“Argh,” Emily groans, raising a hand to rub her brows as The Clock stops reversing.

  “What’s wrong?” Oscar asks as light springs from the dle in his hands.

  “Nothing, just a slight headache.” She waves off his again.

  Feeling shrapnel pulling itself out of my stomach is definitely a feeling I don’t want to relive. I’ll wait a little loo reset ime I’m hit. I didn’t even realise that would happen and it stopped me being able to tu the spatial distortions.

  Shaking her head free of the unpleasant memory, she takes a deep breath and starts analysing the failed fight.

  That thi into a frenzy at the start of the fight, but, after killing five people, it started fog on attacks that hit it. Why? Was it the number of people killed, or the number of people left that mattered? It may take a few loops to work this thing out. If we’re going to kill it, we either o kill it instantly, before it start using its defensive spell, or drain it of mana first. My grenade barely scorched its arm through that shield.

  Releasing her breath in a long sigh, she g Oscar.

  Should I tell him about it again? No, let’s try going down a different fork this time and see if it still attacks us. Then do a few tests for the loop if it does.

  “You have a way of setting this barrier to block sound both ways, right?”

  ***

  After following the monotonous process of reliving her watd m, Emily makes no ges till they reach the forked path again.

  “Let’s just follow this path. There’s no reason to cross the water when we don’t know where either path leads,” Dante says impatiently.

  “Actually,” Emily interjects before Oscar agree. “I have a bad feeling about that path. I think it would be best to try the other way.”

  Dante and Oscar both raise a brow at her, but before Oscar add to the discussion, Dante ges his opinion.

  “Let’s cross then.”

  “Wait, just like that?” Oscar asks incredulously.

  “I trust her gut.”

  “Okay, the other path it is then,” rees, seeing o start an argument.

  He turns to the rest of the group, clearing his throat befiving them instrus. He gets the carriers to hand Emily their spatial bags and first sends across oad one defence mage, Dante and Mia, to be safe. After they reach the other shore safely, Emily throws the bags to them one by one as everyone else swims across in pairs. After a couple of minutes, Emily and Oscar bring up the rear, entering the water st.

  As she swims across, Emily sticks her head uhe water, watg the swirling fog below and around her.

  I wonder how deep it goes.

  Bringing her head above the water again, she turns to Oscar with a grin.

  “Ba a sec!”

  Without waiting for his response, she dives down, disappearing into the uer fog. She swims down a few metres before breaking through the fog yer aering an uling current of living shadows. The pitch-bck water tinues for several more metres before she hits the slimy riverbed below. Disappointedly, she swims back to the surface, breaking out of the water thirty metres downstream of the group.

  Woah, that current is strong. I didn’t even realise it pulled me so far.

  She approaches the shore, pulling herself up onto the rocks and walking back troup mates. A quick cast of se as she walks removes all the water from her body.

  “Please don’t disappear like that without proper warning,” Oscar pins with a frown.

  “Sorry, I thought I felt something below us so I wao check it out,” Emily lies with a dismissive shrug.

  “I see,” Oscar says with a sigh. “Did you find anything?”

  “No. False arm.”

  They spend a few minutes waiting, as everyone dries themselves ets a more elementally patible mage to help, then start moving downstream again. The new path is much the same as the other, and the rest of the afternoon passes quickly. They set up camp as usual, and everybody heads to sleep while Oscar and Emily remain on watch.

  Emily watches the cave behind them with infra-sight, and like clockwork, an hour into their watch, the monster creeps into her vision.

  Locatio matter then.

  Standing up, Emily walks to the edge of the barrier.

  “Our tormenter’s here,” she informs Oscar before stepping out into the darkness and pulling out two grenades.

  It’ll probably go to ground before these hit.

  She charges them full of maa and cooks their fuses before hurling them in quick succession with her full strength while slipping behind a rock for cover. The first grenade shoots in a straight lio the monster’s feet, detonating with a bright fsh three metres away from its target. The monster screeches in pain but easily slips into the ground before the sed grenade reaches it and explodes uselessly in the air.

  “Tsk,” Emily clicks her tongue and turns around, seeing the creature leap from the floor below Oscar.

