I could see antlers become more enraged as it let out a screech and charged at me, making its way through the crowd of insects ahead of it. There were only a few seconds before it would reach me, but I used the time well.

Qi from my golden core roiled throughout my body, burning away the frost. I felt pins and needles all over as my skin rapidly thawed. For any normal human, this would have been beyond stupid, but with a reinforced body, I could stand this much easily.

By the time the creature reached me, my muscles finally felt free again, my movements less constrained. For a moment I tossed efficiency to the side, jumping back far further than needed from an attack, just to enjoy my freedom.

I almost laughed, but stopped the sound from bubbling forth, replacing it with a deep breath instead as my mind sharpened. The fight wasn’t over yet.

Leveraging the distance I just bought myself, I extended the spear out in front of me, gripping it a bit further back. The brix moved fast, and I couldn’t avoid getting into a melee with so many of them, but the screech antlers let out seemed to get the other brix to focus on my party members.

It was just me and it, then. Well, almost. Just when it finally got in range for me to attack, I felt a spark of divinity light up inside my chest. My spear whipped forth with newfound power, only to have the monster bend down under it at an impossible angle, before snapping back up and trying to catch me with a scythe.

A single step back took me out of reach for the attack, and my spear snapped to the left, blocking a scythe headed for my head, and locking the scythe in a bind with me.

I pushed up with my back hand, trying to get overbind and leverage the length of my weapon for a stab, but the creature stepped back, and used the mechanical advantage to push the tip aside. I swiftly pulled back again, avoiding another slash from the second sickle.

Antlers was extremely fast, much more so than the other brix I’d fought. Honestly, I was glad that I didn’t have to face it with reinforcements. If the other monsters had helped it out, this would’ve been going a lot more poorly.

Instead of that, I was able to duck under another attack, then stab forward. The thing adjusted its legs, weaving past my strike, but I retrieved my weapon before it could get trapped.

After a few more exchanges, I noted that I was slowly taking more and more steps back. Generally, that would be fine, but given that I wasn’t fighting alone, it spelled trouble. The brix were spilling past where I’d stood before, almost getting behind Emilia by this point. Crap.

I quickly adjusted again, going to a more aggressive stance and trying to flip the script on the insectoid. Rapidly cycling Qi through my body, I infused even more of it into my weapons, the golden light around the tip growing longer. With the added reach, I stabbed forward, and Antlers sidestepped.

A small grin found its way onto my face as I took a deep breath, swinging the spear to the side. The golden light shifted, extending the blade further down the shaft. Where before only a bit of wood would have slammed into its side, the chitin was now met with a blade of golden Qi.

The attack impacted on its torso, its scythe held high in aggression rather than defense, and drew a thick line of ichor across. It screeched as it slashed at me, and I casually let go of the spear, ducking forward and kicking its chest as hard as I could. For a moment, the creature didn’t budge, but when the blast of Qi hit, it staggered back.

My spear reappeared within my hands a moment later, and I stabbed at the creature again, only to have the attack deflected. I saw its sickles blur in the air as they smacked my spear aside. I gripped further forward and went along with the momentum, bringing the back end of the weapon forward and striking with it.

Wood struck against the chitin of the brix’ arm, sending a crack throughout the cave, and I swear the monster winced. Nevertheless, it pushed forward, using the advantage it had over me in mass to brush the spear aside. Then, the scythe blurred again, accompanied by a hum as it cut through the air, and struck my shoulder.

I heard a horrible cracking as Ann’s barrier broke and the strike caught my shoulder. Then I grinned, and activated [Reflection].

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

The ability was still new, and it went nowhere near as smooth as coursing my Qi, or extending it to my weapon. Those had required the mental trigger before as well, but were now easy as cake. [Reflection] still felt like flipping a switch, but once it was on, my mirror Qi moved so naturally.

It flowed out of me like liquid glass, forming a thin sheet where the attack would have struck. The sickle impacted it, and within the blink of an eye, it was coated in silver liquid, then vanished.

And then, at the very same time, it reappeared next to the monster’s other arm, slicing forward and through its own shoulder.

