A third wave poured in. Not just wolves or ogres, but abominations with too many limbs, mouths where faces should be, wings stitched of bone. Their screams were a discordant chorus, shrill, guttural, wrong. The mist recoiled around them, glowing faintly as though the ground itself was sick of holding their weight.
The first one lurched forward, a spider-like horror with a torso twisted sideways, its jaw splitting open to reveal rows of teeth that stretched all the way down its chest.
Lyra's daggers spun in her hands as she thrust her palm out. Purple light gathered, threads twisting into long, needle-like shards of compressed space. With a sharp flick, the space needles tore through the air, embedding into the creature's skull. Its head exploded in a wet spray of black ichor, chunks of bone sizzling in the mist before vanishing into nothing.
Two more abominations barreled at her from opposite sides. Lyra raised both hands, and a fractured wall of warped space shimmered into being a barrier of compressed dimensions. Their claws raked against it, warping the surface like glass under pressure before it shattered. She staggered back, but she'd bought herself just enough time to blink away, reappearing in a haze of purple distortion.
"Not today," she hissed, summoning another storm of needles. They rained down in a violet cascade, puncturing throats, bursting eyes, pinning twitching limbs to the stone. The creatures writhed, black blood pooling beneath them.
On the other side of the field, Zane faced down a beast with too many arms, each one tipped in hooked talons. It swung, faster than anything that size should move.
Zane's blade met it, but before steel could connect, he whispered, "acceleration."
Time bent. His sword blurred mid-swing, accelerating beyond sight. The impact was a flash of sparks and shredded flesh; three limbs fell away in fountains of blood, severed in an instant.
Another monster leapt at his back, its bloated face splitting into a vertical maw. Zane opened his hand and clenched his fist. Time froze. The beast hung suspended in mid-air, droplets of saliva frozen between its teeth. He spun, blades crossing in an arc, and the creature's head tumbled free just as time snapped forward, black ichor spraying in a geyser across the mist.
"Keep them down!" he shouted, eyes wild. His chest heaved, his arms trembling, but his blades never faltered.
Adrian's voice roared over the carnage. "CLEAR THE SKY!"
Winter's touch
He slammed his palm into the ground. The stone cracked open as a massive ice lance erupted upward, skewering an abomination through the stomach and leaving it twitching, pinned like a grotesque insect. A gust of wind blasted outward, sending a wave of smaller horrors tumbling end over end, bones snapping as they smashed into each other.
Above, the swarm dove again, winged serpents with ribcages for wings, shrieking as they spiraled down. Adrian thrust both arms upward, eyes sparking. Lightning tore from the sky, a branching network of jagged bolts that seared through the creature's mid-dive. Their corpses fell smoking, wings half-melted, bodies slamming into the ground with meaty cracks.
Lyra's voice cut through the storm. "On your left!"
Zane turned just as a massive ogre-like thing, its jaw unhinged, its stomach torn open to reveal a second gaping mouth, swung down a stone club. The ground shattered where he'd been standing a heartbeat before.
He lunged forward, his blades catching the light as he bent both space and time at once. The world slowed, the distance stretched, and in the pocket he created, his swords flashed in a brutal cross-slash. The monster's head split open like rotten fruit, spraying gore across the floor.
But for every monster that fell, another pushed out of the mist.
One of the abominations dragged itself forward with six arms, the rest of its body crawling with tiny insectoid growths. They fell off in waves, skittering toward Lyra. She snarled, driving her daggers through the swarm, then hurled a storm of glowing needles that shredded the parasites into pulp.
Another shrieked overhead, its skeletal wings vibrating like blades. Adrian caught it with a spear of ice that nailed it to the ground, then roasted it with a lightning strike that burst its body open in a shower of boiling gore.
The battlefield was slick with black ichor now, their boots splashing through it. The mist churned with the stench of blood, smoke, and burned flesh.
Zane's shoulders heaved. Lyra's daggers dripped. Adrian's hands sparked and froze in equal measure.
Still, the fog shuddered.
Still, the abominations screamed.
And still, the three of them pressed shoulder to shoulder, carving through monsters in a tempest of space, time, and storm.
---
The mist trembled as the last of the abominations fell beneath their combined assault, bodies torn, blood pooling black against the cracked stone. For a moment, it seemed the battlefield would finally breathe.
