She thought this would just be another kill quest. Oh, how wrong she had been. Lun Li held her saber in a white-knuckled grip, a grin twisting her face as she got an impression of danger from above. She forced stamina into her legs, flooding them with concentrated energy to launch herself forward.

  A screaming streak of mana appeared from the unnatural void above, slamming into where she’d been standing a moment before. Concussive booms wrecked the forest every moment, forcing her and her allies to dip and dive if they wished to stay alive. They were almost out, almost ready to meet the team and their charge.

  Her heart slammed in her chest, the visceral chill of adrenaline making everything feel in tune. The targets had proven tricky — far more dangerous than they had believed. Old Yon, it seemed, was not quite as sharp as he made himself out to be. She could hear the man even now, nattering away in her ear, screaming demands they ignored. As if she would trust him to keep her alive in the face of such devastation.

  Ahead of her, she watched the binding mage — Jern, she thought his name was — dive to the side as yet another streak of stellar radiance burst through the canopy above. He was too slow, too uncoordinated; even compared to the rangers he lacked fortitude.

  A burning shard punched through his ribs. For a moment he glowed, radiance emanating from within. Then the deadly payload of mana burst, and the mage splattered across his Vanguard’s back and the surrounding brush.

  Two of them dead — both of them their precious mages — and the rest weren’t doing too well either.

  She was one of the best off, having taken only light scorches that would heal quickly. But for all their defense, the slower heavies had been battered the worst. Armor cracked, bones splintered, and flesh scoured, leaving them panting as much from their wounds as from exhaustion. Still, they remained strong, supported by Silver strength and the weight of their skills.

  She still had no fucking clue where that bloody spell had come from. It was too strong — second tier at the least — but even if those children had somehow managed it, that was the power of gold: a mage who’d had time to set up and prepare. They’d had rangers watching them; where was the warning? No way in all the hells that their three scouts had all lacked the ability to see mana.

  Something like that should have taken preparation, there was something strange going on here — or they had a mole. She didn’t know which was worse.

  Still, she would see this through to the end. A bit of trickery had let them get the drop, but they’d only managed to take out the most fragile. There were still nine left, and magic like that would not be repeated so easily.

  Picking off a root, Lun Li blurred forward, tearing to the right, to the edge of their pack, ready to hit their targets from the flank. They were seconds from the edge of the treeline. That team had been camped in an open field, but they were close; if they charged — as they no doubt — be clashing soon.

  Old Yon, it seemed, had revised his opinion of the threats they faced.

  “Change priority. Archers and skirmishers, focus on taking the boy out first — he’s the source of the spell.”

  That gave Lun Li pause. The boy was supposed to be a skirmisher. She’d known Old Yon had briefed them on some sort of strange runic magic, but she’d assumed it was supportive cantrips, single-target combat spells and the like — not war magic.

  She’d been hired to do a job, though, and a job she would do.

  Some semblance of order re-entered their group as they burst out from under the shadow of the void of stars that continued to rain down into the forest behind them.

  Three heavies took the lead: Boruk, who she knew from Mystral, and the two frontliners from the Roanwheat Delver team, a Bastion and a Vanguard both.

  She fell in tight behind them. Kerel, the rogue, at her side; archers behind.

  But they were missing two more. Two she’d lost track of — Old Yon’s original men, the fools who’d lost these children the first time round: Cronte and Torrin. Could they have fallen to the spell? She didn’t know. It had been such a frenetic burst of violence that she had been utterly focused on her own skin and what lay in front of her. It was possible, but she didn’t have time to think further.

  They burst from the treeline into a hail of shards as an arrow detonated mid-flight directly in front of them.

  Lun Li snapped her saber up, leaning on Petal-dance Footwork to curve through the storm and slice a splinter that raced for her eye. More pieces rang off her breastplate like struck bells, slowing her advance as simple force pushing her back.

  Yet more shards punched through her lightly armoured hands and legs. She gritted her teeth through the pain; she’d already drunk a tonic while waiting, one that hastened how fast her health could heal. She should be fine.

  Yet on the back of that moment, another arrow slammed into the ground at their front line’s feet. Roots as thick as a waist sprouted from the ground like serpents, questing and wrapping around the heavies. It wasn’t enough to stop them dead, but each root slowed them further, forcing them to heave and rip to break free.

  She put the sudden assault out of mind, trusting the heavies to do their job, and searched for a target. The boy. They had to take him out before he could drop that magic again — if he could.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  All she spotted was a charging demon.

  It was the beast — it had to be. Yet everything was wrong. It was supposed to only be five or six strides at the shoulder. Yet a behemoth of eight or more sprinted for her, the very ground screaming under its advance as an undulating shockwave raced ahead of it. Bound in armor with the snarling visage of death, Lun Li stared at the shimmering potency of its horns, ghostly overlaid with a second set of antlers.

  There was a roar, deep and terrible, that sank past all reasoning and planning to inject fear straight into her soul. The howl pulled at her mind, forcing her to consider the true threat before her.

  She heard the chime of a system notification but ignored it. That was death, and she must respond.

  All of them did. They charged in, eyes only for the titan at the head of the enemy team.

  Yet before she could take three steps, a flash of danger snapped her out of the charge. Lun Li threw herself back a hair’s breadth before a projectile screamed through the air past her chest — so close she could feel the air pulsing, vibrating with its passage.

