Stiletto took the news well. “After everything else I’ve seen here, I’m beyond disbelief.”

We went over the plan, which was quite simple. Sare’zmei’s emergence in the town square was ringed by the four standing stones. Three of those contained anima crystals we needed to seize, but before that could happen, I needed to cleanse the obelisk towards the back of the square of the devourer’s corruption.

Once, Balaur’s anima network had a foothold in this place. The obelisk was one of seven, symbolic of the seven heads of the dragon Balaur of legend. Once the corruption was purged, Balaur would return, and once he was here, he would strengthen us. I would use my connection with him to transfer the knowledge of what had transpired here, and what we needed to do to beat the devourer back.

Though if Balaur had faced off against this beast across the cosmos, then he would already know what to do.

“The corrupted obelisk is what’s blocking Balaur’s presence from the city,” I said, explaining my part in this insane plan to the team. “To cleanse it, but to do that I’ll need to get close. Real close. The rest of you will have to take Sare’zmei’s focus while I do it.”

“It shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” Xiphos said. “The beast looks dangerous, but it’s also not going anywhere. It’s stuck in that energy pool.”

“Only when I manage to cleanse the obelisk should you take the anima crystals from the standing stones,” I said. “Pike thinks they’re going to rip you all apart, and I don’t want that to happen. If Balaur can help, we need him.”

My eyes immediately met Naginata’s, then we both looked away.

“Who should take which stone?” Stiletto asked. He’d missed the moment between Naginata and I completely.

“Does it matter?” Xiphos asked.

Naginata nodded. “I think so. Each crystal is attuned to some force. Blue for understanding, purple for imagination, green for purification. Gold for time. I’ve already been exposed to gold, and I survived, so I’ll wield that one.”

“I’ll take purification,” Xiphos said. “I’ve spent my life destroying threats to our planet, so purification makes sense to me. Pike should take blue, as she has a greater understanding of what is happening here.”

“I guess I’m taking purple,” Stiletto said. “I don’t know that I’m any more imaginative than the next guy, but if Hatchet could survive a brush with purple then I should be just fine.”

Stiletto’s jibe was good natured, but there was a part of me that wanted to take the purple for myself. To feel that force of true creation flowing through me again. But that was not to be my destiny.

“All we need to do is channel the energy contained within those crystals right towards Sare’zmei,” Pike said. “When the energy crystals are nestled in the stones, the locks open the gate. When the energy crystals are removed, the locks re-engage, and the combined might of these four forces will push the devourer back into his cage.”

“Once more into the breach,” Xiphos said. “Load your weapons, and let’s get this done.”

I quickly hunkered down next to Kaiser and we went over our own plan. “Buddy, I’m going to be getting a bananas amount of experience when I cleanse that obelisk, and I’m going to have my skills open at the same time. There’s one skill that I’m going to hit really soon which could make you much more powerful and make whatever bad guy we fight do heaps less damage. The only problem is that it’s going to turn you into a big black scary dog. A monster. Like Grendel.”

Kaiser quirked his head to the side and put a paw on my leg. Then he licked the side of my face before barking a single definitive yes.

“You want to do that? Become a Grim?”

He nuzzled his head under my hand as though he wanted a scratch behind the ears, which I gladly obliged. But that clearly was not what we wanted, because he shook me off and barked twice.

No.

“You don’t want to become a Grim?” I asked.

Kaiser put one paw up in the air and held it there.

“You want to shake hands?”

Kaiser sneezed derisively, which is what he did when he wanted me to realise just how stupid a human I was. Then he reached back out and ran his claws along my leg, hard enough so I could feel it through my pants.

Claws.

“You want my claws?” I asked.

Yes! Kaiser barked, then nuzzled his head under my hand again.

This time I got the message. I summoned my claws and placed them on his head.

[You are really dense sometimes.] Kaiser’s thoughts came unbidden into my head through our shared connection, established through touch.

[I can hear you. Can you hear me?]

[Yes, you idiot! That’s why I put my head under your hand. You really thought I wanted scratches while that bloody thing is bubbling out of the void?]

[Well, I-]

[Be quiet. I want you to invest your points into anything that’s going to make me stronger, and will help us push this thing back into the void. Do you know how frustrating it is to be a sidekick? You get all the points and the powers, and I just attack whatever you tell me to. It’s my time to shine, JD.]

[You always shine,] I thought back.

[Damn right I do. Besides, I will never be like Grendel, so you don’t need to worry. If Grendel had been given half the love that you and your family had shown me, things would have been much different for him.]

That comment hit me like a piano dropped by a cartoon coyote.

“You can give your dog pats after we’re done,” Xiphos said. “Sorry, partner. If we don’t start this soon, there may be no stopping it.”

Kaiser and I shared a knowing look.

[Let’s not tell them,] I thought.

Kaiser lolled his tongue out of the side of his mouth in amusement. [Tell them what?]