Then the ground shuddered violently, and a low, guttural roar rolled through the fog, shaking the air like a tremor. The mist parted, and there it stood a chimera the size of a truck. Its body was an abomination of fused beasts: a lion's hulking torso, a serpent's scaled tail, massive dragon wings arcing overhead, and a goat's head jutting unnervingly from its shoulder. Flames curled along its spine, licking the mist as smoke trailed from its nostrils. Each breath was a furnace, each step making the floor crack and smoke.
Lyra's eyes widened, fingers already twitching. "That's… that's a D-rank," she muttered. "A single one could wipe us out."
Zane's blades gleamed as he adjusted his stance. "Then we'll have to make sure it doesn't get a chance." His voice was calm, but his knuckles whitened around the hilt. He could feel the air vibrating with the heat, the space around the beast pulsing unpredictably.
Adrian's fists sparked, the wind whipping his cloak around him. "It's fire-elemental. We'll need ice and wind to keep it in check."
The chimera's lion head roared, flames exploding from its maw. The heat washed over them, forcing Lyra and Zane to shield their eyes as the smell of scorched stone filled the air. Without hesitation, Adrian slammed his palms into the ground. A jagged ice lance shot up, freezing part of the lion's foreleg. "Now!" he shouted, summoning a gale that bent around the creature, scattering fiery embers and forcing it to stumble.
Lyra flicked her wrists, and a storm of glowing purple space needles shot forward, slicing deep into the lion's chest. It bellowed, fire shooting from its mouth in a molten arc. She immediately created a weak barrier of compressed space, deflecting some of the heat and stepping into a pocket of warped space to dodge a tail swipe that would have flattened her.
Zane lunged forward, whispering to time itself. His swords shimmered as he accelerated their swing mid-arc. The blades struck the lion's flank, ripping open fur and muscle before the beast could even react. Another attack surged, and he briefly stopped time, hanging the chimera in mid-leap. With a brutal cross-slash, he severed the serpent tail's tip, and as time snapped forward, black ichor and fire sprayed in a molten rain across the battlefield.
The chimera lashed its dragon wings, sending a torrent of flames over a wide arc. Adrian countered with a whip of wind, redirecting the fire, then slammed another lightning strike across the scales of its serpent tail. Sparks and sizzling blood erupted as the lightning met molten ichor.
Lyra's needles tore through the goat head's neck, severing muscle and sinew, but the goat's eyes glowed with unnatural fury. The chimera swung its claw in a wide arc; Lyra warped space beneath her feet, letting the blow pass harmlessly beneath her. She blinked out, landing on its back, daggers flashing in time-bent strikes that shredded the creature's mane and seared muscles.
Zane moved like a blur, time accelerating around his blades. He slashed across the chimera's massive chest, slowing the lion head mid-roar. Fire hung suspended in the air, the roar frozen in a terrifying instant. His second blade cleaved through a horn and jawbone, sending molten blood spraying, and time snapped forward — the beast staggered, scorched, screaming, but alive.
Adrian spun, unleashing a combined torrent of ice and wind, shattering part of the dragon wing. Lightning arced across the lion torso, sizzling fur and flesh alike. The beast reared back, fire exploding around it in a searing wave. Lyra barely leapt aside, throwing another barrier just in time, her space needles carving a path through exposed eyes and throats.
The battlefield was a whirlwind of gore, flame, ice, and electricity. Every step of the chimera cracked the stone, black ichor and blood mixing with molten flame. Limbs were torn, wings shredded, tails sliced, but the creature refused to fall. It roared again, and the shockwave nearly knocked all three off their feet.
Zane's chest heaved. "It's strong… but we're stronger," he growled. He bent time again, letting his swords strike faster than the eye could follow, cutting into the chimera's lion torso. Black blood spurted, sizzling against Adrian's icy winds.
Lyra danced along the scales, needles flying, barriers shimmering, the very fabric of space warping around her. "Don't give it an opening!" she yelled, dodging molten spits of fire and slashing tail spikes.
Adrian's hands glowed as he combined ice, lightning, and wind in a deadly choreography. The ice froze burning spots, lightning ripped through the exposed wounds, and gusts of wind pushed the chimera off-balance. Limbs snapped, fire hissed, and black ichor sprayed like rain, coating the battlefield in a grotesque mix of blood, fire, and magic residue.
The chimera staggered, roaring in fury, smoke and black ichor streaming from its mutilated body. Its massive form still moved, but each step was slower, each swing more desperate. The three of them pressed the advantage, shoulder to shoulder, cutting, striking, and bending space and time to survive the impossible.
The endless mist churned around them. Blood, flame, ice, lightning, and warped space collided in a bloody storm. And above it all, the chimera's roar echoed defiant, monstrous, and furious.