I charged at the monster as it flung Marie aside. One of the little fuckers tried swiping at my calf, but met its end at the tip of my spear before it had a chance to. Matt was right on time, Liam in the shadows and ready to strike as soon as the thing stopped rolling.

The swordsman jumped ahead of me, boosting his leap with Qi, and pulling up a storm of blossoms that carried him straight across the snowy field. He’d seemingly completely discarded defense, and I could see why; a shimmering blue glitter of mana covered him from head to toe.

Before he could land his attack, the weasel saw him, one of its eyes now murky with green veins, but he still committed. The storm of blossoms slammed into the monster, driving it back half a foot and carving a dozen little wounds into its body. It shut its eyes, but the petals still dug their way into the wound below it.

Matt twisted in midair, dodging a slash, and landed on the things back, stabbing his sword into it. Another screech followed, drowned out by the rumbling of more avalanches going loose. One of them was bound to smash into the courtyard soon, but I didn’t have time to look around.

A moment later, I was upon the thing. It swiped at me with its forelegs, the one I’d already wounded was just slow enough to dodge, and I deflected the second, sliding under a horizontal swipe. Liam appeared below it at the same time as I did, and his dagger slammed into the wound at the same time as my spear did.

Driven forward by a blade of Qi, [Golden Body], and a buff from Reya, my weapon dug in deep, going through tough muscle and slicing into some sort of organ. Blood gushed forth, and I quickly transitioned into a roll, letting go of my spear and just aiming to get out of there as fast I possibly could.

When I got out, there was still blood spraying, not that of a monster, though. The thing had caught Matt. While it was shaking itself, he’d held onto his sword for grip, but it was stuck tightly in the wound. The thing had used it, and lashed with the huge scythe on his tail, slashing straight from Matt’s left hip all the way to his right shoulder.

The only reason he wasn’t cut into two parts was Ann’s barrier. Worse, that same tail was currently headed for me and Liam, and I didn’t have a weapon. I lunged upwards, but the scythe simply changed angle, before suddenly halting. Emilia stood, wrapped in a cocoon of stone, her hands tightly clasped around the thing’s tail.

I’d wager she was screaming her heart out in anger, but the winds quieted it.

My landing was rough, rolling on the icy floor. There was a moment where one of the small kamaitachi would have killed me. Its scythe was right in the path my spine took as I rolled, but instinctively, I activated [Reflection], and the little monster was cut in half instead.

A hard breath left my lungs. I could barely feel my legs anymore, and still, I summoned my spear back. It was half as long as it should have been, snapped down the middle as the thing had rolled, but during my daring escape, Marie had managed to take Matt and bring him back to the twins.

His sword was still lodged in the monster’s back. The kamaitachi turned, and swung its forelegs at Marie, the muscles where I’d left a gash tearing. It was in pain, I knew that, the wound on its stomach was probably lethal by now. It didn’t matter.

Tears threatened to flood my eyes as my vision became blurry. Only iron mind let me keep my focus on the fight. Every movement hurt so much, every muscle in my body straining against the cold. My blood felt like ice in my veins and yet also burned.

I roared, charging at the monster again, alongside a few fireballs from Ann. Liam hid in my shadow, waiting for a chance to ambush. The thing had its back turned on me, currently slashing at Emilia, who mostly blocked the attacks, but bled a little more with each hit.

Ann’s fireballs hit true, burning more fur, and a few of Marie’s arrows slammed into the kamaitachi as well. It swiped the long tail at me blindly, but I jumped over it, landing on where its back transitioned into the tail.

With a scream, I pushed more Qi into my spear, almost all of it, creating a much longer blade of Qi, then slashed it into the things tail with every bit of force I could muster. I cut about halfway, my broken spear giving me shitty leverage, and the large scythe snapped at me.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Desperately, I leaned back, to the point where the scythe would probably only slice up my stomach instead of cutting me in half, hoping it was enough for [Reflection] to take the full brunt of the attack. It was not.

The ability activated, and for a few grandiose moments, the bit of the scythe that would have cut into me disappeared, instead slamming into the creature’s own tail, as my mirror abilities tried to finish the job. The wound grew deeper, leaking blood like a faucet, but before the appendage was fully severed, it reappeared.

