The pack of beasts broke through the line of trees as a darkness sank in around us. The dome was thickening, and the sparks of energy it produced had become even more unstable and active. The sky was slowly shifting into a deep black fog that jumped and rolled like a tumultuous ebony sea beneath the crimson crackling hum of Zeus’s fury.

As the dome thickened the borders were slowly shrinking and the edge of the dome gradually inched ever closer.

The earth moved and nearly shook me from my feet as the din of hundreds of thunderous hooves vied and harmonized with the howling gale to create a symphony of discordant chaos. It was a music of opposites, the furious cords of a raging sky meeting the unrelenting percussion of the quaking earth.

The air was filled with upturned dirt and missiles made from rock and small debris that pelted my back and obscured my vision.

As the quiet light faded into clamorous darkness the cries of demons rose up to meet it, as if the world had descended into Hell. If I had to stand before those fiery gates, I would not abandon hope. I would storm the cellars of hell with my head held high.

Hooved beasts charged at me with long and twisting horns that protruded from their heads in numerous spirals ending in jagged tips and cruel sickle like hooks. The behemoths had four shaggy legs attached to thick and muscular bodies that were covered in a layer of short, dark fur. Their heads were snarling masks of rage and folded flesh behind a Cheshire grin of large triangular teeth.

The largest of the beasts slowed as it threw its head back in a roar. The howl seemed almost mournful and was loud and clear enough for the challenge to rise above the pandemonium that shook both earth and sky. Its head was hidden beneath a matted mane of red hair and its single eye glowed bright orange with dancing light, as if a wildfire burned within it. Three red lines crossed its face and ended where its second eye should have been. The eye was nothing but torn and empty tatters covered by a red and angry wound still unhealed and oozing.

The short fur on the creature's back was purple, dark enough to be almost black. Unlike the hooves that most of its followers had, this beast’s feet were clawed and left massive gouges in the earth behind it. It had a proud and regal air, as if it were a paragon of its species.

As this king of beasts continued to wail the rest of the pack charged forward, bending around and even leaping above their leader to reach me, their prey. I would not merely stand still and expose my neck, however. I didn’t need to fight them all. I merely needed to delay them long enough for Telvy to finish or for her sisters to return.

My priority was to annoy and distract the monsters enough that they ignored the archmage. I had no illusions that she would stop to aid me before her work was complete. The life of her sister meant much more to her than my own, just as I valued my own life above hers or any obligations the Peacekeepers believed I owed them.

Eldritch energy was much thicker close to the border of the dome than it had been at the Yorktown. Despite the dome blocking off and siphoning away every trace of ambient energy, the area of crackling lighting that was powering the formation bled energy like waste heat from a generator.

I used Eldritch Mimicry to hide Telvy and my Companion in the illusion of a granite boulder. I had been sent on this mission weaponless, but I had collected the rifle dropped by the injured Peacekeeper after her impromptu flight.

I had some training in Peacekeeper weaponry, but I had never held a piece of tech this advanced. I knew that it had many alternate modes of fire and could even transform into different configurations, but I had no idea how to access them. I would have to content myself with an oversized machine gun with near limitless ammo.

I had no idea how the technology worked, but Talith had once mentioned that Peacekeeper rifles shaved nearly microscopic threads from a block of metal before propelling those threads at incredible speeds. This created not only impressive stopping power but was nearly recoilless and a single ‘block’ of ammo could contain thousands of rounds.

I began firing at the beasts as I ran parallel to the herd, hoping to draw them towards me. As I did so I also began to draw in eldritch energy, consolidating it around myself. It frustrated me that now that I had my connection to the system restored I could no longer store the energy within my body.

I still had the thin latticework I had built from the small amounts of energy I had collected during my imprisonment, but I had been unable to add to it. Any energy that touched my skin was slowly converted or consumed by the system itself.

The energy I already held seemed unaffected by this limitation, but I had still only managed minor success in using it in any meaningful way.

I continued to fire the rifle, but the stampede barely noticed my potshots. The rifle was powerful, but so were the hides of the beasts. Each shot would draw blood, but the thick fur and skin of the creatures were strong enough that the wounds were mostly superficial annoyances.

I was only able to bring down a single creature through luck and concentrating all my fire on a single target. As I bombarded it the creature began to slow and as it turned towards me a single lucky shot found its eye and the creature fell with an inaudible crash. The herd ignored this lone death, as the closest creatures simply leaped over the body and continued towards my original location, where Telvy and the Companion were still hiding.

