Vena
Vena was bored.
When she joined the Freelancer Guild, she’d expected a life of excitement and adventure unlike anything she had known. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. People saw “Cleric” and automatically assumed she needed to be protected. They even assigned her a sergeant to act as a bodyguard. She wasn’t some wilting flower; people kept forgetting what she had already endured.
She took a year-long trip across three realms, alone, when she was just ten.
Ten.
While other girls her age were still learning how to braid their hair or play with dolls, she was hopping between trade caravans, negotiating passage, sleeping under wagons, and praying every night that the next stretch of road didn’t end in a bandit ambush. She had crossed the border of the Mythic Realm on foot and made it all the way to Hano by way of the Kindred Realm, an unforgiving world for even seasoned travelers. She’d seen fires consuming forests from wild Mana storms, watched a caravan guard get ripped apart by a two-headed hound, and once survived three days hiding in a hollow log with a bloody foot while some flying monster circled overhead. She’d even made her first kill, protecting herself from marauders.
She hadn’t just survived.
She had grown.
Her path to strength didn’t begin when she ascended to Cleric, or even when she was trained as a Holy Faithful. It began in the dirt, in the rain, among strangers and monsters, when she left the only home she knew for a world far away. All because of a secret assignment from the current Holy of Holies: the voice of the faith, second only to the Lady herself. She couldn’t become a Paladin if she kept getting coddled like some glass figure. And with the path to Inquisitor growing more difficult, thanks to that secret mission, she couldn’t afford to be seen as weak.
Not by others.
And especially not by herself.
The Pikar Steppe stretched forever southward, so far down the world curve that the suns looked small even at noon, leaning halfway toward the northern sky. Their light came at a low slant, doubling up shadows and throwing every face into sharp angles. Even in the brightest part of the day, it felt like late afternoon. Vena liked the wind here. It was silent, reminding her of the barren stretch of desert her family owned in the Veil Kingdom, before everyone died and left her all alone.
They arrived on the second day of travel, around mid-Waterday. Vena and Yon had made the rounds while the rest of the team settled into the inn.
The village was small, rustic, and worn at the edges. Everything smelled like goat hair and smoked meat. Houses were low and square, built from thick clay bricks with thatched roofs and fences held together by dark strings and copper wires. Soot streaked the chimneys. Laundry flapped in the wind, pale against the dry beige of the sun-bleached earth. Here, at the edge of the Pikar Steppe, civilization thinned until it dissolved into wide plains dotted with half-wild cattle and stone ruins of a distant past.
Yon stayed close, arms crossed, eyes scanning every doorway and rooftop as if a cult assassin might spring out of a grain bin. She appreciated the vigilance, but it made her feel like she was being escorted, not trusted. Still, it gave her space to focus on the villagers.
The people here were mostly of Bloodline heritage, their lineage ambiguous if not for the way their shadows moved just a little too slowly. Most had darkness affinity, but only a few had strong expressions of it, none of them nobles. Some could conjure thin shadow-nets, useful for herding or catching birds; others could whisper through shaded corners, letting their voices drift from room to room without shouting. She even met one elderly woman who used her affinity to chill clay jars by pooling darkness around them like a second skin.
Subtle powers, but practical. These weren’t warriors or spellblades. They were goat-herders, weavers, herbalists, working people with cracked heels and calloused hands.
One boy stood out. He couldn’t have been older than eight, with dirt-smudged cheeks and half-mended clothes. His shadow stretched farther than it should, and when he tried to sit up during her inspection, two fragile wings of smoky black bloomed from his shoulders, graceful, feather-shaped illusions that shimmered like oil and began dissolving the moment they touched sunlight. His mother said the wings had manifested two weeks ago. He used them to fly around the house until he’d broken his arm in a fall, trying to jump from the roof without knowing the sunlight limitation. The bone had healed wrong. Vena winced when she touched it. Healing it properly meant rebreaking it.
He didn’t cry.
She guided him through it with soft-voiced prayers and the warmth of her aura; the bone cracked cleanly, realigned under her touch. As she poured Holy light into the break, the shadow-wings stirred and curled around her hand in a gesture of affection.
It was the kind of moment that made her feel like she was walking the right path after all. The people here might not bow or pray in the same temple, but they watched her differently after the healing, with hope instead of suspicion.
After tending to the boy, even Yon started to relax a little. His jovial self began showing as he made small talk with the villagers.
