"Urfie!" Ghwynmyr shouted as the beastman flung a few footlings away after being gored by one of the minotaurs.

A few moments ago, as they were about to take on the path, a horde of minotaurs suddenly appeared from the darkness and started a stampede against them. Ghwynmyr and the rest had no time to execute their plan and ended up using the runes they were supposed to use in their journey.

The raging monsters charged and gored them. Ghwynmyr fought off most of them with the use of the runes he was supposed to use later. He would have preferred keeping those runes for emergency, but the situation called for badly.

"Fuck! Watch yer head, Addie!" He threw a fire rune towards the raging minotaurs.

Adaloun ran and took cover on a boulder after cutting down three more minotaurs rushing towards him. The fire rune exploded and blasted the stampeding minotaurs out of existence. Ghwynmyr slammed the earth rune in front of him and created a solid stone wall, enough to protect him from the roaring fire.

Orphella fired a compressed air arrow before hiding behind the dwarf's defense. Her shot turned the flame into a fiery tempest, devouring every surviving minotaur in its path. The assault only lasted a moment, but the flame's heat stayed like an eternity. The monsters cried and screamed in agony; their pained voices echoed inside the clearing until they finally went silent.

"Tis everyone, alright?" Ghwynmyr asked as he looked around for the beastman. "Urfie? Lad, where yah at?!"

"Over here!" The beastman raised his arms from the mound of dust and ashes covering him. "I'm alright."

Ghwynmyr sighed in relief as he checked on the rest of them. He called out Adaloun and saw the human emerging from the boulder with only a few bruises and a small cut in the cheek. He checked on Orphella who hid behind him and saw she had it the worse.

The poor elf had a huge wound on her right leg. Ghwynmyr immediately came to her aid and took out a splinter of a horn sticking out from the side of her leg.

"Whut 'appened?" Ghwynmyr asked as he tore a piece of his cloth from his belt.

"A minotaur got to me…" She signed while squinting her eyes as Ghwynmyr took out the piece of horn on stuck on her leg. "I fought it off as it gored my leg."

Ghwynmyr quickly tied the wound in place, but the bleeding wouldn't stop. Ideally, they needed the wound stitched. Unfortunately, his hands weren't built to sew; aside from that, they do not have the tools to do it.

Cauterizing this type of wound might do more harm than good. He didn't dare do it. The last thing he wanted was dooming the poor elf to an amputated leg or worse. Suddenly, the bow talked out loud.

"You should've been more careful, sister." The bow barked.

Ghwynmyr noticed how Orphella glared at the bow. From the looks of it, she seemed to be speaking with the weapon. The bow was silent once again, but he could see in Orphella's face contorted. Whatever they talked about, was on their own but it led him to feel a little curious as to what might they had been talking to…or even, Orphella's voice.

"Fine!" The bow floated in front of her and began to glow. "I will use this one time on you! But, I will be rendered useless for a while, so don't expect me help you out in a while!" It began to glow as it hovered near her wound.

From the fragments of the conversation he heard, he knew that the weapon will use its ability to help Orphella with her wound. However, the bow will be rendered useless for a while. The situation got them in an even bigger disadvantage. Without the magical bow, they won't be able to clear out the hordes of monsters as fast as they preferred it to be.

He knew at that point, that they needed to devise another plan, but what?

Adaloun approached them a moment later. He helped Urfaal out from the debris of dirt and ashes, when he noticed the beastman was unable to stand up immediately. The beastman sat across the elf, holding his stomach suspecting a broken rib.

"Gods' damn it!" Ghwynmyr clicked his tongue as he felt the beastman's side.

"A broken rib?" Urfaal asked.

"Ribs." Ghwynmyr counted three broken ribs. "Tis is bad. We can't go forward wit these. Tis too dangerous!" He looked at Adaloun.

"We also can't stay here." The human sighed. "Who knows what other monsters might come here."

"Leave me here." Urfaal pushed him away. "I'll be the bait."

"Nay! Nay one is leaving anyone," He replied as he tore a long piece of cloth from Urfaal's pants. "Lemme tie dis in yer tummy. Tis gonna hurt a bit." He and Adaloun gently wrapped the cloth along his ribs to secure the injury.

"We will get out of here together!" Adaloun replied.

"Yes, we shall." Orphella smiled.

"Yes, but first…" Ghwynmyr looked at them. "Time tah take a breather." He grinned.

The rest of them nodded and sat quietly all the while checking the surroundings for any ambush. They knew that the longer they stayed there, the riskier it becomes for them. But with the current state that they're at, it was a much-needed pause.

Ghwynmyr took this time to carve some more runes. From his current condition, he knew he could only do less than twenty and that would be stretching his limits. They needed those runes; even more than ever since their exousias' have been depleted from all the battle they had to do. And with only a few rations of stale bread and hardened salted meat, recovering their lost exousias would be difficult.

"Can I help you with that?" Adaloun approached him.

Ghwynmyr smiled but he knew that this skill was too much for someone like his human friend. First of all, the magic that he had used until that point were just bodily enhancements. Even at Adaloun's level of using his exousia, rendering magic and converting it into elemental runes would be a high-level learning that takes time in honing one's self. And time is not their friend right now.

"Fraid, yah can't." He continued to write runes on some rocks.

The human sat in front of him and carefully looked at how intricate he wrote the runes on the hard stone.

"Think, I can help you with that!" Adaloun grabbed a stone and tried writing the fire symbol on it, but he couldn't even mark the stone.

Ghwynmyr took the stone from his hand, "Preciate yah trying tah help…but tis very complex."

He held the stone up in Adaloun's face and poked his finger on its surface. "Tis hard tah do, Addie. Yah see, yah need tah put yer exousia while rendering the element into the stone. Tis three things at once. Yah need practice just tah render the elements right."

Adaloun's forehead creased, "I thought it was an easy thing."

"Easy…ah?" He scoffed. "Could be…but tis harder than it looks. Don't waste yerself on this. Lemme do these for yah."

Adaloun quietly nodded. Ghwynmyr knew that he curbed his friend's enthusiasm down by shunning his help. However, he needed Adaloun to be in his optimal condition. With his human friend's power focused on enhancing his reflexes and strength, he would need all the exousia in his body. Especially as things may turn very grim as they move forward.

"Tell yah what." Ghwynmyr said. "I'll teach yah more once we get outta here. So, don't die."

Adaoun grinned. "You bet I wont! And you too…don't die. One day, when all of this is done, we'll laugh about this!" He confidently proclaimed.

Ghwynmyr nodded and hoped that it would be the case.

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I dedicate this chapter to Jonah_Maxwell! Nice to see you're enjoying the novel! I hope you'll watchout for the next things to come!