Clang! Clang!
The clash of steel rang through the swamp forest, sparks flying with every strike. Yufer's serrated daggers blurred, tearing through the air in savage arcs, he moved like a phantom, zipping left and right, never giving Cher an opening, with each strike faster and heavier.
Cher gritted her teeth, her shadow-forged arm hardened to its limits, trying to hold on as long as she can, she would attempt to attack but her mastery is proven unpolished and a single mistake is fatal. Each parry rattled her bones, each block pushed her back another step, she was losing ground.
Behind her, Gilbert's mind raced, "think, think!" He snatched a chunk of rubble and hurled it skyward. A dagger sliced through it midair with surgical precision, shattering it into dust before it could fall. With their escape cut off, Gilbert clicked his tongue in frustration.
Eric clutched at him, trembling. "A-are we going to die here…?"
Out of frustration Gilbert punched him to the nose, Eric toppled backward, wailing then froze. Where he landed, the ground had split open. Smoke and fire had loosened the earth, exposing a hidden crevice, the tunnel network beneath the old lab.
Gil's eyes widened, a way out. "Cher! Hold on just a little longer!"
Her focus wavered at the sound of his voice. Yufer smirked, seizing the opening, and slammed her aside.
"Go!" Gilbert shouted, grabbing Hammil by the arm. "Can you stand?"
Hammil nodded, hefting Irvine across his shoulder.
They staggered toward the crevice.
But Yufer's eyes narrowed, his body melted into liquid shadow, sinking and slipping across the battlefield. His guttural hiss, echoed from the dark.
"You think you can run?" The shadows surged. "You will not leave alive."
Gil planted his feet, shield glowing with a bluish sheen, the shadows surged at him like a tidal wave, he braced Impact!
But instead of crashing against his defense, the darkness split in two, darting past his sides. "Watch out…!"
"Eric!" Cher and Gil shouted in unison.
The boy froze, shadows solidifying into jagged spears around him, his throat clenched. "Too fast… I can't avoid it!"
Then the air shifted.
Without thinking, Eric's hands draw his concealed weapon, a nunchaku whipped masterfully, as lightning crackled across the chain, trails of blue sparks slicing through, packing a lot of damage.
Each shadow constructs shattered as his weapon blurred.
The battlefield fell silent for half a heartbeat, Eric blinked, his arms trembling as the nunchaku hung low, "I… did that?"
Yufer paused, reeling from his failed attempt.
Gil didn't let opportunity slip, he tightened his grip and slammed his shield forward with brutal force, crack! Yufer's shadow recoiled, a guttural snarl echoing from the smoke.
"Cher, now!"
"Hyaa!" She leapt, shadows coiling around both arms before molding into a colossal war-hammer, with a battle cry, she brought it down on Gil's shield.
Boom!
The combined force detonated outward, a shockwave ripping through the swamp. Bluish shards fractured Yufer's shadow form, tearing it open.
When the smoke cleared, Yufer reverted back to his Veytirh form, blood streaming from the wound where Gil had pinned him down, shield jutted from his abdomen like a spear, keeping him nailed to the shattered ground.
"You… human bastards!" he spat, his voice warped with both fury and pain.
Gil spared a glance toward the tunnel where Hammil, Circe, and Irvine were near the tunnel. Relief softened his eyes for just a breath until he noticed Eric, still throwing shaky punches at Yufer's prone body.
"Eric, enough!" Gil barked.
But before he could stop him, the ground trembled, a low vibration at first, then violent quakes that sent ripples across the crater.
"Wh… what now?" Eric yelped, crouching and shielding his head.
Yufer took this momentary distraction as an opportunity to slip past their grasp. Driven to make a chase, Cher tailed him but Gil called out for her, she froze mid-step.
Yufer's head felt a glint of recognition perhaps even fear towards human, decided to make his escape.
The ground burst open, rows of swords erupted tracing the crater, their blades jutted out through the skies, preventing any form of escape.
Three Veyrith stood balanced on the jutting blades, their eyes burning like coals in the dark, at the center, Vell lifted his hand.
With a flick of his wrist, the sky fell, a rain of swords came shrieking down, slamming into Gil's shield with deafening clangs his barrier strained, cracks rippling through its glow, one blade pierced through and sank into his thigh, he cried out, biting down on the pain.
Vell's voice slithered into their skulls, "that is for wounding Yufer."
Another flick of his hand, and another storm of steel descended, rows upon rows embedding in the soil until the ground was a forest of blades, each impact felt like death is weighing on them. Vell watched, calm and cruel, savoring their despair.