They followed a middle-aged man through a narrow alley toward one of the outer houses. The guide was chatting with Yon about life here. He led them to a door with a charm of knotted grass tied above it. Inside, the air smelled of bitter herbs and sweat. A woman lay on a straw-stuffed mattress, legs propped, eyes tired. Her husband sat nearby, wringing a cap between his hands, silent but watchful.
“My sister,” said the man who guided them there.
“She’s due any day now,” muttered her husband. “The midwife says the baby’s still wrong-way. Can’t turn it.”
Vena knelt at her side and placed a hand on the woman’s belly. She could feel the child curled tightly, spine up, feet downward. Still breech. A difficult birth like this, so far from a proper temple or dreamer alchemist, could turn fatal.
“It’s alright,” she said, more to the woman than the others. “I’ve seen this done before. I’ll handle it.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “You’ve done this?”
Vena hesitated. “Not myself, but I’ve trained under Lady Sharon and Lady Camile. I’ve assisted more than once.”
Which was technically true. She’d held bowls, wiped sweat, and memorized every movement of their hands and the rhythm of the prayer. She’d always wondered when she’d have to do it alone. Apparently, that time had come.
She asked for clean water and an open window. Holy rituals preferred sunlight, even slanted and pale as it was this far south. Then she extracted her personal prayer totem from a pouch at her hip.
It was a thin rectangle of smooth glass, no longer than her palm, within which golden sand from the Holy Land had been sealed, suspended mid-motion in the shape of a calligraphic script that formed the word HOLY. The sand never shifted nor settled, held in stasis by divine power. It had belonged to her mother, who used it often as a Paladin.
Then she began chanting the rite.
It was a quiet rite, not meant to dazzle. Her fingers moved carefully across the belly in a slow spiral, following the path of water flow. Her aura curled inward, seeking not to force but to invite, encouraging the child to shift, to turn toward the world the right way. She spoke to the child’s spirit gently, offering her own strength as a guide.
The totem pulsed once. Then the baby moved.
It was subtle, a shift under the skin, a twist of pressure, but the mother gasped and clutched the sides of the bed. “I felt it,” she whispered. “It turned.”
Vena smiled and nodded, letting the aura fade from her fingers. “It’ll come head-first now. You’ll need a midwife when the time comes, but it won’t be a dangerous birth anymore. Plus, I made sure that both of you are healthy.”
The husband dropped to his knees, murmuring something. She caught the word sun-woman.
They weren’t used to clerics here. They didn’t know what to call her. But she could feel their gratitude nonetheless.
The next day, they headed out to the steppe for the nightmare hunt.
The grass was shin-high and dry, swept flat in waves by the wind. The sun leaned heavily north, casting long, copper shadows behind every footstep. It was the kind of terrain that made everything feel a little too exposed. Somewhere ahead, the nightmares were already stirring, shadow-horses with iron hooves and horned silhouettes that vanished like smoke from shadow to shadow.
Vena didn’t get to fight them.
Nakera and Yon made sure of that. Nakera, still wearing Alice’s appearance, right down to the scholar’s garb and bident polearm spear, stood at Vena’s left like a wall, while Yon took position on her right, silent, vigilant, and implacable. Both had made it very clear that she was not to risk herself, not with the cult threat looming.
She understood their logic.
But understanding didn’t make it less infuriating.
The Dragon Slayers made mincemeat of the nightmares. Sleek, black forms blurred through the grass and were brought down with coordinated strikes: boomerangs, arrows, and brute fire powers. That team provided most of the dragon meat to Hano’s market; of course, they could handle some overgrown horses.
Kan, Raik, and Katar held their own surprisingly well; they weren’t refined, but they moved with confidence, adrenaline turning them sharp. Even when two nightmares came at once, they didn’t hesitate. Kan snared one with her chains for Katar to finish off, while Raik distracted the other beast with fireballs, their movements efficient and deadly.
Vena watched all of it from the sidelines.
She knew her place in the group mattered. Healers were critical. She’d just saved a woman’s unborn child yesterday. That should have been enough. But watching the others earn glory and grit while she stood untouched, shielded on both sides, made something burn in her chest. These monsters were exactly the right challenge for her level of strength, dangerous, but not out of reach. She could have tested herself, proven her courage again, and grown closer to the Paladin class. Instead, she stood on soft ground while others claimed the trial.
