A few hours ter, Emily gets up early to join Enzo and Dante for the end of their watch, helping them deal with the slowly increasing number of beast attacks as the sun rises. She stands up, pulling her battered Cw free from a razor-fanged wolf’s head as she looks at the corpses surrounding her.

  Are they ing from deeper in to attack us? I don’t remember running into any razor-fangs on the way in.

  She moves between the corpses, severing heads to take bap for harvesting. Dante closes the distance from where he’s been flinging spells and starts helping her, using a knife from his belt.

  “There’s going to be a lot of fights today, isn’t there?” Dante asks as they gather the decapitated heads in their arms and start walking towards the barrier.

  “Yeah, we’re gonna have our work cut out for us.”

  “Good!” Dante grins and starts humming a happy tune.

  “Psycho!” Emily chuckles, rolling her eyes at him but uo hold back her own grin.

  I guess I’m er. I’d rather fight the whole way back than have a b trek.

  They cross the lip of the crater and are hit by a wall of sound as they ehe barrier. The sound of movement, loud versations, and ughter mix with the patter of rain, drowning out the siing squelch of knives on flesh ing from and Callum. Emily and Dante approach the brothers, dropping their bounty into the boys’ to-harvest pile.

  “Thanks,” chirps at them, holding out a bundle of meat tied together with string to Emily. “We prepared some fresh meat for you!”

  “Thanks,” Emily says with a small smile as she takes the food.

  visibly blushes as she does and, as they walk away, Daurns to her with a teasing grin.

  “Looks like you have an admirer.”

  Emily says nothing, fixing him with a deadpan stare until he ’t hold back his ughter. They approazo and Ivor, sitting on the bank of the crater and sit down with them. Emily separates the meat and hands half to Dante before casting burning hands and cooking two portions for herself and Ivor.

  They eat their breakfast quickly as the rest of the group breaks camp, finishing at the same time as the sound barrier falls. They leave their seats and join the group to tiheir journey back.

  They spend two days fighting their way out of the rai, felling hundreds of attag beasts. Their third day bees oddly peaceful halfway through the night, and they don’t enter any creatures until, at midday, they fa onsught of differes attag at once.

  Emily does her best to wipe them out quickly, but is hampered by the trees providing cover to her ehen, after ooo many mistakes, Oscar dies to a mudscrap, attag from below, before Emily end the fight. She resets, returning to the sed day, and mindlessly relives the trek until night falls. As she’s sitting on watch, staring out into the darkness, waiting for the st attack of the day, she starts questioning the horde.

  Why did so many e at once? I thought the Mensacus was just making them mgressive, not coordinated like the groglers.

  She reaches down and touches the pouch holding the cursed tooth without a thought, and is surprised as she feels a frigid chill emanating from it. She opens the poud pulls the small bck iron lump out.

  It’s strohan when I initially sealed it.

  She frowns and turns the metallic mass in her hands, spotting a few microscopic holes leaking dark bck miasma.

  Is the curse eating through the metal? I o check.

  She gets up from her watch point and moves bato the camp. Finding one of the spatial bags, she opens it up and reaches around inside for another bck iron cw. Closing her hand around her prize, she closes the bag and puts it back before returning to the edge of the camp.

  Taking the bck iron cw between her hands, Emily casts burning hands and slowly forms the to another seal before pg it down on the floor in front of her. She takes out the sealed tooth again, and checks her stats while holding it.

  Thought so, it’s back to redug my intelligence by two.

  She casts burning hands and slowly traces the edge of the melted seal, revealing the Mensacus to the world again. Built up bd red malevolent mana pours out of the metal the moment a rge hole is made, and Emily pulls the tooth free.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  Mental attack spell detected!

  Resisting…

  -5 hp

  Resisting...

  Mental attack successfully resisted!

  _____

  She grits her teeth at the strength of corruption that hits her in a wave, but other than a slight ag in her cortex, it soon fades. Looking into the opened seal, the tooth still looks and feels the same, but the metal housing it is uneven, as if eaten from the inside.

  It’s been corroding the seal. This corrupted mana is really strong to be able to destroy maaal like that.

  Instead of feeling disced, this result only fuels Emily’s desire to analyse the tooth closer.