Cher and Eric huddled beneath Gil's waning shield, heart pounding, could only clench her arm and watch. Eric's pressed against the shield with teary eyes.
Then the swamp shook again.
A massive shape dropped from above with a thundering impact, smoke billowing outward, the hulking figure straightened slowly, towering over them.
"This is for the last time… little girl."
Oblek grinned, the corners of his mouth twitched unnaturally wide, with a guttural roar, he dug his fingers into his own skin and peeled it away in long, tearing strips. Flesh sloughed off like a discarded husk, falling wetly to the ground.
From beneath, his true form emerged, towering and reptilian with dark green scales shimmered under the broken moonlight, muscles coiling thick and tight across his frame, his chest rose and fell with a hiss.
His head snapped upward, revealing a broad, angular jaw lined with jagged fangs, twin yellow, slit-pupiled eyes glowed with cold malice. His tongue flicked between them, tasting the fear in the air.
Two massive arms flexed outward, their claws like hooked blades, scraping sparks as they dug into the cage of swords. His tail whipped once, cracking the swamp floor like a whip of stone.
"Ssraaah!"
The ground trembled as he lunged forward, each movement radiating raw power. The cage of blades rattled violently, Vell smiled blissfully awaiting to witness a massacre.
Cher's eyes glowed a burning yellow as the runes carved into her hand ignited, her body warped, scales rippled across her arms and face as she mirrored Oblek's reptilian form, she bared her fangs, and charged to meet him head-on.
But before she could land a strike, Jaune's arm snapped outward, thorny vines erupted from the ground as they coiled around Cher's limbs, locking tight and dragging her to the ground.
"Ngh!" Cher's breath caught as Oblek barreled into her, his massive frame slammed her against the cage of swords, steel rang with the impact, blood sprayed from her lips, and the scales on half her face cracked away, reverting to human under the sheer trauma.
Oblek turned, his yellow eyes locking onto Gil, he swung his massive arm down, Gil braced behind his battered shield, the impact shattered what little integrity remained, cracks webbing like glass about to collapse.
With no escape left, Gil shouted desperately toward Eric. "Dang it, do something!"
But Eric could only crouched low, trembling.
Gil's gaze flicked sideways, he saw Yufer already restraining the others, his chest tightened, closing his eyes, he poured every last shred of will into his shield, raising it as their final line of defense.
Then…
Crash!
The cage of swords erupted, blades scattering like brittle glass, smoke and dirt billowed as something tore through the battlefield.
Out of the haze lunged a monstrous figure, moving with uncontrolled hunger, its claws raked forward, colliding with Oblek's block and sliced straight through his arm as if it were nothing.
"Graaah!" Oblek reeled back, clutching the stump as he retreated.
"What is this? A reinforcement?!" Vell's voice wavered for the first time.
Through the smoke, two crimson eyes glowed like coals, a humanoid silhouette stepped forward radiating with raw power.
The creature's mandibles clicked, twitching in jagged rhythm, then, without warning, it blurred forward.
Oblek, one arm severed, barely had time to brace before the monster's claws ripped the air in front of him, he stumbled back his teeth bared in pain.
"Jaune!" Vell commanded, and both leapt to Oblek's side, their weapons intercepting the monster's massive claws. Steel screamed as the monster's talons carved sparks across their guard.
Yufer moved like a phantom, melting into the shadows and reappearing behind the beast, daggers poised for a killing blow, but before his strike could land, the creature's tail whipped upward with terrifying precision.
Shnk!
The spined tip drove clean through Yufer's chin, bursting out the crown of his skull, his body convulsed once, then hung limp as the tail lifted him like a grotesque banner.
"Yufer! Noooo!" Vell's roar shook with fury, losing his confidence.
Materializing a claymore out of nothing, Vell strikes with burning rage, but the monster was faster, as it slipped back into the smoke, dragging Yufer's corpse aloft like a trophy.
Within the smoke, the silhouettes began to writhe, tendrils split outward like crooked roots, dragging through shattered blades, the sound of bones echoed from the haze.
Cher's left eye snapped open, glowing faintly through the blur she glimpsed something familiar to her. "I… is that…?" Her thoughts cracked against the rising terror as she fought to stay conscious.
Gil rushed to her side, steadying her, then glanced back, Eric was already hauling the three wounded, his arms. With a sharp whistle he tossed a rope skyward, Betsy's shadow spread wide above the battlefield, wings kicking the smoke into chaotic swirls.
Vell and the others dared not follow, "Tch…" Vell clicked his tongue.