Ja’a was lounging nearby, half-asleep in the grass as if she were on a picnic. Nakera had one eye on her, too. Ki’a was off a few paces, kneeling beside one of the fallen nightmares. His hands moved with practiced precision, drawing a faint glow from the corpse, remnants of the beast’s soul coalescing into a thick, honey-like liquid. He let it drip into a waiting wooden jar, sealing the top with wax and a paper bearing the Soulit glyph for horse.
Kuru had stayed behind in the village, checking for cult activity and acting as a rear scout. That was at least one role no one was questioning.
Vena turned her eyes back to Ja’a, watching as the Soul Seer adjusted her cloak for more shade, then closed her eyes again. Not asleep, just disengaged. Ja’a hadn’t fought during the spider mission either; she’d let Katar and Raik handle the entire thing while she observed. She hadn’t lifted a hand even when things got dicey.
Vena couldn’t help wondering: why had she joined the Freelancer Guild at all? Why not the Merchant Guild, or a noble estate? She clearly had power; Soul Seers were rumored to have strong souls. She should be perfect for Soulbook usage.
What was she here for?
That question was answered almost immediately.
Ja’a snapped upright from where she’d been lounging, eyes wide, voice sharp and sudden.
“They’re here.”
Then louder, panic threading her words: “THEY ARE HERE!”
Everyone froze.
Lucky for them, they were in the harvesting phase of the hunt; no one mid-fight, no weapons buried in moving shadows. Ki’a abandoned his half-filled jar. The team dropped what they were doing and bolted toward the non-combat squad clustered under the rise.
Raik reached them first. “What’s the verdict?” he asked, out of breath, hands already steaming with heat.
Ja’a stood rigid, arms stiff at her sides, her face pale as frost. “I think we’re dead,” she said flatly. “Eight of them. Two are scrubs, barely Kan’s level, and Kan has the weakest soul among us. Three are Yon’s level, strong enough to kill most freelancers solo. Two are close to Captain Yoka. Maybe a bit weaker.”
She swallowed, visibly trembling. “But the last one, his soul is vast and old. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever seen. And I’ve met Grand General Okar, leader of Hano’s Freelancer Guild.”
A grim silence followed. Even Yon looked shaken.
“I keep telling you, soul strength isn’t everything,” Katar snapped, scowling as he clutched his swords.
Before anyone could reply, a voice murmured from Nakera’s shadow. Calm, deep, and impossible to mistake.
“When they arrive,” it said, “point them out by strength. Yoka will delay the strongest while I handle the second. The three Dragon Slayers will triple-team the third.”
Everyone stilled, listening.
“Yon, Katar, and Raik, each of you takes a sergeant-tier enemy. Kan and Nakera: handle the weaklings. Vena, focus on healing, whoever needs it, as fast as you can. Ja’a stays with you.”
Vena blinked, momentarily speechless.
“Understood, Lieutenant Lloyd,” said Nakera without missing a beat, her voice shifting into military cadence.
And then, they were here.
Eight figures crested the ridge like a slow-moving shadow wave, cutting across the golden light of the steppe. Vena didn’t need Ja’a to point out which one was the strongest.
Everyone could feel it.
“Shit,” muttered Raik, clutching his fist even harder. “It’s Todor. The Failed Dravac.”
Vena sucked in a breath. She’d heard the name before, barely. Whispers in old Mythic texts, he’d raided the Mythic Realm for a few hundred years. But she’d also seen creatures like him before, immortals. Cursed beings twisted by deals with Eldergods or bound to some ancient blasphemy. They all shared a certain look. A kind of detachment. Not just arrogance, but the quiet certainty that other people weren’t real. That mortals were shadows in their periphery.
Todor was worse than that.
He looked at the group like they were insects whose wings he was about to pluck off, one by one.
He was rail-thin, barefoot, and wore only a pair of ragged shorts. His skin was so pale it was almost grey-blue, stretched over a body marred by jagged scars, each one like the path of a broken blade. He looked like someone who’d been fed through a grinder and reassembled by a lunatic necromancer. His left shoulder was higher than his right. His jaw clicked oddly when he laughed.
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“I’m so glad people still recognize me by sight alone,” Todor chuckled, his voice light and buzzing with mania. “Or is it just you, little Agame?”
Next to him, his goons started laughing, each one more wrong than the last.
One was a towering man with hair made of black fire and legs like a flaming goat. Every time he stomped, the grass around his hooves sizzled.
