Chapter 70: Fighting Dirty

  Erik shot a ‘Flash’ beam into its eye, blinding it as he got in close, then tore into its throat with his black sword. The burning effect of the sword cauterised the wounds as they formed and didn’t let the Titan inject much miasma into them, but Erik figured it could do more damage if it burned the hound’s insides instead.

  The sword entered the beast’s neck with ease, much more so than Erik had expected. He left it in for as long as he dared as the hound shook to keep him away before he pulled it out, causing a much larger wound on the way out. While cauterised, the flesh was soft enough for Erik to tear it back up with his claw before he dashed back to avoid a giant paw swipe.

  The wounded beast seemed panicked, opening and closing its mouth as it hurled itself around the battlefield. Not a sound came from its open maw at any point, making Erik suspect he had melted shut its windpipes. Nothing but deep rumbles sounded from its chest along with the impacts on the ground.

  A heavy crescent of earthen magic slammed hard into the other hound’s skull, knocking it down onto the ground with instant effect. A crimson scythe of fire seared its eyes shut the next moment. Lightning then struck the beast with the cracked skull, but the beast lay unmoving. It was still breathing, so Erik slammed the black blade into the wound on its skull, killing it in one fell strike.

  The first giant, still unable to breathe, stomped around in anxious fury, but the coordinated efforts of the Witch’s slicing scythes and the Titan’s sword and claws dispatched it quickly. In just a moment, both hounds were taken care of, and Erik’s miasma had next to zero impact on the fight. Was this how easy it was when fighting alongside Jessie? A lot of credit had to be given to the bad-ass sword he had stolen, though.

  “Where did he go?” Jessie asked, already back to flinging spells at the regular hounds around them.

  “Into the woods back there,” Erik responded, the sword ability he had stolen with Confiscate disappearing. “Crap, I kind of liked that sword.” He tossed a handful of screws in an arc that glowed blue, electrocuting a line of hounds as a lightning bolt struck down behind them. “Will you be fine here?”

  “Erik, let’s take these down first before we go after him!” Jessie yelled at the disappearing form of Erik as he dashed off.

  A scream sounded over the large battlefield, and Jessie turned to look up the hill at their friends who were being overrun. Erik heard the familiar voice screaming as well, turning back to help them.

  He couldn’t believe he had tried running off like that, forgetting about the danger his friends were in. Maybe it was just the adrenaline getting to him. He fired a beam of light at a hound climbing the hillside, causing it to lose its footing as Jessie landed at the top.

  The Witch blasted one creature away from Emma that she had already cut twice but wouldn’t yield. Angela stabbed another in the eye as she shouted to Jessie, “I think it’s wearing off!”

  Jessie glanced over the battlefield once more, glimpsing several hounds shaking their heads and getting their minds back, some turning around to face the hill rather than their siblings.

  To her surprise, Erik was back in the fray, jumping on top of a hound to sunder its throat as a fierce black mass separated from him and landed on another hound with a squelch. The mass jumped off and onto another, a massive black spike getting drawn out of the first one’s body, squirting blood as the wound hissed.

  Jessie sent an arc of water down the hill, turning the hounds to rivers of watered-down blood. A lucky hound came from her side and bit down on her extended arm, making a crunching sound as her bone split apart.

  The Witch screamed in pain and punched it in its face, inflicting it with Volt Surge before she blasted it away with a wind scythe. She burst up into the air, blood trickling down her arm from massive holes in her skin, a piece of bone protruding from it.

  As she pulled away, Angela cut off the paw of a beast that swiped at her, but bumped into Emma mid-swing. Another Hellbeast got into range, and Dunham fired several rifle shots at the advancing animal, but it didn’t so much as flinch from the attacks.

  It charged Angela headfirst, smashing into her and pushing her back. As she landed on the ground, the hound stepped on her leg, its massive weight snapping bone. Emma rushed after her when Angela’s voice rang with pain.

  Jessie snapped back to the fight, shaking the fear and blood from her mind. She had no way to kill the hound without putting Angela in catastrophic danger from the air, so she burst towards them. She wasn’t fast enough, but Emma was. The Swede stuck Mistilteinn into the hound’s side and pushed it, somehow getting it off Angela’s leg.

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  Angela screamed again as the pressure lifted, stabbing the hound with her own sword for good measure. It crept away bleeding as Jessie landed on it, breaking its back with her knee from the impact.

  With murder in her eyes, Jessie looked around for anything to kill in the immediate area, finding nothing. She then cast her gaze down the hill, seeing Erik once again building a pile of corpses around him, both living and dead hounds in the area bleeding black blood as his ‘Entropy’ dismantled them from the inside.

  Gloom, Erik’s spirit construct, was already slowing down and had lost some mass, though it still defended its Titan to the best of its ability.

  Jessie exhaled, her killing intent suppressing as she dashed over towards Angela and grabbed hold of her, channelling her Restore spell into her.