  Quick enough to dodge the opening assault, she forced the demon out of her mind and turned to the latest threat, only to see a flash of light as lightning descended toward her.

  Lun Li gasped as a wave of pain washed over her, her blood boiling as every muscle in her body contracted at once. Lightning left her stiff and blinded, forcing her to blink furiously. Somewhere ahead, she heard the crack of something tearing the air.

  Her eyes cleared — a blade of warped force was scything towards her, carried by the mountain of a man in scale.

  A malicious intent seized her by the throat before she could respond.

  A spell that tore at her mind — cracked her Will like glass.

  Her heart pounded in her chest as she shuddered. The lightning that has scoured her from within was gone: this new ruin was a suffocating compulsion. Everything within her was squeezed, shaped by a vice of adamant as her thoughts were strangled into a new focus. The man vanished. The battlefield vanished — even the remnant tremors of the raining meteorites was drowned out.

  There was only the sword.

  Crystalline. Tyrannical.

  She froze in its facets — a statue reflected a thousand times over as fear was wrought in stone. The weapon seemed alive, warping as it tore through the air like a rabid beast. It devoured light and sound — drowned her in its murky depths.

  Desperate and terrified, Lun Li threw herself against the compulsion with everything she had. Pulling on her Silver Will, her Skills, her sheer bloody determination, she remained frozen. It was useless. Locked in place, she stared as the sword grew to fill her world for a single moment of eternity.

  Then it moved.

  He drove it straight through the bridge of her nose, and the compulsion broke only as her skull parted. Bone and blood gave way like paper before the crystalline edge. The last image burned into her mind was the impossible clarity of the blade, descending and inevitable.

  …

  Panting, his breath coming rapid and shallow, Vros had just watched Lun Li go down. The team’s leader picked her apart with staggering efficiency: a spell to throw off her rhythm, a spell to hold her in place, and a blade to slice her head in half. It was so swift — he’d punched straight through her nose and ripped his blade out the side, the bones of her skull parting like water before the crystalline sword in his hand.

  Kaius — Oroma had said his name was. Just what the fuck had that washout Old Yon gotten them into?

  “The boy! Get the fucking boy, you fools!” the bastard screamed.

  Vros gritted his teeth, half a mind to spin and skewer the leader where he stood. Yet for all his infuriating talk, he was right. The boy had to go.

  Drawing an arrow, layered class Skills empowered the shot. One projectile became two, became four, became eight — each curving directly toward the boy’s throat.

  Yet before they landed, he saw a pulse of mana. A howling wind whirled around the boy’s body. It smacked aside his bolts, knocking them off course, while his blade snapped up, cutting through their slowed motion in a single parry.

  Instinct surged. He lurched to the side, speed blurring as three evasive skills empowered him. A twisted nail burst through where his chest had once been, straight into the leg of Oroma, the archer from the Roanwheat team. She screamed as metal unfolded like a cursed flower, forcing open the joint and separating her lower leg in a wave of blood.

  Then the solar mage struck. A scythe of light cut through her throat. Vros watched it punch straight out the back of her neck, blood sizzling as it impacted the lance of magic. She dropped, her eyes going dark.

  Gorosh, the Vanguard from the team, screamed — breaking away from the melee with their beast to charge at the boy. The enemy team’s leader was fending off a hail of blades thrown by Kerel; even Old Yon had joined in, though he was not a focused combat caster. Wires of purple spun like a loom, forcing the boy to dance lest he be caught in the cutting edge.

  Confident that their two frontliners were occupied for a moment, Vros focused. He had to deal with that backline. Both their mage and their archer were terrors. The archer was good, but the mage — he should be able to deal with them first.

  Vros focused on him: a half-elf and tall one at that. He stood out amidst the spattering trees and bushes that littered the clearing. Moving sideways, Vros interposed a tree between himself and the Hiwiann archer to close off her method of assault.

  He loosed. His arrow split again and again.

  Yet a blur slammed in from the left. The beast threw itself in front of his shot, suddenly breaking away from their heavies. It didn’t pause at his arrows; each one slammed into its breastplate and shattered utterly. The creature didn’t even flinch, fixing him in place with baleful eyes full of rage.

  Then its ears flicked, a reaction to something, command or otherwise — at least, that was what his instincts said. It was gone again, bursting back to re-engage two of their heavies, smacking them around and forcing them on the defensive with every strike of its paws.

  Frozen for the barest moment, Vros forced himself to move. He drew another arrow, scanning the battlefield to locate their mage.

  The half-elf had moved. Mana surrounded him strangely, forged into a great disk — almost like some sort of runic circle atop his staff, drinking hungrily from the atmosphere. Whatever it was, whatever it would do, Vros intended to kill the mage before he could find out.

  He drew.

  A jolt of danger shot through him, from the other side of the oak he hid behind. Panic spiked in his heart and he threw himself back.

  A flash of blue punched straight through the trunk as splinters showered him and cut his skin. He barely had the time to process the light before the azure lance punched through the side of his head.

  There was no pain — only a sudden black.

  Patreon is about a week or two from some fucking juicy bits of lore and world building, come check them out!

  https://discord.gg/NjsqGKHHaY