  I wonder what would happen if I exposed a normal mage to that corrupted mana...

  Pushing aside her dangerous thoughts for now, Emily pces the Mensacus into the new tainer and seals it with burning hands. She drops the sealed tooth and the half eateal into the same pouch for ter, and looks up to see fures creeping towards her through the fog.

  She rises and walks forward to meet them, casting flying lightning and feeling the familiar weight form around her arm as she does. With , practised motions, pulling on the influence of her dang skill more than she’d like to admit, Emily gracefully winds the on around the four unsuspeg fog cats, stunning them before pulling the wire taut and slig them to pieces.

  Turning away from the bloody mess, she returns to her position at the edge of the camp, waiting for the m to e.

  ***

  The m they once again enter attacks but, as they push through the shrubbery, cutting away at bushes and low hanging branches, a low rumbling starts in the distance.

  “What’s that?” Dante asks, gng between Emily and Ivor.

  I guess the Mensacus has already spread its influence. Maybe I should try resealing it sooner. If I reset now I still ... But this fight was fun and we should be able to get through it without casualties if we just prepare a little.

  “Sounds like a lot of beasts,” Emily says with a grin, her deade as she turns to face Oscar behind her. “Let’s back up to the clearing we saw ten minutes ago.”

  “Okay,” he agrees easily, trusting Emily’s judgement and turning to instruct the rest of the group. “Turn bad make for the clearing we just passed!”

  Everyone follows without pint, having e to respect Emily enough not to question her judgement. They quickly retrace their steps, moving away from the faint cries of angry beasts pursuing them. The rumbling grows louder, as their enemies gain groue their quick decision to retreat. By the time they reach the clearing, Emily’s able to clearly make out hurried footsteps in the distance.

  “Set up for horde defence!” she calls over the noise. “Use individual barriers, if there are ps we don’t want to lose our only defences.”

  We don’t o repeat that mistake.

  The barrier mages all voice their aowledgement before starting their ts.

  “Enzo, focus on blog mudscraps. Ivor, help him! Carriers, throw me any grenades left in ys then ditch them and prepare to help.”

  Emily ignores everyone else preparing around her after giving out instrus, keeping her focus on the forest before her as she feels several unprimed grenades flying towards her from behind. With a few quick tendrils of maa, she grabs the explosives and pulls them to her bandolier where she clips them in pce.

  I should sell people ons thehem myself more often.

  She activates infra-sight and watches the forest ahead for approag foes.

  Unfortunately, I ’t dump maa into the ones I sold Oscar or he’ll realise I never made better grenades for myself. This will take a little more finesse.

  She takes one grenade in her hand as she waits, p a trickle of maa into it and stopping just before it starts crag with electricity. A few seds ter, silence falls over the group as they finish their preparations, several magic circles floating in the air around them, awaiting activation. Everyone listens with bated breath to the rapid footsteps and violent snarls growing closer.

  Emily spots several flickering e forms approag betweerees, both on the floor and in the opy above.

  “They’re here! Irees and on the ground!” she calls out before throwing her prepared greowards the biggest cluster of movement.

  Without hesitation, she tears anrenade from her bandolier, before the first has eveonated, and charges it with a bit of maa before sending it out as well. Her teammates spot the enemies and start unleashing their spells, bursts of colour filling the forest as explosions and pained screeches sound out deeper into the trees.

  Emily fast runs out of grenades and drops infra-sight to start charging up two bolts at once, pointing them at different ao clear the forest before her. A razor-fanged wolf leaps from the bushes towards her throat as her spells finish, and she waits till its jaws are a few timetres from her before releasing both her spells at once, watg two beams of psma rip through the wolf, along with the trees as behind it, with glee.

  A thin, formless armour of wind forms around Emily as the crag after effects of her spells fade. She turns her head, sp a manic grin, and nods her thanks to Oscar while weaving together hand signs to summon flying lightning, dodging a rock projectile slung at her, and preparing another bolt with her sed core. The treeline bursts with motion as rabid beasts surround them, bounding forwards through the shrubbery to attack.