If I was going to draw the herd’s attention I would need to act fast, as they had already cleared nearly half the distance. The only thing I could think of was to either use a larger attack or to choose a better target.

I turned my sights towards the behemoth king, but there were too many bodies between it and the barrel of my gun.

“Shit,” I screamed in frustration. For a moment I considered abandoning Telvy and using my class skills to break through the dome and escape. The Peacekeepers would likely all die, but I wasn’t exactly a fan of theirs at this point.

I had originally believed that the Peacekeepers would be invaluable to the survival of New Charleston and its residents, but the interplanetary soldiers had shown a remarkable amount of bad faith. Like most soldiers, I could only trust them to follow orders and uphold the interests of their superiors.

I couldn’t trust any of them – despite my fondness for a couple of their number.

The thing that brought me back from this line of thinking was Tiller. He was still at the Yorktown, and the only reason he had been there at all was because of me. Thinking back to the time I had spent with him, his sister, and Pastor Belk, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon him.

Instead, I continued to yell profanities as I ran towards a charging horde of devils. I would have to trust in luck, magic, and alien armor to keep me alive through a blender of horns, hooves, and flesh.

I had seen that the herd reacted much like most earth animals did while running. They were not in a blind panic and would still act to avoid obstacles. Much like horses avoiding a fallen rider, they had jumped over and parted around their king. Additionally, not even a single hoof had trampled the body of the behemoth I had killed.

I used this knowledge to clear a path before me. I took all the eldritch energy that I could collect, and I created row of angled spikes much like the palisades I had fashioned on the bridge. I could run behind the spikes, keeping them angled towards the beasts. They would leap the spikes and land behind me without a passing glance. Their single-minded devotion caused them to continue to advance without heed to myself, or anything else behind them.

As I reached the end of the row I would pull up spikes from behind me and move them to the fore. I was moving incredibly quickly, but the herd had almost reached my illusionary boulder by the time I had the king in my sights.

I dropped to one knee and took aim at the creature’s remaining eye. Curved horns that spiraled around the king behemoth’s head deflected my bullets and I failed to find my mark. I did manage to draw blood on the creature’s face and neck prompting it to finally abandon its howl and turn its glowing eye and damaged visage towards me.

As its eye met my own I felt fear so intense that I almost fell to both knees. I recognized the effects of a mental attack, however. The feeling was much like how I felt using the Eye of Madness — so I retaliated by quickly flashing the eye’s power.

The gambit worked, at least somewhat, but the backlash was nearly as bad as the attack. In that one fraction of a second my mind was filled with the memory of my young being taken, and a deep primal fear for their safety. I saw a cub, brown and gold with two blue and glowing eyes, it screamed as the flesh was torn from its body and its siblings tossed into cages.

I saw creatures made of soft, bulbous flesh and covered in mouthless teeth and mismatched appendages. They tore at flesh, and invaded minds – demanding obedience and offering freedom for a price. I also received a brief flash of another face, one more human and familiar.

As I slammed closed the Eye of Madness it continued to burn like a red-hot coal in the middle of my forehead. I slowly opened my own eyes and looked up to find that every one of the enormous animals had come to a stop - and they were all staring at me.

I felt sympathy for the creatures, but I would use that momentary confusion to my advantage. I took the row of spikes I had created and drew them in front of me before launching them all towards the king. It was enough to darken the sky, had the sun not been hidden behind rolling clouds of heavy fog bristling with crimson lighting.

The spears of black-red energy came down as thick as rain and pierced both flesh and earth. I began to flee back in the direction I had come from. As I ran I could hear the king charging behind me – barely harmed and completely unslowed by my attack. I used the rifle to fire blindly behind me, but if any of the shots landed they failed to slow the behemoth.

It was gaining on me and I knew that I was too slow to escape its pursuit for long. I continued to create a row of spikes between myself and the herd, but they were beginning to throw themselves into the murderous wall in a spiteful rage without regard for self-preservation.

I needed to increase my speed, but I was out of options. The only possibility was one I had only experimented with on a small scale. I would need to directly control the latticework of energy that flowed throughout my body. I could use the eldritch energy to control my own body like a puppet master.

In theory, I could even use it to reinforce my movements and increase my own strength as I leaped ahead of my pursuers.

The most terrifying words in the English language echoed through my mind as I gathered all the energy in my legs into a tight coil.

It should work, in theory. What could go wrong?