The next was unsettling in a different way: handsome, almost too perfect, but his aura hit Vena like spoiled meat. Unholy, and not the playful kind like Hans or the dangerously seductive kind like Amara the succubus. No, this was deeper, older. The kind of sin that left scars on the world itself. Vena instinctively reached for her prayer totem. Just looking at him made her skin crawl.
The next cultist was… wrong. A Kindred, probably, or a heavily modified Dreamer. His body had been shaped weirdly… lengthened. His torso was grotesquely proportioned, and where a normal man might have a six-pack, this one had a twelve-pack that rippled when he moved. Some tribal ritual had gone horribly wrong.
Then there was the stone beast, an armadillo-shaped man, or maybe a hedgehog-Kindred hybrid, covered in plates of rough granite skin. A thick ridge of stone spikes jutted from his back. Earth affinity, clearly, possibly even a half-breed.
The next one moved with a heavy clank, and for a moment, Vena thought he was some kind of metal golem. He wore a full plate, old, scarred, and rusted in places, but still intact. A massive bucket helm obscured his head completely, leaving only two narrow slits through which pale, human eyes glinted.
The last two made Vena’s jaw tighten.
She recognized them.
One was the whip-wielding thug Alice had zapped outside the cobbler’s shop, bald with a scar in his left cheek. His metal whip coiled like a serpent at his side, flicking with tension. The other was one of Yon’s opponents who had been dropped cold in a single strike during that same skirmish. Both looked at the sergeant angrily.
There was no more pretending. The nightmare hunt was over. The war had begun.
Yoka appeared from the sky like a falcon. She flew directly toward Todor and slammed into him, creating a kinetic shockwave that shook the clearing. The two weaklings toppled over themselves; the unholy swordsman and dark-flame man didn’t flinch, and the rest of the enemy staggered before regaining their balance.
Both Todor and Yoka were flung away; Vena could see Todor’s flesh separating mid-air, razor chains instead of bones kept him tethered. He tried to engulf Yoka in the sky, but she created a kinetic barrier that held him at bay.
Lloyd, the shadow lieutenant, appeared behind the unholy swordsman, going for an assassination. But the man blocked the strike with his rapier, and both began to duel.
The three Dragon Slayers rushed the goat-legged man, making sure someone that dangerous didn’t have the chance to attack their weaker comrades.
Raik, Katar, and Yon weren’t as lucky; they didn’t get to pick their opponents. Katar ended up against the full-plate warrior; Raik faced the stone hedgehog; and Yon squared off against the twelve-pack abomination. That left Kan against the chain-whip wielder, and Nakera facing the other scrub.
Ja’a approached Vena, holding a small glass ampule sealed with glowing vapor.
“This is Pixie Dust. People will forget we even exist; it costs two gold coins, I’d rather not use it, but we’re dead if we hold back.”
She threw it on the ground and stepped on it.
“What do you mean?” asked Vena.
“Yoka can’t defeat Todor. Lloyd probably loses, too, if the fight takes too long. The rest can win, so maybe, if we help Raik and Katar finish first, they can help Lloyd. Then Lloyd can help Yoka. That’s our only chance.”
“What should we do?”
“Can you heal from a distance?”
“Yes, but it requires chanting out loud.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about that. As long as you don’t target any of the enemy, they’ll never know you exist.”
Vena decided to watch the fights spreading around her, taking center position with Ja’a, ready to jump in for a heal or maybe a strike.
Kan
Kan was annoyed that people kept underestimating her. Ja’a had compared this weakling to her. She knew it was based on soul strength, not actual martial prowess, but still, it was irritating.
The man facing her was also using chains. His weapon was a sleek metal whip, compared to her rope-substitute length of chain. She had modified her setup: a small morning star attached to the end of her left chain, and a sharpened metal spike at the end of her right.
They both lashed out, their chains colliding midair and tangling.
The man laughed.
“A Soulbook user trying to use the same magic as my innate ability?” he chuckled, and she felt it instantly. Her own chains tightened around her wrists. He was taking over her tools, his authority overpowering hers.
She scowled. It felt like a cruel confirmation of everyone’s assumption that she was weak, not even stronger than some random thug.
With a sharp twist of her other wrist, she flung her second chain, not with aura or Soulbook command, but with raw physical strength, the Kindred power of her heritage.
No mana, no tricks, just muscle and rage.