  Emily sshes flying lightning across the first attackers to step into the open, firing bolts past them to fry the forces building up behind them. Her armour deflects several shards of rock raining from above and, having now created a small pile of bodies that will slow down the grous’ advance, she casts infra-sight and starts flig flying lightning into the rocky howlers above.

  While she’s focused on sshing and puncturing every flicker of heat above, an ocex springs over her temporary blockade, aiming for her throat. Before it ect, it’s smashed to the side by a heavy rock from Ivor. Emily ig, havi Ivor’s attaing in advance, and finishes driving a hole through the chest of the st howler in front of her. As the monkey falls to the ground dead, joining its rades, she hears a loud screech high above.

  They’re here!

  “I’ll deal with the sky, cover me!” she yells, looking up to see a small group e, bck birds, that she reises as sominal bombers, cirg them while holding ps betweealons.

  Trusting Ivor, Dante, and Oscar to cover the front, Emily reaches for her thigh, pulling her revolver out of its holster and raising it to the sky. Charging the gun with maa, she lines up a shot and squeezes the trigger. A bullet tears through the air, pung through a frog and the bird above. She adjusts her aim, taking another shot, but the birds notice their rade’s death a poorly. They panid start flyiically. Two drop their payloads at the edge of the group, and Emily’s shot misses its mark, ripping through a p’s leg, missing the bird still clutg it tight.

  “Look out above!” she yells as the frogs fall.

  Luckily, the spark of maa in her bullet jolts the injured frog awake, temporarily breaking it free from the sedative beied from its carrier’s talons. On instinct, the moment the frains some trol, it registers danger aohe explosion rips its captor to pieces and shreds the wings of the surrounding bombers, sending them all tumbling to the ground on top of the group.

  Shit!

  Multiple explosions go off around the group. Emily avoids the worst of it, but as she holsters her gun and g her group, her heart drops. Ivor is lying on the floor without a barrier, clutg his scorched and bleedi leg. Mia is beside him, sitting up on the floor looking disoriented and fused, but otherwise unharmed, and a few metres from them is Fionn, lying unscious, bleeding from the head. Blog the advang beasts nearby are Callum and , sshing away with swords but slowly being overwhelmed.

  “Damn it, they just had to hit the healer!” Emily growls in frustration. “Take over the front for a sec.”

  Receiving a grunt of aowledgement from Dante, she leaves the front line and makes a break for their injured panions. Whipping flying lighting at a few mudscraps closing in on Callum and sending a bolt through the beasts near , Emily reaches for her belt and pulls off two vials of healing potion. She tosses oo Mia as she passes.

  “Give Ivor this!”

  Her words seem to jolt Mia out of her fusion, as she catches the vial and frantically nods, scrambling over to the fallen mage. Emily keeps going, dropping into a slide as she reaches Fionn and es to a stop o him. She grabs his head, opening his mouth quickly and dumping the potion in. The small split running down the back of his head leaks blood onto her hands, but she sees it starting to close over quickly uhe influence of the potion.

  Food measure, she pulls out her st potion and pours it down his throat as well before ying his head down and standing up. Fionn’s eyes flutter open as Emily splits an approag razor-fang in half with a violent whip of flying lightning, taking some of the burden from the Gavin brothers. Notig he’s awake, Emily turns to return to the front.

  “Heal yourself and Ivor,” she calls over her shoulder to Fionn, receiving a silent thumbs up as he instantly starts ting.

  After returning to the front, Emily tinues cleaving through and scorg the approag beasts, dealing with at least sixty per t of their numbers herself as the battle slowly winds down. The outp of beasts from the trees reduces until only a few irays remain, only to be quickly ripped apart by metal ic.

  With the fight over, everyone colpses in exhaustion. Dante falls to the ground on his back beside Emily, so she sits dowo him, aatic grin fixed on her face as she rides high ohrill of battle. Dante looks up at her and chuckles. Emily notices his matg expression and ughs before bumping his raised fist.

  “Those were some great explosions,” she says as their fists part.

  “Thanks, but I ’t hold a dle to you. I never even thought to drop ps on my own teammates!”

  “Didn’t think to? Or didn’t have the ability to try.”

  “Ah! You got me!”

  They both break out in ughter, enjoying themselves, uned by the pools of blood and corpses surrounding them.