Lucas was finally chanting, and I could refocus on the battle. The battlefield was a chaos of violence and rage.
Romain was on the front line, holding the beast at bay with his massive shield. His sword struck with force, but the damage remained superficial. Still, he was buying time, and that was all that mattered. The creature was already wounded, its body a mass of lacerated flesh, broken bones jutting from its distended skin. A dozen arrows were lodged in its flesh, a testament to Jules' precision and determination. His fingers were bloodied, yet he continued to fire arrow after arrow without pause.
Janna danced around the monstrosity, her strikes relentless and methodical. She seized every opening Romain created, landing lightning-fast blows. Her fists and feet hammered the beast with impressive force, but nothing seemed enough to bring it down. Still, she held on, unwavering.
My gaze drifted to Marie and Léonard. They were motionless. Léonard was no longer bleeding—the wound from his severed arm had closed, leaving only a stump. He must have lost consciousness from the pain. As for Marie, slumped beside him, her face was deathly pale. Had she spent too much mana? Too much vitality? She was unconscious.
I had to get them to safety.
Without wasting a second, I dashed toward them. Thanks to my new abilities, my movements were lightning-fast. I hoisted Marie onto my shoulder and dragged Léonard a little farther, beyond the combat line, where they would be safe.
Then, I turned back to the battle.
The creature howled in rage. Its wounds only made it wilder, crueler. The fight was dragging on, and our group was exhausting itself with every passing second. My instincts screamed that a turning point was near. I took a deep breath and activated my stealth skill. I had to wait… strike at the right moment.
Positioning myself slightly behind, I observed the fight with an overall view. Romain was still holding on, his blade swinging with determination. Janna dodged, struck, and chained attacks together. Jules kept firing, each arrow finding its mark. And Lucas… Lucas was still chanting. The air around him crackled with energy, vibrating under the power of his impending spell. Nature itself seemed to bow before his might.
And the creature felt it.
Its deranged eyes rolled in their sockets. A deep growl escaped its many mouths. It was becoming more ferocious, more unpredictable. Then, suddenly, it took a step back. One of its three inhuman limbs faltered under its weight.
Janna didn't hesitate.
She charged.
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
"No!"
My scream tore through the chaos of battle.
But it was too late.
The beast smiled. A twisted, sick expression. Its eyes narrowed in amusement, as if savoring the moment. It was a trap.
A grotesque sound echoed. Flesh was regenerating. A new limb burst from the creature's flank at an unnatural speed. Before Janna could react, before she even realized her fatal mistake, the monstrosity struck with a titanic blow.
The impact was horrifying.
Janna crossed her arms in a last-ditch defense, trying to soften the hit. But the sheer brute force of the beast shattered her guard. A sickening crack of bones echoed in the air.
Her body was sent flying like a ragdoll. She crashed violently, rolling several meters across the ground, motionless.
A morbid silence fell over the battlefield.
For a moment, no one moved. The horror etched itself into my mind.
Janna… was she dead?
Romain, trembling with rage, snapped.
With a mad roar, he charged at the creature. He wasn't fighting anymore. He wasn't thinking anymore. He was just attacking, driven by blind fury.
And that was his downfall.
The beast, amused, dodged. Then it retaliated. Its monstrous limbs pummeled Romain mercilessly. Blow after blow. Shield shattered. Armor crushed. Until he was flung away, rolling across the ground in a cacophony of metal.
He didn't get up.
My heart froze. I calculated at full speed. Janna was down. Romain was out. Marie and Léonard were unconscious. That left only Jules… and Lucas, still chanting.
But we were out of time.
The beast had turned its attention to Lucas. Its muscles tensed. It was preparing to charge.
I didn't need to think.
My body moved on its own.
I was consumed by absolute urgency. Every fiber of my being, every enhanced stat combined into a single action.
I ran. Faster than ever. An unreal speed.
Just as the creature lunged, I was already on it. My blade struck with surgical precision.
Its leg—the one supporting its weight—was severed cleanly.
It collapsed.
I knew it could grow another. But we only needed one thing: a moment.
And we had it.
I turned to Lucas. Our eyes met, and this time, they were no longer white. The very air vibrated, charged with an energy ready to erupt. Mana, condensed to the extreme, awaited only a catalyst to explode.
Finally. Ah, it's ready at last, I thought, a faint smile touching my lips—a mix of relief and anticipation.
This was the decisive moment.
Then, suddenly, searing pain. A sickening crunch. My body wavered. Everything went black.
I had been hit.
I woke up in a light haze of confusion, the world still blurry around me. Pain flooded my body, yet it felt distant, like a muffled sensation, smothered by the gentle warmth of healing. Marie was there, leaning over me, her pale face outlined under a dim light. Her hands trembled slightly, but I could see the focus in her eyes. A healer—there was no doubt about it.