The morning-star end of her chain swung directly at him. He tried to seize control again, but the momentum was too strong. The spiked ball slammed into his forehead.
Dazed, he didn’t react in time.
Kan surged forward, wrapping his own whip around his throat and pulling hard. She planted a foot against his spine and pushed, yanking with all her weight until she heard the sharp, final crack of his neck snapping.
She let his body drop and looked around.
She was the first to finish her fight. It took less than a minute.
Nakera came in a close second. She had dropped the mock-spear she’d been using to imitate Alice and was now kicking the living daylights out of her opponent. Literally.
The two girls stood side by side.
“Who should we help?” asked Kan, deferring to the team leader’s experience.
“Let’s watch for a bit,” Nakera said, eyes scanning the field. “I need to think of a strategy.”
Katar
Katar kept calm despite the situation. Out of all the opponents, this one was the worst. Plate armor was always a challenge, but this guy’s setup was absurd. There were no weak points at all. Even the joints were reinforced with overlapping metal scales.
He would’ve preferred to fight Lloyd’s opponent, even if that one was the strongest. At least then he’d be facing a swordsman instead of a walking bell tower.
That was what annoyed him most. The man’s swordplay was a joke. A complete amateur; wide open to attack, relying entirely on armor for defense.
Katar tried to bait him toward Raik. If they could switch places, Raik could probably cook the man inside that oven-suit. But his opponent wasn’t completely stupid. He kept forcing Katar away from his allies.
“I can sense the worship of Morr on you,” said the tin can, voice muffled through the helmet. “You could never gain powers from him if you only fight monsters like a good little freelancer. Morr is the god of war, not the hunt.”
“Do I look like a man who cares about borrowed powers?” scoffed Katar.
“You need power. Without it, you can never defeat me. Join me, and I will show you the true path of war.”
“Man, shut the fuck up.” Katar scowled, sheathing his Gladius, switching from dual-wielding to using his Messer with both hands. “You barely know which end of the sword to hold. If Morr blesses the likes of you, I’m never praying to that third-rate god ever again.”
“Blasphemer!” the man roared and charged.
Katar switched his grip, sliding one hand to the middle of the blade, halfswording, to try and jam it through the man’s eye slit.
The armored thug caught on when steel flashed past his helmet. He threw up a hand to shield his head and stabbed clumsily with the other.
Katar adjusted again, gripping the blade with both hands and swinging the crossguard like a hammer, a perfect Mordhau.
It hit hard. He smiled as he saw the armor start to dent, especially when striking one of the rusted patches.
He could probably win this. It might take forty minutes, but he didn’t have anything better to do.
That’s when a pair of chains snared the armored brute, tangling around his limbs and holding him fast.
“New orders!” screamed the bossy girl, not the one with the chains, the other one, the one who’d been acting like bait earlier.
“Switch with Yon. Send him to fight Raik’s opponent and have Raik come here!”
Katar considered ignoring her. He didn’t take orders from just anyone; only from Raik. He eyed the bound man, thinking about rushing in and stabbing him through the visor, but the slit was too narrow. He doubted he could reach the brain.
So he relented. Not because of her orders, but because it had been his idea earlier to have Raik deal with this idiot.
As he dashed off toward Yon’s fight, he noticed Nakera veering toward Lloyd while stripping to her underclothes, her form slowly turning invisible as she moved.
Yon
Yon’s opponent was barely human. His spine was twice as long as normal, even though he stood at least two and a half meters tall. He was also surprisingly durable. At first, Yon kept punishing him in the face, but the man just laughed and kept trying to grab him with his gorilla-like arms.
“Huhi will smash little man!”
“Man, are you alright?” said Yon. “I would really hate it to be fighting the mentally challenged.”
“Huhi is not mentally challenged. Huhi just doesn’t speak Common well. That doesn’t make Huhi stupid.”
“Sorry, but my concern has nothing to do with the way you speak. It’s just that you’ve been blocking my attacks with your face.”
“Huhi fear no attack from puny man.”
“Dude, you lost all your teeth. What is wrong with you?” said Yon.
“Huhi prefers to eat soup anyway.”
This wasn’t working. Yon figured the man’s spine was too flexible, like bamboo; it kept absorbing the shock. So he switched tactics and began targeting his opponent’s lower half: feet, knees, and even the groin. Huhi seemed to react more to those attacks. Still, it wasn’t enough to bring him down.