Ichor spilled forth from the wound, and the monster stumbled back, the scythe going back to where it rightly belonged. I still didn’t quite understand how reflection worked. The copy it used to execute the attack had been a silvery copy of the original, yet held the same power. At the same time, the scythe had vanished where it would have hit me.

It was strange, and I would need to understand it more later, but now was not the time.

While the brix was still distracted, I moved to stab it, but it still had the presence of mind to dodge. In fact, its legs blurred like its arms had before, and a moment later it was multiple steps away from me. I quickly grabbed the sickle on the floor and deposited it in my inventory. Never knew when it could come in handy.

Taking a moment to look around, I saw that Matt had already killed the small brix which had zipped around him. Liam was also finally within sight again, and currently disappearing and reappearing as he jumped through shadows towards me. Ann and the twins were fighting off a few of the regular brix, while Emilia was tossing the hordes around, supported by covering fire from Marie.

A moment later, the hordes of insectoids were upon me again already. I slashed and cut and thrust and tore chitin from more chitin as the things came at me. My feet were constantly moving, stepping left to avoid an attack, forward for more reach, back to create some space and use my weapon effectively.

Moment after moment my Qi would flare up, then retreat and be cycled again. I didn’t use any flashy techniques. It was a resource war, and if I ran out of Qi before they were dead, I was in trouble.

Finally, I saw Liam reappear behind me. His whisper reached me a moment later. “I’ve got your back, time to push forward!”

A quick glance over told me that Emilia and Matt received the same message, and were beginning to move. I made sure to keep mostly in line with them, whenever I could sneak glances through the monsters.

I was lucky to have Liam help me out. Not that I saw him much. He mostly melded into my shadow, and I caught occasional glimpses of a Dagger suddenly appearing around me, striking at the brix. Occasionally, he’d appear, weave past my attacks, and cause some havoc.

Despite that, I tried not to focus on him too much, even when I saw glints of metal, or his eyes reflecting a stray bit of light and glinting in the darkness. Like a cat, or something.

I shook my head and actually focused again, taking a heavy step forward and swiping my spear wide to clear out some space, forcing the monsters to retreat and stepping further forward. I felt heat against my back as a fireball from Ann consumed another monster behind me.

Bit by bit, we started making our way forward. I’d lost sight of Antlers in the crowd, but was wary of it coming back to attack me. It hadn’t used that strange trick to move fast a whole lot, so it probably took a lot out of it, but I’d bet it still had a few uses in it. I stayed wary in case it appeared, though the faint shimmer of Ann’s barriers on my skin made me feel a bit safer.

My mirror Qi was also slowly refilling. Redirecting the sickle had taken a little over half of it, which told me that [Reflection] was quite an expensive ability, and that it probably scaled with force. It also told me that I could not have used it on the nest’s attack, because that one would have probably needed more Qi than there was in my core.

While thinking I ran another brix through with my spear, slamming the body down on the floor. I quickly resummoned the weapon to get it out, rather than trying to pry it free.

Just then, Antlers appeared again.

It was fast enough that I barely even noticed it. There was a gap in the mass of brix, then there was a blur right in front of me. I flinched backwards the moment I noticed, then heard the telltale clang of chitin meeting metal, and the sickle dug itself into the floor just a little next to me.

“Thanks Liam,” I smiled at the young man. He’d deflected the attack for me.

While Antlers was off balance, I stabbed forward again, and it dodged, only to then be hit by an Arrow by Marie. The monster let out another screech, and began to move. I was already dodging before the blur even started, yet could still feel the wind as its scythe passed right by my nose.

Then I took another deep breath, cycled copious amounts of golden Qi into my spear, then slashed to the side. Antlers had overextended quite a bit, especially with Liam’s help. He was holding its legs down with tendrils of shadow. So, when I slashed, all it could do was screech.

I saw its body blur, and one of the legs was free, but before it could move, I struck it right in the side, tearing halfway through its upper body, before blasting the Qi from my spear outwards, destroying its insides.

It attempted to scream one more time, but there was no longer any air in its body. Then it fell over, dead.

Half a breath later, I heard another scream, this one so unbelievably loud that my ears started hurting. My eyes slowly drifted upwards. The nest would be joining the fight, now.