Jaune raised both arms, runes flaring, and the ground split with dozens of vines snapping upward into the haze but found nothing.
"Above!" Oblek bellowed just in time thanks to his senses.
The monster crashed down on their flank with thunderous force, its form half-seen through the haze, its exoskeleton had grown, plates thickening into something brutish and corded, every muscle twisting like iron cables under scales that shimmered faintly crimson, the air around it bent with pressure.
Shock rippled across Vell's face, not fear, but something dangerously close.
And in that distraction, the trio escaped, Betsy's wings fluttred, lifting them above the battlefield. From her vantage, Cher pressed her bloodied hand against her arm and gazed down.
As recall through the thinning smoke, the monster's eyes rose to meet hers but no hostility butsomething else entirely.
Her chest tightened as they flew further away into safety.
Vell's eyes tracked upward, jaw tightening as Betsy's wings carried the trio out of reach.
"Vell… what should we do?" Jaune's voice trembled, low but urgent.
His fist clenched until the knuckles popped, rage rolled off him like heat.
"Kill this monster."
At once, Jaune's body lit from within, encroaching vines snaked up her limbs, twining over her frame like living armor, the ground shuddered as they retreated back into the earth, leaving her glowing like an ember about to burst.
The monster waited, still, its mandibles twitching faintly but making no move. Its waiting, patiently.
Then Jaune's form began to unravel, flesh stretched thin, then reshaped, as her body shed its cast, what emerged was otherworldly, a nymph-like figure with smooth, pale fur that shimmered like frost under moonlight, her hair curled wildly about her head, framing two blank, lidless eyes. her face had no mouth, adding to its charm.
From her back unfurled wings, not one pair, but three, stacked and jagged, shaped like a butterfly's but stretched into cruel, tapering points that gleamed with spectral light.
Oblek's severed arm knit itself back with sickening cracks, he flexed his claws, smacking them into the air to test their strength, then lowered his stance.
In a single beat, the three Veyrith struck together Oblek's raw might, Jaune's eldritch sorcery, Vell's blades.
Vell dashed first, twin swords flashing in arcs of silver light, he monster leaned aside, head tilting unnaturally, the edge grazing only empty air.
Oblek was waiting, his reptilian bulk surged forward, massive arms closing like a trap, claws screeched against the monster's carapace but it twisted its elbow against the incoming force, redirecting the strike with impossible grace.
From the flank, Jaune raised her hands, vines whipped from the ground, black and writhing, while her palms opened to unleash a hail of poisonous needles, they whistled through the air like a deadly swarm.
The monster moved as if it had fought this battle a thousand times before, it leaned left, letting a vine snap past its face, then vaulted upward in a single bound, body folding through the gap between needles, for an instant, it hung above them all, silhouette framed against the light.
Vell's eyes widened. Too fast. Too precise.
It dropped like a hammer, a fist the size of a boulder crashed down toward his skull, he barely crossed his blades in time the impact rattled his bones and forced him back, boots tearing grooves in the soil.
The three regrouped, surrounding their foe, the monster straightened, mandibles flexing, as if amused.
Oblek's patience finally snapped. He bellowed, scales flaring, and hurled himself forward in a frenzy of rage. His claws carved the air in wild arcs, each strike shaking the ground where it landed.
"Oblek, stop, you fool!" Vell's voice cut through, but the reptilian brute was deaf to reason, lost to his fury.
Vell bit down on his finger until blood welled, watching as the monster weave between the attacks. Every movement, every feint, every dodge, was precise and seemingly practiced, like, human.
And then it struck him.
He'd seen this before, in the colosseum where men fought with the same fighting patterns as if he's watching a human executes before him.
The realization chilled him.
"This thing…" Vell sneered, lips curling. "It harbors human traits."
He called out, ill insults from every word, "to think… a man is cowering behind that shell, pathetic!"
The monster's eyes flickered, just slightly, the mandibles stilled.
Vell pressed harder, voice a dagger, "In the end, you are nothing but a weak, pitiful human hiding behind a facade, you too among all others shall die!"
The monster's head twitched, an opening.
Oblek's strike finally connected, claws tearing a savage wound from chest to shoulder, Green ichor sprayed, hissing where it struck the swords littering the ground.
"Now!" Vell barked.
Jaune's vines erupted from the soil, coiling tight around the monster's limbs and throat, pulling taut until the creature was locked in place, Vell flicked his wrist.
From the heavens, a rain of swords cascaded down, their weight and fury driving through carapace and flesh alike, the monster convulsed, coughing a spray of green blood that steamed as it hit the ground, Vell grinned and laughs maniacally.