Edited by:tommyjl, Solyom

Despite that the Gnoll was clearly weaker than Giselle In terms of pure brute strength, he dominated the battlefield. He clearly was worth being called an S rank. Unfortunately for the dragoness, her opponent was thinking, the fact that his weapon and shield were pushing her in the corner all the time wasn’t helping either.

The beastman had no openings in his stance. Even when his weapon would be thrown away, giving her an illusion of a gap in his defense, he would use his shield as a weapon itself to keep her away until he could withdraw the morningstar.

Speaking about the weapon. It was enchanted. There was no doubt. The chain was moving like a snake, sometimes it would even change its trajectory a little bit in mid-air without the gnoll’s physical intervention.

The spiked ball once again crushed the stone. Even though, Giselle jumped back even more. She already learned in the painful way that charging on the beastman when his main weapon was far away wasn’t the best idea. So she waited. By the method of trial and error, she got an idea. If this enemy is deadly both with weapon and with his weapon being thrown away, the only opportunity that was left was to strike as the ball would be slowly creeping back to him.

The gnoll moved. Spikes tore the ground as he pulled the chain back to him. Giselle, with a swift move took one of her twin axes off her back, turned it around, so the blade of the axe was pointed to the sky and hit the chain. The head of the axe from the other side was ended, like most of war axes, with a spike. Right now, she used it to pin the chain to the ground below, immobilizing the Morningstar for a few seconds.

Then she once again gripped her meteoric sword with both hands and rushed onward. She slashed vertically. The former adventurer used those few seconds to struggle with the chain, he managed to free his weapon, yet Giselle was already performing her attack. He had to choose to drop the weapon and run to gain some ground or to stay there and pray to the goddess that he would withdraw his weapon in time. That’s what dragoness thought.

In reality, the beastkin decided to pick option number three. While staying his ground, he indeed dropped his heavy weapon, his dominant hand followed to his thigh and pulled a short, thin blade. It looked like rapier that was broken in half. He took a step toward Giselle and raised the small blade, pointing it at her belly.

Most of the warriors would end their stories here, but Giselle once again took advantage of being a half-dragon. She put her whole weight on one of her legs and twisted her body to the side, hitting the gnoll in the side with her tail. The attack was strong enough to actually throw the monster-man on the ground.

She finished her pirouette, regained her footing and finished her attack from before, hitting the ground on which the man called Lokiv lied. He rolled away, avoiding the attack in the very last moment. In response, the dragoness once again raised her blade and attacked the ground, just so the beastman would roll away again. And again. And again.

Gis attacked again and again the enemy that still hadn’t gotten up, not a honorable deed to do, but when you fight with a renegade that would never show you mercy of any kind, honor becomes a commodity that you can’t afford.

The dragoness got too hasty in her actions. The gnoll used that single mistake by rising his lower body and kicking the warrioress in the gut. Gis was forced to take few steps back. She lost a few seconds, that her opponent greedily used to get up, jump to the side and pick up the axe that Giselle used a few moments ago to disarm him.

The redhead cursed nastily under her breath. That whole battle up to this very point brought nothing. None of them were damaged in any way. That was a fight for exhaustion, the one that was forced to move more would lose first. And up until now, that strange weapon made her dance quite a lot. She already was breathing quickly, while her opponent didn’t show any signs of stamina loss. She wiped sweat off her forehead with her palm, just to discover that her palm was covered in blood. The spike-blade hit her. Not in vital places, bah! Barely scratched her skin, still if it was poisoned it could end really badly. Later she would have to ask Zariel for some medicines, just in case.

The gnoll balanced his new weapon a few times, nodded with approval as the piece of steel positively scored his quick inspection. He could continue this battle. He took a step, and another, and yet another one, slowly changing the pace of his movements. Right now, he was openly charging at the dragoness with his shield raised to his chest level and the axe hidden behind his back.

And then player number three joined the game.

A monster jumped out of the tall bushes growing on both sides of road. In his entire life he have never seen a monstrosity like this one. Easily three meters tall, yet appeared to be shorter because it moved on all four limbs, it’s body was ridiculously muscular, like a bull on steroids. It’s tails ended with two spikes and it’s body was covered in exoskeleton – in areas of his spine and main limbs, and reptilian scales everywhere else. No to mention two bull-horns on his head.

