Emily sits on a ro the darkness, pting the ing fight.

  I have to let some people die, but it matters who. Ivor ’t die for obvious reasons, same with Enzo and Dante. I should make sure Oscar survives so I still get paid properly after this, and I owe Callum for his help with uanding space, so I’ll keep him and alive.

  She raises a hand to her mouth, bitihumb as she taps her foot and stares into the ether.

  I should make sure we don’t lose Matteo since he’s one of the three of us who damage the monster, and I should keep the casualties among barrier mages and healers low. I lose one or two, but that’s pushing it.

  She sees a flicker of heat creep around the er, approag the group at st, and stands up while calling: “Light!”

  Two golden orbs of light shoot to the ceiling, illuminating the cave and revealing the prepared mages lying in wait. Emily makes eye tact with the monster, holding its uling gaze as she waits for it to start its sughter. The creature snarls in anger as it sinks into the floor, and Emily grabs a nearby stagmite for stability.

  The violent shaking begins, and the group is thrown into disarray. Emily ss through everyone’s hiding pces, waiting for the sacrifices to die. Suddenly, the ground below Ricardo bursts open as the monster’s gnarled cws rip up through him. He’s split in half, from groin to shoulder in an instant, raining a crimson flood on the creature as it rises fully from the ground.

  One down.

  Emily watches quietly, carefully the creature’s every move to try to predict its movements. It turns from the corpse of the weak luggage carrier and leaps between two stactites hanging from the roof, digging its cws into the stoo hold on as it corrects its angle and leaps again. It drops onto Bianca, pinnio the floor as it csps her head and slowly drives its thumbs through her eye sockets. Her pained shrieks are quickly ended, and the monster drops her corpse befng around and sinking into the flain.

  Two down.

  The shaking slowly begins to reduce, allowing Emily to release her support and walk into the open to have a clearer view. She spots the monster a moment ter, her eyes finding Maeve when she screams out as the monster rips her right arm off. It casts aside the limb before stabbing its hand through her stomad ripping out her iines.

  Three down.

  The mourns on its heels, croug low and springing in a sudden leap at the mage, , before the shaking finally stop.

  Damn.

  Emily frowns as the creature bites into ’s throat and rips it out.

  I’ll see who else it kills before resetting. Hopefully, it will attack different people if I s some of their positions.

  The monster leaps back up to some stactites, rotating its head around to locate any moving people. Seeing a ge, Emily calls out.

  “ac, slow it down!”

  He follows orders, leaning out from behind his rock cover and pointing his hand at the monster as a flickering bck magic circle forms before him. Instantly, the creature’s focus snaps to him, and it leaps down from the ceiling. It springs forward, closing the distao ad smming its hand into his head. ac cries out in pain, the magic circle he’s been f breaking to pieces as he loses focus.

  The monster catches him with its other hand, raising him to eye level and slolying force to either side of his skull. ac struggles, kig and scratg frantically at the beast as unbearable pain floods his system. After a few moments, his skull pops, spraying blood from his features as his limbs fall like a puppet with its strings cut.

  “Let’s try this again,” Emily mutters, activating The Clock.

  ***

  Once again sitting waiting for the moo appear, the group are spread through the cave in a slightly different order. The creature approaches and ignores Emily once again, diving into the floor and starting the shaking chaos.

  Maeve is the first to die, ripped to shreds to ehe massacre.

  falls Oscar.

  Again.

  The Clock runs backwards.

  ***

  Ivor is eviscerated; The Clock runs back.

  ***

  ac is split in two.

  One down.

  Mia is disembowelled.

  Two down.

  Linda has her brain pierced through her eyes.

  Three down.

  Fionn has his arms ripped off.

  Four down. Shit, that’s one barrier and one healer gone.

  Matteo gets his throat ripped out.

  Fuck!

  The Clock rewinds.

  ***

  Emily stands, staring at the approag monster with a firm scowl set on her face.

  “I swear to Goddess. If I have to live this b fug day one more time, I’m just killing five people myself,” she mutters quietly before calling fht.

  The monster springs into a, swimming through the ground and shaking the cave. It bursts from the ground, ripping Bian half.

  One down.

  Then, it leaps away and carves out the insides of Ricardo’s skull.

  Two down.

  , it tears Nora’s throat out with its teeth, causing one of the orbs of light floating above to dissipate.

  Three down.

