Imagine, for a moment, waking deep underwater. The salt stings your eyes. Your lungs burn, little bubbles of oxygen tickling your nose as they slowly trickle out. You struggle, try to fight your way to the surface, as the burning grows more pronounced, more unbearable. Your lungs convulse, pulling desperately for air against tightly drawn lips that slowly loosen. Until you finally breathe, water rushing in to silence you.

But it’s not over. Because you reach the surface. And now, with water crackling in your lungs, it’s a mile of hard swimming to shore.

That was how it felt. I’d drawn too deeply. This wasn’t a game. There was no mana-meter to tell me how close it was. All there was was a primal recognition of how close to the brink I’d come. My vision was still tunneled as I reached the archer and plunged the frozen blade directly into his chest.

He screeched and threw his head back. I’d watched what had happened to Sae, so I was ready when the Gaussian blur of white-noise ejected from his mouth. I tore the blade free and let guide my movements. My saber flew in a lightning fast pattern, carving off his leg, his arm, meeting little resistance as the limbs separated. I put the entirety of my back and arms into the final blow, cleaving him from head to groin.

The two halves of his body separated. Some of the blur faded, little gray objects no bigger than cicadas attempting to bridge the gap and pull the butchered figure back together. Before it could fully reform, I moved behind it and pulled the from my inventory. Its entire body showed a dull gray save one exception: a little silver sphere no bigger than a walnut nestled in its left side, trying desperately to dig its way deeper through the growing frost.

I dug it out with my fingers and, still breathing hard, crushed it. It let out an ungodly mew, and the blurry form that had once looked vaguely humanoid dissipated.

Suddenly, the screeching feedback I’d received on my first attempt to use made all the sense in the world.

I ran to where Jinny had dragged Sae, yelling as I approached. “Hit the smokescreen! Now!”

Sae grimaced. She was balancing almost entirely on one foot, the other a bloody mess, as she reached out with both hands. A violet vapor streamed from her fingertips, expanding outward, until it covered the whole arena in a semi-transparent darkness. Jinny popped the cork off a health potion, holding it to Sae’s lips as she worked. The blurry enemies stopped moving.

I studied the after-effects of the spell, several possibilities coming to mind. “How long does it last?”

“Not long.” Sae clung to Jinny for support. “Less than three minutes. They can still hear, though not as well. Learned that one the hard way.”

“Fades when we attack, I’m guessing?”

“Yep.”

Jinny was staring at me like I’d grown a third eye. “How did you—”

I gave her the slightest shake of my head, and she stopped. When I’d pulled my little stunt with it had occurred to me that Jinny might catch on. She was the only one with line of sight—Nick was too busy with the swordsmen, and Sae was preoccupied with having her ankles eaten.

I’d justified it as an acceptable risk because I had leverage over her. But with the way she was looking at me now, I wasn’t so sure.

Nick jogged over to us, Talia limping behind him. “Sae, you good?”

“Not great. Whatever bit us is fucking with my head. If one of those idiots hadn’t accidentally shot the other, I’d be dead now.” Sae said. She was shivering violently.

“Yeah.” Nick spat to the side and wiped his mouth. “I knocked one of them down and spent way too long beating on it before I realized it wasn’t doing shit.”

“Two minutes,” I said. “We need to focus.”

“They have no veins, no vital organs, and seem utterly indifferent when their genitalia is torn away, only to have it reform moments later. I am out of ideas,” Talia snarled. She was bleeding heavily from a large wound on her hip.

The others stared at her.

“Dude,” Nick said.

I tried not to laugh at how quickly Talia lost her benevolent spirit guide persona. Still, she was my summon, and she was injured. I pulled a health potion from my inventory, removed the stopper, and tossed it to Talia. She caught the neck between her teeth and tipped it backward. Technically, I could just re-summon her when she died, but considering how close I came to tapping myself out with and the difficulty of pulling that off without drawing attention, it seemed better to play it safe.

Jinny made sure Sae could stand before she left her to tend to Talia’s wound. The wolf growled, and pressed her head against Jinny’s thigh as a sound like a grease frier emitted from her thigh, followed by the smell of burning flesh.

I kept my voice low, checking over my shoulder to make sure nothing hostile came too close. “Good news and bad news. I know how to beat them, but it’s going to be a pain in the ass.”

“It’s already a pain in the ass.” Nick and Sae said simultaneously.

“Their whole schtick is a misdirect. That was the point of dosing us at the entrance. Trying to keep us from seeing clearly until it was too late. Each blur isn’t a single enemy. Each unit is a swarm controlled by a hive mind,” I said.

Sae shuddered again. “Fucking bugs.”

“Thankfully for us, the hive mind is within the swarms themselves. Unfortunately, that also means we’re basically looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Nick snapped his fingers. “It’s a Resident Evil 4 Regenerator situation.”

“Exactly.” I nodded.

“A what?” Jinny asked.

“Basically, we break them up as much as possible, and pulverize them until we find the weak-point,” Sae explained, then looked at me. “What do they look like?”

I relayed the information as concisely as I could.

Nick drove a fist into one hand, a determined look in his eye. “Okay. Matt’s taking home the Heisman for this one. The rest of us have to make it count.” He turned to my summon. “Talia, I’ve got a plan, but I need you backing me up.”

Talia blinked. “I am… amenable.”

“Good. We’re gonna tag team big boy. I’ll go first, but I need you to cover when I pivot away. If it works the way I hope it does, I’ll be able to rotate back in for you relatively quickly.”

I shook my head. “Not sure starting with the most dangerous target is the best idea.”

Nick grabbed my shoulder and smiled. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing. Just follow my lead.” He turned to Jinny and Sae. “Keep the sword guys busy. Just throw everything we’ve got at them. Make sure Sae stays out of harm’s way. If you get overwhelmed, pull Matt in.”

“Okay, but you still haven’t said what they’re pulling me away from.” I pointed out, distracted by how the mist was fading. When I looked back, Nick was already gone.

“Parasite squashing duty.” Nick yelled over his shoulder from some distance ahead, sprinting directly at the massive swarm near the center, Talia bounding behind him. He closed on the swarm, holding his sword over his head in a mad charge. “Let’s see what you can do with that axe, bitch!”

There was a moment of stunned silence before the three of us moved.

Why did I agree to this again?