"I'll be cutting off support now. Please be careful!"

"Understood." Nemeadas replied to Yajinn on behalf of everyone. "Iteza, make sure to guard Yajinn well."

"Got it." Iteza replied.

Then Nemeadas felt it leave him, the aethereal surge which was the telltale sign of Yajinn's supporting artes. Things would be getting more difficult from here on out. Yet, rather than worrying about himself, he was far more concerned about the others, especially Jackie and Iteza. Compared to himself, Garmr, and even Krakjen, these two were young and lacked the many decades of conditioning and combat experience they had under their belts.

In many ways, they relied on Yajinn's supporting artes too much, but that was not a fault in itself. Just as they did also rely on the exo-gears, when put together, these things acted like crutches that let their bodies keep up with what their minds were capable of. It was a much needed blessing for them to be able to bypass the years of conditioning otherwise necessary.

…

Although Yajinn had wished them the best of luck, very soon after their supporting artes fell off, the team was quickly driven into a corner. It was regrettable. Even if support casters did not contribute to a fight directly, it was very difficult to gloss over the benefits they brought just by having them by one's side. Because now, the members of VGT Tyr were all doing everything in their power just to hold on defending themselves.

They had attempted to throw gravestones to try to hit the hidden manticore by luck, but that plan quickly backfired as one of them nearly took a hit from a projectile spine coming from a completely different direction. After that, they could only reluctantly hold their barrier shields up high to save themselves against any surprise attacks.

Several minutes have passed since then.

"Iteza, can you do something, pretty please?" Jackie asked their archer politely as she clung tightly onto Krakjen's shoulders.

In this short amount of time, Krakjen had already lost two of his barrier shields enduring the manticore's brutal attacks. Now he was making a mad dash across the cemetery. Following right behind him was the rough figure of the manticore blurring in and out of sight as it chased after him. The situation was similar to when Garmr had been chased before, only the difference was that this time, they had no such thing as a plan. He was simply running for his life.

"If I could, I would have done so already, don't you think?" Iteza clicked his tongue at her. "The fucking thing keeps disappearing! I can't just shoot at nothing, can you?"

"What do you mean? It's right there!" Jackie retorted.

"Where?!" Iteza bit back.

Cloaked by its hiding arte, the manticore moved like a specter, with only an echo of its form appearing as it moved and attacked. There were a few times where Iteza had landed a hit on it, but after being left in the dark without Yajinn's vision enhancement artes, he was simply unable to do so with any consistency at all.

"Both of you, be silent!" Krakjen chided the two arguing. At the same time, the manticore caught up to him and swiped down with its claws. He jumped up high into the air to avoid it but, as he hung in the air, its tail stung towards him. He raised up all his barrier shields to the front to block together, but the blow was heavy. Even blocked, the weight of its strike crushed into his one damaged arm like a wrecking ball.

He gasped hoarsely. Without the ground pushing back against him, he was launched back dozens of meters through the air, over a slope, and past a small patch of trees. He protected himself and Jackie from the branches that they grazed over before he landed on the ground running. He stumbled slightly, but quickly regained his balance after a few more steps to cancel out his momentum.

"Sorry…" Jackie apologized.

"Is fine. Not your fault. Just concentrate. Keep eyes out for manticore!"

Krakjen's eyes darted rapidly all around, but his foe had already vanished from sight. He had gotten separated from the others as well so he must have been chased quite far away. He put his guard up. The manticore's attacks were already difficult enough to defend against before, but now that he had lost Yajinn's support, he really needed to maintain his utmost concentration to barely scrape by.

"Krakjen," Nemeadas's voice entered through his ears, "come back. You're too far apart."

"Is difficult. Manticore on my trail." He replied back, before suddenly Jackie called out.

"Watch out to your left!"

From a direction which he had only just looked away from, the manticore whipped its tail and launched a tail spine towards him. He barely had enough time to react as he braced his barrier shield on that side. Crack! He blocked it, but badly as the spine stopped right before it scraped his head. It was without doubt much better to deflect these shots at an angle rather than to try to take them head on. They easily had enough power to punch straight through the barrier shields if the manticore only shot them slightly faster. He got lucky this time.

"Here it comes again!"

Again and again, the manticore attacked, each time from a different angle, and never approaching close enough for him to retaliate. With Jackie's aid, he was able to fend off against its projectiles, albeit just barely. But as the assaults continued without giving him any respite, it was clear that something was amiss. It was just a feeling, but Krakjen felt that it had separated him from the others on purpose. Was it intelligent enough to do that? He believed it.

In nature, the ones hunted were those who were weaker than the others, slower than the others, or less fierce than the others. It was clear to him that the manticore singled him out as the easiest prey, suited to be hunted by its own terms. His warrior blood all but confirmed it.

"Behind you!"

Jackie's shrill cry returned him to his senses and he saw it then. In the corner of his vision, the manticore's wispy figure towering over him with one paw raised in the air.

"You approach at last."