Sometimes, Yon considered abandoning his self-imposed limitation and picking up a hammer or an axe. But he knew, deep down, that once he picked up a weapon, it would greatly hamper his growth. Besides, his strategy was working. He’d gained an Evolution from it. From the son of nobodies, he now stood on par with those bearing the legacy of legends, like Sergeant Lanka or Lieutenant Khoka.
He launched into a flurry of punches, then climbed up Huhi’s knee, dodged under his grasping hands, switched to his back, and locked an arm around his neck in a chokehold.
“You know,” Yon said, panting, “we don’t have to do this. You can just surrender. You don’t owe them anything.”
“Huhi like Izair. He lets me kill women once he's done with them,” said Huhi, somehow still able to breathe despite the perfect chokehold.
Yon frowned, stopped choking him, and instead used the monster’s shoulders as a base to launch a handstand pirouette, kicking the back of his opponent’s head with his heel. Finally, the abomination dropped to the ground.
Still, Huhi stood as if it were nothing. He was about to start throwing hands again when a streak of blood erupted from his left side.
The abomination sprang forward, clutching his wound and glaring at the new arrival.
“That’s not fair! Huhi wasn’t ready for two versus one!”
Katar ignored him and looked directly at Yon.
“Change of plans. I’ll deal with this guy. You take Raik’s opponent, and he’ll handle mine. Quick, Kan can’t hold him for long.”
“Make sure to kill him,” said Yon as he took off running. “He doesn’t deserve a second chance.”
It pained him to say it, but the man was beyond redemption. Little did he know that the thought of mercy didn’t even cross Katar’s mind.
Raik
Raik wasn’t sure about his innate powers. He could make things hotter. For an Agame, that could be a useful ability, especially once he discovered he could make fire even hotter, making him the perfect support for his brother. But Raik wasn’t good at being a support; he’d spent his youth training, hoping to follow in his father’s footsteps, only to find that his power was divergent.
Lucky for him, that was around the time he started training with Katar, a boy who trained harder than anyone. Raik learned swordplay, footwork, and positioning, and decided to get his own fire powers through Soulbooks, just to keep up with his friend. Now, he could make his own fire hotter, allowing him to push up in terms of Soul strength.
He was currently fighting an opponent who was technically stronger than him, a man with stone armor that should have made him impervious to fire. But Raik didn’t care. When fire didn’t work, that just meant he needed to make more fire. Hotter fire.
He summoned a fireball, then focused on his innate power, making it stronger, hotter. The fire slowly shifted from orange to blue.
His opponent hissed, then turned into a ball like an armadillo and started rolling toward Raik. Raik summoned a second fireball and hurled it rapidly at the rolling form, then dodged the charge, all while maintaining the heat effect on the first fireball.
The bait worked, and the man reverted to his humanoid shape. That’s when he was struck in the underbelly by the hottest, deadliest attack Raik had ever created.
The rock-armored hedgehog staggered, bruising visibly across his abdomen. Raik smirked. A few more of those and he’d be done.
His adversary seemed to realize that, too. He switched back into his ball form and started rolling nonstop, refusing to shift back. Raik kept dodging. Somehow, even without eyes, the man kept finding his general position. Did he have some kind of echolocation?
Raik was still trying to figure out a plan when Yon stepped into the ball’s path and punched it. A crack echoed through the air, and Raik winced, thinking Yon’s arm had snapped.
Nope. It was the stone armor that cracked.
Raik blinked. This was ridiculous. He knew Kindred people could get strong, but not to the level of breaking rock with bare hands, especially at this young an age.
The stone hedgehog uncurled and reassessed his new opponent.
“Go deal with the armored fellow,” said Yon. “Katar left Kan to stall him alone.”
The mention of Kan made Raik run faster. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he thought he might be developing a crush on the girl. She had that fierce quality that made him think she could achieve anything she set her sights on. Actively courting her could be a disaster. Could you imagine an Agame courting the daughter of the leader of the rebellion?
The scandal would be impossible to manage. Then again, scandal was the bread and butter of his family. He was still considering asking her out, if not for the fear that she’d hate him. You know, with him being an Agame and all.
When he arrived, the armored man was still under control, sword on the ground, trying to break the chains with brute strength alone. Kan seemed to have things well in hand. She was stealthily moving the tip of a chain with the pick attached behind his helm, slowly edging it toward his visor.
