The Maulgig was fast.
But Kest was just as fast.
He coated his dagger in mana and hurled it. The blade vanished inches from his hand—reappearing midair in front of the monster. The Maulgig twisted impossibly in flight, avoiding the fatal strike, but not completely. A thin red line opened across its forehead.
"A shame," Kest muttered, holding out his palm.
The dagger vanished from where it was embedded and reappeared in his hand. "I was aiming for your brain."
The monster wiped the blood from its face and licked it with a tongue that looked like cracked, black leather. It let out a deep, gargled growl. Its face contorted, not with pain, but with rage.
A challenge as it looked at them.
"Why are they waiting?" Kaedros asked Vexa, eyes flicking to the larger shadows moving through the woods. The bigger Maulgigs were there watching, waiting.
Vexa glanced at him as if he were part of the threat, then jerked her head toward the smaller one. Rauk overheard them and shrugged.
"I think they’re gauging us," Thandor said, twisting his beard thoughtfully. "They want to see how powerful we are before committing."
"Or," Kaedros said, narrowing his eyes, "they’re waiting for a signal."
Taria looked between them, alarmed. "What are you talking about?"
"We’re surrounded," Kaedros said flatly. "Ten... maybe nine, dark Maulgig. Stage eight of rank one."
He spoke like it was an everyday problem.
Taria, on the other hand, was reevaluating every life decision that led her to follow this man. If she hadn’t known he had a hidden path, she might’ve been impressed by his composure. Instead, all she felt was cold dread because she was unlike him.
The small Maulgig was no longer amused, it stood to its full height, straightening its body, it’s fresh and bones growing.
And then it kept growing.
Its fur receded as its muscles bulged and twisted. The tiny creature reshaped itself, lengthening until it stood at the height of an adult human. Its body was now a sleek, glistening mass of dark muscle, and three long, curved horns had formed across its forehead.
"Darker Maulgig," Thandor noted, unsurprised.
"Well," Rauk said, voice dry, "what a day."
"So what?" Kest sneered. "You got taller. You’ll still bleed like the rest. Your death adds to my mana."
"Wait, assassin!" Kaedros shouted, but Kest had already moved.
Using Flash Walk technique Jarek vanished, appearing behind the Darker Maulgig in a blink. His twin daggers, glowing with mana, slashed downward.
But the monster reacted instantly.
Its arm elongated grotesquely, a blur of dark muscle that smacked Kest mid-air as if he was a bug.
The impact was brutal, a wet cracking sound.
Kest tumbled through the air, nearly slamming into a tree, but he used his technique the last second, blinking out of the fall and reappearing beside Han, dropping to his knees, clutching his chest.
His face was tight with pain.
"Are they always this reckless?" Kaedros asked, glancing at Thandor. "There’s a massive gap between them. They’re not even in the same stage."
"Yes," Thandor muttered. "That monster’s peak rank two. The White steel team is still in stage five or so. They should be attacking together."
"That thing’s ability—" Rauk added, "It’s not just raw strength. It’s manipulating its own flesh."
Kaedros nodded in agreement. He could see the way the monster’s body was infused with mana, it’s flesh shuddering and trembling.
The Maulgig, sensing weakness, bulked its right arm until its fist became a boulder-sized sledgehammer of hardened, veined muscle. Then it charged forward.
"Not on my watch," Jonna said, raising his hand.
Purple light flared in his eyes and palm as he used a gravity related technique. The air around the monster warped, shimmering with invisible pressure, then crashed atop him.
The Maulgig slammed into the dirt, pinned by an unseen weight, the ground forming a small pit beneath him.
Jonna had increased the gravity around it tenfold, crushing it with force.
"Oh, they’re good," Kaedros murmured. It was no small feat to cast in real-time and hit a target moving that fast.
The monster roared, struggling against the crushing force. The earth beneath it cracked as it pushed back with disturbing power that held it to the ground.
Then Jonna began to play with it.
He’d lift the gravity for a second, allowing the monster to rise, then slam it back down. Again. And again. Over and over, the Maulgig was smashed into the earth, howling and thrashing with rage and pain as it’s flesh shred and its bones cracked.
But the retaliation came soon after.
The monster’s swollen arm expanded further, and then it burst launching sharpened bone-like spikes of hardened flesh in all directions.
"Down!" Rauk shouted.
He needn’t have bothered.
Vexa’s blade became a blur as she slashed down every spike heading toward Rauk. Thandor raised his hand and a wall of thorn-covered vines ripped free of the ground in front of Kaedros and Taria.
Taria yelped as the wall burst up in front of her and she slash in surprise. Her blade was useless against it.
The vines were dull green, but the thorns were bright, red, violet, yellow, like a warning in color for people and things not to touch it.
"Don’t touch that," Thandor warned. "Those are laced with a compound that melts flesh."
Taria scrambled back as Kaedros let go of the spell he’d been intending to use.
"Can’t you just kill it?" Kaedros asked, eyes still scanning the woods.
"And take away the White steel revenge?" Thandor replied, gesturing. The vine wall slithered back into the ground. "We’ve still got a long road ahead. That kind of resentment festers. And we don’t want that while we raid a forbidden zone."
Han had protected his team with a glowing red energy shield, an enlarged replica of the tiny mana shield he normally formed between two fingers.
"He can create shields?" Kaedros arched a brow.
"His skill enhances whatever he’s holding with mana," Eldric said. "Size, density, power, it scales them."
"Where’s the monster?" Taria asked, voice tight with fear.
During the spike explosion, Jonna had momentarily lifted the gravitational field.
Kaedros didn’t need to look. "Up."
They followed his gaze.
Above them, falling fast, was the Maulgig.
Its body twisted into a dive, arms extended forward. Its forearms had hardened, shaped into twin blades, gleaming, jagged, and sharp enough to slice through steel.
It came down like a black meteor, like death falling from the sky.