Chapter 43: Horde

  Erik woke from the second gunshot that boomed in the night, and by the fifth, he was bursting out of his tent, claws ripping the fabric near the zipper on his tent. It wasn’t long until he noticed Grace and Jessie barging out of their tent. Jessie, wearing nothing but underwear, shouted back into her tent ‘Stay there!’ as she zipped the tent back down in a rush. Erik realised he himself hadn’t put any clothes on, and he sprinted over in just his boxers.

  After a quick nod at each other, the three rushed towards the gunshots, which had now increased in frequency. Jessie, now having different and much improved senses, called out during their sprint that Hellbeasts were attacking, and in quite unusual numbers.

  She sensed as much as ten of them on or near the shore close by their camp, but the sea could hide more of them. It was what she considered her weakness as of right now. When the humidity in the air met with a moving body of water, the entirety of that overlapping area was nothing but a haze for her. She hoped to be able to train it away, but for now, it was enough to know it was a weakness, because then they could prepare for it.

  Amir and Peter were seen in the darkness in front of them, shooting wildly around them in almost every direction. As they approached, several deep growls could be heard close by, and a dark shape leapt from the dark shadows and into Peter.

  His rifle kept firing from below the dark shape, meaning there was still a chance he survived. Jessie flung a wet scythe at the shape, and a black mass sprouted from the dark shape like a fountain. The beast fell to its side moments later with the help of Erik, who had landed on its back with some amount of momentum. His claws had torn into the beast as he landed, penetrating its hide.

  “Get back to camp!” Erik shouted as he jumped from the dead beast’s body and shot through the air, smashing right into another beast that yelped in pain.

  It clawed at Erik’s form, but its paw landed limp on the ground a few metres away. While not dead yet, Erik burst away from the second beast, sand blasting like a shotgun from his feet as he did. He crashed right into a group of three Hellbeasts in proximity to one another, slicing them all around their face and necks with his claws before vanishing in the darkness again.

  Amir picked up Peter and ran for it. He met with a panicked Emma in pyjamas, wielding a rifle and an ammunition belt. She aimed her weapon towards Amir, protecting his back should anything appear. Nothing did, and Angela was soon out of the tent as well, wearing the same uniform as the rest of them—night clothes.

  “How is he?” Emma shouted at the passing Amir, but didn’t get any reply from the pilot.

  “I’m… fine! Just got my arm! Help them, they’re fuckin’ everywhere!” screamed Peter, and the women rushed away. Sophie ran out of her tent, following Amir and the wounded Peter into the medics’ tent, where Dunham was already up. He rushed to prepare Peter’s mattress and started checking on his wounds.

  “Keep an eye out! We don’t want those things anywhere near us the next while,” Dunham ordered while looking at Amir. Amir nodded with only slight hesitation, and exited the tent, weapon armed and ready.

  Sophie went in as Amir rushed out, asking if there was anything she could do to help. She was put on pressing duty, the towel Dunham had hastily thrown over the wounded man’s arm and neck already dripping with red. As Sophie started pressing as hard as she could, an arterial stream hit her own face as the towel slipped.

  Jessie shot scythes at every target she could get a clear shot at, but the mass of legs and heads were fast and using the trees and rocks for cover. A hound flanked Jessie’s side, and she noticed too late. Grace ran into the leaping beast, stabbing it with one of her horns.

  A flying saw blade whirred past them moments later, and a stressed ‘sorry’ could be heard from closer to the water. Jessie had almost made the same mistake she had done during their practice match—she was standing still. Her build was mage-like, sure, but life wasn’t a tabletop game—she had to always be on the move, making herself harder to target than the maniac fighting in close range.

  It hadn’t escaped her notice that even some of her offensive spells seemed to be designed for close-range combat, like her field spell or some of her scythes’ elements. Her ‘Volt Surge’ spell was even touch-range!