[Exactly.]

With a grin, I stood and joined the others on the precipice of the building, looking down at the cosmic dragon who was still raging and growing from the pool of anima below.

“Hatchet, open a portal and let’s get this done,” Xiphos said.

“Should we even call him Hatchet anymore?” Stiletto asked. “What about Claws? That’s all he uses now.”

I summoned a portal into alleyway to the side of the town square, which was blocked from Sare’zmei’s view. From there, we would be able to fan out and attack from multiple angles without him seeing our approach. We rushed through the portal and immediately found ourselves beset by a pack of upyrs who launched down at us from above.

It was a mad scramble to counter this surprise attack. Their numbers were double ours, and they weren’t unthinking grunts like the nemorti. But we had tricks up our sleeves too.

I hadn’t seen what Pike was capable of yet, but her opening gambit was impressive. She skewered three upyr in place with her pike, sticking them to the wall. Then she opened fire into the face of the first until its head became a lumpy puddle of gore. She repeated the manoeuvre twice more, and the three upyr were dead.

Kaiser and I kept them at back with a two-pronged attack, but Stiletto went down hard. Two upyr clawed at his back like demon chimpanzees. One managed to sink its teeth into his neck, but Xiphos and Naginata came to the rescue.

Stiletto’s blood flowed as Naginata levered the upyr away from Stiletto’s neck. He got back to his feet unsteadily, swallowing a healing pill as he did, right as Pike skewered another pair of upyr to the wall as they came at Stiletto from behind.

The battle was absolute chaos, and I drew anima out of what enemies I could to convert it to experience points. I didn’t convert it all though; I kept just over 200 anima in my tank.

Just in case.

I was close to the next level, which would then let me power Kaiser up, but I might need to use my anima abilities in the meantime and couldn’t leave myself devoid of resources. I still had the two points left over from the bridge massacre, and in the ensuing chaos I hadn’t yet invested them. I would do that once I reached the obelisk.

Sare’zmei was not content to let us see our plan through without resistance. Splits had opened along the devourer’s flesh, filled with thousands of eyes that swivelled in every direction. The wings that rose from its back had changed too. Crude grasping claws now grew from the wing joints, and these were anchored in the roofs of buildings that ringed the town square.

The devourer used them as leverage to try and heave itself out of the void and into our world. It flung what corrupted thralls it had left in the city at us in one final last ditch attempt to destroy us.

I never thought I’d be happy to see more baubaus, but there were a couple in the crowd of hostiles that stood between us and the obelisk.

“We have to clear the square before we can set the plan in motion!” Xiphos called out. “Everyone, we route the enemy, then take the obelisk. The crystals come next, but we must work as a team or we’ll never get the chance to drive this fiend back!”

“Remember the baubaus. They’re explosive if you hit them in the glowing collar. Focus on those and we take out a bunch of enemies at once,” I said.

“Do not let them get close,” Naginata said.

Then we ran out into the town square and into absolute chaos. Enemies swarmed the town square, and Sare’zmei filled most of the space. We needed to avoid both of the devourer’s swinging arms and stay out of the way of its slavering maw. The beast’s head was so large now that it couldn’t hold it off the ground. The mouth stretched out in a jagged line, filled with rows upon rows of savage teeth. Twin searching tongues stretched out from beyond rotten flesh lips to ensnare us.

We felled enemies as we moved behind Sare’zmei. I used a combination of Gravedigger to keep the monsters at bay, then switched to my dual claws if they got too close. Kaiser kept them waylaid where he could, taking legs out from under nemorti to stop them from advancing.

One baubau came at us from the mouth of an alley, and Naginata barely got her assault rifle up in time to spray it with bullets. One shot caught the explosive membrane and the baubau exploded, taking out the corners of both buildings that lined the alley. The force of the explosion knocked Naginata, Pike and Xiphos down, but Stiletto and I held off the marauding enemies as the rest of the team got back to their feet.

I gained another chunk of experience, which levelled me up. I now had three points to distribute, but there was no way I could do it in the middle of battle. Once we cleared these enemies and I reached the obelisk, then I’d have a chance.

The obelisk was not far away now. It was pyramidal in shape, but thin. It towered about three metres tall, with carved grooves to allow an anima network to pass through it. The last obelisk I’d touched was green, but this one blazed with corrupt red anima along those lines.

If these obelisks represented Balaur’s heads, that meant that his connection to different areas within the Carpathians was dependent on these. Clearing the corruption would not only purge Sare’zmei from it, but would return Balaur’s influence here. I was sure of it.

We cut a path towards our destination, and when the obelisk was just within our grasp, an enormous dark shape burst forth through a building right next to it.

Another ogre-like capcaun made its entrance. The heavy footfalls shook the cobbles beneath our boots. This one was different from the one that attacked us at the ski lodge. That one had been mostly naked aside from tattered pants that covered it from waist to thigh.