My eyes lingered on her, trying to grasp the situation. Marie had managed to heal me. She had used her abilities to pull me back from the brink of death, and that was why I was seeing her face so close to mine. I took a deep breath, a wave of relief washing over me, even as a dull pain reminded me that it wasn't over yet.
I slowly turned my head. Lucas lay a few meters away from the dead creature, unconscious but still alive. His limbs were tense, exhausted from the final incantation he had cast. But beyond him, the scene before me was an abominable spectacle. The creature was nothing more than a twisted carcass, a nightmarish entity.
Its skin, once bristling with spikes and swollen veins, had been grotesquely torn apart. Chunks of flesh hung in ragged shreds, like tattered fabric eaten away from within. At its center, a gaping hole yawned in its torso—an immense, devastating rupture exposing its decomposed entrails. The edges of the wound were black, oozing with a viscous fluid, a mixture of blood and rotting matter. The flesh around this opening was decaying, peeling away in layers, as if the creature were still unraveling under the impact of the concentrated mana.
The stench was even worse, filling the air with a nauseating reek of putrefaction, decomposing flesh, coagulated blood, and festering heat. It was as if the creature itself was writhing in the ultimate agony of its slow death. The air around it was thick with this foulness, making every breath a torment.
A visceral unease gripped me. It wasn't just the sight of the dead creature that chilled me, but the thought that such a thing had ever existed in our world, even for a moment. An irrational terror, as if something malevolent still lingered in the air, seeping into every corner of the battlefield. It was as if the creature, despite being gone, continued to radiate a kind of morbid aura—an invisible threat, a lingering trace of an unholy malice that had marked this place with its presence.
A memory suddenly resurfaced, vivid as daylight. Janna… I remembered her body being violently thrown to the ground, the horror of the creature crushing her in a burst of brutality. My heart clenched.
A breath of fresh air filled my lungs as my gaze fell upon Janna. She was alive, though she remained sprawled on the ground, her eyes closed, still too drained by the battle. But I could see the signs of care on her, Marie's handiwork. She had been tended to before me. A massive wave of relief washed over me. She wasn't dead. I couldn't help but exhale, feeling lighter.
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting that relief flood through my veins. The horror, the violence of the fight, seemed to fade away for an instant. Yet, the battlefield around us remained scarred. The mutilated creature would never let us forget what we had faced.
As I reopened my eyes, my blurry vision slowly sharpened. My gaze landed on Romain, leaning against a tree nearby. He was sitting, his body covered in bruises and visible wounds, but no immediate care seemed to have been given. Though exhausted, he wasn't in critical condition. They had probably deemed that he could wait, that his sturdier vitality would keep him standing a little longer. Beside him, Léonard was there—missing an arm, but still breathing, his chest rising weakly. He wasn't dead. The price he had paid was immense, but he was still with us.
Finally, my eyes found Jules. He hadn't taken a physical hit; only his bloodied fingers betrayed the effort he had put in, raw from using his bow relentlessly. He stood, still intact, but his face bore the mark of a far deeper exhaustion. His shoulders were slumped, and he spoke in a rough voice with Romain, visibly drained, yet he didn't look like a man who had fought on the front lines. He was calm, almost distant—not out of indifference, but as if he had been drained of all energy, absorbed by the mental strain and the weight of the battle.
A sudden burst of laughter escaped me, uncontrollable. A sharp exclamation, full of relief, of that nervous joy, that release of tension. Everyone turned to look at me, puzzled, not immediately understanding the source of this sudden outburst. I looked at them for a moment, and the realization hit me with a chilling clarity.
I laughed, full-throated, ignoring the pain, forgetting everything else. The relief was overwhelming, the victory too immense. I slowly sat up, shaking my head, a bitter irony hanging in the air.
"Ah, I knew I should have chosen Archer! AHAHAHA!"
The group stared at me, stunned, then a flicker of a smile crossed a few faces. They still seemed half in disbelief, absorbed by the brutality of the fight, but a faint chuckle escaped Jules. Romain grimaced, a weary grin forming on his lips. Even Janna, though still slumped, seemed to relax slightly.
Marie, however, remained silent. Her eyes, filled with relief, quickly flicked to Romain. He wasn't in critical condition, but the battle had left its mark on him. She knew her work wasn't done. His wounds, though less severe than the others', still needed care. Fatigue was evident on her face, but she didn't hesitate. She rose slowly, her gaze locking onto him, ready to resume where she had left off.
Yet, despite this moment of lightness trying to pierce through the thick veil of tension, the atmosphere remained heavy. Even in victory, a shadow lingered. A strange silence, thick with the destruction the creature had left in its wake.