Krakjen spun around quick enough for his blood to rush to the tips of his limbs and it gave them a tingling sensation as he braced himself with all his shields to guard against the incoming attack. Slam! The manticore brought its claws down onto him like a giant hammer. The smash was strong enough to make the ground shake and his knees creak out in complaint, but he was able to hold steady.

"Gragh!" He gritted angrily through his teeth. Sharp pain ran through his bruised back as he fought against the manticore's crushing strength. Prey? Him? He was a warrior and he would be made prey by no one! Little by little, he drove its claws back until he was able to gain enough ground that he pushed the manticore off him completely.

"Jackie, go!" he instructed her. Though it was only a slight one, he had gained a victory against the manticore. Now they needed to capitalize on that win.

"Okay!" Jackie leapt off his shoulders towards the manticore directly. There, she clung onto the chin of the manticore and took out her aetherblade daggers. With her legs secured in its mane, she started slashing! The underside of the chin was one of the most tender places on an animal, and she fully intended on hacking and slicing at it until she cut something important.

But even then, it was not enough. The manticore's thick mane obstructed her knives even now. She needed to shave through it first. Quickly putting one of her daggers between her teeth, she used her now freed hand to pull a handful of the coarse wire-like hairs tense and sawed it off with the other. Her hands became a blur as she repeated this action as quickly as she could, but it was difficult and she could only force her way in starting from the outermost layer.

"There has to be an easier way to do this!" She racked her brain for answers, and then she found it. There was the wound that Garmr had left at the beginning of the fight when she hit the manticore's jaw. If she started from that gash, then she would be able to cut out the hairs surrounding it from the base and work her way across the rest of the neck. She could do this!

It was to her luck that the manticore did not even notice her. Unluckily though, it was deeply annoyed about the fact that Krakjen had blocked its last hit. If that last strike could be compared to the playful slap of a house cat, then what it was about to do now would be when that cat repeatedly slapped out in annoyance.

"Kuh…!" The air in Krakjen's lungs was forced out of his body as he took each of the hits. Though he held firm at the beginning, that strength did not last for long. Under the unrelenting barrage, his back folded as he was slowly pushed down. As much as he did not want to accept it, this was beginning to be too much for him to handle. He was not even attempting to fight back to win anymore. He was using every last ounce of his strength just to keep himself standing. And then with one more hit from the manticore, he was dropped to his knees.

"Not good!" Everything that was a part of his body screamed out in complaint as he fought tooth and nail just to keep pushing. His back, his legs, his neck, his waist— everything! When he looked up, he could see Jackie clinging onto the wisps of the manticore's figure. He watched as its eyes narrowed and it twisted its face to show all its teeth in a tarnished mockery of a grin. The beast was enjoying every moment of his struggle. And with him already pushed down this low, the manticore stopped its strikes. Instead, it decided to push down with its claws using its entire body weight. It intended to crush him like a bug!

And just when things could not look to become even worse, another thing threatened his safety. His eyes were glued to the spot as the manticore's claws started to penetrate through the barrier shields. Slowly, but surely, they did, and they sank deeper and deeper. The claws penetrated through one shield… then a second… then onto the third… If this kept up, then even if he could avoid being crushed, he would be ripped to shreds regardless!

"Krakjen!" Jackie panicked. She looked back just now only to see Krakjen's dire situation. Her head quickly darted between the manticore's mane and Krakjen. She was torn about what to do, but in the end she chose to stab her dagger into the wound Garmr had already made and twisted it. This would probably help him more, she thought. She was right, though only briefly. Now that the manticore had noticed her presence, it took just a couple seconds to swat her off its neck with its other set of claws.

Jackie's entire body bounced as she struck the ground. She felt a sharp ripping pain through her back as no doubt something had broken. But she did not have the luxury to complain. After standing back up, the first thing she did was to run to Krakjen's aid.

"Jackie. Run." He gritted out in between his labored breaths as the manticore returned its attention onto him.

"I can't do that!" Jackie cried out as she slid underneath the shields.

"Go. Get aid."

"But, but, but you'll die! You can't die! I won't let you!" In this moment, she tried everything to help. She tried cutting off the claws with her aetherblade daggers. She tried pushing up with all her might along with Krakjen. She even used Krakjen's dropped halberd to try to wedge it against the claw like a pillar. But it was all futile like trying to uphold the sky. And all the while, the claws continued to sink deeper and deeper.

"Go! You won't be able help here. Get Nemeadas. Get Garmr." Then he felt it, his mechanical arms bending in a way they were not meant to— pop! Under the immense strain, his one damaged arm finally failed completely and it fell limp against the side of his body. His other arms, which were already on the verge of collapsing, then had all the weight that arm had been supporting abruptly shift onto them.

"NGH!" He quickly lost against the pressure and the inevitable fall was accelerated twofold. Now, the manticore's claws finally started to dig into his shoulders and back as that was the one final support he had left to push up against the weight.

"GO!" Krakjen told Jackie one last time.