  “Hold on, I got you!” Jessie said with a raised voice.

  “Fuck!” Angela screamed as even the slightly numbing effect of the water spell struggled to ease the pain. “No, you can’t fix me in time. Take the sword and get back to the fight!” Angela thrust the sword’s handle towards Jessie.

  “We’ve got time, there are only a few dozen left. Erik’s got them. I got you,” Jessie responded, her own heartbeat slowing down as the adrenaline faded. Angela groaned but relented. The Witch then froze as her senses warned her of a new enemy combatant approaching fast. Her eyes locked in the direction they themselves had come from. The movement of air, the heat of its breath…it would be upon them in just a few seconds. Another Bronze-tier Hellbeast.

  As she sensed its aura with her own, it was too late to do anything. It swiped at her as she sat over Angela, knocking her far, far away.

  “Jessie!” Emma screamed as she rushed back towards Angela, sticking her short sword into the hide of the colossal beast. Only the very tip stuck into its thick defence, drawing no blood. The sword disappeared. The beast pushed Emma headfirst into their car, making her body go limp against the bent metal.

  “No!” Angela and Dunham yelled in unison. The medic fired the rifle pointed in the monster’s direction. Angela attempted to slash at it with Caliburn, not realising that her sword had vanished as well.

  The Hellbeast stepped on Angela’s right hand, breaking more bone as it looked at her with contempt. She felt the intelligence within them; cold, uncaring sentience. As it snarled at her, its mouth full of sickening teeth and saliva, she faded from consciousness.

  Dunham stepped back from the creature, keeping in front of Sophie as he did. He pushed her back, her body rigid from fear and unwilling to move on its own. The Hellhound looked up from Angela and turned its head towards them. Once more it snarled, its eyes flitting between them like looking at a menu. It stomped its legs towards them.

  Dunham stopped retreating, pointing his rifle back towards the giant thing. Fuck if he was going down without a fight. He cast a glance down the hill, hoping Erik was right there to save him…a normal Hellhound was chewing on the Titan’s arm as he fought back several others. Dunham fired.

  Sophie watched as the giant canine took the barrel of the rifle in its mouth and chewed it, spitting the debris out in a show of superiority. Dunham punched it right in its snout with a defiant fist. The monster sneered at him and knocked him off his feet and down the hill beside them.

  It approached Sophie, who stood still as a mouse, unable to move even a single muscle by will. It sniffed her, its snout close enough to wet her cheek. Its eyes met hers.

  “Hi…there,” its guttural, monstrous voice said.

  Erik fended off the last of the Hellhounds capable of walking. Piles of blackened, deteriorated demon dogs were still oozing black sludge as those still able to, whined. Erik’s left arm was riddled with holes and broken, and his left leg had been carved up—but he was otherwise fine. In fact, he didn’t remember a fight where he had fought so hard and got away so…healthy. He looked up towards the hill, seeing no one.

  In a panic, he dashed up the hill fast as he could with his wounds, finding his friends beaten and broken on the ground. He saw Emma first, followed by Angela. He spread his aura out as far as he could while still understanding what he sensed with it and found Dunham some ways down the hill. Jessie’s aura, while weak, he sensed further away. There was no sign of Sophie.

  On the ground, several tracks hailing from several people and hounds, both large and normal, could be seen. While a chaotic mess, only one set of tracks headed away from the area, and they were the biggest ones. So where was…

  “Erik…” Angela coughed.

  Erik sat down next to her, checking her wounds. She had two ugly breaks, but they didn’t look fatal to him.

  “I’m here. What happened, Angela?” he asked, speaking with haste.

  “It-it took her. To the forest,” she said, her voice raspy and weak.

  Erik wiped a tear from her cheek with his functioning hand and removed his torn jacket, packing it up and placing it below her head like a pillow.

  “I’ll find her,” he said. Everyone was alive as far as he could sense, so he followed the large tracks towards the forest where John had escaped to earlier.

  It wasn’t long before he found their location. A few hundred metres deeper into the forest was a small cave; John and a single, large Hellhound stood outside the cave entrance. Sophie was with them.

  The hound stood behind her, wetting her with its drooling mouth. John looked at the approaching Erik with a heavy smile.

  “I’m sorry that it came to this, Erik. I truly am,” John said.

  “Are you?” Erik asked after a few more sets of steps.

  “I really am. This is low, and I know that. But I can’t afford to lose. He…he’ll probably kill me just for this setback…but he’ll wait until it’s finished, at least.”

  “Who even is this guy that you’re doing all this for? What does he want?”

  “He went by L, claiming he was a god of some kind. What he ultimately wants, I couldn’t say. But letting him down will be worse than death; of that, I’m sure. That’s why I won’t lose here. That’s why…” John continued, looking over at his hostage.

  Erik took another step, but the hound growled at him, words somehow forming from deep within its throat.

  “Not. Ano-ther. Step.”