  The creature sinks into the flain, and Emily hopefully ss the room for its arget. The wall behind Linda ripples, and a grey streak bursts out, cleaving her head from her torso in one go.

  Four down. Pirl, at least that was the most painless death I’ve seen it give.

  The shaking subsides, but a few mages are still scrambling back to their hiding spots as the monster fis swift kills. Its head swivels, looking for a arget, and Emily holds her breath hopefully. It springs into motion, grabbing ad lifting him as it crushes his head again.

  Five down. Finally!

  With a relieved sigh, Emily pulls out her revolver, already loaded with her specialised bullets. The bck gun crackles with maa and kicks back hard as a searing hot bullet flies into the creature’s spi screeches, biting a k out of ac’s corpse before dropping him and turning to face Emily with a sneer. Predictably, it leaps for her, and she ducks to the side to avoid it, sshing out with a Cw as she does.

  “Matteo! Dante! Burn the bodies! Everyone else, follow the pn!” Emily yells as she parries a ssh of the monster’s cws.

  Murmured ts fill the cave as the mages go on the offensive. Matteo and Dah locate the bodies of their panions and aim bsts of fire at them, burning their flesh to ash. Meanwhile, Bel and Oscar surround Emily with barriers of wind and water, tightly ing her clothes in a protective sheen of armour. Callum, , and Maeve gather the dropped spatial bags of their panions and hide at the edge of the cave, careful not to be spotted by the monster.

  Emily holsters her pistol and distracts the creature, dug and weaviween its attacks. Any attacks that get too close to her meet the resistance of her Cws or the two barriers, giving Emily the extra fra of a sed she o avoid them. Their csh ends in a stalemate after a few exges, but as the creature keeps endlessly sshing, gnawing and leaping at her, she silently prepares a spell.

  A pulsing bde of water impacts the creature’s head, knog it to the side but otherwise not harming it. The mourns towards Erin, snarling at her and revealing an opening to Emily.

  She releases a bolt at point-bnk rao the monster’s leg, scorg its skin. It screeches and turns back to her, restarting their previous e. She begins casting another bolt while holding off the monster’s fretacks.

  “Ready!” Matteo calls out from somewhere behind the monster.

  Emily grins, activating a light greill attached to the bandolier with her maa, causing it to detach, and flig it up between herself and the monster. She sends a small stream of mana into her earrings and shuts her eyes as the cave fills with light and sound.

  She opens her eyes the moment the light fades ahe creature howling in anger with a burning pat its back. Utilising its distracted state, Emily pulls out her revain and fires two charged shots into the newly burning flesh as it turns to look for Matteo. It turns back to face her, leaping fain, and Emily drops into a roll, holstering her gun as she does, and passing uhe creature.

  As she skids bato her feet, she notices the brown glow c the monster pletely as it furiously snarls at her.

  Perfeow for stage two!

  Emily tinues dodging the monster’s attacks, fighting back as much as she against the stronger and faster oppo. Tentacles of water reach out from the barrier surrounding her, courtesy of Mia. The tentacles around the creature and pull against its barrier, draining its mana slowly. Matteo and Erin keep sending a rain of fire and water against it, and Emily uses every ce she to ssh apart the barrier with her maa-charged Cws, pushing them to the limits with Overdrive, and finding them surprisingly effective at damaging pure mana barriers.

  The onsught of attacks tinues for a while until the mages start to run out of mana.

  “I’m out,” Matteo shouts, panting with exhaustion and colpsing to the floor behind his cover.

  “Me too,” Mia calls.

  “Same,” Erin joins in.

  “I only block two more attacks,” Bel shouts with slight panic.

  “I have five left at least,” Oscar says with a slight quiver, uo hold a touch of pani his voice.

  Emily rolls to the side to avoid a leap and pants slightly as she makes a decision, the stress of the intetle taking its toll.

  “Daart now, I’ll try to finish off its mana,” she yells, bsting the creature with a bolt.

  Daarts a long, plicated t, and a rge, burning red magic circle slowly forms behind him, pulsing with heat and power as dozens of runes aric shapes wind around each other. Emily g her Cws, seeis and scratches c them, and several tears in the bracers.

  Time to py with explosives.

  She retracts the Cws, reag up and grabbing a mana grenade, charging it full of maa. She pulls a bullet from a pouch at her waist with the other hand, p in a small amount of spatial mana, to bypass switch’s touch requirement, before flig it behind the monster as it swipes its cws at her again. She quickly prepares switch while calg the bullet's position. The moment it reaches far enough and is perfectly cealed by the monster’s body, she uses her maa to activate the greh a shortened fuse and casts her spell.