The creature was charging right to the gnoll, direct collision was impossible to avoid. In a split second, the Sandwalker clan member changed his direction and covered himself with his shield. Still, the blow sent him four meters into the air, when he hit the ground he slid an additional four to five and hit the tree. The beastman quickly check his body. One of his ribs almost broke.

The creature also didn’t end up unharmed either. It was sitting on its butt, a bit confused.

- “Fuck…” the abomination said. “… Giselle, sweetie, remind me next time to strengthen my skull. That hurt like hell…”

- “Zari, is that you?” the dragoness asked with uncertainty.

- “No, my fair-lady. I am just some random beast that speaks and decided to aid the damsel in distress. Also one that calls you casually. Of course it’s me, bird-brain!”

- “No need to be an asshole!” the redhead pouted. “… how could I tell? You are never using the same body twice!... also, what happened with your enemies?”

- “We started drinking booze. Unfortunately, they couldn’t hold their liquor and are now sleeping.” the monster mocked her again. “… Gis, please, you really could deduct a few things. They are dead and soon-to-be-dead. Came to help you.”

She grumped again, yet said nothing in that matter. The gnoll already raised again. This time, a glimpse of fear and excitement was visible all over his face.

- “Also, couldn’t you make your body handsome just once? You always choose some hideous mix of nightmares.”

- “Well, my human version is handsome enough.”

- “If it was, I wouldn’t be bringing this topic up in the first place.”

The creature threw an angry gaze yet did not respond. He decided to destress himself on the gnoll. He would finish this conversation later.

The duo started circling around the beastfolk. The renegade did his best to follow the movements of his enemies. Yet in the end, he made a mistake. He failed to read their actions. The creature roared and hit the ground with his tail causing a noise, he started getting closer with bared fangs at the warrior in a hurried walk. It was nothing but a trick made so the gnoll’s attention would focus for those few seconds on the beast. Excessive movements making far more noise than necessary. Normally he would have never got caught on such a silly move, yet normally he would never face a huge abomination that jumped out of nowhere.

With the grace of a dancer, Giselle jumped at the beastman’s back, slashing vertically. He did try to avoid the attack, and because of that he wasn’t cut in two, yet a crimson wound on his side was a proof of the damage done.

Bleeding, he tired parrying blows from two sides – blows that were performed by two much stronger creatures. Normally, he would jump away, he would gain some space, rest his back against the tree, hiding himself from back-stab damages.

But each time he tried, the wound would burn with pain and lose few more blood. Each time he would take an attack of the sword on his shield, a claw would pierce his side, each time he would duck under the swipe of a mighty arm, a blade would kiss his body.

Scratch after scratch, cut after cut. He was getting weaker. His actions were getting slower, each time he would guard himself from the attacks, his balance would shake more and more. He almost didn’t notice that one of the attack sent his shield flying behind him. He saw a glimpse of piece of metal flying away only because his arm was attached to it.

Yes, the dragoness has finally cut off his arm near the elbow. The way adrenaline works is funny. He already broke his bones without realizing it, but he never thought that he wouldn’t feel his arm being cut away…

And all of this from such a strange angle… why was he lying on the ground. Ahhh, indeed. Now it all makes sense. He didn’t realize that his arm was gone, because a second earlier the beast actually removed his head from neck. He thought that his death would be far more painful, and that is… except for few scratches he felt barely anything.

As the darkness was embracing him he was almost… disappointed.

POV change

Giselle finally raised her gaze from the corpse that was lying on the ground. Or a part of it.

- “Rest in pieces…” she said with a smirk before she looked at me. “… why did you come to me?”

- “I beg your pardon?”

- “I was doing fine!”

Suuuure. We will argue about it later. For now we have to check on Lana.

- “I have used my whole mana, which means that I can’t cast spells nor use D’iabel. That means that I can only fight using my shapeshifting. As I am far more concerned about the outcome of her duel, I can’t aid her without blowing up my cover. That means I had to help YOU, so YOU could help Lanele… Are you still with me, or do you need some additional explanation?”

She “hmph-ed” at me, turned around and started reclaiming her equipment. Putting it bluntly, she took her axe from the gnoll’s dead hands.

