yourself how nasty things can get. If one of us gets a deep cut from a scythe, we might not be able to mend it. Use the surrounding mana to supplement any shields you cast.”

“You say that like it’s so easy,” Ann grumbled, but nodded anyway.

After everyone else also acknowledged instructions, we began heading forward again. Any talking was done out of earshot of the monsters, though it may not have been necessary this time. The things had developed incredible eyesight, and could feel tremors through the threads remarkably well, but their hearing was poor.

When we reached the mouth of the nest, which was an odd cross between a cave and a grove, with moss continuing down in the earth, Ann began casting. She rarely chanted, but she had time, and so she enunciated each word clearly for some extra firepower, her lips moving almost too rapidly for me to follow.

It was possible to chant in most languages, and many of them were translated, but Ann chose one of the more obscure ones. She needed to learn ancient runes anyway to read them when we encountered them, so she might as well learn them, or so she said. Thus, a dozen unfamiliar sounds left her mouth all at once, sounding like a hymn to a long dead deity.

By the end, she raised her arms high. “Firestorm,” she finished the chant with a whisper, and the air around us howled. Maybe that was too generous. It screamed, as it was dragged forward by force, into the mouth of a cave, and then a raging spark of fire erupted at its center.

Ann stumbled a bit, and I caught her, holding her upwards as the flames rampaged. Already, the brix were screaming. It was a high pitched, irritating noise that would give a headache, but it was all subsumed by the roar of the flames. Thread snapped, chitin seared, and destruction was wrought in the wake of Ann’s spell.

After maybe a dozen seconds, the spell finally died down, leaving scorched, black ash behind instead of the moss it had danced over. Ann panted a bit, but was able to resume standing by herself, wiping some sweat from her brows.

I gave her a look, and as soon as she nodded, I charged after Marie and Liam. Already, the smell of ash and smoke and char was replaced by that of plum. My golden glow lit up the cave a little, not that we needed it to see when Qi coursed through our bodies.

After only two dozen steps in, I heard a hiss go through the air to my side, and twisted my upper body as a scythe crossed through where my neck had been just a moment before. I parried the second strike with my spear, letting it slide off the blade. The scythe was behind me, but I ducked and lunged forward, using my legs to extend my reach. As the scythe passed by where my head had been again, I felt my spear sink deep into a thorax, cracking chitin and spilling ichor.

I stepped back a moment later, and saw a frenzy of pink petals soar forward to take my place. Matt’s eyes had lost all their usual humor, replaced with a gentle martial fury. It was a strangely intense blow as he engaged in a fight with the thing.

The battle only lasted moments however. When Matt barely stepped out of reach from one attack, the brix stumbled from the wound, taking a step forward with three of its legs. Matt didn’t miss his chance.

A pink slice cut through the cave, coming from below and cleanly severing one of the scythes at what seemed like the shoulder. Before the thing could scream, Matt jerked his sword to the left, taking its head off in a splatter of ichor.

There was a metal screech as Emilia stopped another blow with her shield, the scythe gliding along its surface. Half a breath later, I was by her side, the brix caught between us. It chose to dodge my spear, shifting to the side, which made it a perfect target for Emilia’s mace to slam into its back.

The snap of chitin sounded throughout the cave, and the brix stumbled to the floor, disturbing the ash that remained of the moss. Two arrows soared from behind us, piercing its head and finishing it for good.

Ahead, there was a figure cloaked in shadow, Liam. He was busily inspecting the place. “No enemies close,” he whispered in my ear from far away. Then, I lost sight of him, only hearing an occasional woosh. He was cleaning up the remaining threads.

Slowly, getting back into formation, we advanced. Soon, another Brix attacked, but without the threads, their mobility was limited, and we dispatched it swiftly. Not long after, though, we began getting to areas where the moss still grew, where Ann’s storm hadn’t reached. The cave ran deep, unfortunately, which meant we’d have to be even more careful.

We got a painful reminder of that a little later, when a brix slunk out of the darkness right next to me. I hadn’t noticed it, and how should I have? The bastard was using shadow magic to cloak itself. A moment later, a scythe swung at me, accompanied by the telltale hiss of air it always carried.

As soon as I managed, I brought up my spear, but I was a hair too late. The scythe impacted my arm, well, almost. It smacked right against a crystalline hull around my skin, a thin line that stopped the scythe for just long enough before shattering that I could block it.

Still, the strike knocked me off balance, and I stumbled back a step. Emilia blocked another attack for me in the meantime, when it vanished into the shadows to try and chase after me.

Bad decision.

Liam had already been waiting in there, and as soon as the brix joined him, he sprung his trap. When half its body had dissolved, it screamed, and the other half never joined, having been severed. Liam only needed to land one deep strike, pleasantly easy when it entered his playing field, and the pain had it lose concentration, ending the transformation when half its body was made of shadow.

I gulped, panting a bit.

Since when could brix use other types of magic than poison?