  A purple glow envelopes the grenade, and it vanishes, a bullet appearing in her hand instead. The greonates, catg the monster in its bst radius but avoiding Emily. Its brown barrier flickers and dims slightly, and the creature howls in anger.

  Its attacks increase further in iy, and it quickly removes the st of Emily’s defensive help from her teammates. She starts trading injuries for bolts and well-pced grenades, using switake sure the creature only ever sees the light grenades go off, wearing down the monster’s barrier slowly. Her body armour ptes are chipped aed iurn, with some gashes appearing on her skin through the gaps between, and one of her boots has the spikes ripped off the bottom from a bad collision with the creature’s cws.

  “Ready!” Dante calls at st, after a few minutes of preparation that have left Emily alone against the beast.

  Hearing his signal, Emily starts the final barrage. She baits her antagonist so it leaps for her, then leans bad tosses her st light grenade up so the monster passes u. It bursts with a shog pop, the loud sound causing the creature a moment of disorientation that sends it tumbling to the ground as it fails to nd properly.

  She grabs her st two mana grenades, charging them full of maa and tossing them into the air oher side of the creature while hoping they don’t harm her too much. The monster sees the mana grenades, but doesn’t dive into the floor, only registering them as light grenades. She raises her hands before her, the crag cerulean magic circle of bolt f in the air as she fills it with as much mana as possible.

  Got you! I hope this is enough. I only have a couple of bolts left ier this.

  Thunderous sound fills the cave as two grenades and one spell go off at the same time. The glowing hments of metal from the grenades whizz past, several digging into the monster’s barrier, and two hitting Emily in the leg a bicep, pung small holes through.

  Shit! They missed the bo least.

  The monster howls in anger, looking far worse for wear. The brown sheen c it has faded to a barely perceptible flicker. Its skin is covered in small cuts and scratches, trig blood from most of its body, with several patches of bck burned skin fking off.

  Emily g Enzo and Ivor, seeing both of them with their eyes shut and their hands pressed to the floor, sweat dripping from their foreheads as they focus.

  They aren’t out of ma, but they definitely stopped it from diving then. I hope they hold through Dante’s attack.

  As if reading her mind, Daivates the magic circle in front of him, releasing unduting waves of power. The air around it twists, as burning red petals of fire form in the air, being pulled to the tre in a swirling vortex of fmes. The monster sehe rge gathering of mana and starts turning towards the source, but Emily quickly pulls out her revolver with her uninjured arm, charging it with maa and sending three shots into their attacker. The powerful kickback strains her wrist, but Emily ig and fires a fourth shot as the creature leaps at her. The fourth shot misses as she twists to dodge its swipe, so Emily drops the gun and sps her palm against the monster’s side while casting bolt again.

  She rolls away as electricity flows across its skin, before skidding to her feet and turning to watch the fireworks. The vortex of fire before Dante presses, f a sharply pointed giant flower of crimson aiming straight at the creature. With a single loud burst of force, the flower rockets forward, instantly drawing a glowing liween Dante and the monster. It tries to dive into the floor to escape, but Enzo and Ivor pour the st of their energy into blog its attempt.

  The flower hits the monster’s chest, engulfing it in a raging inferno as it bursts. Emily sees the initial impact shatter the monster’s barrier, then the creature disappears in a bst of red. The sound of the explosion echoes off the cave walls, reverberating around and filling the space with its power. Emily feels grateful for her earrings as she feels the thunderous vibrations deep in her chest.

  Dante colpses in exhaustion before the fire fade, too draio even look at the aftermath of his attack. Ivor and Enzo fall with him, leaving Emily alone as the st bat-capable mage.

  Please be enough.

  The smoke and fire slowly fade, revealing a scorched bck figure standing in the tre of a small crater. Emily takes a step forward and then pauses as she sees two gssy white eyes snap open, staring back at her with unbridled fury.

  Emily throws aside her tattered robes, lifting her hands out to the sides aending the Cws.

  “Fine. I said I’d tear you limb from limb. Let’s do this,” she snarls as she advances.

  A glowing cerulean magic circle forms around her as her arms igh the crackle of maa. The monster growls and lowers its injured body to pounce, and Emily breaks into a sprint to meet it.