- “Are you going or not?! Lana is mostly a support. I am afraid that she may struggle with her opponent.”

I only nodded, turned back to my human form and moved to the place from which loud sounds of thunder could be heard. Our hurry wasn’t necessary, when we got there we quickly noticed, that the dark elf was the one needing aid here.

Still, THEIR battlefield was far more grotesque than dungeons that I saw. It was like a mad jungle that came to life, trying to swallow itself. A rose with toothed mouth between its petals was swallowing a thorny weed, which was trying to twists its body around it and crush it in process. Some mushrooms were puffing out spores that ignited midair on moss that was slowly creeping towards them, draining water from the ground leaving nothing but cracked earth in its path.

And in the middle of this mess, two elf females. With one hand they were controlling nature around them, with other one they were throwing battle magic at each other while their lips kept singing chants of protection.

I rarely speak these words, so note them down in calendar: I was truly impressed.

The witch-elf noticed us first. Her expression became ugly, very ugly. Never before have I seen this much hate, anger and malice being painted on someone’s face.

She stopped casting battle magic, her lips stopped singing to the dark woods for a moment. She raised her hands and sang a spell in some elfish sub-language, I couldn’t understand the meaning of even one word spoken. All I knew was that in answer to her cry the nature around became crazy. Thorny tentacles made of weeds started rising and falling while twisting to the all directions. Ground bulged, cracked and opened resembling a face, as if the bog under our feet tried to swallow us. I grabbed Giselle by her collar and pulled back.

Because I was lacking mana I couldn’t fight against this manifestation of nature, poor Lanele had to protect the two of us too.

After a minute or two, the swamp would once again resemble forest, and forest started slowly returning to field road, almost as if that battle never took place. Yet, the witch ran away. With her last chant, she decided to create a havoc she could use to run away. We could catch her. If I wouldn’t waste my whole mana just to play around with spells.

I acted like a spoiled kid that got new toys and wanted to check them out, and that can cost us dearly in the future.

- “Are you all right?” Lanele ran to us panting exhausted. “.. that wench got me good. If you hadn’t come… I would prefer not thinking about what would have happened.”

- “You didn’t look as if you need help.” Giselle showed her a bright smile.

Yet the priestess shook her head to the sides.

- “No, the advantage I had was temporal and I was quickly losing ground… how did your duels ended?”

- “We won’t be seeing them any time soon… Or actually, we won’t see most of them anytime soon.”

- “Kill count?” she asked.

- “Two dead, one will be dead soon.” I reported.

- “Are you sure about last one? You know, bleeding and poisons can be cured…”

- “This was a curse.”

- “It can be dispelled…”

- “Not this one.”

- “But…”

- “Lana. Look at me. The guy will die in less than ten days. Unless he would drink from the spring of eternal youth, he is a dead meat.”

- “But you couldn’t possibly cast such spell without…” I felt her using some appraisal spell on me, she was probably looking for the magical damages on me. That meant she looked at my swollen, damaged mana veins “… ARE YOU CRAZY!? WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOURSELF? HOW CAN YOU EVEN WALK STRAIGHT!?”

She didn’t shouted at me. She didn’t yelled not scream. That was a roar.

- “Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Gis asked “… I don’t know what this whole fuss is about.”

- “HOW DID YOU DO IT?! How did you make your mana veins absorb… over thrice as much magic as you could normally store?!”

- “Equilibrium spell.” I answered casually.

For a moment she lost her composure.

- “I… I never heard of it.” She admitted.

- “Nothing serious, just your average ritual of blood…”

- “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?! DO YOU KNOW HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO CONTROL THE BLOOD RITE?! There is a reason why every legal magic group forbids them!”

She would yell for couple more minutes before finally calming down.

Witch’s POV

As soon as I casted “Nightmare of the Swamps” I ran away. Lanele’s friends coming to our battle ground meant that rest of my team failed. In case that they were about to lose they were suppose to retreat. Oh, I will have a talk with them, as soon as I…

I stopped. I thought that for a moment I felt a very dense condensation of mana in one place. I quickly moved to investigate it. If that was Spirit’s den, I could use the power to slow them down even more.