  With all her abilities unlocked, she would get a clearer picture of how her build was supposed to work, but right now, she had to play it safer. She couldn’t run towards all the beasts, touching them each for a second or two and waiting for them all to blow up. Her role right now was ranged damage dealer and support.

  Jessie cast ‘Scorch’ on an already wounded or dead beast, lighting the entire area up in a bright flash of light. This didn’t bother her as much, having plenty of other ways to sense the enemies. In fact, the beasts appeared to be quite affected by the blinding light, and several seemed to retreat from the small inferno on the ground.

  The Witch aimed at the furthest one of three—which were retreating in the same direction—and it was promptly stabbed through by hardened sand and rock from below. The two nearby beasts either didn’t notice or didn’t care and kept pulling back. With a crack, the stalagmite exploded, shooting piercing debris at the surrounding area, peppering the two beasts until their meat was all mushy and spread all over the beach.

  Another beast exploded closer to Jessie. The one Grace saved Jessie from had been killed by Grace’s ‘Volt Surge’. Jessie ran across the rocky field before the beach, finding a better position. Grace followed, whipping her head as she ran, shooting elemental scythes at nearby hounds.

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  “Here to help!” shouted Angela as both she and the shorter brunette appeared next to Jessie. Jessie, having already sensed them approaching, had already summoned Mistilteinn and Caliburn, handing one to each of the women. Each of them favouring different swords, they had each been ‘given’ that sword, Jessie even letting them both name them.

  Mistilteinn, or Mistletoe in old Norse, was Emma’s short sword. Mistilteinn was said to never lose its edge, and it was a name that Emma felt fit the sword due to its green emerald.

  Caliburn was Angela’s sword. It was named after the Latin name of Excalibur from the Arthurian legends, or sometimes referred to the sword Arthur pulled from the famous stone, in those stories not to be confused with Excalibur, which was given to him by the Lady of the Lake.

  With swords in hand, Angela and Emma rushed onto the field, Emma already killing one with a stab and a tear the first few seconds of combat. A blueish cage of lightning lit the area up and the stench of burnt fur and meat was filling the entire area from all the scorched and electrocuted beasts.

  Angela tossed herself into a slide beneath a beast, cutting into it as she went past it. Another beast bit at her, but she blocked it with her sword. As the beast kept trying to get at her, it slobbered sticky drool on Angela’s chest beneath it. Emma was quick and stabbed it through its eye,

  As she pulled the sword out, searing brain matter followed. Angela had already pushed the beast away and rolled out from under it. Emma ducked beneath a wide swipe from a third beast, stabbing the sword upwards, piercing its mouth. Angela chopped down with incredible strength, decapitating the creature. The separated meat was seared and smelled a bit like grilled meat.

  A loud thump sounded behind them as a fourth beast crashed into an invisible wall, breaking one of its fangs and tearing the skin on its snout from the impact. The women each flanked the confused beast and tore its stomach open on both sides.

  “Thanks!” Angela shouted at the man jumping around a gigantic pile of living Hellbeasts standing on black, squelching sand.

  “Don’t… mention it,” Erik replied, slicing a small chunk of meat from a faltering canine monster.

  He’d caught most of the hounds’ attention by now and had wounded all of them several times with wounds both deep and shallow. The ones he’d wounded first, and most, struggled to crawl, a black matter dripping through their eyes, noses, and mouths. The sludge was indistinguishable from the blood that kept seeping out of their wounds, but that wasn’t all that was happening. His ‘Entropy’ was hard at work tearing the beasts apart, molecule by molecule from the inside.

  Erik felt a familiar sensation creeping up on him and froze.

  “More of them are coming!” Jessie shouted, having realised quite a while ago that the ten she had sensed before entering combat was far fewer than they had already killed, and that wasn’t counting Erik’s growing tower of slaughter.

  “An aura…” Erik gasped, not loud enough for anyone else to hear him. He stood on top of the two-hound tall mound of dying monsters beneath him, and one of them sent its teeth into the Titan’s unprotected, clawed hand.