The scythe reemerged, and went straight to its deadly work, digging into my stomach at around the middle point. It went what felt like just about halfway through my body, the momentum carrying it out the other side, and blood poured forth from the wound. I screamed again, in pain this time, iron mind keeping me conscious as I grit my teeth and held the wound close.

Liam emerged from my shadow, and tossed me. I’d neutralized the thing’s tail. No way it could move it with the appendage being almost entirely severed, hanging on by only a few threads of muscle.

In exchange, blood poured from me like a faucet, staining the snow red as I staggered back towards my party. Distantly, I remembered Orvan’s gift to me, drinking one of the healing potions, and splashing the other on the wound. I didn’t use the third, some part of me kept the toxicity of these things in mind.

The pressure from the kamaitachi had eased up, but I couldn’t feel my legs at all, so keeping balance was difficult. My Qi was almost empty, too, the last dregs of it entirely devoted to healing the wound as I felt divinity flood into me.

The twins kept me up, and I kept walking, staggering towards Ann, leaving a thick trail of blood, despite all the healing flowing through my veins. Eventually, Emilia caught me. She supported me for the last couple steps, before I fell to the floor. Everything turned into a blur.

The monster screamed a few more times. Fireballs and arrows slamming into it. Liam killed it, they told me later, by drawing Matt’s sword from the wound and stabbing it into the monster’s other eye.

I felt myself being dragged across the courtyard, the icy snow biting against me, then picked up so that the smaller kamaitachi couldn’t get their scythes on me. We got inside the pagoda, and minutes later, the light outside disappeared, as the building shook. The avalanche must have hit it.

All I could feel then was pain. Feeling slowly returned to the rest of my body as my nerves began playing nice, the frost slowly thawing away. My Qi clung to me in a heavy haze, trying to keep my body together and replenish all the blood I’d lost together with the potions.

And it was a copious amount of blood. A small pool had formed around me inside, the old wood staining red. Emilia, Liam and Marie took care of the smaller kamaitachi inside, while divinity was poured into me in droves.

My injury was worse than Matt’s. His was a gash, sure, but still a thin gash, having been shielded by Ann. Half of my stomach was open air territory currently, though. And mixed with the pain from my legs and fingers as the frostbite slowly receded to reveal just how mangled they were, I was this close to passing out.

But I didn’t.

With an iron will, I kept myself awake, breathing through gritted teeth and stupid amounts of pain. It got even worse once [Golden Body] wore off, my golden Qi thoroughly used up. The glass underneath my skin seemed to shift, stemming the bloodflow, letting divinity pour into me, and as minute after minute passed, my entrails slowly fused back together.

The process was horrible, and I would absolutely not recommend anyone to go through with it. It also wasn’t enough.

By the time both Eric and Reya had run out of Divinity, Matt was stable.

I was not.

In a desperate, last ditch effort for some rejuvenation, Ann cast a levitation spell on me. Emilia took me along with her and Liam, pushing further into the building. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, my ears buzzing from the loud noises, but I knew what they were doing.

Searching for the reason we were here.

Gruelling minutes passed, as my blood left a red trail on the floor. We went through empty room after empty room, nothing to see except dusty, scratched up furniture. Eventually, there was a staircase, down beneath the ground.

It felt like an eternal descent. At some point, I hallucinated I was going to hell, but still stubbornly held onto my mortal coil. I wasn’t going to die.

Every ounce of Qi I absorbed from the surroundings - and I was absorbing a lot, given how thick with energy the air was after everything the damn weasel unloaded - went into keeping my breaking body together. I was thankful for my stupidly high endurance and resilience now as my bleeding, somehow, stemmed.

By the time I was finally beginning to reach the point where I was ready to pass out, I felt myself spin, and immediately wanted to throw up. Except, everything in my stomach had long since hit the floor after it was sliced open, so I just retched instead, turning into a desperate cough.

The cold air burnt my lungs, as someone else moved my hand.

[You have touched a lost gateway! Congratulations!]

[In order to restore the extensive damage, the gateway will be fused to you. Please stand by.]

And as the mirror enveloped me, my world went dark.