"I refuse!" And she cried out one last time. She grabbed the claws with her bare hands. They cut into her soft palms as she pushed up against them in a futile attempt to make what little difference she could.

"Then we shall return to Great N'gothla together…" A small smile appeared on Krakjen's face. Jackie really reminded him of the daughter he once had. Perhaps this time, he would not be the only one left behind. "This fight has been glorious—"

"—I refuse to accept that either!"

"What?" Krakjen lifted up his head in surprise. Did he misjudge her intent when she said she refused to go?

"Over here! Leader, we're right over here! Help!"

…

"There!"

This entire time, Nemeadas had heard through the comms just what Jackie and Krakjen were going through. At first when the two of them had gotten chased away by the manticore, he expected for them to make it back by themselves. But when they ran into trouble, he went searching for them right away. The only problem was that he failed to locate the two no matter where in the vicinity he looked. And for a moment towards the end, he even thought that all would be lost. However, with Jackie's last desperate cry for help, he had found them at last.

"Hold on!" He called out to them, who were pinned down by the manticore. Then, like an olympic sprinter during the 100 meter dash, he broke out into the fastest sprint of his life— down the hill, straight through the path of trees, and then into the open. The beast saw him and cracked its tail twice. However, neither of these projectiles would slow his approach. With each of his steps still being heavier than the last, he charged ahead with wild abandon and violently slapped each of them away in rapid succession using his barrier shield.

At the same time, two polished square gravestones spun through the air and overtook him from behind. The stones smashed into the body of the invisible manticore and exploded into a furious shower of fragments and powder. It rocked the manticore's head back but, more than that, in the unsettled dust the silhouetted figure of the manticore finally revealed itself. This gave Nemeadas just enough of an opening for him to get close, where he leapt into the air to drive one of his most powerful kicks yet, square between the manticore's eyes.

Bang! He propelled the manticore away and gave Krakjen and Jackie the much desired relief they so needed. Only a few seconds after that, Garmr caught up to them and held her shield out in defense of them all.

"Good work, you two." Nemeadas knelt down to check on their conditions.

"I really thought we were going to be goners!" Jackie's sigh of relief was immense. She wanted to cry. Her call for help had finally been answered at the eleventh hour.

"I live…" Krakjen took his leader's hand in getting up. He lived, but he was no longer in much of a fighting condition after coming away from that ordeal. He had lost full function in one arm, and the remaining ones were at little more than half capacity. His barrier shields were also nearly depleted and their indicators blinked red to show. His shoulders were also bleeding slightly, he noticed, but not too much thanks to the exo-gear's physical shell. "What about the manticore?"

"It's gone." Garmr responded. But she could sense it, from the taste of the air to the soft crunching of the dirt with each step that it took. It was nearby.

…

Under Nemeadas's instructions, they all started to make their way back. However, with the manticore still stalking their every move, they could not afford to be careless with their retreat. Although Nemeadas's biggest worries would be that the manticore would lose interest in them, Krakjen reassured them that the beast would not.

"The manticore is prideful as it is cruel. It will not let wounded prey escape."

The image of the manticore's gleeful and twisted smile was still emblazoned in Krakjen's mind. He was confident that it would never let him go until either one of them was dead.

In the end, Nemeadas took his words as fact and had Jackie support the wounded Krakjen as a crutch while he would guard him closely and Garmr served as the rearguard. This was the best use of their assets.

"Can you go faster?" Garmr asked with her sword and shield held up high. The manticore was hot on their trail, she could tell. It was approaching them quicker than they could move away.

"I try." Krakjen said, pushing himself off Jackie's shoulders. Expectedly, the little Lagos fighter raised her voice in surprise. But as he stumbled and nearly fell over trying to walk on his own, he shook his head and took back Jackie's support in defeat. His face contorted in pain. "I tried."

"Here it comes!" Garmr warned. The weight of its steps gave out its location and the shimmering of its veil hinted at its massive form. It sprinted in from the side and headed straight towards the wounded Krakjen. She would not allow this to happen.

She sprinted herself to intercept the charge. She ran so fast the dirt flew from underneath her boots. With her muscles tightened and knuckles white with strength, her body twisted as she put her entire body into her swing. The tips of her blade struck the manticore's iron hide, but it glided through all the same. However, before it slid in any further, the beast threw its body aside and took her along with it.

She tumbled, rolled twice, and even landed skidding to a stop on her shoulders, but never once did her grip loosen over her sword. It was her precious blade after all and something she valued above even her own life.

—Garmr, of the vestigial Hounds of Hel, and the last remaining pallbearer of her people's woes.

As a person, she was someone who lived for very little. When she was first brought to the guild by Nemeadas, many saw her as a willing outcast and a death seeker. She was someone who fought only to die, and to die so she could be laid to rest was her only goal.

That was over a decade ago.

Now, she was still someone who lived for very little, but at least she had more to live for than before.

She got up back onto her feet.

"Come, cowardly beast! Come face me, then die!"

…

…