When he noticed it, he panicked and started shaking violently.
He shouted: “LORD MORR, GIVE ME STRENGTH!”
He started glowing, and with a surge of strength, managed to shatter the chains. In a smooth motion, he grabbed the bit of chain still attached to Kan and dragged her in, punching her full in the face with his metal-gauntleted fist.
Raik was on him a second later.
He was seeing red. He burst into flame and charged into the tin man’s personal space. Instead of making his flame aura hotter, he decided to skip that step entirely and directly applied his power to the armor.
That meant he needed to fight close-range, but he was too angry to care.
The Morr devoted tried to shake him off, but Raik held on, almost hugging him, pouring fire directly into the suit. After a minute, the man went limp, and the smell of cooked pork started wafting from him.
“Gross,” muttered Raik. “That’s why I prefer chicken.”
He heard laughter behind him.
He turned to find Kan standing, a looted whip-chain in hand, ready to help him in case he needed it.
“Are you alright?” he asked, running to her side.
“I’m Kindred, you know. I won’t be brought low by a single punch.” She gave him a grin; her face was a massive bruise, but to him, she couldn’t have looked more stunning.
“Should we go check on the others?” she asked.
They ran past Yon, who was standing over a pile of rocks and blood. They found Katar resting next to the decapitated head of his opponent. By the time all of them were grouped, Raik noticed something odd.
“Your face, it’s healing rapidly. I didn’t know you had regeneration as a Kindred attribute,” he said, pointing at Kan.
“I don’t,” she replied, poking at her left cheek and no longer feeling pain. She blinked, then gasped.
“It’s Vena’s healing! Why did I completely forget about her?”
“Oh, right, Vena and Ja’a are here,” Raik remembered. “That means Ja’a used the pixie dust again.”
“Waste of gold,” grumbled Katar.
Vena
She watched as her four victorious comrades ran to reinforce Lieutenant Lloyd. Nakera was already there, jumping in and out of stealth, throwing kicks, and trying to distract the enemy just long enough to create an opening. The man had a dangerous weapon. It looked like a rapier, but with a thick blade and a demon head as the hand guard. The sword could extend, doubling in length and becoming thinner, like a razor. He also carried a second blade, but it remained firmly in its scabbard.
Lloyd had taken some cuts, but Vena couldn’t heal him; her focus was completely locked on Takur, who was fighting the dark-flamed man head-on. The man had introduced himself earlier: Lenfair, head of some cursed clan. Takur might have been immune to the heat, but the black flames somehow still burned him. At first, Vena was conflicted, wanting to also help in the fighting. But now, all her concentration was focused on keeping Takur alive. The path to Paladin required bravery, not stupidity. Fighting now would only lead to a disadvantage.
The rest of the Dragon Slayers provided ranged support, keeping Lenfair pinned with arrow fire and spells; Ki’a’s boomerang was already burned.
Once Yon, Raik, Katar, and Kan joined the fight, the tide quickly turned. Yon recognized the enemy up close.
“Aren’t you Izair? Lieutenant in the High Rocks army? I watched you fight in the arena once.”
Izair gave him a grin. “And now here I am. Are you thinking what I’m doing with the cult?”
He shrugged. “You know, having some fun.”
Fighting him six-on-one was completely unfair. Katar took the lead, blocking Izair’s sword attacks with his own while the others stacked wounds on him.
Out of desperation, Izair finally drew his second blade. Vena’s eyes widened in horror. She recognized it instantly and screamed with all her might to dodge, to not let that blade touch anyone.
But with the pixie dust masking sound, none of them could hear her.
Izair lunged and nicked Lloyd in the arm. Instantly, every wound Izair had taken was transferred to the ninja.
Vena tried to heal him, but it was too late.
Lieutenant Lloyd was already dead; the new wounds compounded on the old ones.
Only Katar and Vena seemed to recognize the blade as well, Malifice, a fallen relic. Once a divine sword forged by the now-dead god of Mercy… it was corrupted by the former Lord of Unholies two thousand years ago.
A few seconds later, Yoka crash-landed next to them, clothes in tatters, bloodied and battered, but still standing.
“Yoka Satori,” cackled Todor, “you are a formidable opponent to have survived that long.”
Vena clenched her fists. With Lloyd dead and Todor rejoining the fight… Lady, help them; they weren’t getting out of this without a miracle.
Which character perspective did you enjoy the most?
