Cloe fought with desperate, ragged breaths.
Her claws moved on instinct now—slash, tear, block, dodge—pouring the last dregs of her prana into each movement.
The Ganshka surrounded her, a tide of green flesh and crude weapons that seemed endless.
She'd killed dozens. Maybe more. It didn't matter. They kept coming.
An arrow whistled past her ear, striking a Ganshka that had been about to stab her in the back.
"Cloe! Are you alright?"
Ballio skidded to a halt beside her, his bow still raised, his face a mask of desperate concern.
"Ballio?" Her expression shifted from surprise to sharp concern. "What are you doing here? It's not safe! You need to—"
"I had to see you again." His voice was steady, his gaze locked on her green eyes. "I couldn't just... leave you here."
Cloe bit her lip.
A storm of unspoken emotions flickered in her gaze—fear, hope, gratitude, despair.
They warred across her features, none gaining dominance.
"You two, get a grip!" Helma's voice cut through the moment like a blade.
She loosed another arrow into the ceaseless tide of green-skinned bodies.
"We're in the middle of a war! Save the reunion for later!"
The Ganshka, driven into a frenzy by the scent of blood and human flesh, charged mindlessly with their crude wooden weapons.
Their yellow eyes gleamed with a hunger that had nothing to do with sustenance.
Ballio and Helma fired arrow after arrow in a relentless rhythm—thunk, thunk, thunk—each shot finding a target, each target falling.
But their quivers were emptying fast.
Imla and Damara formed a spear wall beside Cloe, their weapons moving in complementary arcs.
The three girls fell into a defensive triangle, backs to each other, holding the line against the green tide.
Around them, the other human survivors fought their own desperate, isolated battles.
The chain of command had shattered. It was every Sadhaka for themselves in this hellish prison.
Imla's muscles bulged with prana as she skewered three Ganshka in a single, brutal sweep.
The creatures fell, and she immediately spun to face the next wave.
Damara guarded her flank, unleashing a jet of dark-bluish water from an [Elemental Bolt] that swept three more off their feet.
Cloe, mustering her last strength, became a whirlwind of claws.
She leapt from one foe to the next, her body a blur of motion, each landing marked by a death.
But she was slowing. They all were.
"Cloe—!"
Ballio's focus broke for a second as he saw her stumble.
A Ganshka lunged at him, and he only barely dodged.
"Fool!" Helma snapped, her own aim never wavering. "Pay attention!"
Damara clicked her tongue, scanning the chaos.
"How many of these midgets are left?"
The tide seemed endless, but she could see pockets of isolated combat now—the horde was thinning.
"Where is everyone? Where's the rest of our group?"
"We have only ourselves to rely on." Imla's voice was cold, certain.
She crouched low, then launched herself forward again, spear-point leading.
Damara and a now-recovered Cloe surged with her.
The three became a single, brutal instrument of death—spears and claws tearing a path through the green horde.
Ballio and Helma followed, firing their last arrows into any Ganshka that tried to flank them.
A group of Ganshka at the edge of the melee began chanting. Dark-green orbs of corrupted energy formed between their claws.
Ballio and Helma reacted on instinct, their final [Combat Bolts] streaking through the air to meet the threat.
The spells collided mid-air in a shower of dissipating energy, the shockwave rattling teeth.
"I'm spent." Helma panted, lowering her empty hands. Her quiver was empty. Her urja was drained. She had nothing left.
"Me too." Ballio's face was grim. He looked at his bow, then at Cloe, then back at the battle.
They watched the three girls thin the horde—Imla, Damara, and Cloe moving as one, their weapons finding flesh with mechanical precision.
But the effort was taking its toll. Cloe's movements were slowing. Her leaps were shorter. Her strikes were weaker.
During a leap, her foot slipped on a patch of gore.
She crashed to the ground.
A Ganshka seized the moment, heaving its wooden club at her defenceless form. The crude weapon arced through the air, aimed at her skull.
She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the impact.
It never came.
Thud.
The sound was sickening—wood on flesh, bone cracking.
Ballio had thrown himself in front of her.
The club connected with his head, and he crumpled instantly, unconscious before he hit the ground.
"Fool!" Helma's voice was raw.
She unleashed her very last [Combat Bolt], vaporising the attacker.
"That was my last one!" She dropped her bow and rushed to Ballio's side.
Damara shifted back from her fox-like transformation, her ears retracting, her features returning to human.
She stumbled over, breathless. "Is he...?"
Helma checked his pulse, her fingers pressed to his throat.
"He's breathing." Relief and exhaustion warred in her voice. "Just knocked out. Probably a concussion, but he'll live—if we live."
"We need to fall back." Imla's voice was sharp, commanding. "Now."
The Ganshka numbers were finally significantly thinned.
Those that remained were scattered, disorganised, their frenzy broken by the sheer cost of the assault.
"This position is lost." Imla nodded toward a mound of corpses in the distance. "There. Cover."
They retreated, Helma and Cloe supporting Ballio's limp form between them.
Damara covered their rear, her eyes scanning for any threat that might pursue.
They found temporary shelter behind a mound of human and non-human corpses—a grotesque barricade of the dead, but effective.
The battle was winding down.
The Vrkuka and Vyaghruga were still locked in their bitter feud, but their numbers were decimated.
What remained of each tribe fought on with the desperate fury of those who had nothing left to lose.
A few surviving humans fought in isolated pockets, too far to reach, too far to help.
The last of the Ganshka were fleeing into the trees, their simple minds finally grasping that this battle was lost.
Cloe's face twisted in despair as she surveyed the scene.
This is it? The thought was hollow, empty. My tribe. My family. All of them... gone.
What is freedom worth if you have no one to share it with?