Yet as soon as I got closer to it, I saw that gathering of mana was caused by a statue of stone. Weird, it was very close to the place where we made our ambush, yet I never sensed it… The statue of a troll? Just what kind of culture would make a sculpture of t… May the night embrace me… this is not a statue… this is a living being! Stone eyes bulged a little, as if they tried to look at her.

It can’t be… petrification? Such spells take days to reach this form! There is only one group of powerful lamia witches called gorgon that could create something like this!

I felt my spell dying. The adventurers managed to get rid of the hex much faster than I thought. I had to keep moving! Even if… No, I could at least finish his suffering. Eternity in the form of a statue is a fate worse than death!

With words I casted the “Thunder Blade” spell and hit my brother in crime…. Yet the stone didn’t bulge.

I poured more mana into spell and put more strength in the blow… yet not even a dent, not even a scratch appeared. I put my hand on the monument to check the construction of the spell.

Spell’s form usually have plain form. Some 2 dimensional drawings, sometimes three-dimensional locks when some magician wants to make spells more difficult to dispel. Yet, when I saw it, I puked. I literally vomited on the ground.

Whatever that formula was, my brain simply couldn’t comprehend it. The only thing I knew, is that if I tried to destroy it, I would lose my mind.

I hesitated, yet in the end I only whispered a quiet “sorry” and started running. I had to check on the rest of the group.

On my way toward our camp I moved past body of Lakiv. Poor bastard was strong. Just mentioning his names would make adventurers in guilds shiver. Yet here he lied with his body in pieces.

I started crying. Not because of sorrow, we were not friends, just partners that were using each other for profit. Still, they were dead because of me. It was my decision to attack! I was so foolish! The idea of getting my revenge for what Head Priestess did to my clan flawed my judgment.

I never stopped. Even though I tripped and fell few times, even though my skin got cut on the stones I didn’t stop to treat my wounds. I had to gather the rest of the equipment and get the hell out of here! Lanele was stronger than I thought, still, I could defeat her. It was her companions that I was afraid of. Someone that can use a gorgon’s curse. Someone that cut and tore the gnoll apart.

Eventually I got to the camp, I entered my tent to gather my equipment. When I did, I saw Derek lying in the middle of it, sobbing quietly.

- “D-derek?” I asked shyly.

For a moment he froze, then he looked at me… before he jumped right on me. I thought he wanted to kill me for organizing this slaughterhouse, but all he did was putting his palm on my mouth.

- “SHHH!” he hissed angrily while putting his finger on his mouth. “… quiet! Or it will hear you!”

I managed to push his hand off me.

- “What will hear me?”

- “The monster! Thousands eyes! It looked at you, into you and through you! He allowed me to run! He said that if I was fast enough he wouldn’t chase me! But you came! Fool! The beast will track me down now!”

This is when I noticed, he was covered in mud, even more than before.

- “I hid my smell! But now he will find me because you made so many tracks! Fool!”

His fear wasn’t natural. There weren’t any damages on him, so there is no way he could be traumatized physically. I once again put my hand on him and gazed into his mana vines looking for any signs of magic.

This time I managed to free my mind before vomiting. A spell, the same, yet completely different.

No, wait, it is impossible that there is someone walking through the world causing such insane curses left and right.

- “Derek, please focus… that… beast, did it have any item with it?” a cursed item. That was the only answer.

- “No! No items! Just eyes! These… scary… eyes…”

He started coughing, a few drops of blood left his mouth.

A curse of petrification, now paralyzing fear that… kills? Yes, Derek was dying, awfully slow. Wait! These were curses of the beasts! Gorgon! Basilisk! But these two are fundamentally different! It is impossible for these two to exist near each other! Even if he would carry two cursed items, they would be resonating! That would be dangerous! Like carrying a bottle with dragon oil in one hand with a burning torch! No one would do…

X and Y can’t exists next to each other! That causes a dangerous paradox!...

…And the only creatures that can live with this paradox are the titans. Children of the very gods. Children of the sky – Uranos, and the earth – Gaia…

Then she recalled the so called genius Zariel. A man about whom Derek told that he possess great knowledge about alchemy. With one eye as blue as sky, and as green as nature itself.

But that can’t be possible. Right? Right?!