This capcaun was outfitted like a walking tank. Thick armour covered in jagged spikes adorned its body and limbs, which skewered and tore nemorti and strigoi apart as it waded through the mass of enemies. Only the upyr were agile enough to get out of the way. The capcaun’s flat face was encased in a rusty cage.

“Where did that come from?” Stiletto asked.

“Pike, why didn’t you warn us about that one?” hissed Xiphos as she wiped a spatter of blood from her face.

“I didn’t know. I swear! Trajan must have kept it hidden from me!”

“We’ve got no choice but to take it down,” I said with a front of bravado that I didn’t quite believe.

We’d come so far, arrived almost at our destination.

We couldn’t fail now. There had to be a way.

“Stiletto, lock the capcaun down! Naginata and Pike, you’re on clean-up duty!” Xiphos called. “Clear the area so we can focus on taking down the capcaun!”

“You got it!” Stiletto called as he shot the towering creature with an Ensnaring Shot. It drilled into an exposed bit of skin between the neck and clavicle, then spewed forth its four anchors to lock the capcaun in place.

The upyr and strigoi in the waiting throng immediately leapt on the anchors and tried to yank them from the ground.

“They’re learning!” I called as I lifted Gravedigger and pumped a duo of shells into the capcaun, activating the Focussed Fire buff.

Stiletto swore. “I’m going into stealth. Maybe I can cut some of that armour off the big bastard!”

That was a very good idea. “I can help with that!”

I followed Stiletto towards the capcaun, who leaned down and tried to swipe us away with his spiked gauntlets. We never got the chance to go into stealth as we were being engaged on all sides from enemies. We stayed out of range of the capcaun, but it came a little too close for comfort. I dodged to the left, spinning until I almost collided with the obelisk.

It was right there!

This was what I was supposed to do all along. Cleanse the corruption and return Balaur to this place. I felt myself being pulled toward that one objective. My arm reached out out to touch the surface of the obelisk against my will.

I blinked, withdrew my hand. No.

If I did that now, my team and I would probably die. Our mission would fail.

Where did that pull come from? Balaur had never exerted his will over me before. Was that what had just happened, or was I imagining it? I was my own person, with my own will. I would not be commanded.

“Time for something crazy again,” I said as I re-joined Stiletto.

“We need something crazy, that’s for sure!”

“We’re not going to cut the armour away from the capcaun. We’re going to blow it off.”

“But the baubaus are staying back from the fighting now. How are you going to do that?”

“That’s where it gets tricky. Because I’m going to be bait, and I need you to shoot the exact moment I tell you to shoot, exactly where I tell you to shoot.”

“Why do I get a bad feeling about this?”

“You’d be an idiot not to. Now come on!”

We moved as the capcaun tried to take another swipe at us. It might be big and powerful, but it was slow, and the cage around its head restricted its vision just enough for it to lose track of us in the crowd.

The baubaus stood back from the fighting. A cluster of half a dozen milled about in the shadow of a balcony near the shrine holding the green anima crystal. They must have known that they couldn’t get the jump on us anymore, and that we’d gotten wise to how we could use their power against their fellow corrupted thralls.

I holstered my shotgun and summoned my claws. “Come on, you bogeyman punks! Come and get me!”

The closest baubau grinned as I put my weapon away, then raised its claws right towards its explosive collar. It held them a few centimetres away, then rushed towards us. Three other baubaus followed, ready to destroy themselves to destroy us.

“Kaiser, you stay right by my side. Get ready, Stiletto. I want you to aim right above the capcaun.”

The capcaun now lay behind us, the baubaus in front. A moment before the column of explosive-rigged monsters were about to reach us, I looked back and activated my class skill.

The portal opened right above the capcaun in between the wings of Sare’zmei. All four of the baubaus hit my portal, carried forward by the momentum of their rush towards us, then fell straight down towards the capcaun.

“Now!” I said.

Stiletto pulled the trigger and fired an ensnaring shot. It slammed into the baubau closest to the capcaun’s head and drilled into the baubau’s chest. Ropes erupted, slamming into the ground, and entangling the other falling baubau until they were all dangling from the capcaun’s back.

Then I turned back to the capcaun, taking Gravedigger from its holster as I went, and opened fire on the mess of captured baubaus.

The explosion that followed was blinding and knocked up backward. My ears buzzed with a high pitched ringing. When the dust finally cleared, I was simultaneously delighted and nauseated by the sight.

The capcaun was spread across the town square, and I was quietly disappointed I didn’t get a chance to absorb an ability from it. But the threat was gone, and we’d dealt a swift and decisive blow against the enemy.

A huge black crack ran up the centre of Sare’zmei’s back, which bubbled with thick opalescent goop churning black and red. A terrifying screech rang out through the cavern as I rushed over to the obelisk to begin the cleansing.