  Erik jerked the weak, fanged mouth away from him, ripping into its throat with his other clawed hand. He ripped part of its windpipe out along with his hand. The unknown aura he was feeling…it was overwhelming.

  Angela and Emma had to retreat towards Jessie and Grace, who covered their retreating forms with volleys of magical crescents. How many were there? This was too much! They had been fighting for ten minutes already, but the number of hounds seemed endless!

  As Angela felt the slight tingling sensation of entering Grace and Jessie’s static field, she paid less attention to her immediate surroundings and started sprinting ahead. Emma seemed to not notice entering the field and still waved her small blade at nearby hounds as she retreated.

  “Emma!” Jessie shouted, getting nothing but a slight reaction from the girl.

  When the beasts forcing them back started getting blasted by sudden bolts of lightning, Emma rushed back the few remaining metres. When Jessie’s and Grace’s fields compounded like this, the cooldown of lightning strikes shortened and the bolts became more powerful. It was how they had managed keeping Erik on high alert during their practice fight.

  With the compounded fields, that was down to sixteen to eighteen seconds, sometimes depending. It bid well for the ‘Storm’ ability’s growth, but as it had started randomising even its timing when shortened, she was worried how randomised it would become. An ability that amounted to gambling was no good to her. Unless she could cheat it.

  The small horde of beasts getting hit by lightning made it easier for all four of them to strike back, though they were still at a deadlock. The dogs surrounded them and only the unending barrage of lightning, crescent magical scythes, and quick swings of swords kept the four from dying.

  As they all made their own mound like an inverted moat around them, it grew harder to fight the approaching beasts as they started to gain a height advantage. Jessie would’ve been all out of energy right now if it hadn’t been for the ‘Storm’ field around them.

  Even its energy-refilling effect compounded, making the double cost of both her and Grace casting it a non-issue. In cases like this, Jessie was the one feeling somewhat jealous of Erik’s set of abilities. Even with Jessie’s energy-sustaining ‘Storm’ ability and its compounding cheat, Erik had low-cost self-enhancement abilities, making him even deadlier for longer periods of time.

  She had to remind him sometimes during training that combining his ‘Unleash’ ability—which could cause multiple wounds in a manner of moments—with his ‘Earthkeep’ ability’s protection as his ‘Entropy’ spell tore his enemies apart was no joke. If he could go all out on Jessie, he’d win no question.

  He didn’t have any minor abilities yet, and was even one major ability lacking compared to Jessie, but his raw fighting ability was off the charts compared to her.

  “Fall back!” Erik shouted just as another saw blade whirred through several beasts behind the girls’ overrun position. Beasts started bumping into walls on the sides, and Erik’s rock-armoured head popped up from behind the mound of corpses between the invisible shields. “This way! Quick!” he yelled, his armour crumbling away from his face. He helped the women climb up the bloody hill.

  “What is that?” Jessie yelled as she reached the top behind everyone else. Angela, Grace, and Emma had climbed down the other side, running down the improvised hallway of frisbee-walls and angry Hellbeasts. With Grace gone, so went the compounding effect of the field and there wasn’t enough static built up in that area to shock anything, much less all of them.

  “It’s… a big one,” Erik said, voice grim. “It’s tiered up…” he said a bit more carefully.

  “Fuck! We can’t lead them back towards camp, either. What do we do?” Jessie said, fully panicking and panting.

  “There doesn’t seem to be any more of the normal ones coming up from the sea. You and Grace get a field up and running over that way, and I’ll deal with the big one,” Erik attempted.

  “No way! If it’s as powerful as your grimace tells me it is, you won’t stand a chance! Fighting a bronze-tiered one isn’t safe!”

  “It’s only until you, Grace and the rest have dealt with the rest of them! We have to stop them from attacking the camp!”

  “Fine!” Jessie growled, “But if you die, I’ll kill you myself!”

  “Don’t worry, that privilege is all yours,” he said with a smile before the ground shattered to cover his face once more.