  Weird. Why didn’t it target me?

  Shaking off the thought, she sprints bato the barrier, pulling out her pistol as the monster drops Oscar’s corpse and leaps into the camp. She raises her gun, ign the monster and turning it instead on one of her sleeping group mates. Three sh out as Emily quickly puts down three first circle mages. Theurns her focus and barrel to the creature while throwing an orb of light into the air.

  The monster finishes ripping Nora apart and gnces around at the mages scrambling to get into bat positions. Emily fires the st three bullets in the chamber into the monster’s back. The creature lets out an irritated snarl and turns to leap at her.

  Okay, so it starts responding to attacks if there are thirteen people left, not just randomly shing out.

  Dodging to the side, Emily tosses a light grenade up behind her while activating her protective earrings. It explodes in a blinding fsh, the els carved into the side bursting open with a loud, disorienting bang. The monster shakes its head with a growl before log its gaze onto her.

  Thought so. The light didn’t affect it, but the sound did.

  “Enzo!” she shouts while sidestepping an arg ssh of the creature’s arm. “Try to stop it diving into the floor on my mark.”

  “Okay!”

  After hearing his response, Emily extends a Cw, charging it with maa and sshing at the monster’s side. She catches its ribs, then ducks under a wild swipe. She thrusts her other hand into the passing arm, charging the retracted Cw with maa and pushing the extension meism for a bit of extra kick. The stab knocks the monster’s arm wide, but only leaves a small nick, half a timetre deep.

  Their intense exge tinues with Emily narrowly avoiding the creature’s rapid swipes, struggling to keep up, even with her equipment’s stat boosts, and taking a few shallow sshes to the arms and sides.

  “Ining!” she hears Dante cry and instantly drops, rolling backwards.

  A flower of fmes explodes against the monster’s side, but Emily notices the monster flinch at Dante’s cry and a thin film of brown coats it before the impact.

  Clever fucker. It’s paying attention to our unication.

  A small grin forms on Emily’s face as her cortex fires off signals rapidly, a pn ing together in her mind.

  O test and I think I know how to kill it.

  The creature growls in irritation, log onto Dante, as he tries to move behind a nearby rock, and croug for a leap. Its ge of focus reveals an opening to Emily, but instead of attag directly, she tosses a light grenade above it.

  “Enzo, now!”

  The monster reacts to Emily’s cry and the crag grenade sailing above its head by sinking into the ground. However, it halts suddenly with its ankles submerged, looking down in fusion. The greonates, causing no damage, but Emily watches through infra-sight as the creature sinks into the floor a split sed ter with its defensive spell active.

  It ’t see the differences between my grenades. Good!

  “I’m sorry,” she hears Enzo shout and turns to look at him, seeing him panting in exhaustion. “I could only stop it for half a sed.”

  “If you had Ivor’s help, could you hold it for a full sed?” Emily asks him, gng back to the monster plunging its thumbs through Dante’s skull.

  “Probably, but I’m spent!” he responds, despair dominating his tone as he watches his friend being brutally taken apart.

  “Perfect!”

  Emily activates The Clock, returning to the past.

  ***

  The Clock’s reversed tig stops as Emily finds herself ba watch with Oscar, sitting ich bck. She smiles at the ck of pain, finally managing to shut out the information overload from time travel. Oscar turns on his dle, lighting up a small area around them, and Emily turns to face him.

  “You have a way of making this barrier two-way, right?”

  They reset the barrier and then wait for the moo make its move. When she hears the dripping arm in the distance, Emily once again checks it out before waiting a while to return to the barrier. After stepping ba, she lies to Oscar about the motag her and gives him a loose overview of its traits, missing out information about its frenzy to reduce their o thirteen since she has no way of expining how she found out. She mao inform him of the creature’s healing ability by lying about it eating grogler meat though.

  The longer her expnation tihe more Oscar’s face falls at the severity of their situation.

  “How are we going to kill something we barely harm, that freely travel through every surface surrounding us, and move faster than any of us?” he asks with a defeated tone.

  “Don’t worry, I think I have a pn,” Emily reassures him with a grin.

  “Really? What is it?”