"Is that Roderic and Dris?" Damara's voice cut through her despair.
She pointed toward the centre of the battlefield. "Fighting that... huge Vyaghruga?"
Helma squinted, her yellow eyes sharp even through exhaustion. "I don't see Ashan anywhere."
A pause. "Did our leader run off? Abandon us?"
The battlefield was a scene of utter desolation.
Bodies carpeted the ground in every direction.
The stench was overwhelming.
The silence, broken only by the moans of the dying, was worse.
Then Cloe's eyes found a body.
Familiar fur. Familiar features. Familiar... stillness.
Father?
She stared, her mind refusing to process.
No. Not father. Lash.
Her brother's corpse lay discarded on the bloody ground, his eyes open and staring at nothing.
His chest was a ruin of sword wounds. His claws were extended, as if even in death he'd tried to fight.
No sound escaped Cloe. No tears fell.
Just a cold, hollow silence that seemed to swallow everything.
Macos was enormous. Enraged. Terrifying.
He brought a massive, fiery claw down where Roderic and Dris had been standing a moment before.
They rolled apart, the impact cratering the ground where they'd stood, sending shockwaves through the earth.
He was too fast.
He caught them both by their legs mid-air—one in each hand—and slammed them into the ground with brutal force.
Their swords skittered away across the blood-soaked earth, leaving them defenceless.
Dris slammed a fist into the dirt. "Damn it!" He managed a weak grin, blood trickling from his lip.
"Roderic, since we're about to die... how about you call me 'father'? Just once? For old time's sake?"
"Bastard." Roderic coughed, but a faint, resigned chuckle passed between them. Even now, even facing death, they couldn't stop.
"Disappointing." Macos's voice was a deep rumble of contempt. He loomed over them, his massive form blocking out the light.
A fiery claw raised for the final blow.
Swish!
A sword cut through the air—a strike so silent, so sudden, it seemed to appear from nowhere.
A thin red line opened on Macos's torso.
He touched the cut, his claws coming away wet with his own blood.
He licked it, tasting himself, and his eyes ignited with pure, unadulterated fury. His whiskers lashed. His tail thrashed.
"WHO DARES?!"
Ashan clicked his tongue, appearing several meters away.
Too shallow. The thought was clinical, even as his heart hammered.
A clean strike was impossible. He's too fast, too aware. I got lucky to draw blood at all.
He had been moving through the battle like a ghost—[Conceal] flickering on and off, eliminating targets of opportunity, gathering information.
He'd watched Roderic and Dris defeat Lash. He'd seen Macos intervene. He'd waited for the perfect moment.
This wasn't it. But it was all he had.
His grayish-white eyes swirled, analysing the symbol on Macos's chest.
That mark. The only information I can glean is that it's a high-level Order mantra. A binding, probably. A deal struck with something that shouldn't be dealing with mortals.
As I suspected, they've orchestrated all of this. The Order. The Houses. The trial. All of it.
He settled into a ready stance, sword held firm.
Macos's eyes narrowed. "A neat trick." His voice was a snarl. "For a scratch, I'll show you one of mine!"
He slammed a fist against his own chest.
The bloody reverse pentagram blazed with dark-red light.
Tendrils of energy spread across his body like cracks in stone, spider-webbing through his fur, his flesh, his very being.
His eyes flooded with crimson, rationality replaced by berserk fury.
"RAWR!"
He became a blur of motion, his claws sheathed in licking flames.
An instant transformation.
Ashan's siddhi fed him information even as death charged toward him.
Sacrificing reason for raw power. It's temporary—the energy will burn out. But until it does, he's unstoppable.
He ducked under a swipe that would have taken his head, rolling to the side as the fiery claws gouged the ground where he'd stood.
The heat seared his back.
Roderic and Dris scrambled away, using the distraction to put distance between themselves and the monster.
"You got this, Ashan—Leader!" Dris shouted as they retreated.
That bastard. A flicker of annoyance crossed Ashan's mind before he refocused.
I'll deal with him later. If there is a later.
"RAWR!" Macos pounced again.
Ashan dodged, but the shockwave of the impact sent stinging debris into his skin, drawing blood across his arms and face.
He muttered in Asurain.
His skin hardened, black scales spreading across his body. His eyes narrowed into reptilian slits.
[Totem Beast Transformation].
He met Macos's next flaming swipe with his sword.
The clash lasted only seconds, but the shockwave that ran up Ashan's arm was immense.
They were both at the Perfection Stage—but the gap in raw power was undeniable. Macos had centuries of life, decades of combat, and a berserker rage that multiplied his strength.
Ashan had none of those things.
Macos overpowered him. Grabbed him by the arm. Slammed him into the ground.
The air rushed from Ashan's lungs.
He spat blood, the taste of copper filling his mouth.
Macos raised his claw for another slam.
Ashan twisted in his grasp, aiming a palm at the berserker's face.
A dark-blue [Combat Bolt] shot out, striking Macos square in the eyes.
The Vyaghruga Chief roared in pain and surprise. His grip loosened—just enough.
Ashan wrenched free and rolled away, gasping for air.
This is the worst beating I've taken yet. The thought was calm, even as his body screamed. In both lives.
Macos thrashed wildly, blinded and enraged, his red-hot claws tearing great furrows in the earth.
He was a force of nature now—unthinking, unstoppable, inevitable.
Ashan's eyes swirled again. Grayish-white whirlpools churned as the present, and the future overlapped in his vision.
[Viksana: Foresee].
The next five seconds unspooled before him.
He saw Macos charge. Saw himself dodge left. Saw the claw that would catch him anyway.
He saw an opening. Small. Brief. Possibly fatal to exploit.
But that's all I need.
He settled into a crouch, waiting for the future to become the present.