  “I’ll expin when everybody’s awake. I don’t think it’s going to attack us tonight and I’m still w through the details,” she says, tapping her brow to emphasise her point. “ I leave expining about the creature aing everyone on board to you?”

  “Sure.” He nods fidently. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll make sure everyone is prepared to listen to you when you’re ready.”

  The night passes quickly. In the m, Oscar repeats Emily’s expnation of the monster while reassuring the group that they have a pn to deal with it. Emily waits till lunch time to expin said pn when everyone is gathered around aing.

  “First, Oscar, do you have any unication crystals?” she asks Oscar before starting, the st test she wants to run depending on his answer.

  “I don’t have any spares. But, me and Fionn have a linked pair.”

  “Perfect. The first stage of the pn is to send away those who won’t be of any help. We don’t wara bodies for the creature to eat. Fionn and Erin will escort all first circle mages to split from us and gh a different tuo try a out of the creature’s dete range.”

  A few displeased grumbles are heard, but Oscar quiets them with a gre, showing his support of Emily’s pn.

  “We’ll keep in tact with the unication crystals. Fionn should be able to provide light to navigate back to us after the monster is dealt with, and Erin help defend the group. We haven’t seen anything in these caves for a while now so you should be safe,” Emily tinues, reassuring the scared first circle mages.

  Nods of uanding and acceptance spread through the group quickly.

  “Now, as for the rest of us...”

  Emily expins her pn, watg as a spark of uanding spreads through the group and hope lights up their eyes.

  “...and if that doesn’t finish it, well, we’ll just have to improvise. Any questions?”

  A few queries are brought up, but they soon finish their meal a off downstream with newfound fidence. When they reach the fork in the river, Fionn and Eriheir group down the right-hand path while Emily tinues down the left with their main bat force. They che on each other periodically through the rest of the evening until they reach a good area for the fight, with several rge stagmites proudly protruding from the floor. Then the unication crystal goes silent, o be used by the group that spots the monster.

  They spread out. Emily stands in the open, in the middle of the cave, and everyone else picks a stagmite or roation to crouch behind. Emily looks around from her position and, seeing no exposed mages, gives the all-clear and they settle down to await their prey.

  After ten mihe light in the cave fades, and Emily mentally starts a tdown till the beast appears.

  It should be here soo’s hope this works and I don’t have to sacrifie teammates. Though, it would be more odd for us to make it back with no casualties.

  Emily’s thoughts are interrupted when a familiar e form slowly creeps into view.

  “Light!” Emily calls the moment she sees it, holding her breath in anticipation of its first move.

  Nora tosses a golden ball of light to the roof of the cave, illuminating the spad revealing their enemy immediately. Everybody holds pletely still behind their cover, and Emily watches the monster creep fng around in fusion. As it crosses thirty metres, Emily moves to test it. Its head snaps round to face her, staring into her soul with its gssy white eyes.

  Are you gonna attack me?

  Emily’s tension rises and she braces to leap out of the way. The creature smiles and snarls at her, a vile mix of blood and saliva dripping from its gaping maw, before dropping into the floor.

  Emily springs into motion, leaping forward to avoid an expected attack from below, but nothing happens. Silence falls over the cave. Emily looks around frantically before calling to Oscar.

  “Has it goo them?”

  A couple of seds of quiet muttering ter, Oscar calls back.

  “No.”

  Shit. What’s it doing? Is it leaving us alone because there aren’t enough people?

  Emily holds her tension while runniheion just in case. As her s es back empty, the cave starts to shake. The floor, walls, and ceiling all start to quiver, beginning as a low rumbling that barely dispces the dirt on the ground, and building into a violent storm of movement that has Emily struggling to stand upright.

  She g her group mates, sees them stumbling in their hiding spots, and realises the monster’s pn.

  Well fuck, it’s trying to make us move! At least I know I make it waste mana on a rge-scale earthquake spell.

  She watches it burst from the ground below Enzo and rip him to pieces before screeg at full volume, bathing in his blood as it leaps at its arget.

  “Haaa,” Emily sighs, pulling out The Clod pressing rewind. “Sacrifices it is.”